"a birdie with a yellow bill

hopped up upon my windowsill
cocked his shining eye and said,
'ain't you shamed, you sleepyhead?'"
-RLS


I'm a red belt! Which reminded me of that poem, because I've always pictured the "birdie with a yellow bill" as a robin red-breast. Though now that I think of it, I'm not sure they have yellow bills.

Getting my red belt tonight at karate was a very pleasant surprise. Getting a red belt is always a surprise, because it's the one belt you don't have to test for (just like all my other belts . . . j/k), the sensei gives it to you when he thinks you're ready to test for black belt. Tonight he had four of us brown belts perform Basai So, and then asked us to take off our brown belts. It didn't dawn on me until that point, but when it did dawn, it was a lovely sunrise. Somehow getting that belt tonight makes me think I might make it after all - two pregnancies, two broken arms, and I might still make it. I can't say it hasn't been character-forming. It's funny though, that my biggest reaction to getting this belt tonight is just a quiet sense of renewed hope, that it might all turn out alright after all. And that's a very nice gift.

And afterwards, Adam looked over and Fr. D. and said, "Sir, may I kiss my wife?" Granted permission, he did, and I felt quite congratulated. :)


In other broken-arm aftermath, it looks like it'll be 30-60 days till I get my license. Apparently it's now just in the ordinary DL application queue, and that's how long the queue is. So I MIGHT get it before Sam's born. :/ Still, at least it looks like it's all ready to go. I talked to one horrible employee (the first!) and then one moderate employee, and then one exemplary fellow named Phil who actually bothered to put me on hold while he found out what was actually going on, bless him!

I still haven't had anyone say, "yes, for sure, we have absolutely everything we need from you." What I've gotten is: "If we do have your payment, and we do have your application, it will be 30-60 days, but yes, the driver's safety hold is off your record." I'm trying to decide whether to settle for that or not.



Brie is talking a lot more. Both in the sense of babbling a lot more, and in the sense of learning new, real words. She's coming out with new words all over the place, often surprising Adam and I, because we didn't know she knew them. Last night she exclaimed, "Rice!" when she saw it on her plate. And today she held up the "x" in her alphabet puzzle and said, "Doss!" I thought she was saying "Josh" and didn't know why she associated her uncles with the letter X, so I started saying something inane about, "yes, that's the letter X, you can make the word 'x-ray' with it . . .", but Brie shook her head and said, "Doss!" and pointed at my necklace. Which was, of course, a cross. Enlightenment hit, and I congratulated her: "yes, you're RIGHT. It IS a cross. It reminds us of Jesus." That made her happy - communication established.

Adam mistook another of her new words for "Josh" the other day. Brie pointed to a skort she'd been wearing and said, "Jaff!" Adam asked, "Josh?" and Brie said, "Jaff!" and then made a licking sound. Adam then figured it out: the skort had giraffes embroidered on it, and we'd taught her (in absence of a better idea) that giraffes made licking sounds (eating the leaves on the trees, you know).

The other fun thing is that she's adding "s" sounds onto the ends of plurals. "Bubbles" is now "Ba-ba-SSSS" instead of just "Ba-ba" and her eyes are "eye-SSS". And she's mastered new phrases like "playdough ball" ("blu-doo ba") and, our favorite, "I love you", pronounced "I loo!"


-Jess