Wednesday, November 18, 2009

lost time

Conrad and I were hit with a cold in October and it took until November to recover. I took nearly 2 weeks of sick leave, I don't remember ever having a cold like that before. We missed two birthday parties, a Halloween get together with friends, and Mass. There were babies born that we couldn't visit, one little girl was 2 weeks old before we even went for a peek (I still won't hold her though since I'm not 100% better yet).

Tim was a trooper and through it all continued to work on our current project - building an "entryway". We need a protected space to house our batteries, inverter, etc for the wind turbine that will be going up next. Ahhh....looking forward to all that electricity we'll have! We shouldn't ever "run out of lights" again (as Conrad describes it), we'll be able to move our chest freezer out to the prairie, we hope to even run some electric heat to supplement the wood stove. Someday in the future I'll even get an electric stove and oven. Looking forward to that!



Conrad continues to be a helper in the kitchen. He's learned a few new tasks even. Now he's the official egg cracker - he does great, I've only had to fish out egg shell one time! He's always been in charge of dumping and pouring the measured ingredients into the main bowl, but now he's figuring out how to actually do the measuring too. It's a little messy, but how else do they learn? I certainly don't want to discourage his interest. I'm looking forward to the day he will be cooking for me!
In other news, we've discovered there is a castle in Rochester. Conrad has been pointing out in the mornings as we drive into Rochester on 2nd street that part of the hospital has a castle top. Good observation, certainly looks like one to me too. And he knows where the helicopter lands (on the hospital). That's just the west side of downtown. From that point until Tim drops me off at work he narrates all kinds of things that he's seeing or that he remembers. For example, Conrad and I attended a concert last Sunday (Trio Callisto) at a church downtown. Now when we pass the block the church is located, he shows me where that concert was, and what instruments we saw being played (harp, flute, cello).
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For as much talking as the kiddo does, he still does a fair amount of sign language too. This morning his mouth was full of cereal and instead of trying to speak I saw him sign to me "milk" and "drink/cup". I was a little surprised, since he doesn't usually initiate the signing himself. I asked him if he wanted some milk in a cup, and he nodded. Cool. As I'm pouring the milk he signs "pink" as he shakes his head. huh? He swallows his food and says, "no pink cup this morning". Oh right, no pink cup this morning, it's dirty from yesterday. I hope I can keep up with this child as he learns more and more signs!