New vision; Tet rules; fish, aggression, hope

My new eye doctor at the American Eye Center in Ho Chi Minh City has halted the pain in my eyes with prescription and over-the-counter medicine, and he got hold of the proper eye medicine for my glaucoma. Too bad he doesn't work on backs. I got new eyeglasses there as well, and since they're not scratched to blue blazes like all my other pairs, I can see again.  And I like what I see. My daughter Joanna's wall of fame --with animals and other dot-to-dots that she colors, and a few cut-and-paste projects -- is filled with 104 pictures that she has done in the past 71 days. I also see Joanna "sneaking" books and being able to read them on her own when no one's around. She won't do anything unless she's completely sure of herself. I see my son Elijah standing with assistance from chairs and tables and anything else he can get his chubby little hands on. For better or worse, he looks like his dad, but for better he seems to have his mom's pleasant disposition. Yes, my new glasses and healthier eyes have given me a wonderful outlook on life.

• • •
Christmas and New Year's aroused little interest here as people have already started gearing up for February's Tet holiday, the granddaddy of them all in Vietnam.  The gearing up includes cleaning and home construction, getting married, and even burying the dead. We experienced all of this over the traditional western holiday period. The ringing on Christmas Day came from the sound of a jackhammer demolishing the house behind us. The cleaning was provided by trash collectors, who hauled away our wrapping paper hours after Joanna opened her presents. There was a very tasteful and low-keyed wedding ceremony on New Year's Day and a very loud and tedious 3-day funeral service, featuring a 3 a.m. startup by the band. The funeral culminated with the body being taken from the house and driven down the street. I was told the body was in the house for a year before the ceremony.  I can't disagree with a friend's assessment that it's never dull on our street, although it was fairly quiet when my friend came to visit. The cleanup and construction will continue right up to Tet, which is February 12 this year.
• • •
We've got a new family hobby: fishing. Joanna and I go to her favorite fish store and pick up worms and crickets. Phuong (Santa) got Joanna a pole for Christmas and we all meet at the renovated park where we're good to go .... fishing. No catches yet, but I did see a gigantic catfish in the murky, mucky, yucky, black water, which comes from the Dong Nai River and local toilets, I suppose. I've gotten a few hits; one pretty strong that took the bait off the hook, but Moby Dick got away.  The crickets upset Joanna for some reason, and she let them all free the last time we went fishing. She'll let me hook the worms, however. I'm the pole-sitter (actually, I stand the whole time) and keep telling my daughter and wife that the big one is imminent.  Phuong walks Elijah around the park in his new Japanese stroller while Joanna plays. Meanwhile, I get plenty of unsolicited advice from passersby -- in decent English and unintelligible Vietnamese. Everyone is shocked I'm not rapidly hauling lunkers out of the muck, and they've told me on three occasions that other guys are catching lots of fish. Obviously, I wouldn't keep any fish I caught out that water. There are pictures of the canals and water somewhere on this blog.
• • •
A new coffee shop has opened at the park near our house, and it's going to have a gigantic fish tank and pool for kids. And the park's renovation is pretty much finished. It looks a lot better with brick paving.  Foot traffic has increased in the park, and unfortunately it included a couple of unsavory characters last Saturday, both of whom were very drunk. One tried to take a "friendly poke" at me, which I easily defected with my right hand while holding my walking stick in my left. The fat white monkey with the lame back still has a tiny bit of chi flowing. Another guy was mad that Joanna didn't respond to his drunken "happy new year" and grabbed her by both of her arms. I hip-checked the clown and signaled hands off. At the loud and excessive 3-day funeral service across the street from us, an older man approached Joanna saying some kind of greeting in Vietnamese (I guess). She backed up a little and the guy started to grab her arms; my walking stick intervened and the guy sulked away. Onlookers laughed at all three intrusions on our personal space. We've applied for our visas to the U.S. and their arrival is imminent, we hope, even though things aren't exactly ideal in the U.S. with Covid and bad politics raging. My holiday wish for hope and a new start were dismissed by some, who tried to sow seeds of dissent by invading the Capitol Building, and there are those who continue to foster division and hate. That won't affect our decision to return. We want the best for our children, and that's in the U.S. where we believe people will ultimately make good decisions and do what's right ... for all of us.

