What's new?
This weekend we're dog-sitting DOTi the wonder dog, a.k.a. e-baby's crumbcatcher.

My pumpkins don't like the summer heat-- about half of the plants have died. We'll see whether they make it or not come October.

I don't like the summer heat much myself, for that matter. I've been teaching and working off-campus all last week (and next week, too) so I haven't been able to bike or jog to work, and by evening it's too hot to put e-baby in a jogger and run.

Since I 've been off-blog awhile, there are several new baby updates.

e-baby's 2nd top tooth made an appearance about a week ago and about the same time she started standing up on her own, without holding onto anything. After a week of practice, she can walk while only holding one of my hands, but she's kind of clumsy looking. She also trying very hard to communicate verbally. She started signing awhile back, so she's already "said" her first word ("Milk," of course) and about 3 weeks ago she started waving and saying "bye-bye" to people (usually after they left the room). This week she seemed to want to speak. She has been trying and trying to say Dog, Ball, Duck, and Book. She comes close, but the sounds aren't quite refined to where other people would recognize them.

This morning's "chat" was SO funny. e-baby was climbing onto the coffee table with an animal cracker in one hand and a remote control in the other (whatever keeps the peace, y'know?)when she spotted DOTi out the back window, and she pointed to the window, looked at me with this big-eyed look of WOW OH WOW on her face and said "DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH!" Later in the day I heard her call DOTi a "Daaoww." I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She is a native North Carolinian, after all.