the city's alive, and, surprise, so am I

Elliot is done with naps. He still has quiet time in his room, but he hasn't napped for a while. Corryn has been sleeping more than usual, though - she was sick this week with a fever that went up to 102.8. She's still getting over it, but she's feeling better. She also has some huge molars coming in. I'm not used to having a grumpy Corryn, I'm not sure how to handle it. She started to make her first animal sounds today; a monkey. She cracks herself up with it.

As a result of their asynchronous sleep schedules, I've been spending more one-on-one time with Elliot this week. I'm not used to being able to concentrate on just one child. He's learning so many things. His drawing skills are growing by leaps and bounds (he adds long, spindly legs onto everything you draw now. A happy face? Legs. Pumpkin? Legs. He also drew C3P0 on his own initiative). His memory is sharp, and his imagination and story-telling skills are growing with it. He's a creative kid. And apparently he learned how to read "Elliot" and "Mommy" without help from me. Probably recognized them. He loves action figures (Batman, Iron Man, and "Transformeder" are his current favorites), drawing, robots, Legos, glowsticks in the shower, ranch dressing, smoothies, and singing all of his words.

I've become an exercise convert. That is not something I ever thought I would say. But for those times when I wake up feeling anxious and guilty for no reason, or for those times when an indeterminate sense of doom is shadowing my thoughts, I find that going for a run is just about the only thing that will clear my mind. I bring along music and turn it up real loud. Architecture in Helsinki, Flaming Lips, Of Montreal, Apples in Stereo. Apples in Stereo's Floating in Space...gotta be my favorite song at the moment. I just run and I listen and it gives me wings and it gives me endorphins and I glide home, radiating goodwill toward all the people in their cars.

My housekeeping skills are improving slowly. An ant problem and one cockroach are good motivators. Not that we were so gross beforehand that we attracted tons of pests (we actually only had one incident where we left a dirty plate on the table overnight and woke up to find the table crawling with ants; otherwise, they seem to leave our food alone. The ants come out of the shower fixtures and the vents in the walls. It's a huge problem in the whole complex. And the cockroach was just a random event in the plate cupboard. We got sprayed after that). We're just much better about cleaning now.

Last night we had a picnic on top of Los Angeles. There's one spot up off Mullholand Drive, in the mountains, where they built a missile station during the cold war. There's a three-sixty view of Los Angeles from up there, a cement platform over a hollow missile silo in which a flock of birds audibly play house. We watched the sunset, we put a quarter in the telescope and looked at the temple, we ate sandwiches. Elliot was so thrilled about it he just ran around in circles screaming.

Babies and two-year-olds are not self-conscious. Why does that change.