School says no more; 'tough guys'; holiday cheer

My wife made arrangements with a local school a couple of weeks ago to have our daughter attend afternoon sessions only. The school is part of a farm and has some caged animals and fish ponds for the kids to see. The afternoon sessions consisted of the kids basically hanging around and since they had already seen the two caged iguanas, caged turtle, hamsters, and rabbit, not much happened after 2 p.m. Joanna, however, was fascinated by the animals, especially the fish in the ponds. Joanna, being who she is, tested the limits, trying to touch the caged animals, and grab fish. She's watched a few too many Blippi and wildlife videos on YouTube. I talked to her about the danger of handling iguanas, and she seemed to get it. But apparently, Joanna got on someone's nerves, either the teacher's or director's, and she was told not to come back to the school. The teacher and director blamed each other for the decision, and we were told there wasn't enough staff to ensure her safety. Could be the case.  Joanna is very high energy and the other kids seem a little more passive. My wife Phuong was quite surprised and a little upset at the decision, and the way it was delivered. I shrugged it off. I've worked with Joanna five days a week for the past seven weeks and I've seen her reading and comprehension dramatically improve.  Her listening skills also have improved, and she follows direction much better. I remind myself that she's had to deal with a foreign language spoken in sharp tones, and she's been taught in a system of education that seems to focus on  uniformity, conformity, discipline and repetition. Not her style. She's bright and will figure things out over time. In defense of anyone trying to supervise Joanna, however, she's remarkably strong-willed, stubborn and focused, and can be quite the handful. These days she insists on walking to Lido coffee shop. The whole trip is at least a couple of miles, and it's hot, dirty, and mildly dangerous, of course. At Lido, Joanna discovered a fern that folds up and "wilts" when you touch it -- the Mimosa pudica or touch-me-not plant or shame plant. She loves the fish they keep there, and she spotted tadpoles in a planter bowl and a grasshopper on the grass and another one in the mimosa pudica. It's a long day when we have school in the morning and walk to Lido in the afternoon. It's almost becoming a routine.
* * *
Poor Joanna can't get a break sometimes, especially with other kids. We were walking to the little market near our house when a boy about 6 or 7 years old approached her in the street and stuck his middle finger in her face. Joanna was skipping in new shoes and the boy stopped her progress with his finger. He said something to her and walked away laughing. I asked the boy to stop and tell me what's up, and he laughed at me and walked away. I grabbed his hand and asked what finger he used and he started crying. His mother, or maybe she was  someone in his tribe, came running up and pulled him away. And guess what ... she was laughing, too. Another woman in the tribe sitting in front of their house apologized, and I told her in Vietnamese that Joanna is my little girl and that's not acceptable. The finger boy has said hello to us in the past as we walked up the street, but he was getting a little chestier and sillier each time. Apparently, something like this was bound to happen. Earlier in the week, Joanna and I were crossing a small side street when a "Grab" guy (Grab is a driver service here) on a motorbike came ripping around the corner. I put up my staff and pulled Joanna aside expecting to get hit. The guy stopped in time, then did the stare and glare routine as he rode by real slow. Then he stopped about 15 feet away to look back and stare and glare some more. I asked him why he was stopping to stare and glare if he was in such a hurry in the first place. He turned his bike around like he wanted a real confrontation. The last time this happened to me, a guy threw something at me and rode away like a rocket. The second guy just eventually rode away, looking back as if to say I was lucky this time. The real deal is that most of the people here are bright, nice and gentle. But the minority of morons really stands out sometimes. Folks in the U.S. know what I'm talking about.
• • •
Christmas remains wonderfully low-keyed here. Even though COVID is almost a non-factor in Vietnam, no one discusses presents and sales and all the other things associated with the Christmas holiday season in the U.S.  Some of that comes with Tet Holiday here, but not as much as in the U.S. with any holiday, really. Chalk it up to media and capitalism, I guess. Regardless, I wanted to sincerely wish all a wonderful holiday. It's been a tough year on many levels and everybody needs a shot in the arm, so to be speak. Now is the time to look back and learn from the past, but not dwell on it. The present and future offer hope and promise. That's worth celebrating.

