Of Seeds and Weeds

Whew--it's been a busy spring!

After working too much overtime while simultaneously studying full-time, I've finally had a few chances in the last couple of weeks to slow down. I managed to give St. James Place a long-desired overhaul and add Martha, Martha! back to the blog (she was somehow lost in the shuffle as Google's Blogger automatically upgraded the blog to its new version). It may look like I posted a few times this spring, but no, that was Martha, Martha!

Actually, with the new baby almost here, Martha, Martha! is about to be the busier one. We've only got six more weeks (according to the doctor's reckoning, anyway) until the little girl arrives.

We put our first-ever vegetable garden in a couple of Saturdays ago. We decided to ease into gardening and only planted corn, sunflowers, zucchini, wax beans, green beans, butternut squash, pumpkins, watermelon, peas, tomatoes, leaf lettuce, cabbage, bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, dill, and coriander/cilantro. I tried to talk Martha, Martha! into planting onions, potatoes, and rutabaga too, but she would have none of that.

Only a couple of good rain showers have passed through since planting, but the plants are coming up nicely with the aid of regular watering. So are the weeds.

Speaking of weeds, St. James is growing like one. He's hit quite a few milestones over the last two weeks, including standing on his own ("Look, Ma, only one hand!"), throwing tantrums, getting his first haircut, and climbing things. (St. James really likes climbing.) He spends much of his time outside swinging, playing in the sandbox and swimming pool, and chasing ants with his little fingers.

His culinary interests are expanding rapidly, too. His tastes are stranger than his expectant mother's: by the end of lunch on Saturday, he had six different foods on his tray, including Cheerios, graham crackers, a peanut butter sandwich, strawberries, dill pickles and raw rhubarb. Just guess which one he liked the most.

Sunday afternoon I gave St. James his first haircut (notice the shaggy hair around his ears in the above picture). It took two naps to complete, but it turned out to be a pretty good job (he sports his new do in the second photo below).

On Monday we drove down the road to the booming metropolis of Pittsford, Michigan, for their annual Memorial Day parade. St. James enjoyed most of it and cried only once when a passing old-time fire truck turned on its Whooo-hooooo! siren. The parade itself turned out to be much longer than I expected. It was about 1/3 local pageant winners, 1/3 emergency vehicles, and 1/3 tractors (mainly Farmalls), all led by a group of Civil War re-enactors.

After all of the weekend excitement, St. James was pretty tuckered out. Tuesday he fell asleep while swinging outside. It was cute and funny, but frightening, too: some days the kid doesn't stop until he falls over from exhaustion.

Oh, we simply can't wait until he's walking and running on his own...