all is bright

We celebrated Christmas early with Joshua's parents this past weekend, a tradition we started when they moved back to the area and we were all balancing family commitments and work over the actual holiday (hint: I was the only one with a work conflict). There was a time when I thought maybe we wouldn't be able to spend the weekend anymore after having kids, but as Matilda gets older I couldn't be more thankful for the memories we are making here and for the way she adores this place. Joshua's parents house is comfortable to the point of mild sedation - a grownup's lazy wonderland of freshly ground coffee, thick napping blankets, homemade treats, and other people who are making sure Matilda doesn't slam her fingers in doors or gleefully lunge for the stairs. And Matilda is currently just smitten with her grandparents (she stopped saying Gamma and Boppa a few days ago in favor of the oh so logical "Boppa" and "Other Boppa").

This weekend, being away from home and celebrating Christmas with our family also felt like an incredible privilege in light of the tragedy of yet another gun massacre last Friday. I have not stopped thinking about the families of the children and teachers who are now gone. The despair that I feel just imagining Matilda's life ending in a senseless, horrific way is so deep that I cannot comprehend the grief these parents and families are experiencing. I am so thankful that she is far too young to understand what kind of violent world we live in. Her biggest problems are parental blockades to both snacks on demand and unlimited access to Sesame Street, and I will fight to keep her life that way as long as possible.

This gem is the closest thing we got to a family picture this weekend, at least on our camera. And it's a few days later and I feel both grateful and selfish over my relief that the three of us are still here and living and breathing. I'm thankful for this fleeting, precious time on earth in ways that I wish I felt everyday, and not just in light of horrific news. For the big things like our faith and this season of Advent and for the little things like after-bathtime toddler curls and gifts wrapped up in glittery teal paper. We are praying desperately for all of those whose families are no longer complete and who are suffering instead of celebrating this week. 

 Donations to support the Newtown community can be directed here, through the United Way of Western CT, or here, through a fund set up by the community itself. Lastly, a group of artists on Etsy are donating a portion of their proceeds to that United Way fund - you purchase from them here.

Remember when I used to blog? And we had that roly-poly baby with wispy hair who was just starting to eat solid food and a dog who was cancer free and a cat who mistook Matilda's flowery curtains for her own litterbox? That was fun, wasn't it?

I'm really not sure why I stopped writing here - it's partly that the perfectionist in me finds writing consistently and well a tricky matter, and partly that I like to use naptimes to either clean up my house or my DVR - but I'm back. Time doesn't stand still even for the laziest of bloggers so while I left you hanging right about here:

Both this stupidly hot September weekend in Minneapolis and all those sweet baby arm rolls have come and gone. We sat Matilda down to take her picture in the sculpture gardens and after a lifetime of near verbal silence, she suddenly burst out with her very first bababa and dadada. Six hours later she was burning up with her first fever and our drive home the next day was 7 hours of the saddest babbling I have ever heard from a child. Also, screaming. And crying (it was me!). Then suddenly it was fall, and then Thanksgiving and now it's the week before Christmas and we have a baby who looks more like this:

Oh HI! (Matilda would say if her verbal skills were anywhere near as advanced as her physical skills). Welcome to my room! Why yes, I do think I can stand and walk on my own and what? I just faceplanted? Not a problem, I'm extremely experienced in this area.

What else has happened besides the inevitable passing of time, the changing of the seasons, the rush of holidays, and the mind-numbing wind up to an election year? So much, and also not much. Here is the so much: Matilda slowly transitioned from her spastic forward wiggle to a decent army crawl and then suddenly perfected a wickedly quick momentum - no one was more frustrated by her plodding pace than Matilda herself and the second she pulled her coordination together she started darting out of sight in seconds. Within a few weeks there was excellent pulling up and standing, and inching along inanimate objects (and other unfortunate, animate objects - the animals hide now when she sets her sights on them). Now we have an almost-eleven month old who wants no help with anything, ever, still refuses to say mama but says "TA-dee-DA!" when she's proud of herself, and wolfs down things like fish and quinoa and pancakes. She loves other babies, waves at pictures of people, loves to belly laugh and play peekaboo, yet remains about as cuddly as a porcupine who is feeling threatened.

This is about as "snuggly" as our independent child ever gets. I am equally parts proud and terrified of her strong-willed self. It's all fun and games until there is talking and running and then I hear (from my mother), that it's just about keeping everyone alive until those higher cognizance areas of the brain kick in and elevate the child mind out of what is basically the animal realm. I googled it, and this happens in the late teens. So! Merry Christmas!

