Today we drove north, stopping in Butte, Montana, for lunch and reaching Missoula in the afternoon. Butte is a shabbily picturesque town on a hill. Apparently its airport code is BTM.
It is encroached upon by an enormous retired copper mine, which has been the cause of numerous local environmental disasters. The abandoned mine-shafts are everywhere:
We were pleased to reach Missoula, a groovy little city in the hills, where we danced the night away.
Our next port of call is a cabin without electricity, so I’ll have to report on that after the event.
My last ditch effort at procrastinating about writing (after housework, internet, chocolate, and cups of tea), is a desire to write about the writing process, rather than to get on with the particular writing I am supposed to be doing. So I will make this short and sweet.
The first time I went swimming after Felix was born felt really strange. It was only a couple of months ago, and the last time I had been swimming I had been pregnant. Now it was just me in the water, and my body was different – my muscles responded more directly, I cut the water more sleekly. The cool water surrounded me completely. For the first time in a very long time, I was alone.
I am currently working on some article revisions. It feels a bit the same.
Felix had his first ride in the front of a shopping trolley today. There are so many unanticipated firsts. He looks very big and brave in the photo but he really did look so tiny there, clinging on and looking around. I was so excited I told the Walmart greeter that it was his first time, and he gave her a big smile. He liked the new angle it gave him on things but he’d had enough after about half an hour (even in the stroller he can only survive for half an hour in Walmart and I can’t blame him). It felt like a big deal. And it was much much easier than pushing the stroller with one hand and trying to balance a basket in the other. Afterwards, he was exhausted.
Sorry for the one dimensional nature of the blog at the moment. There are other things I want to write about and show you, but this feels like the most important one right now.
Earlier in the day we went to storytime. At the moment he just wants to sit at my feet and untie my shoelaces. He got quite annoyed when I tried to lift him onto my lap to join in with the songs!
This evening for the first time he managed to finish his bowl of mashed banana and baby oatmeal.
This past week, sometimes strangers make him cry.
He is getting more and more interested in his board books – he loves to scratch the pictures and whack the pages, and sometimes he tries to turn them.
When he sits and plays with his toys, he likes to put them down as far away as he can reach, leave them for a minute, and pick them up again.
When he’s hungry he lunges at my breast, or munches enthusiastically on my shoulder. If we’re out and about, though, the feed will only last for two minutes max, because the world is far too exciting.
Today he almost almost managed to roll from his tummy to his back, about three times. (He has been able to roll the other way with ease for ages, but noisily demands to be rescued every time.)
Last night just before bedtime he was sitting up in my bed absorbed in a private game. It looked for all the world like he was pretending to pick things up and put them in his mouth, over and over again.
I am absurdly proud of him. He’s been practicing for two weeks but totally mastered it today. I go around with a look of soppy adoration plastered over my face. I am surprised when passers by do not burst into spontaneous applause.
Unlike me, Felix is matter-of-fact about his new skill.
This evening he enjoyed watching the motorbikes drive into the car-park, and he is working hard to master all the new playing potential that sitting up affords. And still toppling now and then.
Well, my dear sweet boy, it seems tonight you have forgotten how to sleep (or, more precisely, sleep without me by your side), which means composing this post is taking longer than I had anticipated. We do however persist in lugging you all over the country, so it’s perfectly understandable if it takes you a couple of days to get back to normal. I’ve left you snoozing in my bed, which you’ve made abundantly clear is more palatable than your crib this evening. It is your half-birthday, after all.
You were weighed and measured two weeks ago, and you are a very tall and healthy guy. You were 8.4 kilos and 71cm, which puts you at the 99th percentile for height and 78th percentile for weight, and means you’ve grown on average three centimetres a month! At six months, you love water bottles, paper cups, and, most of all, plastic cups with icy drinks inside.
You also love cameras, the TV remote, and our computers. You would quite like to eat them all. You will also happily gnaw away on a stick of sweet potato or a pizza crust. You are not so keen on any form of goo.
You really are a charming little fellow, and whenever we are out and about (which is often, as you insist upon it), you are constantly scanning the environment for new people to entrance. When we were out at a pizza restaurant in Boise, the waitress was trying to tell us the specials, but you kept interrupting with your own monologue: ‘aha! aha! aha!’ You looked very pleased with yourself and had the rest of us in stitches.
Your hair is getting fairer and thicker. Your eyes are going greyish in the middle – I don’t know if they’ll end up grey-green like mine or grey-blue like you father’s. You are learning to sit up and can manage it for a couple of seconds at a time. You’ve discovered you can rest your feet on the tray on your stroller.
You are very clear about what you want, and if we suggest you might like to chew on one of your toys instead of the TV remote, for example, you are not easily convinced. You have also just worked out that if you throw something on the floor we will pick it up for you. You think this highly entertaining.
You love your baths. You especially want to eat the flannel. You look for it as soon as we get in. I do not encourage this. You love getting dried off after your baths by your father. He’s invented a game where he drops a little towel on top of your face, saying ‘where’s my baby?’ and you pull it off and you laugh at each other.
You are still a snuggly little guy. When you are tired you cling to my shoulders and bury your face in my neck.
Today we walked with you along the river, hung out with you in the coffee shop, and played with trains for the first time in the Barnes and Noble. We didn’t buy you a train yet but we bought you some farm animals to play with in the bath. We celebrated with cupcakes after you went to bed (six months is quite an achievement for us, too).
You are the sweetest and funniest person we know. You’ve changed everything. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
I had intended to go to the Basque museum today (there is apparently a lot of Basque culture here in Idaho), but due to a glitch in my map-reading (not unprecedented), we ended up at the zoo instead. A very good thing as it turns out because the zoo is absolutely gorgeous, especially the butterfly house.
Just the most beautiful place. I wasn’t quite coordinated enough to snap a picture of a butterfly sitting on Felix’s hat, but he seemed to enjoy all the flowers and fluttering things.
Yesterday I fell in love with Boise even a little bit more when I discovered this place by the river. It’s the Log Cabin Literary Center, and they host literary events and writing camps for kids. Awesome.
It’s situated on the greenbelt, right near the art gallery and natural history museum and the zoo, and miles and miles of walking tracks by the river. As Felix is a bit young for writers’ camps yet, we headed on.
We strolled along the river for a bit and then test-drove our new picnic blanket.
Good for rolling and for reading.
It’s actually quite hard to get pictures of Felix doing anything but grinning manically at the camera, because he can be entertaining himself quite nicely but as soon as you pull the camera out he gets a huge glint in his eye and decides he wants to eat it, declaring enthusiastically ‘aha! aha! aha!’