Crawl space; eye issues; sidewalk bump

Hours after my last post about my son's unique backwards crawling style, Elijah broke into a standard forward crawl ... and has been doing so ever since. Like his sister -- and all kids -- he crawls past his toys and goes straight for the computer wires, electrical outlets, cell phones on the couch and whatever else that is dangerous and supposedly off-limits. He's on his second go-around with teething; he's about to add two more bottom teeth. He's handling this discomfort very well, perhaps because he's been down this path before. He's a good, strong boy, but he objected to his vaccination shots. Joanna had to have two shots also and did very well. She sat on my lap and I told her to close her eyes and count to 10. The shots came at "3" and "6" and she didn't cry, but asked me to "kiss it better."  She continues to thrive since she left school here and paid me the ultimate compliment, saying "daddy's school is cool." I hope "cool" isn't kid talk for something other than what I think it is. We still have a few differences of opinion, but I pretty much give her free rein with any school stuff, meaning she reads and writes when she feels like it. She's doing well.
• • •
I had some uncomfortable aching in both eyes after a doctor at the local hospital changed my eye drops for glaucoma. My pressure dropped so low from the new drops that he took me off all drops. At least that's what I was told. To make a long and boring story short (and also boring), I went to the American Eye Center in Ho Chi Minh City. My doctor was Scottish and pointed to a wee bit of difficulty in regard to getting my old medicine in Vietnam. I went back to drops that I was on about 10 years ago in the U.S. They stopped being effective because I built up an immunity to them, according to my doctor in Ohio. Anyway, the old drops seem to be OK for now and the aching has subsided due to medicine prescribed by the new doctor. I'm getting new glasses there as well since my kids and I have scratched the daylights out of the three pairs I have now. By the way, the American Eye Center charges American prices, but I'll pay whatever for eyesight. The center is located in District 7, which is a very nice district in Ho Chi Minh City. You can smell the money and it has a nice aroma. On the way home in my taxi I saw a woman laid out on the highway from an accident. Her motorbike was obliterated; there were lots and lots of pieces of it all over the road. I went a long time without seeing any accidents, but I've seen three in the past month or so, two of them pretty serious.
• • •
A girl riding her motorbike on the sidewalk hit Joanna while while we were walking.  But the impact was light because the girl wasn't going very fast. Joanna was shocked more than anything else. I saw Joanna was fine, so I regained my composure right away and asked the girl why she was riding her bike on the sidewalk when the street is right next door. The girl launched into a barrage of "sorry's" and that was the end of it. The motorbikes and cars with their total disregard for pedestrians no matter where they are remain the biggest downer of living here. More and better shops and restaurants are opening, so the quality of life is slowly improving. If it weren't for some of the  damn drivers who think they can go anywhere at any rate of speed ....
• • •
Face masks are more in vogue here, which is kind of nice. I forget mine more than I should because instances and reports of Covid-19 are so minimal. I put up a hook on the door to hang my face mask. I still forget.  I'm writing this to help me remember to wear the mask. Hope it works. The mask also helps my skin handle the heat and dirty air better even if my scratched and battered glasses fog up.  I see what's happening in the U.S. with Covid and of course it's upsetting and disturbing, especially since we're making tentative plans to go to the U.S. for Joanna's schooling. Joanna really wants to go to Yellow Springs and attend school there. Elijah is happy no matter where he is, as long as he gets access to computer wires, electrical outlets, cell phones on the couch and whatever else that is dangerous and supposedly off-limits.
• • •
I've gone a year now without a drop of alcohol, except perhaps in some cough medicine that I'm not aware of. My mouthwash has a little alcohol in it but I don't drink it. I've read 359 days in a row, according to my Kindle. I haven't had a cigarette in more than 4 years and 8 months, according to my lungs. Yep, I'm a real live wire these days.