So much more to come now that I've revived the blog but I will leave you with this...

Just to keep things real.

Puppy Love

I had a little bit of a breakdown last Friday - I swear I'm typically a rational person despite what I write here - when I found a lump on my dog's neck. I sat down and promptly googled him into a painful bout of lymphoma that was certain to end in a tragic yet noble demise. By next week. At the latest.

I called Joshua to tell him that Helo was dying, per google, and in a move that I will remember with gratitude for the rest of my days, Joshua immediately left work and came home to take Helo to the vet with me. Because while Matilda may hog the limelight on our blog, our home is not only crazy because a certain seven month old would like to maintain eye contact with one of us at all times. We are also have our emotionally disturbed basement-only cat, whorish plump lap cat, and our handsome Helo to worry about:

I never had a dog growing up, but my grandfather had generations of hunting labs that I watched grow from clumsy puppies into gentle plodding old men. I remember the waver and huskiness in my grandfather's voice when he talked about his dogs that had passed on, the sense that suddenly he was lonely in a room full of family. And I completely panicked over this death lump because we love Helo in a similar way, in a way that does not allow Joshua or I to ever talk about his eventual journey to the beyond without choking up. In a way that turned Joshua into a heaving, gasping mess at the end of Marley and Me while I sat in the kitchen refusing to even look at the TV because my dog? My dog is going to live forever.

Helo was my idea, and Joshua gave in because a dog was sort of a consolation prize at a time when I was struggling through an isolated, dark place in my life. We walked into his room at our local posh little animal shelter (no really, the cats live in Pottery Barn baskets), Helo rolled right over for a belly rub, looked at me with his melty chocolate eyes, and I declared, "I want him!" I was signing adoption papers and handing over my debit card while Joshua was still slowly saying things like, "but..." and, "what if...", and I was all, "Yay! We have a dog! My new best friend!"

Aside from his long-standing feud with our mentally disturbed cat who has claimed the lower level of our condo as her domain (much to everyone's dismay) Helo has been nothing but sweetness and joy since we adopted him and he is now a patient, tolerant big brother to Matilda.

I'm not going to drag out the drama of this quick chapter in Helo's life, because he is just fine. (And I am crazy, but you knew that). Basically after a series of unfortunate events (the vet was closed for a staff meeting at 11:30am on a Friday - yes, that's great planning, I had to work at 7pm, Matilda didn't exactly appreciate the change in her afternoon plans), Helo got a lymph node biopsy, we waited on pins and needles all weekend for the pathology report, and despite the google death threats, he is cancer free. He has a reactive lymph node, probably from sort of little cold or maybe a scratch on the neck from his days giving swimming lessons and roughhousing at the beach.

Animals are tricky little creatures to love because your lifespan is so likely to exceed theirs, making those weepy ugly goodbyes almost inevitable. I don't think about it very often, because Helo is going to live forever I'm pretty good at denial, but oh when you are laying in bed trying to keep your rambunctious baby from swiping your pup's eyes out and suddenly you feel a big lump in their neck, it's hard not to let that cold sense of dread suddenly sweep over you. And I know there are far, far greater tragedies in life than losing an animal - I work with critically ill babies every day - but there is just something about a dog that makes your breath catch in your throat. Right? Dogs, and really all beloved animals, love us in the unconditional, unassuming, honest ways that we sometimes wish people would love us, and I don't take that for granted.

Maybe I will tone it down on the googling, and maybe I will try to avoid calling Joshua at work blathering about this being the end of Helo's days, but I can't really promise that either. I love this little mutt with all my crazed, emotional, overdramatic heart and I'm just so thankful that he is as healthy as can be.

Father's Day. What Do You Mean, It's Over...

My laptop charger bit the dust (more accurately, our dog bit it. It got caught up in one of Helo's chew toys and he happily chomped the cable right in half), which is why The Blogging halted to an abrupt stop at the beginning of June. This is Joshua's busiest time of the year at work, making his computer unavailable for the casual documentation of our domestic adventures (rude!), and I am pretty lazy when it comes to the ordering of the electronic things. Honestly, the lack of a computer at home was just giving us more time to devote to Words with Friends so we really didn't pull it together to order a new charger until this past week.

