about time for an update

Esme decides that amazingly enough there may be something better than

Cheerios in the world...something anyone would surely climb inside the cupboard for!

Fruit Loops!!!

We are finally settled here in the city of brotherly love!

There's been a lot going on with our little family, so much that I hadn't realized it's been almost a month since my last posting, Wow!

I'm working at Starbucks four mornings a week which seems to be going really well. I like everyone I work with and I'm getting the hang of working behind the counter again. I think the team and the customers are surviving on the mornings I'm in charge and every shift gets a little bit better.

Esme visits mama's work

I get up before work to take the dogs for a run around the square which seems to help their energy level (and mine for the most part I think) We also have a dog park just seven blocks west and right at the end of our street we're trying to take them there 3-4 times a week since that seems to help as well.

I'm also working as a personal assistant to our landlord which is a job I can do while I have Esme with me...I think I'll be working about 10 hours a week for him, it's definitely interesting to be accomplishing things for someone else while feeling like your still not getting all your own things done. I keep telling myself that as soon as we get a routine we'll be okay.

My sister was here for the past two weeks and did a great job getting us settled into a routine...if only we could have kept her. She had Esme napping every morning, helped me get the last of our things settled in the house, helped exercise the dogs, walked miles and miles around the city with us!


While Mel was here we went up to our brother's house to celebrate our sister-in-laws birthday with a barbecue; the highlight of which was my brother burning the paint off his new grill! My brother, sister, Esme and I also took the dogs to the Carnivale of the Dogs in Rittenhouse Square where Francis actually proved to be better than Clare at the agility course (mostly due to his lack of fear rather than any actual skill). We also got caricatures of the dogs, they had artists there doing them for free and that was really fun!

The Caricatures

My sister also spent lots of time teaching Esme new words and other fun things. Esme's vocabulary consists primarily of:

• saying "Uh-Oh" anytime: anyone drops anything, she drops anything, she throws something, she feeds the dogs, the dogs do something bad.
• Her other favorite word is "Doggy" she actually says it quite clearly and even identified a doggy in a commercial on tv the other day. Every walk we take she points out every doggy we see and at the dog park is quite proud to point out her doggies.
• "Hi-i" is one of her new words. She is definitely selective about who she will actually say hi-i to but she greets us every morning with it and is very proud when she does say it to strangers.
• she also sometimes says "dow" to mean I want off your lap or off the bed or out of the stroller.
• The other thing we hear quite frequently is "Ah-Duh" this means all done and is invoked at the end of eating, at the end of a diaper change, when she's done playing with something, when she's thrown something and she knows this time I won't give it back.

Our frequent trips to Ikea as we were settling in here resulted in a new addition to our doggish household; Esme's favorite new friend "Go-Go" he is a golden lab (STUFFED) that she hugs fervently and loves to nap with. When she's doing something she shouldn't we tell her go find "Go-Go", she'll toddle over to wherever she left him, hug him and drag him by the paw wherever she goes next. Thank goodness he's much more compliant than Francis or Clare.

This brings me to the most important news. Esme has been walking for about two and half weeks now. She can walk from one end of the house to the other unassisted and is even teaching herself to climb stairs (which is of course discouraged by both her fearful parents). A favorite pastime is opening and closing anything; mostly doors but the dog gates, drawers, and the refrigerator will also do in a pinch.

This video is Esme and Go-Go on one of the first days she was walking!

I think that gets us pretty much caught up!