My son's 'mooncrawl'; food for thought; wonderful gift

 My son Elijah is now crawling, but he usually goes backwards. He does a unique version of Michael Jackson's moonwalk -- on all fours. Most of the time Elijah's belly is on the ground. Sometimes, he'll lift his knees, and prop himself up with his hands and feet like he's trying to stand, then he'll drop back down to all fours and crawl backwards. Actually, I saw him go forward a couple of times to crawl two "steps", but that's it. He may be crawling forward more, but I'm pretty absorbed with Joanna and her homeschooling. My son has one of those walkers with wheels, and without question, he's heck on wheels. He'll go forward, backward and deftly navigate though tight spaces. All at a high rate of speed.  The walker is tough on feet and ankles -- ours, not his -- if you're not paying attention, and he's started chasing after Joanna, who subtly reaches out and freezes the walker.  Elijah is quite large by local standards and has an amazing appetite for a 6-and-1/2-month-old.  He eats everything we eat except stuff like cheese and honey. He had three asparagus stalks the other day with some potatoes and chicken. And while he's generally easygoing, he loses his cool when the food is slow in coming. I don't want him to have weight issues like his dad, but he seems fine so far. Just big. He's a real joy with a charming smile. 
• • •
While on the topic of food, I'll note that Joanna's appetite has really improved since she left school. I handle all the cooking at home these days, and Joanna has taken a shine to my menu. It's meat, potatoes and vegetables, with the "meat" being salmon, chicken, chopped steak, sausages,  and pork. The potatoes will be microwave baked and sometimes mashed, but mashed is a workout here in the heat. Vegetables are usually zucchini, green beans or asparagus. My "school" day with Joanna always includes a long walk and park time, so her appetite has improved accordingly. As her teacher, I've learned that Joanna needs constant positive reinforcement -- she'll read extremely well and sound out difficult words if I can deliver chocolate or a trip to a nearby fish store or a video. She seems to have inherited some of my obsessiveness and all of my stubbornness, so I have to be careful about how much video time (and chocolate) she gets, and how I react when she flips out when the computer is shut down. I've gotten pretty good at redirecting her attention with other tasks and general silliness. But she'll sneak onto YouTube and watch some borderline animal videos with borderline language from time to time. However, Sesame Street remains one of her go-to favorites. She also likes Scratch Garden, which is OK. Her temper and strong will can be quite challenging, and oddly endearing. She knows what she likes and wants, and voices her views in no uncertain terms. She's becoming more proud of her dot to dot and coloring efforts on the wall of fame. She'll color "rainbow" rhinos, armadillos, whales and snails.
• • •
Our long walks have taken Joanna and me to a new coffee shop called Yorokobi. We'll still visit the Coffee House, which has the nicest staff on the planet. But Yorokobi has top-notch cheesecake and cupcakes.  The cappuccinos and staff are more than adequate, and since it's new, the clientele is low-keyed. The Coffee House attracts some customers who bring their computers to use the free internet and perhaps think they're a little high-brow, and they don't always seem enamored with Joanna's outgoing personality. I've seen enough eye rolling and cold stares at Joanna's (hyper)activity from some of the customers to know that it's time to scale back on our appearances there. Don't get me wrong. Most people are very friendly to Joanna, but change is good sometimes. Anyway, on our way back home from Yorokobi we pass a little fish store with an impressive collection of exotic fish. Joanna insists we go in and she goes absolutely bonkers if I don't stop there. I stop there. The staff has taken a shine to Joanna, who runs around the little store pointing at the fish yelling "look at that one, look at that, he's trapped, sorry eel."  She can name some, like the catfish and eels. The other day, one of the owners gave Joanna a fish -- which we later named Goldie after Elmo's goldfish on Elmo's World -- and a bowl with a cool blue light attached, as well as food for the fish. He wouldn't take any money from me. A generous, kind and wonderful gesture, indeed. Vietnam is like that ... one moment a motorbike will nearly run you down on the sidewalk, and the next moment you'll be overwhelmed by an act of kindness. 

Congrats to Joe Biden; homeschooling my daughter

 My wife was so happy when CNN called the election for Joe Biden that she left me a note on the dining room table congratulating Biden -- and me.  (The only thing I did was vote for President-elect Biden in a state that went to the loser of the election.) She was literally bouncing around the house. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I woke up at 3 a.m. and happened to see the news alert on the internet. Our family is very pleased with the result because it means we have the opportunity to come to the United States although we remain concerned about a surging pandemic that the current president has chosen to diminish and ultimately ignore. The silence of many who didn't congratulate the winner  speaks volumes about the divisions and difficulties President-elect Biden will face when he takes office. And the current president's lack of cooperation to assist President-elect Biden with the transition is consistent with the outgoing president's performance the past four years. When you consider the current secretary of state, attorney general and president, there's a real three stooges aspect to the current leadership --- sorry, no offense intended Curly, Larry and Moe, because, unlike you guys, the stooges leading the U.S. can be mean-spirited at times. While elated with the result and the fact that President-elect Biden got more than 75 million votes, I'm concerned that more than 70 million voted for the loser, who still refuses to admit he got whupped. Sometimes, losers don't like to admit they've lost. If the new vaccine is as good as advertised and President-elect Biden can get Covid under control, we're optimistic for a 2021 move to the U.S. It's essential for our daughter's education (see next item).
Oh, congratulations, President-elect Biden.
• • •
I'm homeschooling my daughter Joanna after her difficult stint at a local school. We start between 8 and 8:30 a.m. with some dancing and videos. Then we move on to dot-to-dot with numbers and letters, which she'll color with crayons. A good effort gets the picture on the wall of fame (actually, a window). There's seven pictures on the wall already -- two dinosaurs, an armadillo, a frog, turtle, whale and fire truck. We've only had eight sessions so she's doing great. She'll write letters and numbers, which isn't her favorite. Then we'll work on reading. I'll read to her and she'll read to me. She loves this and can read the basic stuff quite well. I'm so proud of how she tries to sound out words she doesn't remember. The first couple of days she'd just memorize the passage -- she's got a gift for memorizing -- but now she's actually reading the words. Her behavior and attitude have improved so much the past two weeks. I'm light on discipline and don't require her to take a nap, and she's blossomed. After lunch we'll head out, shopping for dad or going for a coffee or whatever. Along the way we snap photos of critters and I answer a constant barrage of questions from an inquisitive 4-year-old. The walk can get quite long so we're both tired at the end of the day. Our "school" day can wrap up around 2:30 or 3 p.m. or even 4, but really it's about 6 hours total including lunch and goof off time. The issue for me is that Joanna doesn't seem to need sleep, but I  do. I still prefer this to the 9 hours-plus she spent at her previous school and I know she prefers it too, and that's what's important.