I didn't post on Father's Day, which wasn't meant as an affront to Joshua on his first Father's Day or to my dad on his 28th. I worked overnight Saturday, stayed up until late afternoon Sunday trying to make Father's Day great for Joshua, then turned into a weepy mess when the exhaustion caught up with me and my attitude started swinging from nearly hysterical to catatonic and back. Both Mother's and Father's Day were a little shaky for us this year - what can I say? Life was messy and tiring before we became a part of all the extra parental (long-anticipated, well-appreciated) holidays.

Even though I crashed and burned spectacularly on Father's Day, and couldn't pull it together to finish making dinner, let alone type this on my phone, I want everyone to know how proud I am of Joshua. And I also want to celebrate that I've been blessed with a dad who is strong, principled, and yet unafraid to show emotion and sentimentality. I was never spoiled and I am not a 'daddy's girl'. I was expected to face the consequences of my actions, and I certainly couldn't go running to my dad to get out of being disciplined. I wasn't punished mindlessly - I remember sitting on the kitchen counter, talking about what I'd done and why it was wrong and how my actions had disappointed my parents. Then my dad would make us all english muffins at midnight and tell me he loved me despite my bad attitude/lying/sneaking around/everything else I was doing and we'd all go off to bed only to repeat this delightful routine a few days later. I was always told I was loved. Always, even when I hurt my parents deeply, and there were a few years when that was what I did best.

No one parents perfectly, but I'm pretty sure books have been written to teach fathers how to raise their girls the way my dad intuitively parented me. So here's the best Father's Day gift ever - I'd like to say thank you to my dad for being strict. For having high expectations. For grounding me, both in the metaphorical sense and in the no phone privileges sense. Most of all, for just talking. Oh, so much talking - it made me crazy then and there's nothing I appreciate more now.

I hated the fact that my dad was less interested in being my friend during my horrid teenage years and more interested in keeping me on the straight and narrow path. But now my highest hope for Joshua is that Matilda can't stand him the second she hits middle school. Years later, when she can look back and see that his protective actions sprang out of a deep, intense love for her, I hope that she will also be able to say thank you. Thank you for ruining my hormone-addled little teenage life so I would grow up to have character and values.

(I think this is the parenting jackpot, right? Your kids actually telling you that you did it right. However, Dad, I will add that you went a little crazy with the TV censoring when I was little - I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have stunted my moral development to watch Full House.)

Joshua was terrified to have a daughter, but really he already shares the elusive combo of emotional vulnerability and embarrassing toughness as my dad. He made me start sobbing -unexpectedly, messily - when he started singing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" to Matilda the night we came home from the hospital. It was the very first song she ever heard (that wasn't the sappy intentional decision it sounds like; we were just too busy making sure she was breathing to ever turn on the TV or radio before that), and now it's their song. Thankfully I didn't have to weep alone in my postpartum haze, Joshua even made himself cry with the sweetness of it all. And oh is Matilda lucky to have a dad that will cry over her, pray over her, and put in the hard work to develop her self worth and self respect.

I know, because I am that lucky myself.

So hopefully this post can partly make up for the fact that Father's Day ended with Joshua making us both dinner while I basically snoozed into a wine glass. And the fact that I only sent quick phone pictures of Matilda to my dad, and we were never able to actually talk on Sunday. I am blessed and my daughter is blessed because we have wonderful fathers.

Happy Father's Day, one week, one day, and one new laptop charger later. I love you guys.

On Memorial Day We Drink Sam Adams

I read a certain blog pretty regularly, written by a mama who is far more poetic and sentimental and glass-not-just-half-full-but-overflowing than I am. She's also a photographer with gorgeous kiddos and a beautiful home. Despite the fact that she is very honest about the (serious) challenges her family faces, sometimes when I read her blog her life looks and sounds so magical that I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow she posted a picture of a unicorn sleeping on her front lawn.

Every once in a while the sappy yet completely sincere tone of this particular blog irks me. That's really not a criticism (I absolutely love the writing and the photos - and actually I aspire to be more in love with the moment and welcoming of unicorns), it's just a personality difference. Idealistic and romantic are probably not words anyone would use to describe me.

Right?

But we just had one of those weekends that was so perfect and memorable I felt like I was living inside one of her 'life is beautiful' blog posts. It made me want to bust out all of my flowiest adjectives and capture every fleeting moment in both words and photos.



Grinning, glowy little baby...beaming mama.

