Keal Family Letter, August 2004

Greeting All Family Types and Others. Solomon here. Sorry about
missing last month's installment of our life. We were busy taking care
of our own new installment of life into our life. Here is a snapshot
of our joyous existence. Cirdan is doing well. Unfortunately he's
had a very bad diaper rash for the past month which is only just
clearing up thanks to a combination of Tirah's diet, new and better
paper diapers, and a magic minty baby-butt cream. But aside from his
rash and the fact that August has hit us like a breath of hazy, hot and
humid air, he's doing well. He's starting to see us more, and
recognize us as Beings. He is smiling a lot, and is insanely cute.
Thea just turned 18 months today! She's a year and a half already!!!
She is blossoming into a wonderful little girl. She is now walking.
It was really just after Cirdan was born that she decided it was time.
She picked it up pretty quickly and is now running around the house,
falling flat on her nose, getting up and running again. Her
vocabulary is coming along nicely. Aside from "Mama" and "Papa," she
has a limited amount of words that she uses, based on a few of her
favorite things. What follows is a list of her favorite things and
her own pronunciations of those things in quotation marks: Ball:
"Bah" (silent "LL" also pronounced "Mabah" which means "my ball"),
Flower: "Row-wah" (she absolutely loves flowers!), Moon "Moom"
(right now this includes the sun) Binky (Pacifier): "Didy", as well
as several others that I can't think of right now. She then applies
this vocabulary to just about everything she comes across. For
example: Fans are flowers. All plants are flowers. Anything
spherical is a ball, this includes apples and oranges. And of course
if it is a bright whitish ball of any sort, it is a "Moom." She also
knows a few sign language signs. She can say "Please," "Hungry," and
"More." She's also made up a few of her own like "Done" (vigorously
shaking hands), "Walk" (moving her hands up and down like feet), and
"Bath" (squeezing her hands together: based on me filling my hands with
water and squirting it at her in the bath.) There are so many cute
things she does, I could go on forever... but I must continue.
Tirah is doing well. She will be starting to work for Carl (Smith)
Hobson soon. He will be launching is own small business any day now,
and Tirah is going to do some office work for him. Tirah is very
excited about this and hopes that it will work out. Being a mother of
two is very different than being a mother of one, but she is doing
fabulously!
I am slowly but steadily learning how to use my music software. I'm
hoping to have my website up and running soon. I'm also researching
music schools that offer online or correspondence courses. So far I've
found two schools that look promising: Berklee Music School, and the
Audio Institute of America. Both of these offer diplomas for courses
completed, which would be great to have were I to look for a job at a
music studio. But most of all with the idea that I will start my own
studio.
Anyway... that's our life. May the Lord bless you all. Love, the
Keals (a family of four)