The Number Field

The festive bowls were a present from Granny Annie.

For Independence Day, each of us celebrated the freedom to do different things. Last week I found freedom in working out--I committed to waking early, while Jenny fed Elena and got ready for work, so that I could go run or ride my bike. In a short week (on Monday I was at Scout camp) I went for two runs and two rides, including a longer ride on Saturday that took me through one Fourth of July morning celebration at a neighborhood pool.

Jenny celebrated her upcoming independence from corporate employment, as she finally told her supervisors and team about her intention to stop working at the end of this month, so she can stay home with Elena. They were understanding and supportive; I think that since several of them also have infants at home, they understand where she's coming from. She has three weeks left, which will be pretty busy because she's determined to continue to work her hardest. Nevertheless, she does admit to being a little bit trunky.

Elena continues to celebrate her freedom to explore the world by rolling around. When we pick her up from naps, she has always found a new way to contort herself inside her crib. Sometimes her legs are sticking out through the bars. Other times she'll be in the opposite corner and facing the reverse direction from the way we laid her down. She is also beginning to experience the freedom of solid foods. On Saturday we teamed up to feed her some rice cereal with a spoon for the first time. She really liked it and even laughed out loud a few times--perhaps because she has watched us eating so much, she enjoyed getting a piece of the action at last * .

We commemorated the birth of our country in the traditional manner, with a cookout followed by fireworks. Jenny's brother John invited us to the cookout they were having with several other families from their neighborhood. They all spend a lot of time together, but we only see them for holidays where food is served (i.e. the last time was Easter). Because of this, we almost feel like freeloaders, but on the other hand we did take some highly-regarded queso with sausage.

After dinner we went to the Red, White and Buda fireworks display. I tried to snag some free cotton candy for us, but the line was way too long. Elena watched the fireworks as if nothing unusual was going on--the loud noises didn't bother her at all.

* Several weeks ago, I did make an (unauthorized by Jenny) attempt to feed Elena some rice cereal, but I only tried one spoonful. After she rejected it, I abandoned my effort. However, I didn't clean up the evidence before Jenny got home, so she found me out.