A visit, a swim, and a lesson learned

Let's start with the lesson learned first. On Saturday we decided to take a nice family walk in the park in the morning before it got too hot.  The temperature has been getting up to 100 for the last few weeks already.  The mornings have still be somewhat cool.  The only problem with this plan (which I had been looking forward to all week) was that at 8am when we wanted to leave, Benjamin had not pooped.  He almost always does this important daily (for him) function at or before 6:30.  Long story short, we found ourselves thirty minutes later about a mile away from the car, no diaper bag, with a poopy baby slung through the moby wrap.  I don't know exactly how this happened. Why would I not bring a diaper?  Anyway, there we were.

I'm realizing the details of this story are truly gross.  So I'll just say that in lieu of anything other than toilet paper, we ended up rinsing the baby under a rather awkward sink faucet in a park bathroom.  So now we have a naked (cleanish) baby, no diaper, and another mile to go back to the car.  So we just wrapped him up and hoped for the best.  The poor baby slept most of the way back.

No pictures of that outing, thank goodness.

The weekend before that attempt at a good time, we truly had a great time with JB's family.  I think we really outdid ourselves with this year's father's day-mother's day-dad's birthday-whatever else paella fest celebration.  JB perfected his paella technique and brother Richard outdid himself with tapas and a spanish orange cake made by boiling whole oranges until they are soft, pulverizing them peels and all, then adding a lot of sugar.

Visiting his great-grandmother is always a highlight of Benjamin's trip to East Texas.  She sang to him and we all joined in as Benjamin scooted around exploring his new surroundings.

Benjamin went for what I think was his first swim on that trip.  Now swimming is his favorite thing to do.  We took him camping on lake Whitney not long after this trip to SS, and he loved swimming in the cold fresh water.  Now when he sees our little blow-up pool in the backyard he starts kicking with excitement.  I was skeptical at first about starting him on swimming lessons, but a friend and I decided to do it together, and now eight-month B and his friend J are learning how to hold their breath under water.
 

Here are just a few more pics from our daily life here in Waco.  We are proud of our tomatoes this year.  We planted some beautiful heirloom varieties and managed to get enough fruit set before the heat struck this year, so we are still picking them every day.  We make a daily ritual out of picking the nearly ripe tomatoes before the birds can get to them. We eat tomatoes every day-- bruschetta, gazpacho, tomato salad, ratatouille, or roasted tomatoes--and yet we still have a good pile of them on the counter at the end of each day.      

Another theme this summer is watermelon.  Benjamin loves it, and we have made two batches of watermelon granita so far this summer.  It's kind of a humble sorbet:  pureed watermelon with lemon juice and sugar poured into a 13 x 9 pan, thrown in the freezer and whisked every 30 minutes or so until it freezes into lovely snow-cone-like flakes.   

I actually started this blog entry some weeks ago, so the first story is kind of old.  Since then we took a mercifully uneventful walk in the park with Benjamin.  We are learning.  Since then Benjamin has also started to pull himself up on just about anything he can get his hands on.   I turned my back for a minute yesterday and he had nearly pulled himself up on the coffee table.  I find it hard to imagine him being a greater joy than he already is, but every day he is more fun and interactive and my joy doubles again as I watch him learn and explore his little world.