Boy it’s been a busy month! It’s already the end of September, and I haven’t written any updates.
School started for both Fi and me at the end of August. Fi was in two different classes and that didn’t work out, so now she is in one class, and loving it. My classes are going really well and I love my students (again). It’s so nice and relaxing having all honors classes. Almost everyone does their homework, there are no discipline issues, and they remember stuff from previous years. I can get used to this (but I won’t because it will probably never happen again).
Between work commitments and meetings, birthday parties for Fi’s friends, and other miscellaneous things, we’ve barely had a chance to catch our breaths. I think this is the first weekend we’ve had with no commitments and no grading for me! And that’s only because the community service project I was supposed to do with students was canceled at the last minute. I guess everything happens for a reason.
Our garden is still going strong. We still have more beans and tomatoes than we can eat, including yellow tomatoes that are dwarfing some of our roses, enough zucchini to feed a small army (I just made delicious zucchini muffins from some of it), a little bit of corn, some squashes, and this baby:
Do not be fooled by the lack of scale in that photo, that baby weighed almost 27 pounds. Basically, it was another Fiona.
Here she is sitting on it:
We put it in the BOB before putting it on the scale:
It was a very tasty watermelon that we are still eating.
There are a few more in the garden and we even gave one away. We took out the cantaloupe finally, and gave away our last eggplant. But, the cucumbers are still growing, we just cut some butternut squash, and there are a couple rogue tomatoes that are starting to produce. These are tomatoes that we did not plant, but grew from seeds of older plants.
In other news, both Fi and John were sick, first John, then Fi. She missed school for a week. I think I may have a cold now too, and I am hoping it doesn’t get any worse. No one was sleeping for at least a week around here.
Speaking of sleeping, Fi is doing it in a new bed:
We went to Ikea and Fi let Fi pick out a bed (from a small selection) as well as her own bedding. I wanted something much cutesier, but she insisted on the owls. Fi loves and it has come in handy when I’m cuddling her through a fever (and half sleeping in bed with her). There is no way I could have held her in her old bed and she really dislikes sleeping in our bed, so it was sort of a coup that we got the bed when we did.
The transition has been very smooth and she still takes nice long naps in it. It is very close to the ground, so we did not put up any sort of barrier. She doesn’t use the pillow at all, and I think she sleeps either diagonally or across the bed most of the time, but she sleeps none-the-less, and that is all I care about.
Other than losing sleep and Fi losing weight due to not eating during illness, nothing much exciting has happened around here. Fi is honing her humor skills:
Takes her “babies” to swim lessons:
Plays “airplane”:
Let me explain. The stones are seats in an airplane. I sit in front of her and Cece (one of her imaginary friends who is sometimes a dog) flies the plane. But this time, Fi was not feeling well and told me her seat was uncomfortable. So she got her chair and put a pillow on it, then later, brought me a pillow too. Then she put everything away by herself, without being asked, while I was making dinner.
We’ve been taking walks with Fi in the stroller because she doesn’t have a lot of energy:
This summer, we were attacked by ants. They seem to be mostly gone now, but for a month or more, if we even thought about food, ants swarmed the counters. Nothing worked but to store everything in airtight containers and wait.
Fi’s school lunchbox:
I think she has a thing for owls, even though she says her favorite animal is a lion. She doesn’t need the lunchbox anymore because she doesn’t stay at school late enough to eat lunch there anymore, but it was nice to use while she needed it.
Here is a before and after, about a month apart:
The little bud turned into a big melon. I don’t know how much it weighs, but I’d guess maybe 10 pounds.
That’s all for now. I’m hoping Fi is fully recovered by Monday so she can go to school again and I hope I don’t get any worse than the stuffy nose I have right now. On the development front, Fi is definitely into 3 year old sizes now, in all clothing brands, she is becoming quite the conversationalist, makes up songs and stories, and corrects John whenever he misspeaks. And everything that happens to her or in her life also happens to her “babies”. But really, you need to be here to understand and to see it.
I probably won’t write again for another month because October promises to be as hectic as September. At least the weather has been really nice, although I think I am ready for a little bit of rain soon.
Have a great weekend!
