Baby chronicles and stuff

Helena and I did venture out yesterday for a most glorious stroll. Well, I strolled. Helena slept in her stroller — for almost two hours. (Lots of babies out yesterday.) I bundled up before heading out, wrapping up my neck tight, but nevertheless my throat feels raw, just from breathing in the icy air.

The lake in the park across the street is still seemingly solidly frozen, but at least people aren't skating on it anymore.

Having nothing more pressing to do, we explored Le Valet d'Coeur, and I hit the motherlode of go manuals, one of which was based on proverbs such as "the bamboo joint cannot be broken." I'll know where to go when I decide I need to master the game.

And I got a close-up look of The Mystery of the Abbey, but decided I need more friends before I can justify buying it. The kind who wander 'round after dinner to share a bottle of wine and play boardgames. Interestingly, the French version costs a couple bucks more.

We did not find the Time Magazine we'd gone looking for. It seems all the shops around here stock only the Canadian edition, a different beast entirely. I really wanted to buy a magazine, but after much browsing I didn't. I've come to resent spending some seven bucks to be able to read the mere nine pages that pique my interest, leaving the rest mostly unread. I've added the cash to my novel-buying fund instead.

I filled in some more babybook stuff yesterday as well. I've made good progress over the last week, sorting out photos, filling in dates. I don't know that Helena will much care for any of this stuff, but I always thought it was really neat that my mom took notes on my development, and I find it really sad that J-F's mother did not.

It seems I overlooked a tooth. In my vigil for back "second" molars, I forgot that one first molar hadn't made an appearance. But it's there, number 16. I guess I can arbitrarily assign it a date, attributing one of those cranky days over the last two months to its sprouting. Four molars still not in sight.

Helena is not "off like a rocket," but she is walking and braver about it by the day. For a few more days I can think of here as still a baby and not yet a toddler. I'd imagined that those first couple steps would open a floodgate of vertical experimentation, but Helena's fairly cautious and studious — there's a look about her that she wants to get it just right.

On Boohbah yesterday a couple little girls were doing shoulder rolls before more vigorous swinging and jumping. Helena was quite interested. Rolling individual shoulders escapes her for the time-being, but she has mastered a shrug. Very funny.