• • •
My wife is focused on our 6-month-old, Elijah, who is determined to crawl perfectly.  He'll get up on all fours and gingerly bring a knee forward. Then he'll flop. He's so close to an all-out crawl. He's a huge guy, which is no shock since he loves big people food, especially salmon and potatoes.
• • •
The weather remains acceptable .... highs in the upper 80s with high humidity. Cloudy. On the minus side our air quality is unacceptable -- a rating of 4 or 5 daily with 5 being the worst ... other than red alert. The impact on my skin is noticeable, but that matters little at my age although Joanna always wants to know: What happened to daddy's face? Kids don't care too much about that stuff anyway. And that's a good thing.

Cloudy with chance of ... sidewalks, insects, ready to crawl

 We continue to get rain, although it slacked off a little in the past week. For us it means more clouds and slightly cooler weather. When there's no sun, we have no hot water since we have only solar-heated water. Showering isn't such a problem except when you don't feel well -- a hot shower is really nice when you're about to get sick. The problem is,  illnesses often occur when it rains a lot and the weather is slightly cooler. Lots of people are not well in our area at the moment, myself included, but I don't think it's Covid. Certainly hope not. There's coughing, but not dry coughing. No fevers that I know of.  Anyway, dishes are the big hot water issue at the moment for me. I'm lazy and really don't want to  boil water for dishes after cooking, but the extra effort removes the cooking oil, grease and butter from dishes, pans and metal chopsticks. (I wonder if there's a way we could inject boiling water and dish soap into our bodies to remove the unhealthy stuff that clogs our veins and arteries. We should look into that.)
 • • •
 We're doing our best to be ecologically responsible, such as using metal chopsticks and re-useable cloth grocery bags, and recycling plastic bottles, We've been recycling cardboard as well as plastic, which means giving all the items to a lady on a bicycle who comes by our house once or twice a week. I also walk everywhere, but that's more a function of safety than anything else. But it's not really that safe to walk since motorbikes and now cars ride on sidewalks, and motorbikes and cars always cut turns so they're driving into oncoming traffic. This means that when you cross the street in a striped zone and look to make sure oncoming traffic doesn't speed up to hit or threaten you, a car or bike will rip around a corner and possibly hit your blindside because it's shortcutting across the wrong lane on a turn. Happens all the time. I've been hit twice -- not hard -- in the past two months by this illegal but routine motorist technique. Then the motorists will glare at you when they're wrong because you made them either slow down or swerve to avoid having an accident, thereby damaging their bikes. The motorbike issue also exists in the park, which I thought was for pedestrians. I don't care when I'm alone because I use a walking stick due to back and safety issues, but I worry about my daughter Joanna, who wrongly assumes people will do the right thing and slow down when they see pedestrians. 
• • • 
The bikes and cars on the sidewalk were especially worrisome for me when I picked up our daughter Joanna from school  every day. She would come bounding out of school and face danger from bikes riding right up to the school stairs, and from cars riding down the sidewalk. The bikes and cars aggressively honked their horns at us (often from behind) as we walked home on the sidewalk. That particular issue is moot now. I took Joanna out of the school. I won't address the reasons. For now, I'm providing instruction. When I can get her off video, she shows real signs of being able to read. She knows lots of sight words (am, are, see, I, my, etc.). I've found some wonderful sites online where you can download books, and I resumed paying crazy prices to get books shipped here from the U.S. to Vietnam. We're taking photos of snails, red ants, stink bugs, lizards, spiders and butterflies on our walks. She's got a remarkable eye for spotting little critters.
• • •
Our son Elijah is extremely close to crawling, getting up on his haunches and rocking back and forth. He's got two bottom teeth, produced with much anguish. He's also learned to lead with his left, knocking off my glasses twice and popping out lenses both times. Fun guy!
• • •
Hope all U.S. citizens vote on Tuesday if you haven't voted already. We have CNN on every waking hour, even if we're not home or in the room ... hate waiting for the TV to "warm up." The results of this election could have a real impact on our family. 

