Iola is four months old today! She has the sniffles from all this chilly weather: it is now getting down to the 60s at night, and we only use the AC in the car in the middle of the day. I've brought out her sweaters and jackets and fleece pajamas. We might even invest in a heater.

Iola and I are both experiencing a let-down from our vacation and visiting-friend-excitement. John has his work to go back to -- to get buried up to the gills in -- but we only have each other for a bunch of hours in the day. It's nice at first; to slow down and get organized again about walks, naps, baths, playtime... but still, we both need a little bit more in the day. I put an ad in the paper today for an urdu-speaking nanny to come a couple afternoons a week so that Iola will have someone else to interact with and so that I can have a project or two. We'll see what happens. We also found a cafe right by The National where we can meet John for lunch. The vacation was especially good for getting them close again.

Remember when I wrote that Graeme Wood visited us? It was late July, a week before Iola was due. He'd just been in Afghanistan, and told us about spending time with the Canadian forces stationed outside of Kandahar. Now it's an amazing story in the New Yorker. I can't believe how brave he was to go do that, how brave the soldiers are every day, and the police force, and how close it is geographically to us here.

Back to Iola. She rolled over from her belly to back twice on Thanksgiving day, but hasn't done it again. I've heard that a lot of these early developmental milestones are two steps forward one step back affairs, and that seems true for us. She is not terribly grabby, unless it's something right near her face and she wants it in her mouth. She can't sit up, but really wishes she could, and prefers to be vertical, on a lap. She no longer needs to be bounced to sleep, but still fights sleep even when she's terribly tired, unless it's a party, or a road trip, or she is on a walk in the sling. She is experimenting blowing air through her mouth with her lips pursed. She hasn't made any consonant sounds yet, really, except maybe aaaarrrr, which she says to her fish mobile. If there is a lot of talking going on around her she will sometimes contribute her thoughts, moving her lips and sighing. She smiles at herself in the elevator mirror, more interested in the cute baby than in my reflection. When I sing to her and interject a lion's roar (quiet ones), she's scared. She is not scared of the huge halloween tarantula at the toy store in the mall. She's about 16 pounds, a dead heat with Jackson. These are some of the things we know about her now.


Another installment of my column ran today: Staying on track. I am supposed to turn in my next draft tonight...