As a friend of mine from Georgia used to say, “it’s hotter than a whore in church.”

The humidity is killing me, everything is so sticky and my hair looks like I’m going to an audition for Godspell.

At least Alex gets to have some relief from the heat.

It was one year ago that Heather and Nina made their way across the continent and brought the wee boy back from Guatemala.

He’s not so wee any more. Here’s our first annual, commemorative family portrait:

It was my objective to take this photo from the least flattering angle I could find. I like to make myself look as chunky and pear shaped as possible. Actually, I’m surprised that any of the photos turned out half decent. It was about 87 degrees in the house and I thought we’d all look like melted butter.

We’re back from our first vacation with Alex and, well what can I say about vacationing with a little kid…….uh…….hmmm……..it’s different. Technically, it’s not that much fun a lot of the time and the travelling part totally blows, I used to think it blew before but I was wrong, now it blows. I must say, never going out for dinner while you’re on vacation stinks (ok, we went out one night) and being housebound trying to get an overstimulated toddler to try and take a much needed nap is exasperating especially when you desperately need to take a nap yourself. I can’t blame him for being so excited, my mother provided him with a wonderland of toys and fun, it was very cute.

Perhaps the naplessness was the hardest as the days passed because his disposition became less and less stable as his exhaustion grew. We usually went to the pool a couple times a day because that was essentially all we could do and he loved it so much, but even that was cut short the last couple days as his fits became too frequent. It was a retirement community after all, the oldsters weren’t too psyched to have a screaming kid in their serene pool.

One morning we made it out to the botanical garden that my mother volunteers at, I finally had a chance to use my camera and took a pile of photos of plants and flowers. I have no real interest in shooting plants and flowers for the most part but it was better than nothing and I wasn’t sitting in the house listening to Alex scream in his crib. He seemed to enjoy running around the garden too so it was a pretty good day.

I’m happy that Alex and his grandparents got to enjoy each other’s company and have some fun together, that was great.

I’m so much more exhausted than when I left and I have no idea how or when I’m going to catch up. I guess I’m a little bitter, sorry, I haven’t had a vacation in three years. I’m just so tired.

Seems I’m spending a lot more time with my new video recorder than with my camera these days. My photos have been getting boring and I’ve been lacking inspiration so on to my new hobby I guess.

Too bad I’m not showing any real talent for video making, but to be fair I’ve only been doing it for a couple weeks there’s still a chance I’ll make some magic.

 I’m sure poor Alex is going to be the unfortunate recipient of more videos like this one shot for our own amusement:

Alex has gotten very used to me taking his picture constantly. It took awhile because my camera is pretty big and once I slap the giant flash on it and stick the Fong on top it looks like the most wonderful, irresistible toy. He seems to have fun now and will often even smile on cue which is good since we spend a lot of time taking photos together.

For today’s photo session I wheeled out one of my twin lens reflex cameras which is housed in a home-made contraption to make taking ttv photos possible. This gizmo was impossible for Alex to resist especially because while I’m looking at him through the top, he can see me in the lens on the front. We had a very good time and it was more fun than usual for me because I didn’t care if he put his hands, face, tongue or whatever all over the lens. Normally I have to flail around trying to avoid him gumming up my SLR’s lens, so this was great.

Anyhoo… here’s one of our super close-up ttv portraits from today:

The second parent adoption was finalized this morning. I’m now an official parent.

Photo taken moments after the adoption with our lawyer.

Imagine what it must be like to be given a simple balloon and have your heart filled with so much joy that you couldn’t even describe it.

How great life would be.

It was fun, although freezing cold, out at the duck pond today. I’d like to say Alex enjoyed feeding the geese and ducks but it actually made him mad because he kept trying to eat the stale old duck bread and had a fit if you tried to take it from him to give to the birds.

I got a lot of cute photos of Mama and the wee boy, but when it was time for a photo with me, what did we get…..

Yes, it was time to have a fit. There was no more bread and how mean were we for ending the fun. We’re evil I tell you, evil.

We distracted him from the ducks with a bridge and had some fun there until I couldn’t feel my fingers any more. When it was time to go, there was another fit and at least ten minutes of screaming and tears on the way home. At least it would seem that he had so much fun he hated it ending, it was probably worth the trauma (not to mention the 5 lbs of goose poop stuck in the tred of my shoes).

Well it was a day full of words for Mr. Alex. He was a talking fool and tried his best to copy words I was saying which he hasn’t really done that much of up until today.

He was all about “Piggy, doggy, mommy, cookie, cheese and knees” to name a few.

And, drumroll please, a bonus word for bluberd: