a whole bunch of Zoralee

I do adore my Zoralee Rena girl, who is now approaching 3 months of age! Here she is in all sorts of recent settings.

with Grandpa Larry, in her new hat from J, J, J, J, J, and J

(the neighbors, whose names all begin with J)

wearing her new sleeper that now bears a Z
in place of the annoying name brand with which it came

demonstrating new fist-sucking skills
demonstrating new pouting skills

Zoralee still does great by herself in quiet observation if she has something to look at. Then when a human face enters her realm of watchfulness, she breaks into smiles and chattering. That is THE BEST. She continues to amaze us with her recitations of the periodic table and various founding documents of the United States. At least, that's what it sounds like to us. What a gal. She is experimenting with coughing sounds and other vocal exercises. Recently, she was not happy about me putting her down for a nap. Cry, cry, cry she did, and then suddenly came out with a deep grunt/hollar thing. We were both surprised. She stopped crying, and we looked at other with big smiles.

Learning Z's potty cues has been an important activity of my week (for those in the dark who wish to be in the light about this subject, visit my previous post about EC). Unhandily enough, her main cue seems to be fussing. That's also her cue for hunger, discomfort, boredom, and fatigue, albeit with slightly altered deliveries. Weeeee.

pottying at the sink

(This brings to mind my Pops saying, "Boredom is a terrible thing")

And finally, middle fingers. I've got one that doesn't quit. Since I am not prone to flipping people off, it pretty much goes to waste except for at family gatherings when we run out of other Stupid Human Tricks. Well, we knew Zoralee had long fingers too, but it wasn't until I'd downloaded this picture that I noticed she might have the same superpower as old Mom.

microwave hairs, snow, dates, death, and chickens

When washing out the microwave, does everyone have the experience, like I do, of finding a single, mid-length hair in there? Doesn't matter whose microwave oven it is, or how many weeks, months, or years pass between cleanings. One hair. Mid-length. A nondescript shade of brown.

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We got a snow dump over the last two days. We'd heard from the news guy it was coming, and it was confirmed by the horses running all over the place a few hours before it hit. A group of five got so excited that they broke through a fence to the adjacent property and had the run of a virgin field of deep snow. It was beautiful to watch their legs lifting high and hair flying, and fairly easy to lure them back since it was close to feeding time.

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In other critter news - we have empty nest syndrome. Literally. Jason got the coop enough finished late one night to take the chicks from the spare room out to it. Rather than wait a few hours until morning, we moved our two flocks of chicks to their new digs in their big awkward brooders in the dark across slick ice without headlamps. Don't misread this to be critical of my husband's exuberance at strange times. He's a wonderful fellow. Just exuberant at strange times.

We went out for a breakfast date yesterday. Jason has been so focused on the chickens and their coop, and I've been so focused on Zoralee, that we've been out of each others' loops. We sat down at a cafe and looked at each other for awhile, then had this romantic conversation:

"Hi."
"Hi."
"What should we talk about?"
"I dunno."
"Hm."
"Nice art on the walls."
"Yeah."
"Can't believe she wants to charge $1000 for that one."
"Yeah. Crazy."
"Yeah."

But then our date picked up when we started talking about death and depression and how some people cope just fine with darkness and winter and how some don't.

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Speaking of which, death has been shadowing us a little more than usual. Living with my folks means there are real deaths to contend with all the time rather than just my imagined ones. As pastors of a church in a small town and with Dad's involvement in a couple different chaplaincy programs, it's always something. This week, shirt-tail relatives of our shirt-tail relatives lost a woman my age who left behind an eight year old girl and a one-month old baby. Then Dad was called to console a young couple who'd just delivered their stillborn baby. Then yesterday close family/church friends lost their 82-year old mother. All were unexpected. Three separate generations, one week. I have been sad for the families. And freshly inspired to make sure my daughter knows she is loved. I don't have any brilliant or reassuring follow up to all that; just stating what has happened.

What have you googled?

I'd really like for this blog to be more interactive, you know, like a conversation, but I'm not very good at making that happen. This is a step in that direction. I think it'd be fun to hear what words or phrases some of you have googled lately and if you so choose to state it, what actions you took after you googled that word or phrase.


I have googled these:

• "white wine roast" - and then I baked a roast in white wine
• "homemade shampoo" - and that led me to a conditioner recipe using egg and olive oil. Haven't tried it yet but it sounds simple enough.
• "Ergo carrier coupon code" - because I'm poor but want an Ergo carrier. I found a free shipping code, and randomly got money from a couple of great-aunts this week. My Ergo carrier is on its way!

Something we want to google but haven't yet is "correlation between eye color and eyesight." Zor has Jason's eye color, and we hope that correlates to his good vision and not my fuzzy.