Kissing

I suppose that when a second or third child comes along in one's family each of their new accomplishments is overshadowed by a "been there, done that" sentiment from seeing the first child do those same things. Fortunately, I still only have one child so every new thing that he does is amazing and noteworthy. For instance, yesterday was the first time Joseph ever kissed me. Often when I pick him up I kiss his nose and declare, "kiss!" Yesterday, when I picked him up, he leaned in, touched his lips to my nose and, as he was leaning back, clicked his tongue, his closest approximation to the kiss sound. Michael was the happy recipient of Joseph's kisses today.

It is fun and interesting to watch Joseph learn and study things. He has recently started carrying his toy phone around, jabbering into it for fifteen minutes at a time. Today as I was working on my garden fence, he lounged in his camp chair with a sippy cup in one hand and the phone held firmly to the side of his head with the other hand. He jabbered loudly while waving his sippy cup around. At least until I started drilling holes. The drill was a temptation too much to withstand. I did not accomplish much at that time.

For anyone who looked at my menu, I am happy to say that the meals listed on that menu have lasted us two weeks. This is a good thing because the grocery bill for that menu was large. But if that much food lasts us two weeks, then the bill was quite reasonable. Most of the items on the menu were new to me, and we have enjoyed most of them. Some of them we will not eat again, although they were not bad. Some of them are definite keepers. The last rendition of 15 bean soup turned out particularly well and I wish I had written down everything that I put in it. The spaghetti (on the menu from a previous week) turned out better than expected since we substituted whole grain pasta for the normal pasta and we replaced our usual hamburger meat with diced extra firm tofu. We also added a number of vegetables to the sauce. Next time I hope to have extra mushrooms on hand to add, too.