All this week, I had been trying to figure out  why I was so unmotivated to write a blog entry.  As I was talking on the phone with Stephanie, she mentioned the blog, and I realized that I imagine my blog audience to be primarily my family, and I've seen my family so recently (and they've seen all my pictures).  We were in NY for a wonderful visit the first week in August.

JB and I enjoyed lots of time to get out without baby with so many willing (insisting) babysitters around.  It was thrilling and relaxing to have so many people around who love him as much as we do.  I only wish life had worked out so we could be closer.

But we especially enjoyed our time in the outdoors, with and without B.  As you can see on the pics above, they have green grass in NY--and they don't water it.  (I don't want to think about how much of our water bill has gone to keeping our grass greenish in TX this summer.)   We got to go hiking and biking and swimming in the mountains and we took a great trip to the city with Sara and Sean.  A perfect day in the city:  MOMA, nice dinner at a sidewalk table, a good play, and perfect timing on trains and cabs.  More about NY if and when I get some more pictures that we took with my parents' camera.

The Smith grandparents came for a visit not too long after our NY trip.  Sara and Hank gave me a chance to get ready for my class this semester by watching Benjamin in the afternoons.  I wasn't staying up late every night to finish my syllabus for a new class because of them--what a relief!

We're kind of pictured out after vacation, but JB took a few pictures of Brazos the other day for some sort of teaching  illustration he was doing for his Journalism class.  Isn't this a great mid-air shot?

So classes have started again for both of us. As much as I enjoyed my freedom from school this summer, I'm glad to be back to teaching part time.  I'm teaching Brit Lit for the first time, so I've been catching up on my Chaucer lately.   I'm no Chaucer expert, but it was fun to see the delight in my students faces yesterday as they learned they could decipher Middle English poetry.  The class went great except for three things:  the sweat dripping down my leg as I walked into class in a new skirt,  the furtive head-shaking and blank stares I received when I held up the anthology I expected them to have for class, and the lack of internet connection in the classroom.   Everything did or will work out, but I am still peeved that I can't get an internet connection in a building on campus.  This makes no sense to me.  

On a happier note, some Benjamin 10 month milestones:  turning pages of books on his own, holding up a cloth on his own to play peekaboo, starting to wave bye-bye, climbing stairs, recognizing and even saying da-da and maybe ma-ma, recognizing works and phrases we say regularly like milk, bath, brazos.  And the beginnings of separation anxiety.