We’ve turned the coffee table (actually an old steamer trunk) up on its side and pushed it against the sofa. That way, Violet is not tall enough to climb on it… yet. Yes, the climbing has begun. I have visions of tiny bodies flinging themselves off countertops onto tile floors. The [...]
Posted in Parenting, sign language, Violet
First of all, if you read Rob’s blog you know that Violet has a new cousin. She’s no longer the littlest Lifford. Christopher William was born April 20th. We can’t wait to see them when we go to New York in July.
And we’re happy to have Tom and Andy back from Afghanistan [...]
Posted in family
I’ve started teaching again. Just 6 hours a week (plus 3 hours commute plus untold hours over-preparing due to my I’ve-been-out-of-the-workforce-for-a-year angst). So, a little extra busy. But it’s good to get back in it. My students are a couple of Chinese programmers who work for Dell. Their main concerns are pronunciation and communicating socially [...]
Posted in dual language immersion, English
When Violet was a sleeping newborn, her eyes would flicker halfway open and roll back in different directions as she dreamed. Kinda scary. So I called her Satan Baby. The name seemed apt once again when she started vocalizing her mamamaaa’s in a gravely voice stolen from “The Exorcist”. It’s a tad bit terrifying to [...]
Posted in Violet
What is it, you ask? Only the greatest product a hiker, photographer, hunter and/or bird-watcher could ask for. The TrekPod is a classy walking stick that converts to a tripod in less than 10 seconds. We like to slap our camera on there, since hunting is not our thing, and we wouldn’t know a whippoorwill [...]
Posted in Uncategorized
When we moved here, I was very excited to learn Spanish. After all, Korean is so completely different from English, and we learned to get by. Spanish would be a snap, right? Well, okay, so we can order our migas and cerveza, but that’s about it. Surely Violet will translate for [...]
Posted in Austin, dual language immersion, English
Yesterday we were standing by the car. I was fumbling with the keys, as usual, and dropped them, as usual. Violet calmly picked them up, walked to the door, and tried to unlock the car. Whoa. For some reason, this blew me away. Obviously she sees me use the keys every day, but I had [...]
Posted in Parenting, Violet
We were excited to start teaching Violet sign language, hoping that this kind of tool would help ease the frustration she so obviously felt about not being able to do everything herself all the time. So, at about 8 months, we ordered a book and video (Dr. Garcia of the giant mustache) and got [...]
Posted in Parenting, sign language, Violet
A local nursery a bit south of us held a festival on April Fools weekend. Violet and I met up with our friends Nancy and Evie. (Nancy is also an ESL teacher, Evie was born two days before Violet and Nancy’s husband used to work in the same building as Rob… insert Twilight [...]
Posted in Austin, Violet
