ceteris non paribus

My mom grew up in Maine on a street named “Blanchard Road”.

On that same road is a farm called “Sweetser’s Orchard”.

Among my 10x great-grandparents are a couple by the name Samuel Blanchard and Mary (Sweetser) Blanchard.

Intriguing.

Me, at 4AM: “So, other than the barf bowl and the snotsucker, anything else I should bring up from downstairs?”

We’re all sick. Looks to be just a head cold, but we’re all pretty hammered at the moment. Hope to be well again for back to work on Monday.

S: “…and this is the city where Gramsie and I live.”
Me: “Oh.” “Who lives in that city?”
S: “Me and Gramsie!”
Me: “Cool. Who lives in that city?”
S: “Gramsie and I live in that city.”

I don’t remember teaching her the different uses of “me” and “I” but she just picked it up. Nifty.

Nathaniel had his two-week checkup yesterday and all went well. Random notes:

• He’s back up to his birth weight. No problems with failure to thrive for this bruiser.
• He’s sleeping reasonably well but, as his doc says, “the batteries go in at around two weeks.”
• That said, he’s remarkably chill when he’s not hungry. Lots of good awake and alert time, with enough head control to follow things in the room that interest him.
• Unlike his sister, he seems to like pacifiers, the swing, tummy time and being bottle fed. Even if only one of those persists, that’ll be a huge win.
• Sabrina’s being a great big sister. She’s not yet changing his diaper (drat), but she’ll help fetch things for him, likes holding him on the couch and made up a song about him at bedtime last night.
• Pacifiers are now in, cord stump care is no longer required, cell phones ok in the hospital. Can’t keep track without a scorecard.
• Another week until I go back; We’re certainly not ready yet, but I can see things settling in to a routine. We’ll see.

Sorry for having been radio silent recently; we’ve been pretty focused on getting our routines in place. Pictures shortly.

I’ve got a pile of posts that I’ve started but not finished over the past years:

Your Drafts: internet downside, quantifying knowledge, paytrust is cool, shake it like my auntie kate, smartest time of day, surfacing, date night, time capsule, silence confs, sourdough, coop games, on keeping state, small town stories, on burping, on lawns , and 5 more » .

Some of them are mostly finished, but some are just tickler subjects that still have enough for me to go on and there are a few that are a complete loss. Perhaps I’ll make a push to get more of them out the door. (’on keeping state’ is about this habit of mine, as well as an ode to tabs, ’screen’ and post-its.)

Do people wink anymore? I was teaching Sabrina how and then realized that she may never need to do it. If someone winked at you, would you be startled or take it in stride?