Long-Overdue Update

Well, this post is long-overdue. I've been wanting to post and intending to for a few weeks, but it seems like any free time I've had has been spent doing dishes, folding laundry, straightening up, or just being exhausted. Things in the Desch household are fine.

Here is video evidence of how quickly Howie is growing.
1. He now eats chips and salsa.

2. He dances on command, especially to the music played by this little basketball hoop owned by his cousin, John. As many of you know, it's important for Howie to develop the skill of dancing if he wants to be a fully integrated part of this family. And we don't consider style- just quantity. Howie's dancing looks more like he's performing a squat at the gym, but as long as he does much of it with pride, we don't care.

Things are busy, as usual, but there are some important updates which I will present below in a numbered list for your convenience.

1. Howie now calls ME (Betsy) "Dada" along with Josh. We have discovered in the last few weeks that "dada" now refers to a generic parent. From time to time, Josh will hold Howie, point to me, and ask Howie who I am. He always says "dada." I've never heard him say mama. It's pretty funny.

2. I have a perfect streak of one week going on not letting dishes pile up. If you have read this blog before, you've probably seen me wax eloquent on my struggles with keeping the kitchen clean. Josh and I finally got it spotless last Friday night and made a vow to each other to not go to bed without the dishes being done every night, without exception. I am proud to say that I've kept the dream alive, and we've been perfectly dish-less for one week and counting. I consider this to be one of the major accomplishments of our marriage (that and Howie). I have fought fatigue and apathy and have won every night thus far. I'll keep you posted.

3. Josh is in the throes of homework. Piles and piles of it.

4. I am enjoying watching my garden grow, although I would think that frost will be coming before too long. It's so satisfying to put seeds and little plants into the ground and watch something sprout up that is edible and/or beautiful! It's especially fun to cut some flowers for us to enjoy inside.

5. Howie is going through a serious truck phase. You would not believe it. He has added that word to his vocabulary (more like guck), and he points them out wherever he sees them... in books, on the road, in his toybox... it's funny! He's also really into cars, some cloth bowling pins that belong to his cousin John, any sort of book, magnets, etc. He's still loving carrying around spice and herb jars. The other day I handed him the jar of cinnamon to play with while I was cooking something, and he disappeared with it. When he returned, somehow the lid had fallen off and he had brown cinnamon stains all over his hands. I looked around the corner, and there was a huge pile of cinnamon on the floor. It was pretty funny, and spicy too.