It's been a whole month and I've kept up a regular writing practice! 500 points to me!

Last week, we went to our first swim lesson. We had SO MUCH fun. And we learned about splashing, which brings a level of pure power-mad joy to bath time that I'm enjoying. It's messy, but it sure is fun.

We registered for a regular class starting in a couple weeks.  Between now and then, I might have to take the baby swimming at a community pool, provided this measles thing blows over and I get comfortable taking her indoors in public again.

Because I love a natatorium and it turns out swimming with my baby is just entirely too fun. I like to be warm in a humid environment. Bath house, Bikram yoga class, indoor swimming, summer in Kentucky...

Because I'm a crazy person, I wrote myself notes (in the form of an email to my husband) about how everyone else behaved, moreso than how swim lessons actually went.

It's important to observe the local customs. Also, they tell you how to behave and what to do during class. No one tells you what is considered "normal" behavior before and after class.

1) bring only the barest essentials
- baby, diaper, towel, own swim stuff, clean diaper. Not the whole diaper bag.

2) the change room is ringed in changing tables + there's a play yard. Also a play yard on the deck.

3) no one wears shoes on the pool deck. It is okay to bring the bag out there.

4) the lesson was a welcome song, then a song where we passed the babies to the instructor and she stuck their faces in the water, then some "jumping" off the side, floating in a pool noodle on front and back under a tunnel, tummy and back on a big piece of foam as a group, a trip down a slide, some free time and a goodbye song.

5) then everyone goes directly to the showers and rinses off. The showers are clothes-on, on the pool deck. No rinse before swimming.

6) then change and go home. All babies in hooded towels, on changing station with hoods on.

We were one of two lessons in the "small pool". I didn't see the rest of the place.

Three moms, one dad, but one mom said dad usually goes. Ours was the youngest but not smallest baby.

I can't imagine this is a novel thought, but, seriously, after trimming baby nails for a couple months, the cat's claws are a breeze.

This is being tapped out on my phone while the baby lies in her crib making dinosaur noises. She's due to be asleep in four minutes. I'm calling this a wind down period.

I'm approximately 14 inches away. She's coddled, at 5 months old, but hopefully not quite spoiled.

She has actually fallen asleep when I've done this, at least once, but I'm not holding my breath. She will fall asleep or she will start crying and the catharsis will help her go right out when I pick her up.

Could someone tell me why my generation (at least) has a universal thought on what a pterodactyl sounds like?

I'm avoiding a trip to the grocery store right now, and while doing so I have gotten so much done. Clean kitchen, various errand-y phone calls made, and so forth.

Partially, we are avoiding because I don't feel like going and partially because I feel like I need to keep my baby out of public until this measles thing blows over.

She went tears. Two minutes of mom cuddles and she's out. We don't cry ourselves to sleep, but we might cry on the way to sleep.

That was yesterday. Ultimately, we ended up getting Thai for dinner and then I ran to the store without the baby. We are still going for walks in the open air, but we're taking a little break from going inside places.

It was kind of unintentional that I took the weekend off of posting. But it rained and rained and rained (twenty inches fell fairly nearby!) and we stayed in the house. I made one trip out for some groceries I had forgotten on my last run.

We're still conserving water, because it's still necessary. That's how dry it has been here.

The baby seems to be nailing the back to front roll over. Previously, she needed about ten minutes to accomplish this. Then last night, my husband looked over at the blanket next to him where she was playing and was like "!! Did you flip her over while I wasn't looking?!"

I had not. I was in another room the whole time.

And then the same thing happened to me this morning. Independent play is important, and she is not normally subtle. She was seriously like two feet away and I glanced over and she'd flipped with a shocking degree of stealth.

This afternoon, I paid more attention and sure enough, she's just grabbing her leg and yanking it over until she's on her stomach. Silently. Barrel rolls can't be too far into the future since she can go both ways now.

Although, so far the back to front move seems to be motivated by her need to play with the plastic keys. The plastic baby toy keys are a classic for a reason. One of my aunts sent us some, and those things are POPULAR.

It's probably time to really think about play yards and baby proofing.

Things I love about my grocery store include that Wednesday when I was checking out with a very full cart and my baby strapped to my chest, three people helped me. They didn't even allow me to help unload the cart onto the belt. "You relax! For two minutes, just relax!"

It was really dead in there when I checked out, but still, they're just so nice.

This is the same place where the bagger would run and grab a cart when my pregnant self arrived at check out with a basket. He just couldn't deal with me carrying things across the parking lot.

It's finally rainy. I hope we're actually getting winter started. It's not a great day for it to be raining for me, personally, but that's fine. Rain! Now if it would just rain like this every day until May, we might recover from this drought.

This is where I note that we (I) somehow managed to fill my house with lamps the pets can use.

The cat set off the touch lamps in the bedroom just now while I was helping the baby back into her naps. He did it because he could see a spot on the bottom of his food bowl. It wasn't empty. He'd just eaten a hole in the pile and he could see the bottom of the bowl.

After I turned it off (three or four times we did this), he spent some time walking along the edge of the crib, picking at the mosquito net. I tried taking a picture, but a black cat in a dark room is not much of a photo. And even if the baby IS already awake, flash photography during naptime is highly discouraged.

The baby is back to sleep, the cat's bowl is refilled and the lights are back off. This wasn't nearly as bad as when he lights up the one across the room in the middle of the damned night. (That I usually put down to an accident.)

In the living room, we have a lamp with a foot switch. It's very convenient, except when the dog turns the lights on and off.

I stubbed my toe while trying to do too many things at once. I was brushing my teeth and the dog barked and then the baby cried and instead of deciding they could both wait the less than two minutes remaining in the toothbrushing, I walked into the bed post and hurt my toe.

Since that didn't cause me to stop brushing my teeth (and get toothpaste everywhere), I think I'm probably just fine. Still, it hurts and it's purple and so unfortunate.