Ted Returns! (and Not a Moment Too Soon)

Fans! Brigade! No doubt you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear how this evening went down with only one hand on deck. The low point was probably when Julie found Clara eating dog food, shortly before Clara pitched herself down the two back steps, all within the same five minutes! Two birds may have been in tears (though Clara only cried over the dog food when it was fished out of her mouth). Julie has been assured by Sara that eating dog food is a rite of passage. And come to find out, Bird has eaten dog food on Ted's watch, too! And stair tumbles. . .They remain very, very near the top of Julie's list of Top Fears in Life, but if we had a nickel for every time Joe has tumbled down the stairs, we'd be able to get. . .Well, something anyway.

But besides these fraught five minutes, things went rather swimmingly, all things considered. We hung out on the porch. Clara double fisted Joe's socks she found on one of the chairs after getting a boost to a stand next to it. She also went after the paper in the shoe trays. Joe moved his rocks around (the rocks he collected on "the journey with you, Mommy"), dispensed coasters, and made like a prize fighter with his blankie. We ate a dinner of veggie burgers, sweet potato fries, and pears in companionable silence. Julie managed to nurse Clara with minimal distraction. Our Hero really did admirably for his age. He was cutting at the table, and stickering with abandon (and on the paper), for a very long time before asking, "Mommy, are you done nursing Clara?" about every. . .oh, say 10 seconds. (Again, no sense of time.) After we got Bird down, Joe and Julie did some dusting before bath. In the wake of Miss Che's evenings with us, the bath time routine now includes the elimination of residual bubble bath bubbles via the shower. (Julie is not a fan of this addition and can practically guarantee Ted will also be much aggrieved to learn of it.) All of this is to say that Our Hero was a mite later to bed than usual, but he didn't eat dog food, so all is not lost.