first and last

First things first: let's establish which thing will be listed first, the first thing or the last thing.

I think last things first and first things … well, second.

First, the last thing: Benjamin had his last bottle of baby formula this morning — or rather, last bottle with any baby formula in it: it was about 1/5 formula, 4/5 cow milk. Nathalie has been transitioning him to cow's milk, tapering off the formula as we ran out of the last can of powder we plan to buy him. For the rest of the day (and from now on) it's just pure cow's milk. That feels like a major step to me. It's part of Benjamin's transition away from infancy: no more infant food.

Which brings me to the first thing, which is family dinner. For more than 7 months now, poor Nathalie has been preparing 2 dinners every night: first Benjamin's dinner, then later on a dinner for his parents. This leads to very late grown-up meals and midnight dishwashing. But tonight we all ate the same thing: stuffed zucchini. This meant that maman and papa had to eat dinner a couple of hours earlier than we're used to, but it helped that it was beautiful weather in Charlottesville all day, and we had a very pleasant dinner on the deck, the 3 of us.

- papa