Hi Thomas Door VannaClap Monkey Amen!

Well, hello there! It's been a while, hasn't it? We've been here, and doing normal things. Except for perhaps, being awfully reticent in most communicative forms. But you're not here for an essay on our responsibility to chat with our siblings, so let's get to the little guy, shall we?

Kade's personality is SO. MUCH. FUN. He is, as aptly put in a recent motherly poem, "22 pounds of pure joy." (Except he's officially only 20.5 lbs, but you get the idea.) (and yes, I actually met that deadline!) The wee world traveller is back at home, and not really in any routine, as he thinks perhaps one nap a day is plenty, but the parental units are refusing to consider this possibility. Hence the 7pm-nap-for-an-hour-then-wake-and-bath-and-sing-and-bedtime NEW routine happening this week...

What's really a lot of fun, though, is seeing and hearing him express himself verbally. We had worked on baby signs (oh so long ago) and the only thing that stuck so far is "more". It's used mostly for food. The kid takes after Jim's dad on this account, as he does not like others to eat alone. So it doesn't matter, for instance, if he ate his dinner at 5pm and JimDad sits down to eat at 6pm, there's Kaden with his "more" sign. If Nana or Ma try to take a bite or two of a little nightly fortification (aka 8pm brownies), he's there- putting one finger in the other palm: MORE. Was this the same babe we were worried wasn't eating enough? Good lord, what will the teenage years be like?

He has also started to RESPOND. To people, to toys, to the TV, to the windows... So a soundtrack of the last week would be something like this:

Kade walks into a room "HI" and flashes a big smile

... pushes a button on a Thomas book, listens to the train noise, then puts it down on the floor and yells "some-toddler-words-his-mom-can't-translate"

...bangs on the door when someone is, ah, "occupied" and yells NA! DA! MA! until he gets an answer

...when Wheel of Fortune is on, he pauses to watch, shouts out one or two syllables (BA), then claps with the crowd

... finds his birthday monkey, Bananas, and pushes its arm to hear "we love you kaden" and a bunch of his cousins' names. sometimes he just smiles, other times he repeats a name.

... when his "prayer bear" finishes its "now I lay me down to sleep", he echos the AMEN and then nods his head yes.

All this with mostly nonstop motion, as he loves to walk around and put things (like the remote) into other things (like the toliet). Or his sippy cup into the trash.... What will the next week bring?

F R E E D O M

If you're not familiar with the movie Braveheart, go watch it. We'll wait the 3 hours before moving on. Okay? Good. This will make so much more sense now:

We visited the Wm Wallace Memorial in Stirling. Nifty little place.

Nearby was Stirling Castle. We know a lot more about the various King James' now.



I thought this looked just like a play set!

Bonnie Adventures

Well, folks, we’re safe and sound if somewhat disconnected here on the British Isle. We’ve got limited cell minutes (gasp) and no internet at the flat (I’ll wait until you pick yourself up off the floor). Which means that the adventures we’re having aren’t translating into almost-real-time blog entries!

Actually, most of our adventures last week were related to finding some place or helping Kade adjust to the 5 hour time difference- neither of which actually photograph well. But then came the Ceilidh (Scottish traditional dance, versions in other celtic/british groups too).

We arrived a few minutes early. When the other students arrived en masse and saw Kade in his kilt... well, within about 20 seconds he was surrounded by gushing ladies and flashbulbs. I wish I had it on camera. He handled it well, pointing and babbling and signing autographs... then went to go talk to the band.

We did manage to visit the castle one afternoon. Very cool stuff, including legends about King David I... Can't you see how thrilled he is?

Delayed

It's 9.44 pm and we are in the airport instead of somewhere over the Atlantic.

The flight has been delayed- it's not taking off until 0015. That's 15 minutes AFTER midnight. That's about an hour before we were originally scheduled to land, if you're keeping track. Which means our delay is thisclose to being the same length as the actual trans-Atlantic flight.

I can hear the babe protesting Jim's attempts to get him to sleep. I'm 50 yards away, accessing the wi-fi. That sounds bad, but I was the one chasing the babe around the airport earlier, while Jim sat in one place and made calls. I still feel guilty.

And really, he's fighting so hard to stay awake (Kaden) (well, maybe Jim too)--- I wish I could communicate that really, there isn't anything interesting happening here little man. Save your wakefulness for bonnie Scotland.

Whenever we get there...