Two Out of Three

I've been living in Austin for about a month. Zoe joined me one week into the stay and Nate and I have been taking turns traveling the Austin-Dallas route, except for last weekend. We had planned to continue this arrangment until he got a job or the house sold. He got a job first, so he'll be joining us in two weeks. Pretty exciting.

The house continues to have regular showings (in six weeks, we've had about 30) but no offers. Our price per square foot is average for the neighborhood and we have gotten very little feedback so we're not sure if there's anything we should change. So we keep on keeping on.

Zoe adjusted very well to her new daycare. She didn't cry the first week and the new daycare peeps said something along the lines of, "if only they all transitioned that easily!"

She is starting to be a little kid now. Her babbles are starting to sound more like words and sometimes it sounds as though she's trying to repeat what you've just said. She also "brushes" her teeth, including pretending to put paste on her brush and tapping it against the sink when she's done. Good stuff.

She also continues to be very friendly, which sometimes freaks me out a little as a mom. Yesterday Nate was visiting and we went to a sushi restaurant for lunch. Immediately our waitress was talking and cooing with Zoe and I got the definite vibe she had grandkids. She brought miso soup and rice over for Zoe, "free of charge!" she assured us, and she kept making funny noises and faces at Z. Zoe was smiling back and seemed to like her so I moved her over so she'd be closer to the waitress and the waitress was off. She picked up Zoe, walked off, and began taking her around the restaurant. This is the second time this has happened to us in a sushi restaurant (the first was in Dallas), so I'm wondering if this is a cultural thing. The good news: eventually the waitress brought our child back, along with this interesting cinnamon punch thing I've never had before.

Other Zoe funniness: she has started picking up my shirt to poke my belly button, which she finds very funny for some reason, and she tries to give me zerberts on my stomach, but hasn't quite figured out how.

A first is that she flew with me for the first time last weekend. The exception to our Austin/Dallas trips was a family reunion in Oklahoma City. Nate drove from Dallas and we flew from Austin to meet him there. I was really worried about the flight. Among other things, Zoe has started throwing the occasional tantrum and I thought it would be a huge pain to deal with while flying. To make things worse, both flights required a connecting flight/change in Dallas and the return flight had a 3.5 hour layover in DFW. So, I worried. And ... nothing happened. She slept during most of three of the four flights. First reaction upon looking out of the airplane once we we were airborn: laughter. I think total crying time for the entire trip was less than one minute. I was pretty amazed.

During that long layover, I happened upon a little play area in DFW and I let her get some of her energy out. She had a lot of fun playing with some bigger kids, but made a beeline for a little girl a couple of months younger. Almost immediately she began hugging the little girl and then "kissing" her cheek. Zoe's kisses involve her putting her open mouth on your face and that's about it. In her new daycare, it's almost all little boys in her class, so Zoe seems to glom onto little girls who come into her orbit.

The biggest compliment I got was during the final leg of the trip, from DFW to Austin. We were seated between two beefy UT college boys (Zoe traveled on my lap). They kind of had that, "oh, great, a baby," look on their faces when we sat down. Zoe started drinking her milk, the flight took off and she slept until the landing gear startled her awake. She gave a little cry, I gave her her paci, and that was that. When we had taxied to the gate, one of the college guys turned and said, "she's so good." Since he's part of demographic that is probably avoiding babies at this point in life, it seemed like a nice thing to say.

I guess I should stop bragging on the child but the only people who read this blog are her grandmas so I have to keep them up to date!

Everything else is going well. I'm really happy about being in Austin and looking forward to Nate joining us so we can really enjoy the city (esp. without one of us traveling every weekend). My job is going well and his new position sounds like it's a good step for him. All that's left now is selling the house.

A few friends, when hearing the news that we were both trying to find jobs and sell our house in this current market, said we were crazy for trying right now. Well, two out of three big tasks isn't too bad. Just one more to go.