We’re back in the swing of things around here. What that means is we do about an hour worth of boat projects per day and spend the rest of the time wrangling kids, swimming, eating, playing, napping, doing laundry, and everything else that goes with it.

The boat projects at the moment are pretty minor stuff. Boat washing, fixing lights, checking ground wires, bilge cleaning, automatic bilge pump replacement, and the like. There are a million and one of these, and like mosquitos on a muggy Minnesota night, they just keep on coming.

Lowe continues his march towards independence. He stands up and tries walking all day long now. He’s up to about eight steps. Sometimes more, sometimes less. He does best when he’s got something in his hands. Ouest was the same way. I imagine all kids must walk better when their attention is focused on something else.

Today Ali and the kids went up to do laundry while I did some bilge work. When I walked up to meet them Lowe saw me from about fifty feet away. He smiled ear to ear and then started walking to me. After a few feet he fell to the floor and just started flying across it on all fours until he got to me. Seconds later Ouest saw me and her face lit up as she started yelling to me all the things I had missed in the past forty-five minutes. I felt like one of those dads just returned from Iraq after a one-year stint, and I must say that is one hell of a good feeling.

Ouest is still adamant about not letting us touch her hair. She’s also getting pretty darn forthright about what she wants to wear. These two things combine to make her look like a vagrant most of the time. Not that we care much, she is after all just two years old.

Today we were walking by a kiosk at the little mall and I pointed out some barrettes to her. And within a couple minutes she’d picked a pair out and seemed at least somewhat genuine in acting as if she really liked them. I put them in and immediately took her to the bathroom for her to admire herself in the mirror. She still acted happy, but I could sense the hesitation underneath it. We went home and Ali put on the big display of how adorable they were and how grown up she looked, and Ouest seemed to take it all in.

Then about twenty minutes later after the hullabaloo had died down Ali was in the kitchen and I was playing with Lowe when Ali looked down on the counter and spotted them. Two barrettes lying all by themselves off in a corner. They wouldn’t make it back in her hair today.

While Lowe is getting pretty good with his walking he does still have his moments. He took a fall today that seemed innocent enough but resulted in him looking as if he’d just taken a ring-filled backhand across the eye. Bruiser.