The Twillight Zone

"There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone."

—Rod Serling

 Life is a little crazy around here these days. The first few months of Stefan, there seemed to be a new thing happening every week. Then we hit a plateau after the 7 month Teeth. Nothing major going on, more importantly, nothing new to acclimate to. Then all of a sudden, cool stuff again.

We started last week with some walking. It is so exciting to not physically move his legs! Also easier on mom when we practice walking. He's gotten so much better as the week has gone on and now we're working on speed a little bit. I'm so happy his socks have traction, so we don't need to get into shoes and whenever possible, he is barefoot. Baby (and adult) feet take in information about their surroundings (texture, temperature, if the ground is level, etc), AND Stefan uses his feet to kick and manipulate objects, so I figured I wouldn't glove them up in shoes unless it gets too cold. Most of the time he is very enraptured by his feet, and he forgets to look up, and bumps into things. He LOVES to watch my feet kick leaves, though the ground hasn't been exceptionally dry out here, so he doesn't walking in them so much yet.

Next cool thing is food. I feel so redundant (new movements, food/eating, sleeping, poo...what else is there, right?). We spent a night up in VT with our good friends, Lisa and Jamie. Lovely Lisa is a chef at a place that focuses on feeding women with special dietary needs....sooooooooo we were spoiled with some great non-dairy meals. Stefan was all over most of the food she cooked...eating smaller pieces than he has ever tried to hold, digging the curry (however, the gag reflex was working against him, spitting all his rice out), and though he loved the mashed potato, it still gives him a bit of a rash. He was all up in my food, seeming to really want to get into some solids. HERE is the super way wicked cool part: In preparation to go to Lisa's, I had eaten some bleu cheese earlier in the week, to test Stefan's allergy. No reaction, but I only had a very little. Well, we dove into more dairy in VT (not everything was diary free!), and still no major reaction. So last night, as we stumbled in just before Monday Night Football, Sean and I ordered some pizza, my first since April. So Good (!) and no reactions thus far! I'm so psyched. It seems like some dietary development just finally clicked.

Finally, another very way wicked super cool thing: Stranger Anxiety...or lets say his lack thereof. Now it could have just been the air (one of the cautious kitties were acting differently than anticipated, as well), but Stefan was totally into Lisa, and his new buddy, Jamie. He didn't do his famous "recoil", shared his gooey fingers with Lisa, chilled without me occasionally, and loved playing all his little games with them too. So I'm crossing my fingers, as many babies enter into their "stranger anxieties" around 9 months, that maybe we'll have already gotten over it. One can hope!

On a personal note...my week was total stupidity- like forgetting, missing, losing, lots of extra driving, dead dish washer, etc. Just one of those weeks that makes you want to get out of dodge and head to VT for a vacation. It was punctuated quite nicely with Sean's final Jetta dying in the parking lot of the Auto Zone...which one would argue was quite an advantageous place for it to die. It happened in the same parking lot, with the same problem with a previous Jetta only a couple of years ago. Among many other problems (windows that don't go down, exhaust leaks, electrical problems that made blinkers etc not work, no air cond., some cord snapping in relation to the starter...that was the same thing that went wrong on the last one) his car was so rusted that it couldn't be safely put onto jack stands in our driveway. Repairs were just too much and so the car passed on to it's final resting place in the dump. It's the end of an era (almost) as we only have one Jetta left...the original one, in pieces in the garage, as it has been pillaged to provide the subsequent Jettas with parts. Soon I'll be picking up my new Focus ST (new to me); a sporty 4-door with some very pleasant features.