Less than Twelve Parsecs

It was Buny's birthday - Elena's mom, who is back home in Romania caring for little brother Mihnea. We sent her kind thoughts by chat, and some photos from that day to share how we are doing: She responded with poetry, lyrics she composed just then, looking at our photos: Here's the text, in both languages: Romanian original poem: Mulțumesc pentru urari Le-am primit cu bucurie C-au venit de peste tari Să-mi deschidă ușa mie! Gaius seamănă cu tine Bucățică rupta'ntreaga Și o carte'n mana tine Lumea sa o inteleaga Iar blonduta durdulie Degetele își rasfira Parca'ar vrea... Dar nu se stie Ce margele ea insira! Și-o mămică fericita Ce zâmbește cu sfiala Și-mi trimite linistita Toată dragostea reala Căci numai o mama poate Sa'nteleaga bucuria Fiicei sale departate Ce-a plecat din România! Dar în lumea asta mare Fericirea'i luc...

Gaius is a wonderfully passionate story teller. He will talk for hours, once he finds an interested ear, and the worlds he creates are uniquely intriguing, filled with characters like DinDin , and PowerMan, and Mover (who doesn't actually move!). This week we went to Lego BrickFest for the first time, and both older children enjoyed it: Darth Vader encounter: Casual until the real life storm trooper walked in, at which point all Tener children decided to keep an eye out (including Fae, who was making sure Gaius and Mara's backs are covered): and the actual photo with everyone smiling: Free-building architectural structures Glowing bricks structures looked gorgeous in the black light: Here's a random kid who loved Mara's glowing bricks creation and started playing with it after we put it down: Mass group project to make a Lego floor Mosaic, we built three tiles fo...

We're in the car, trying to go to our friend's bday party. Gaius and Mara went ahead with Greg, Fae stayed behind with me to get her tummy full and happiness up.  After a good feed there's nothing better than sitting in Mommy's lap, getting ready for a healthy burp. She's quiet and happy and with that genuinely full-of-milk face, eyes half closed, shoulders slumping to rest this little giant head onto Mommy's hand. The sun is setting on our left and the light is so intense that I face her carefully the other way. Do babies even know not to look straight at the sun? I won't chance it.. It takes about 10 seconds till all of a sudden her eyes get big:  Oh My God, it's full of trees! I can't take enough of the surprised look on her face, this is the first time she sees giant pine trees at sunset, against a bright clear blue sky. So I sit and stare at this baby, who is staring at trees. Just basking in it, because of this feeling that it just ...

When people ask how we're doing, I feel like answering:  Just wiggling through the house! Here's Fae bodypopping:

What? I can hold my head up now? This is weird. Whoa, that's something different. How did that get there?  Ooohh, the world is shaking... It stopped! It's wobbly again. This head thing is quite heavy . Two minutes later: I'm still doing it. Going strong!  Fist bump!

This morning Fae had some special quiet one-on-one time with Mommy and Daddy. Why? It just happened naturally, she looked awfully cute and sweet after morning nursing, so we just cooed at each other for a long time until Daddy walked in on us. He said: Honey, we need to pack . and naturally lied down in my place to coo with Fae instead, while I got up and started packing. Several minutes later Mara and Gaius excitedly walked into the bedroom of the chalet because they wanted to see Fae. She scrunched her face into a little frown, and started to prepare to almost cry. I say that so awkwardly, because it was how it happened, she never really got to do the actually crying, just that preparation to fuss and get upset. Greg changed her position and she relented. Or maybe she saw Mara's bright smile and was ok. After packing everything up and finally starting to drive to catch her early nap for the ride back, or friends texted us to say Happy Monthiversary to Fae! we had sillily forgotte...

We woke up in the new year to this wonderful image: Mara and Fae starting their decade together, and hopefully a lifetime of friendship and caring for each other.  In Mara's own words: Fae smiled her biggest smile to me this morning, bigger than she ever smiled before! It was this big! [and Mara smiled herself to show me how wide Fae's mouth had been] Then Mara asked Fae to "high-five" and patiently waited for a long minute with her hand out, as Fae was wiggling her best in every possible direction to try to hit it. Eventually, she did, and Mara declared victoriously: Her very first high five! She can high five now! Two more minutes and a couple of sneezes later we realized Fae does not do the cute post-sneeze "Aaaah" as much as she used to. Mara: She's more like us now! Gaius got up from his bed and joined us to see the fun: Fae was way too wiggly for Android's Night Sight feature to take a clear picture. After a few more in...