Andi’s exciting life.

Yes, I know that it’s the seventh of July, but I’m just getting
around to putting these photos up. We spent the morning of the
fourth assembling our fancy new grill. (It’s not actually that
fancy, but it’s big and took a while to put together.) We were all
three in different stages of a cold, so we had to have a private
family BBQ so as not to get any of our friends sick too. (This was
Falco’s first illness, and he handled it well.) So, after the
assembly was finally complete, we grilled potatoes and sausages for
lunch and ate our grilled delights with fruit salad. I didn’t have
my fill of grilling after that, so for dinner we had steak and
grilled pineapple with rice. I love cooking over a fire and am so,
so excited about our newly fixed-up backyard. The weather was
gorgeous, which is really rare for July 4 in San Francisco, and we
made a good day of it despite our sniffles and sore throats.

The dogs, however, don’t really care for Independence Day. Adelaide
is very afraid of the fireworks, and there are a lot of them to be
heard in our neighborhood. She spent all of her time following us
everywhere or lying in the bathroom shivering, as pictured.

I’ve gotten behind on blogging again. I’d like to blame it on the
constant demands of motherhood leaving me no free time to write, but
the truth is Falco goes to bed at 7 p.m. and sleeps all night. I
could be typing away while he is in bed, but I’ve gotten addicted to
a little game called World of Warcraft, which is how I spend most of
my free time these days. Who can blog when there is leveling up to
be done?

Since I last wrote, the biggest change with Falco is in his eating.
I told you last that he was eating jarred baby food and doing OK with
it, but that is so last month. Since he never really took a shine to
baby cereal or baby foods, I tried my hand at making purees for him.
The only thing he liked was the pear/applesauce with cinnamon that I
made, but he was pretty lukewarm on everything else. We decided two
weeks ago to try offering him Gerber puffs, which is like dry cereal
that melts in your mouth. They were a hit! He ate them as fast as
we would give them to him. After that, we tried giving him tiny,
soft bites of food instead of mashed or pureed food. Now he eats
banana, plum, steamed vegetables, rice, and even chicken in small
bites. On Friday we gave him Cheerios for the first time. I was
afraid that he would choke on them because they are crunchy, but he
softens them up before swallowing and really loves them. Cheerios
are now an accompaniment to almost every meal. He seems like such a
big boy now that he can eat real food. I’ve even given him select
things off my plate at restaurants! He can’t feed himself yet
because he hasn’t mastered the pincer grasp, but I think he’ll figure
it out in the next month or so.

In the past few days, he has finally started to sit on his own for a
few minutes at a time. For the past month or so, he would sit
briefly and then arch his back or lean to the side and fall over.
Now he sits and plays with a toy sometimes, though he still needs a
pillow or a person behind him in case he falls. When he is on his
stomach, he can get himself up on his hands and knees and rock back
and forth, and I think he will crawl pretty soon. He seems very
frustrated that he can’t move around and get where he wants to go.
Once he figures out crawling, he will be hard to keep up with!

We also have a lot going on with the house. Anyone who has seen our
backyard knows that it has been a dump as long as we have lived
here. We finally just got a new fence, some concrete removed, the
ground leveled, and ground cover planted for a lawn. I am thrilled
and only hope I can manage to care for the lawn properly so that it
will fill in. We’re going to get a grill this week and hang a baby
swing for Falco from the tree. It will be nice to have a nice space
back there for him to play as he gets bigger. In even bigger house
news, we’re moving forward with our kitchen remodel! It is scheduled
to start August 20. We’re dreading the actual process of the
remodel, but very excited about the finished product. I’ll post
daily photos of the remodel here like I did with the bathroom.

June photos are up. Here are a few of my favorites: