Hey, everybody!

At long last, we're going to try the blog thing for our little bitsy-witzer. Atticus and John are currently aloft alone which makes for Atticus' first flight without Mama and the benefits of breastfeeding. I dropped the boys off at the Phoenix airport this morning and, after a hike up Camelback Mtn, am sitting in the Central Library enjoying this gift of alone time. Thank you, John.

Atticus is growing up so fast and, try as we might to document his comings and goings with images, we keep forgetting to bring the blasted camera with us. Just yesterday we joined Ronnie, Haley and Cainan for a tour of the Botanical Gardens and nobody had a camera. The boys had a great time. Atticus particularly enjoyed the red dirt and had a few near misses with the local flora....yeowwch! Cainan, 6 months his senior, taught Atticus a thing or two about stirring up trouble--how to thwap the butterfly exhibit signs in such a way as to produce a most satisfying sound. And then, to top it all off, Haley's mom babysat the boys while the grown-ups (?) snuck away to celebrate Haley's birthday...a restaurant dinner without highchairs. Turns out half the night was spent talking about kids and parenting anyway. We thought we'd never...

Atticus will be sixteen months on the 21st of this month and he's into just about everything. He'll climb anything, throw almost anything and show you his belly button at the drop of a hat. My father has his working on "Go, go Sox." and he's getting closer with his "ggg--, ggghh..." followed by "sssssssahhhh." All on his own he's come up with "aiiyyyyssssss" which John is happy to prompt by asking questions like "Atticus, when water freezes it turns to _____." or "Atticus, what all worthwile climbers climb in the winter?" Any of us can prompt him though by humming the Vanilla Ice namesake single which I'll leave you to recall on your own.

My minutes are just about up here so I'll sign off for now and hope that this is the start of something that we'll be able to continue as a family.

Big hugs to everyone out there. Bye for now.