We went to Austin over New Year's and had a second orgy of presents with Jim's family. The kids met the new puppy, who is 50 pounds. It took Jed most of the week to touch her at all. Gus was willing to play with her in the backyard until she started nipping at his heels (she is a puppy, after all). But he did enjoy telling her to sit from the safety of the other side of the gate, and would pet her as long as she was being held tightly by someone else. Jed invented a game called "throw the stick to the doggie from the safety of the top of the picnic table", and that was not bad progress, I think. Next time will be better when they're all older, but happily they could all coexist without terrible anxiety by the end of the week, and I'm sure the puppy was happy to have her house back!
We spent some quality time at Zilker Park and took the obligatory trip to Chuy's. Jed dug into the salsa. That kid will try anything. Jim warned him it was spicy, and he nodded, and then continued to tuck it in. I guess if you can put it on a tortilla chip it has to be good. We also took the boys on their first mini-golf outing to the charmingly sketchy local spot. No one was brained, and the boys spent about ten minutes dropping their balls into one of the more interesting holes.
As a reward for breaking a bad habit, Gus got to watch Jungle Book for the first time. I watched it with him in case he was scared of the big mean frightening tiger. But he was fine. The new scary movie was actually Curious George. I know, right? But there's a part where the man in the yellow hat sends George back to Africa and he's all by himself on a big boat in a cage in the dark, and Gus was petrified. We talked about it a bunch and he worked through it.
The boys had a blast being loved on all week, and by the end were lifting anyone's iPhone in the hope it was Granddad's (his has games; Mommy's does not. Put It Down). They were pretty spectacular on the flights home (two layovers so quick we couldn't even get off the plane). Jed and I toured the aisles a lot, and Gus plugged into his videos. The boys were wearing matching sweatshirts from their aunt and uncle and were much adored by the ladies in the flying public.
And then it was good to be home.
