West Virginia bound, with a few less diapers...

Doing a blog post is not on the "to do" list of essential items to get done before we leave to spend a week in wild, wonderful, West Virginia with my parents. However, sometimes there are very important things worth noting, and it feels like a week full of those!

As is not surprising for the end of July, we are deep into food processing. The things that have come out of the garden today include tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, beets, carrots, swiss chard, kale, and green beans. One canner load of pickles just finished and there is one more to go in yet today. We are enjoying onions and garlic that are all pulled now and there is basil for a batch of pesto here and there. There are potatoes to dig whenever we need more, and as always lambs quarter and amaranth are there for the getting when we want it, as well as wild blackberries that were the cause of me using up my last jam jars. The watermelon are currently tennis ball size and about the cutest things I've ever seen!!

But that isn't the main reason for this post. It is mostly that we continue to be in awe of our littlest gal. She did just as great on "trial day #2" this week. She took 3 bottles for Jason and was sacked out in his arms (see photo) when I got home. She seems to be growing up way too fast and various "new things" this week have made it seem that she is already becoming a little independent girl. She took her first bath with Kali this week which was a big hit, even if her Mommy was a little nervous as she became a chubby slippery fish in the bathtub.

And, as I mentioned in the previous post, she now goes potty like a big girl (okay, almost - she goes in the sink). However, I'm not sure we were fully prepared for her getting accustomed to this quite so soon. I was doing it "just for fun" as we had decided to not invest fully in the "diaper-free" method from the get go. However, after taking her potty for the last 4 mornings or so, she seems to prefer not going in her diaper when possible. This afternoon she has gone in the sink every single time I have taken her and also went for Jason. She has even starting rooching around in her circle seat or in my arms and when I ask her if she wants to go potty and take her, she gets a huge grin when I take off her diaper and hold her over the sink. Am I really ready for this??

So I better get back to the "to do" list so we are ready to take off in the morning. We will spend my final week of maternity leave in the mountains, hopefully resting up and also doing some fun, good work!