learning

The little man--whose formal name is Henry--has done a lot of learning in the last six weeks since coming into this world. His most current learned skill is talking via cooing. Holy shmoly, do I LOVE having conversations with this kiddo.

As we went on a walk today, I realized that I have also done some learning in the last six weeks:

• I can function on less than eight hours of consecutive sleep. (Now, the quality of functionality is totally up for debate.)
• Parenting is done best by more than one person.
• Books have good general information; little people are their own individuals who sometimes don't fit within the confines of a book.
• It's good to have a clean house; it's better to feed your soul. Sometimes the two can be synonymous.
• Families are a gift from God.
• Spit up and milk can be cleaned out of most fabrics, but not so much out of decorative pillows that don't have zip covers.
• I can pray for anything I need help with--and get answers.
• A clock radio with a "day-of-the-week" function can really be helpful for orienting a sleep-deprived mother at 3:30 a.m.

I wonder what we will learn in the next six weeks. (Mom votes that Henry learns to sleep through the night...)

Progressive dinner

Tonight our dinner game plan was to be creative with the odds and ends left in the fridge. I was half expecting that it would fall to me to be the creative chef, but all my thoughts of dinner fell by the wayside when I turned into the driveway after work and saw Tricia and Henry sitting on the front steps, waiting for me. We haven't taken Henry outside much yet, and so it was really fun to be greeted by him. Unfortunately, the novelty of it all distracted us for a few minutes, and by the time we entered the house, the dinner Trish had been making had burned on the stovetop.

This left us with a side of new potatoes and broccoli still safely roasting in the oven, but no main dish. Since we couldn't think of anything fast in the cupboard to replace the burned chicken, we decided to make a progressive dinner out of it (tonight was date night, after all). So we thoroughly enjoyed the first course of potatoes and broccoli, then I called in an order and brought home some sushi (Tricia's first sushi since her pregnancy and our first time trying Yamatos--it was very good). Finally, we had our favorite dessert of late--ice cream topped with toffee peanuts and frozen raspberries. Yum!