Thursday, November 29, 2012

Back in the Arctic Groove

It seems that for the first time since Max joined our family, we're starting to get back into a family routine. I'm loving it! We get the kids off to school and then we get to enjoy the quiet of some little kid time with just Hazel and Max. Hazel really seems to be thriving with the extra attention that entails. Max has gotten back on a baby-friendly schedule and is a good sleeper again. He's even making some progress in the eating mush department.

Walking the kids to the bus stop at 33 below, however, does still feel a bit more like an ordeal than routine. I think even that is on its way to feeling like just another normal day in the arctic. (OK, subarctic, but close enough!) Wearing long underwear? Routine. Bundling to the hilt to go anywhere? Routine. Checking the wood stove to see if I need to shove in another log? Pretty routine. Going outside to get more wood when our stash gets low? Ordeal. I guess life as a frontierswoman is not quite routine yet.



Monday, November 19, 2012

Max on the Move

While we were in Colorado, Max moved beyond rolling as his means of locomotion. He developed a unique technique that Uncle Morgan coined “the corkscrew.” I believe Grandma was the first to witness it. When Aaron (finally) got back from training and saw it, he said it was similar to Army “mad drills” (OK, I stand corrected, he just informed me that they’re actually called “mat drills” because they’re done on a mat, but I thought he said “mad drills” and I think that has a nice ring to it so I’m sticking to it) in which you twitch across the floor using core muscles and not your limbs. Max’s “corkscrew” involved lunging towards an object, doing a 3/4 roll, lunging in the opposite direction, rolling, and thereby somehow propelling himself forward. It involves plenty of face-planting on the carpet.

(Imagine that my internet is actually capable of uploading a cute video of him doing this.)

Shortly after arriving in Alaska, Max moved on to the Army crawl and occasional bear crawl, soon followed by the standard hands and knees crawl, which he has now mastered quite nicely.

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He is especially good at noticing wood debris consistently dropped on the floor from hauling wood inside and chucking it in the wood stove. (This picture was taken just before we got the wood stove installed so the poor baby had to wear a hat inside to keep warm. We are far cozier now.) Aaron even has to saw wood inside sometimes--family time and warmth are both at a premium—so wood particles abound! Good thing vacuuming is my favorite form of housework!

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