Updates/Miscellany

It has been a busy week, so this will be a quick housekeeping post. There have been some new milestones that both Annie and the family have reached. The most important one would be that last night when I went in to feed her at 12 a.m. she was lying on her stomach crying. She has rolled over before, but never at night. I’m not sure what this means and it made me nervous. We follow all the rules and there is nothing in her crib that could be considered a suffocation hazard, but it was still disconcerting. I know, we all grew up sleeping on our stomachs, but risk of SIDS is drilled into your head from the moment your baby is born. It gets so that in the early months when they are asleep you think of nothing else.

Also, two days ago we had our first tornado warning. The locals tell me it was nothing, and that they just go around scaring people for no reason. It worked. The radar showed the storm with “tornado potential” about 30 miles south of us and not headed toward town, but the fact that nobody has a basement here made me research where we should go if one ever hit. Apparently, when you are watching the news and some town is shuffled all over the place, that business about going to the most interior room in the house is about all there is to it. Great.

Oh, and you will love this one. Last night when we were taking a walk, we saw our first armadillo. Despite what I just told you about in the last two paragraphs, this was the most exciting moment of the week. That rolly-polly little guy was amazing. For all of you Northerners, it looked like one part opossum, one part anteater, and one part rat. He was hanging out by a little pond and when he saw us made a run for the woods. He looked like he might roll into a ball like Sonic the Hedgehog, but he stayed on his feet and scurried past. We were only about 10% positive that it wasn’t going to attack us. I later learned that they eat only insects and foliage, but the way Zoe was trying to devour it made us prepare for the worst. I have also learned that Armadillo’s are expanding their habitat 10 times faster than any other mammal on record, and may reach New Jersey in some time. I’m not kidding Mom and Dad, watch out!

Lastly, I will leave you with a picture of how I spend my days with Annie…