We are here in Big Bear with deko for a couple of weeks!
We're spending time watching soccer world cup in our cute log cabin, walking to the end of our street and into mountain trails after breakfast, and, at the end of the day, driving down to the lake for a walk with deko where it's flat and easy for him walk and where the kids can enjoy the beach.
It's great to get away from FL heat and humidity, enjoy early morning coffee on the terrace, watching sunrise over the lake and mountains. It's wonderfully chilly in the morning--but by 9am it heats up.
Stephen bonded with deko immediately. He spends a lot of time entertaining himself rummaging through kitchen cabinets and pulling spices out (we are keeping other things away from him). He cruises along the kitchen, along TV stand, along the fireplace, and now also, up and down a couple of steps between living room and kitchen -- we are showing him how to go down legs first instead of head first. We can expect him to walk any day now.
He giggles, 'talks' and makes funny faces all the time. Somehow he knows exactly when people around him are joking around and laughing about something, and he joins in with his grown-up sounding chuckle, 'heh-heh'.
When I hold him in my lap and he decided to grab someone's attention, he'll stand up, raise his arm with all fingers outstretched and call 'heeeeh'. I caught him opening a forbidden cabinet and yelled 'ne, ne!' He paused, looked at me, and said something that sounded like 'ne, ne', and then went back to rummaging.
One thing that he is overdoing, and I'm allowing it for now, is nursing. Since he is spending all this extra time with me, he thinks that it all has to be spent nursing, any chance he has, any time he is in my lap. I'll have to rethink the plan to nurse him as long as possible, although I never planned to go much longer than a year....
The big kids have been enjoying playing Foosball in the house basement, putting together large puzzles, playing chess with deko, walking with me in the morning up the trails through the forest, collecting pretty rocks and looking out for any interesting animals (we saw a coyote, falcons, woodpeckers, no snakes or bears, thankfully...). We were also able to walk to a local zoo where we saw much more of the local and not-so-local wildlife.
 |
| Morning gathering on the terrace |
 |
| Hitting the trails in the morning |
 |
| A brief pause on the trails |
 |
| Walk by the lake |
 |
| Deko, taking on the steep street on which we stayed. |
 |
| Stephen enjoyed eating a good potion of fish and broccoli off of deko's plate. |
