Long long long week

I don't know what is going on, but this week has been draaaaaggggging. It hasn't been bad, just long. So I'm glad tomorrow is Friday. We have a busy weekend planned, but I promise to take lots of photos. Should be some good photo opportunities... And I won't tell you all about everything until after we've done it, just to avoid repeating myself. The month of October is going to be busy from start to finish. And we're going to the beach! October 24 through the 26. My birthday is the 27th, so it's a nice present. I'm going to be a quarter of a century old. Yikes.

Oh, and as a side note, last weekend I went to the Sunday in the Park Festival at Oakland Cemetery with Roxanne and my friend Ariel. It was a lovely day (although a little too hot for me) and we had a great time walking around. The photos of the cemetery are on Flickr, and a friend sent me a link to the Access Atlanta website, where apparently we made it into the photo album for the event. There are only a few photos, but if you click here and go to the site, we're in the third photo in the series. I know it's not terribly exciting, but I feel sort of famous. Also, there are photos on Flickr from Ben's first birthday party. There was a jumpy castle, and Roxanne LOVED it.

Anyways, I decided I wanted to mention a few things about Roxanne and her newfound toddler ways. There are a few things that she has started doing that really seem so old to me. Here are a few:

*When nursing, Roxanne likes to jam her finger in my lip and try to pull my teeth out. Even when I purse my lips together as tightly as possible, she still manages to get her little sausage finger in there and scratch my gums. Strange as it may sound, it's extremely painful. But it shows the dexterity she has in her fingers. She's even capable of picking up tiny crumbs that fall from her pants to the floor after lunchtime and cramming them into her mouth before I have a chance to get them. Gross. But impressive.
*She doesn't fall as often anymore. She still hits her head a fair amount, but she's really getting good at deflecting the occasional body slam from playmates. Sometimes during the day Ben likes to slide down into her and put his head in her lap. She used to just fall right down, but now she wobbles a little and then braces herself, squinting her eyes a little like she is expecting a blow. Then she lowers her head and puts her forehead on his forehead and they both laugh hysterically. It's insanely cute.
*She wants to be in the mix. If I set her down in the playroom at work and then walk to the kitchen, she crawls in after me. Or if I put the baby gate up to keep her in there, I can hear her banging on the bars like a jail bird. When I sit on the couch in the play room while the babies play, she comes over periodically and pulls up on the cushion and looks at me over the edge. She still is only pulling up to her knees most of the time, although she has pulled to standing a few times. We're working on walking, but I think she's so heavy that it's tough. She takes a few steps while I hold her arms, but they are really wobbly and she likes to slip in a few hip sways and bounces, like she's just "gotta dance."
*She "reads" a lot. She loves to play with books. And just this week, she'll pick one up and look down at it and just babble away. Justin and I consider it "reading," since it really does seem like that is what she is mimicking. She's making all kinds of new sounds now, and she sounds like she is forming complete sentences, albeit in some kind of weird alien baby tongue. I'm getting pretty good at duplicating though, so ask me in person and I'll try to recreate a little for you.
*On that same note, she often starts babbling when she first wakes up. She usually has crazy hair, since she seems to sweat on her head any time she sleeps, and there's something incredibly comical about watching her open her eyes with that startled baby face babies make when they first wake up combined with Don King hair and this stream of babble that sounds indignant and earnest.

Alright. Enough for now. I'm sure you guys aren't quite as excited about these minute details as me, but like my sister says, it's important to document.