That should bring us up to speed :)
We're still here, camping out in America. We would still be here anyway, but due to current circumstances we have had to change our return date to South Africa. We were supposed to have left America next week but due to lack of information, poor planning, and sheer helplessness, we will have to extend our time here.
That makes it sound like we don't really enjoy being here. Believe me when I say that we needed to be here, we have loved being here, we will be sad to leave here. This is our home. One of them. And that's making all the difference. That's why we're a little sad things haven't gone quite as planned. We need to be there, we love to be there, we will be happy to arrive there.
In the meantime, however, we are gaining weight and hanging out with family and friends. It's blissful ;) This week Todd started back to working several hours most days. He's done a little bit of web work off and on since we've been on furlough but decided to make it more full-time at this point. It's a blessing to do something that doesn't always require your physical presence on the continent for which you work.
Ty turned 11 months old this week and I'm having to face the brutal reality that next month he turns one. At that point, I will need to stop thinking of him as a baby. Or maybe I should start with something actually doable...I've got it. I'll stop correcting Todd when he calls him a "big boy," and just secretly keep thinking to myself that he's a baby.
He can walk when he wants to, hands straight up in the air most of the time. He's not very good at steering and forget about making it successfully across a toy-strewn floor, but walking is walking. It's not his go-to method of getting where he wants yet, but maybe by his birthday. I'm not pressuring him. Take your time, buddy. Actually, if you'd rather regress and start sitting in one place on the floor without the ability to lean too far in any direction, that'd be fine too.
He doesn't talk yet either. He makes sounds that at times might be things like "mamamamamama" or "dadadadadada" but they aren't directed to anyone and I don't think he means anything by it. And they certainly don't happen every day.
He has five teeth now and I don't think we have to worry about any more of that for a little while, thank goodness. It's a good thing we can't remember what getting our baby teeth feels like because if we base it on how it affects our babies we'd have to reach the conclusion that it is absolutely the worst thing anyone could ever experience. Like you're dying from the mouth out. Thankfully—and by some gracious mystery—it's not something that scars us as adults but it's got me thinking, I'm just really glad our permanent teeth make much more subtle entrances.
The past two weeks we've had an alarming amount of snow for our not-too-shabby southern locale. Northeast Tennessee is not known for hard winters or snow-covered landscapes (the song "Tender Tennessee Christmas" comes to mind...). And this has been far from a "hard winter"; apparently things got real last winter. But the storm clouds grouped, the flurries descended and for the past two weeks we have really enjoyed inch after inch of real, non melty/gross snow. Almost makes me wish I was 15 years younger and had even the tiniest desire to go out and play in it. Almost.
We didn't have anything snow appropriate for Ty to wear so he didn't get much snow exposure this time around. To be honest, I don't think he would have liked it anyway. Probably would have ended in tears. But we did take a few pictures of him and snow in the same field of view :) While I'm at it, why I don't just throw a few pictures from the last couple months in here? Call it a round-up? Everyone cool with that?
