Snow-bound

Ever since we slept in our gabled-roof Cape May bedroom this summer, and then in my parents' low-ceilinged attic at Christmas, I've had a hankering to hunker down (ed: hankering to hunker? hmmm) in a cozy cabin in the woods somewhere. So we're doing it tomorrow -- heading up to the snowy mountains to spend the night in a cozy cabin. Luke and I are both so excited we're practically ready to pop out of our skin. We're packing all of our warm clothes, we've borrowed snow gear from all of our more regular snow-going friends, and we're deciding which books to bring along that best reflect our snow/cabin theme. It's one of those quick, last-minute getaways that could either be great or a huge mess, but I'm thinking and hoping that it'll fall more on the great end of things.

Part of the reason we are getting out of town is that this is our last chance to get away before t-ball season gets into gear. Tonight we had an informal practice with our new team and we hosted a post-practice pizza dinner at our house afterwards (lucky for us - the practice field is at the school literally behind our house). The topics of conversation among the parents included, among other things, the fact that Dave was simply born to be a baseball coach. It's totally true. You should have seen him at practice, holding court with nine squirmy five-year-olds.

Funny story: Dave wanted the kids to do a little getting-to-know you exercise so he had them partner up with someone they didn't know, run over to the far playground wall together, and interview each other to learn their name, favorite color, and favorite food. So the kids enthusiastically ran to the far wall... and then somehow thought that their job was to interview other random kids on the playground. So they all came back buzzing about the new kids they had met ("I talked to a big kid - he likes the color blue and pizza!" announced Luke). Luke, by the way, calls Dave "Coach Dave" while at practice.

You may think Zach is simply a silent partner in all of this, but he absolutely is not. Here is a guy who literally had ten words at the beginning of the year and is now speaking in three-word sentences. "Mommy kiss Zach. Mommy hug Zach," he told me this morning, as I, well, kissed him and hugged him. And there are so many other sentences coming out of his mouth these days I can't even report them all. I just hope a few of them involve how much he enjoys the snow.