This movie of Lauren dancing is almost a month old, but I just got around to uploading it.

The description on YouTube says:

Lauren was dancing like this months before she could walk. Now that she's been walking for a while, the dancing has gotten more involved: she spins circles, and puts her hand on her hand and revolves, and sometimes even puts one hand on a hip like she's doing a cha cha. Girl's got moves. This one is her dancing debut, though. ;-)

We're still moving, probably in October. The landlord is still planning to sell this place. It's a little stressful as we've lived here over 9 years (will be ten years in October) and I really like the neighborhood. Still, if we leave the house for more than a few minutes, then we're probably headed for Westerly. Moving over there will save us five or six gallons of gas and many hours of driving every week.

Corinne seems to be looking forward to it. I don't think it's entirely because the kitchen she'll be getting is thrice the size of what we have now, but that's probably a big part of it. ;-)

Business has been decent this year. Back in December, one client sent me some money to pre-pay for some work "to be decided." Work with Bare Bones has been steady, and I finally produced a working (though incomplete) module for YAML.

Shannon is no longer working two jobs. The second job, at a Hallmark (greeting cards) store, was paying minimum wage and only giving her 12 hours per week, so after a few weeks she told them she wouldn't be coming back.

Instead, she's going to school! She got Pell grants and various other forms of financial aid to cover almost all the costs of going to the Connecticut School for Massage Therapy. She started this week. It takes (I think) 18 months to get her certificate, and when she's done she'll finally have a real, employable skill for a job that pays a lot better than retail ever will.

She'll be about half done with her schooling when Mike comes home in January.

Thursday I went to court with her in Waterford for a "status update" on her appeal to get custody back of her son Richie. Richie's father, Dick S., decided to contest it. We went to the court thinking that she was going to walk out with custody papers, and instead all we know is that this is going to take longer than we first thought. (That's good, as we've asked Shannon not to rush this. We're already doing most of the work with Lauren. Neither of us mind that, but we're not ready to add another kid to the house.)

Corinne wanted pizza on Thursday night, so I was going to take Lauren with me to get it from Olympic Pizza in Norwich. Shannon came home from work early because (in her words), she "didn't feel like working," so she went with us. On the way, we had a talk about her relationship with Lauren.

Had very late second thoughts about posting the rest of this, so for now I've taken it out. Sorry...

My grandparents needed some help with "things," so Ellyn (technically, my aunt... Dad's sister) asked Corinne to go down with her for a week. Originally they were going to drive, but (thankfully) I talked them out of that idea. They flew out Tuesday afternoon, and come back on Tuesday the 22nd.

With Corinne out of the house for a week, I can't sleep at home. (Shannon's 21, her husband won't be home for another nine months, and I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea.) Since I can't stay at home, I suggested they take Lauren with them also. Shannon and I both need to work, but one of us would have to take the week off to watch Lauren full time if she had stayed at home.

Thus, my first tweet of the day, yesterday, "Woke up alone in a strange house in a small bed, far from home." (The bed was in Ellyn's & Gary's guest room.)

For most of the week they're gone I'll be working from home, but mornings from Thursday to Saturday are at Rich's house. He and his family are out of town, so I'm making friends with his gigantic, 30-inch Cinema Display and officially Getting Stuff Done™. In the afternoons I'm heading home again, going for a ride (weather is PERFECT this week), then working at home until late evening when I head back into Westerly for the night.

Yeah, I'm missing my girls. :-(

Corinne and Ellyn both report that Lauren was a nightmare on the plane down there. She screamed more often than she was quiet, and just wouldn't settle down. She slept great Tuesday night, but terribly Wednesday night and awoke everyone except Gramma. When Corinne and I last spoke, Lauren was screaming in the background.

I think my girls miss me, too. ;-)

Shannon's son Richie was supposed to be up here now for a three day visit, but that was canceled at the last minute. So Shannon is bored, but has Saturday off and is going bowling with her friend Jen.

Quick status update on Shannon: she is now working a second job at a Hallmark store, and can't seem to decide between starting a cleaning business (simply because her Mom says she could make good money doing it) and going to school for massage therapy (which is what she really wants to do). I'm strongly in favor of the massage therapy (because, as I said, it's what she really wants to do), but she also wants to get her son back. If she's working one or two jobs and going to school for massage therapy, there won't be much time left for her kids. I'm hoping she'll just keep on keeping on until Mike comes home in January.

Someday Lauren is going to be old enough to realize that not every little girl spends a big piece of her life in front of a camera. That not all of her little friends have their pictures posted on public web sites for family and friends — and strangers — to gawk at.

That not every little girl has a crazy, doting "Opa."

I hope this works out. I hope she grows up knowing that she's beautiful no matter how she looks. That even though not every picture is perfect, she's always beautiful.

I hope, in fact, that she can be the kind of girl who is confident enough in herself to be honest and comfortable with the camera, without posing. Like she does now. Not beautiful like a model, but beautiful like someone that everybody wants to love, someone who loves and gives freely.

She won't become that person just because my camera can't take its eye off her, obviously, but I hope it helps (thinking about the attitude of the people behind the camera). Confident, comfortable, happy, warm, and full of brightness. We're off to a good start, but there are big obstacles in her path...

Sunday afternoon while we drove up to Norwich to pick up pizza, Shannon and I "discussed" the fact that Lauren wasn't walking yet on her own. I said she'd walk when she was ready, and that it wouldn't be long. Probably this week.

After we returned home, she went down to take a shower, and I watched Lauren. Corinne joined us in the livingroom for a little while and we talked about it. Corinne agreed with me, and agreed that Lauren would be walking very soon. She sat down on the floor and we worked on it with Lauren for a few minutes.

Shannon came back up, and I pulled out the camera. "I think she's going to walk now." Shannon and Corinne sat down on the living room floor, but before I could even turn on the camera Lauren had already walked from Corinne to Shannon. D'oh!!

Not Sure About This

Ooh! A Toy!

Catch Me!

I Love This Here Piece of Floor

That Doesn't Look
Like a Carrot

So, these are not pictures of her very first steps, but they are pictures of her first steps on the day she first did it. Good enough, I hope.

On Monday I made a video of it, which you can see right here. It's very short, just 16 seconds.

(As always, if the pictures don't show up in email, go to the web site.)