blockhead?

Here are two photos from a few weeks ago, when we were at the aquarium in Galveston with my sisters. There are more on my flickr site.

This week Larry is in Boston, sitting through all-day meetings for a week. That doesn't sound too fun, but they try to make up for it by going out in the evenings and having fun. We've been amusing outselves by playing with our spankin' new cell phones, which can send text messages (I know, welcome to the current century) and photos and videos. So, Larry, along with various family members, has been receiving a 30 second video (or two or three) of Eva every day this week. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but it is fun to do, and maybe that means he'll miss her a little bit less. Larry sent a photo of himself this afternoon, and I showed Eva and she smiled and waved, and then right after I set the phone down, she started saying "papa".

Eva is making a big effort to double her total number of teeth all this week. She'll have to produce an 8th tooth to hit that mark, and I hope she doesn't, but an impressive effort nontheless. She came up with three molars this week. I guess she decided to skip the four other front teeth she doesn't yet have. I could tell she's been teething for a few weeks, but I didn't expect all these molars. I'm babbling in circles, I'm so impressed. Wait, could I be speechless? .... (Nah.) I guess she's not done yet, because she has woken up 5 times in the 90 minutes she's been asleep, and that's after a dose of ibuprofen. (Why is she always teething when Larry is travelling?)

Today she stacked some wooden disks onto a peg. She hadn't done that before, but I showed her and she immediately did it with ease. So, I think yet again, it's not that she just now figured out how, but more like she's saying "oh, that's what you wanted me to do? why didn't you just say so?" I swear, sometimes I wonder what I do all day that I haven't taught her this stuff yet. Sometimes I really feel bad about this. Apparently I'm slow to catch on to the concept that now that she's not a baby, it's no longer sufficient to keep her content and fed, I have to teach her things, too. Not like I'm trying to teach her French by age 2 and playing classical music all the time to make her smarter, but shouldn't I occasionally show her how to, for example, stack a damn block? I worry that I'm just lazy, that I'd rather take a break when she's content. Then again, I'm not too worried, really, because I suspect this is just yet another thing for me to beat myself up about as a mom that doesn't really matter much in the long run. So, steady on, I guess...