Where My Taxes At? (3 months old)

I can't believe it's April already. Masha is already 1/4th of the way to being a year old. It's really fun to see all of the changes and new stages she is going through lately (grabbing onto toys, blankets, my hair, whatever she can, and not letting go for anything; cooing Russian "A-gu's"; holding her head waaaaaaaaaaaay up during tummy time) but I already find myself wistful and nostalgic for her newborn days. Now I understand why everyone thinks they "grow up too fast"...I'm already worried that through those hazy days of sleep deprivation I might have missed something precious and worth noting and recording on film, and now it's irretrievably gone forever.

Masha is still growing like a weed and has moved on to 6-9 month clothing. She is almost too big now for her size small G Diapers and we have started using BumGenius pocket diapers, which I think actually ARE pretty ingenious. They are very easy to use and work well for baby-sitters, overnight and going out and about. One of our friends recently introduced us to another diapering method (or rather, non-diapering method) that she used with her children, Elimination Communication, and she planted the seed in my brain when she started using it with Masha for the few hours she has her in the afternoons...however, it requires infinite patience, which I do not have, so we won't be trying it at home consistently anytime soon.

I am currently enjoying my month long writing elective. It has been a nice opportunity to revisit my artistic side, since I haven't written creatively since college. A Writer's Workshop graduate is leading the course and already I have been really impressed by my classmates' writing - everyone is so talented! We are reading 5 works: The Year of Magical Thinking, A Far Country, Middlesex, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Mars Being Red, and then writing pieces inspired by the reading. I just finished Middlesex this morning and am still reeling from it - I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. I actually purchased the audiobook thinking I wouldn't get it done in time for the class discussion (it's 500+ pages long), but then ended up finishing it anyway because I just couldn't put it down last night. So I plan on listening to the audio in lieu of a second read, which I now feel is necessary to fully appreciate all of the plot's intricacies.

Thank goodness for the warmer weather lately - it looks like spring may have actually arrived once and for all. This year we have a lot of big landscaping projects we are hoping to get done, including a patio and a veggie garden. Yesterday was actually the average "last frost" date (50%) for Iowa City, but we will probably wait until the 10% date to get the little seedlings into the ground...more on those in an upcoming post.