Voting from Vietnam; ballot sent by Fed-Ex; masks and rain

 I sent in my absentee ballot Tuesday, Oct. 13,  by Fed-Ex to the Greene County Board of Elections. In other words, I voted. Some on the side I voted against might say I was playing with fire, but I didn't have a real choice in the matter. I didn't have to wait in a horrendous line to vote, but it cost me about $50 to mail in the ballot from Vietnam to Ohio, a price I'll  gladly pay to vote for a change that is so desperately needed in the United States. There were some minor issues along the way, but like I've said before, the lady I've worked with at the Greene County Board of Elections is fantastic. Hopefully, my ballot arrives and the paperwork is in order and most importantly, my vote counts.  I'm a little worried this election could drag on and end up being decided by the Supreme Court. But I have no understanding of presidential or executive law, obviously, so we'll just see what happens. Actually, I wanted to come to the U.S. to vote, renew my driver's license and get my eyes checked. But with Covid, I would have real difficulties getting back into Vietnam to be with my wife and two children. And the situation in the U.S. is far from optimal when it comes to fighting Covid. Some folks don't wear masks, like the President of the United States, for example.  Social distancing is a sometimes occurrence. I'm embarrassed to say I was almost starting to feel sorry for the president when he got coronavirus. But the man lacks any humility regarding the virus now that he has "immunity" and he most definitely shows no empathy for the more than 215,000 Americans who have died from the virus. The president was dancing to "YMCA" at one of his rallies, and CNN's Don Lemon said after airing the dancing video that the president was dancing on the graves of 215,000 dead Americans. 

• • •

The virus is almost an afterthought here in Bien Hoa, -- out of sight, out of mind, I guess --  and the cases in Da Nang appear to have been contained. Nonetheless, most people still wear masks, myself included. Sometimes I'll forget, but many coffee shops and other businesses have extra masks for those in need. I will say this: If a case is diagnosed, the affected go into quarantine immediately for 14 days and the contact tracing is thorough and extensive. I grimace when I hear people in the U.S. resisting masks, social distancing, quarantines and lockdowns. I recently heard a doctor on CNN say that even in the Middle Ages people had quarantines.

• • •

We're in the midst of an intense rainy season bolstered by an ongoing series of typhoons moving west from the Pacific Ocean. Central Vietnam has been especially hit hard with flooding and dozens of deaths reported. We've had daily rain, which is a little unusual in October, but the temperatures have been down due to overcast skies, even if the humidity has been up. With all the traffic and industry here, the air seems even worse and masks may be beneficial, virus or no virus.

• • •

Digger World is in full force here, with drilling and pounding at the hotel behind us. It looks like they're gutting the building. And the guy across the street pounds metal much of the day since he had to quit working for health reasons. That's what they do in digger world. Build things up and knock 'em down, and pound metal. I'm on the go so much with our kids Joanna and Elijah that the noise isn't a huge issue. The guy across the street is a nice man, and told us he does the work because he's bored. No worries.

• • •

Joanna keeps a running tally of the snails, butterflies, bees, lizards, and centipedes that we see on the walk to school each day. The 7-minute trip to school has become a 20-minute nature walk. Love it.  Elijah rolled from belly to back for the first time on Wednesday, and he's starting to flirt with crawling, getting a knee up to test his limits. He's not left-handed like Joanna, but he delivers a mean right hand ... still. He knocked off my glasses again, popping out one of the lenses. He smiled afterwards. Even when teething, he smiles.  He's a happy guy, and that makes us happy.