Less than Twelve Parsecs

As of yesterday, Mara has evolved from a "reverse squirrel" to a "tri-dentis". That's right. She grew a new tooth! (dentis=tooth in Latin) She has had the front bottom two teeth going on for the past two months. Kinda like a squirrel upside down. They were the perfect tools to munch on corn-on-the-cob and peeled apples, because she used them as scrapers and shaved thin pieces of deliciousness. With the top left tooth peeking out now, we're entering a whole new era: biting through food. We'll see how that unfolds.

We got to visit Redding for Eric's wedding. Not only fun times with family, but pretty hikes all around. The day after the wedding we went to  Burney Falls . For the first hike around the waterfalls Mara slept pretty much the whole time on daddy in the Ergo. Babies get soothed so much by the sound of running water. The second time we passed by it on the way to the longer hike toward the lake, she was awake. She suddenly became extremely vocal. Lots of Aaaahs. We totally understood, Burney Falls are pretty aaaaahsome. dg  We found some time between hikes to let some wiggles happen at ground level. She discovered pine needles and couldn't believe how many there were around. She didn't seem bothered by them being pokey at all. Here's some snapshots from before the wedding. Mara playing in some dirt at the hotel. There was beautiful grass all around but she crawled to the edge of it and found the two square inches of black dirt. Some tasting was in or

These photos have been sent to us in a nondescript email entitled Pics. As usual, we will protect the identity of our source. We were not aware of Mara acquiring a drivers license, for all we know this was quite above the law. Based on her history on the record, Mara was likely behaving quite silly during the taking of these snapshots. She probably put on her serious face just for the instant when the paparazzi's camera clicked. We will report future sightings.

Mara sees the RIE table for the first time and immediately knows what's up  (see note at the bottom for details about this furniture) A few weeks ago we got a little kidney shaped table with tiny legs that are perfect for Mara's height. In the evenings Mommy and Daddy sit at the table with their food and after about a minute Mara interrupts her playtime and crawls to us. She gets to the table and pulls herself up, declaring dinner time. She sometimes does it with one arm wiggling high in the air as if dinner itself has an internal music that Mara alone is hearing. Then we sit down and chat and eat, each with their own food. We talk about our day, Mara mostly says "brooommmmh" and "dah". On Mara's side of the table there's usually a picturesque mashup of veggies that didn't make it in the mouth yet. We love this table, it's not really just baby furniture but actually for the whole family, as my mother pointed out. A few days a