The Family *roll

It has been a week of firsts. Eleanor started crawling, started waving (that weird, hand-folding wave that, for whatever reason, grown-ups use with kids. Eleanor now waves to herself because that’s what she sees. She doesn’t yet get that just as we wave to her, she should wave to us) and started saying “Da da” (she’s been saying “Ma ma” for weeks). She also figured out this week that she does not need to wait for us to put the cheerios we place in front of her in her mouth for her. It’s interesting to see the connection get made: for the past few weeks, she watched me very deliberately a) pick up a cheerio and put it in her mouth and b) pick up a cheerio and put it my mouth by way of demonstration. Nothing — it simply didn’t occur to her that she could pick up the cheerios and put them in her mouth. This week it clicked. Well, the concept did, if not the execution. Her motor skills aren’t fine enough to get the cheerio between her finger and thumb, the result being about seven near misses for every cheerio that makes it in. Her hands get wet (from saliva), which makes the cheerios wet, and so they stick to her palm, or the side of her face, or her clothes. Her complete failure to get the cheerios in her mouth doesn’t seem to bother her at all, so we just sit there and laugh.

Sadly, it wasn’t just a weekend of firsts for Eleanor. It was also our first week semi-substantial house problems. We came home from a lovely walk in 40 degree weather to find water dripping/trickling out of the light socket in our mudroom and a sizeable bulge of water-filled paint and plaster swelling  on our kitchen ceiling. After a brief freak out, we called our house-saavy neighbours who confirmed what we suspected anyway: ice dam on the roof + inadequate flashing = water into the house. Grrr. Fortunately, we were able to get someone to come remove the huge chunks of ice from our roof. The dripping stopped shortly after that. But now we have to plaster and repaint part of our kitchen ceiling. Fortunately, unlike the rest of the house, the kitchen is kind of junky  (it has a very poorly done, gray paint job), so if it had to happen somewhere, that was the place for it to happen. And we might use it as an excuse to repaint the kitchen. But goodbye plans for a new, fancy dining-room table.