New skills

Well, we have now been home almost one week and are beginning to feel settled again. Today I finally made a big grocery run and feel more "complete" at home. We have had several friends over for dinner this week and enjoyed reconnecting with folks here.

Austin has acquired some new "skills" since we have been home. One of them is opening the refrigerator door. Our fridge has the freezer on the bottom, a drawer in the middle that is not a freezer and then the door is at the top, so it is just barely within his reach. I have found the door open on several occasions or sometimes he will go and look for something he wants to eat or drink. Fortunately he can't really reach into the top part of the fridge and hasn't tried to open the freezer yet, which he could do some damage to if he wanted.

Another new skill is playing the yangqin. Ok, well not really but he pretends. The yangqin is a traditional instrument that our friend T plays. It is a type of dulcimer played with little hammers. So Austin walks around with two chopsticks and bangs them on the floor or the table and says "Austin play yangqin". He also likes to "make rice" since we have been home this week. While I am cooking sometimes he will "cook" too. I will give him a bowl and spoon and he will get to work stirring and banging. He used to just say "cook" but this week he started saying "Austin make rice". I guess you can tell what he likes to eat!

I was out some of the morning meeting a friend and making the grocery run. Chris took Austin outside but accidently brought the wrong set of keys. It just so happened that yesterday I was out and forgot my keys and used our set that our neighbors keep for us...so those keys were still on the dining room table. So Chris and Austin spent over 2 hot hours outside until I got home, though they did end up at our neighbors house for the last part of the time. Austin got his fill and then some of being outside...but it rained later in the afternoon and we had to stay in, so maybe it was a good thing (but I was glad it wasn't pregnant me).

That's about it for today!