Five Months Plus Some

Alright, alright.  I'm back to perpetuate the norm.  Modern moms are to blogs as hand-pushed chicarrones-paletas carts are to the sidewalks of Watsonville, California. 

So this is how we live for now:
A)  I quit teaching.  Despite what I was told, I didn't think I'd feel like quitting work because it's work I love doing.  I know this because I spent about eight or nine years working jobs I didn't love.  This was until I added Mom to the list.  That's that, no looking back.  Best job ever.  I'll go back and teach when it's time. 

II)  Levi is HUGE, beautiful, engaged in the goings-on around him, dexterous with his hand work, rolling, standing with some help, looking, laughing, gooing, gahing, blabbing, drooling.  He is bright, content, and sickeningly amazing.  (You know, all those things your kids are or will be.)  That said, he is so uniquely him.  There was nothing before compared to what there is now that he exists and is thriving.
   i)  He gingerly handles leaves on trees when he's brought close to investigate for himself.
   b)  He rips single strands of hair out of my head with the force of ten angry Hurricanes Katrina.
   small 3)  Aaron asked, "Do all babies smile this much?"  The answer is no.  I hope we can keep fueling his smile fire for a long time.  
   *)  He has gone for a swim in the Madonna Inn Pool and for a shower in the hotel's charming 'Swiss Belle' room.

3)  I've got some time now to work on some me things.  I'm in the beginning stages of many of these.  Here are some of them, or at least the ones I'm willing to share with Joan Q. Internet:
   - Coming to terms with grammar abuse.  With the advent of blogging and Facebook, my critical nature extends to being a smart aleck about the butchering of the English language and its conventions via the written communication of friends and online acquaintances.  Aberrant apostrophe usage is the salt in my open wounds.  I need to get over it.  Not everyone is borderline OCD like I am.  Plus, even grammar Nazis make mistakes.  Obviously, I mean, we're likened to Nazis after all.  If you find some mistakes in my blog, let me know.  Unless they're sentence fragments.  I've already reserved the right to use these as needed.
   - I'm a dilettante...almost so much so that lately I don't do or try doing many things I don't already know how to do.  This WILL change.  I vow now to master Adobe Premier since the words my brain tells my fingers to pour out fall short of the firsthand brilliance of my family.  Memory is best, but it needs reminders, so I will create video documentation of where life has brought us Emmerts for posterity's sake.  I promise.
   -  I need to be more gracious and forgiving of the shortcomings of the people I love, not only because they are of mine, but also because I am called to.  This is one of the things I fall asleep praying about every night.  I keep balling it up, but there's hope yet.


I need to go get some things off my chest.  (Namely some mom milk.)  Whoever you are, if you have time, listen to Dirty Three pretty soon.  They'll get you right where it counts.  No, not there, but just where you need it.


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