Engagement with the world

We had a slow start to the day, enjoying manifestations of Madeline's increasing engagement with the world: for example, she was very impressed by her dinosaur night light (which once upon a time guided me to the nursery for middle-of-the-night diaper changes).

And she wrestled with her beloved music-box dog.

But eventually Summer removed her for what was supposed to be a moms' group but turned out instead to be a one-on-one pow-wow with a fellow Carleton alum -- well, two-on-two, really, as each alum had a baby in tow. Apparently not only was there much hailing of the maize and blue, but also Madeline seemed interested in her somewhat younger counterpart: more evidence of increasing engagement.

A brief out-of-sequence digression: the other day, Summer and I were fretting to one another about the prospect of Madeline's learning to crawl on our rather uneven wood floors. We recalled that we'd carted a rather large rug over here when we moved, only to deposit it somewhere in the basement; we resolved to restore it to its rightful place on our floor.

So, returning to today, while the female folk were out discussing the relative merits of Goodhue and Watson, I found the rug in an odd corner of an infrequently visited basement room, aired it out on the front porch, beat the dust and cat hair out of it in the yard, and set it on the living room floor.

Madeline seemed unusually willing to engage in unmodified tummy time: a good sign for future crawling.

Today's other major development was the arrival of Madeline's Ergo Baby Carrier, which works better for Summer than my still-beloved Moby wrap. Early polling was very positive.

Indeed, Madeline seemed to enjoy being able to snuggle face-first against her mother.

On a side note: check out those sugar snap peas in the right-most container!

Anyway, we took a walk up to Rochambeau, pausing for a picture near an 18th-century house (more history here) ...

... continuing over to Hope Street, stopping by the East Side Prescription Center for a bottle of chilled white after two near-80 degree days -- thank goodness for grandfathered liquor sales licenses! -- and then headed home.