Day’s Verse:
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Ecclesiastes 9:8-9ish

The sunset on May 23, with only a little digital enhancement. Some compensation, I suppose, for creeping another year closer to the big 3-0. That, and Ian’s

This is the view from the very tip top of Cougar Mountain, in an as-yet-undeveloped future neighborhood. Pretty spectacular: Even with my lousy camera phone, when you zoom the picture to 100% you can make out (from left to right) the Puget Sound on the far left, Seattle (through trees), Lake Washington, Bellevue, Lake Sammamish, Factoria/Issaquah, and (through more trees, just barely) the Cascade Mountains on the far right. On a clear day, with a good camera, this view would really knock your socks off. The caveat is that it’s at the top of a 1500′ climb, with numerous 15% to 17% pitches and even more 10% to 12% pitches. It’s not trivial to get there by bike, let me tell you, but well worth it when you get to the top.

A baby update:
This week has been a bit rough with Benji; we’ve had no grandparental help, which is rougher on me than on him. He’s working hard on getting his tummy off the ground to crawl for real, but he’s also become a master of the Army crawl and can scoot around alarmingly rapidly when he wants to. One of his top teeth has just started poking through, too, and the other’s nearly there, although we’ve thought that for a couple weeks now, so who knows. But based on the continuous fussing, refusal to nap, and copious drool volumes, I’m guessing it’ll be soon. Can’t be soon enough, if you ask me, although I know that’s only four teeth out of 20. Gah. When those two come in, we’re still only 20% of the way there. But on the bright side, he sits really well unassisted when motivated (spinning the globe is a particular favorite right now, as is reading peek-a-boo books) and spends a lot of time screeching loudly in happy excitement.

At Benji’s 9 month doctor visit, the doctor told us he didn’t need to eat overnight for nutrition; he gets plenty of calories between solids and formula during the day. Right now Benji goes down about 6:00 pm and wakes up between 6:00 and 7:00 am, with one wake-up for food in the night — the exact time varies, but usually between 1:00 and 3:00 am. He sucks four to six ounces of formula down in 10 minutes and usually goes straight back to sleep. Ian and I aren’t sure if we want to change this status quo yet; I’m mostly leaving it to Ian, who does the night feeding (I always still wake up for it, so it’s still disruptive, but at least I don’t have to get out of bed). I’m kind of hoping that Benji will wean himself from that final feeding, but if he doesn’t do it soon, I suppose we’ll have to step in.

Overall, Benji has gotten increasingly challenging as he’s grown older, but commensurately delightful. He babbles, he laughs, he noms on food, he blows raspberries, he crawls and investigates things… In short (I know, too late!) he’s slowly turning into a little person, and that’s truly amazing to watch and participate in.