Matilda is going to be four months tomorrow, and she is just exploding with smiles, babbles, silly expressions and noises. She grabs everything and tries to stuff it in her mouth, she rubs her eyes when she's tired and looks so much like a kid that it makes my heart stop, she adores anything brightly colored, she's intensely curious and most importantly every day she shows off more of her personality. Joshua and I were home together for the whole three day weekend and every day with her was just...glorious (whoop! nice adjective).

If you live in Chicago you know this has been the lamest, chilliest, rainiest spring of all time (I'm not sure that's actually a fact, but I think emotions are really what matter when it comes to weather anyways) and then this weekend torrential storms suddenly gave way to a scorching and sunny Memorial Day. We tucked Matilda deep beneath the sunshade of her stroller and roamed all over the neighborhood, sucking up iced coffee and accidentally burning our shoulders because inevitably every year we are so excited for the summer we forget how quickly pasty turns to lobster in the sun.



It's quick, my pale friends. Quick.

Matilda's pudgy toes and buttery thighs have been bare since summer arrived yesterday morning. I think she has worn at least six outfits in 48 hours, partly because she is a drooly mess these days, and partly because I've been impatiently waiting to put her in sundresses and rompers and then my mind sort of exploded from how cute they all are. She runs her hands over her skin constantly, like she is just as surprised as the rest of us by how soft babies are. I love being able to see her big belly and the wrinkly, stretchy skin on her back and her fluffy cloth diaper booty.



What did we do this weekend? Really nothing extraordinary. We saw friends and family, we got take-out, we drank Sam Adams because Joshua said that was the patriotic thing to do (um...ok),we took Helo to the parking lot a block away that has become our lazy day dog park, we went to church, we pushed Matilda in endless loops around the neighborhood, we made a last minute trip to Jewel for hot dogs last night because I said eating leftover Chinese food for Memorial Day wasn't patriotic (oh yes, two can play this game). We used the last of our baby giftcards to buy Matilda a tragically large, bright, jungle-themed activity seat/exersaucer/jumper thing and the absolute joy on her little face made me heavily regret my aversion to plastic baby crap. Guess who loves plastic baby crap? Oh that's right...babies.



Matilda hollers at that parrot lineup like they have gravely offended her, and it is hilarious. We laugh at her and she just yells louder and then pauses to smile at us, which makes us laugh more. It also makes me realize again what a privilege it is to be a parent. We make so many decisions about what our babies eat, or don't eat, their schedules, or lack thereof, what they wear and see and listen to and that is the raising part of having children. Then there is the pure wonder of just watching a baby grow up and change from a sleepy newborn to a babbly, opionated, parrot-taming little human. It is really no less surprising than if we walked out to the living room one day and a unicorn was standing there all like, hey can I sleep here tonight?

Ok, I've killed it. I've killed the unicorn thing.

This long weekend really was gorgeous. Stormy, sunny, sappy sweet..glass full to overflowing. However, all the idyllic moments in the world cannot spontaneously improve my self-portrait photography skills. Apparently urban parents struggle to quickly focus their hipstamatic camera when they should be paying more attention to their dog and baby blocking the sidewalk.



Oh yes. We are those people. Watch out, Chicago.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful mom Claire!



I love my mom for so many reasons, but my empathy and respect for her have certainly increased now that I have a daughter myself. I think about Matilda growing up and I barely want to let her go to elementary school three blocks away. I know my mom must have felt the same way, but she never stopped me from plunging out into the world. When I came home from the trip where I met Joshua, I wrote her a letter gushing that I was sure he was going to be my husband and slipped it under her bedroom door because I was too scared to say it out loud. She never laughed at me or told me I was being a silly 19 year old - instead, she saved the letter I wrote her and gave it to me after Joshua and I really did get married. When I decided to move to Seattle from Massachusetts a few months after writing that letter, she never said it was too far, never made me feel guilty about the 3000 miles I was putting between us, or told me that the job I was moving for probably wasn't going to work out. It didn't, and I'm sure she wasn't surprised. But I found that out on my own, and that particular life fail was far more of a growing experience for me because of it.

I hope I will be a brave mom to Matilda, and let her go when she needs to go and I want to keep her close for my own selfish reasons. My mom helped me pack my bags to move away from home, she was excited (and probably terrifed, although she didn't show it) when I got engaged, she was supportive when we decided to leave Seattle and move to Chicago almost on a whim. She outlasted me on the dance floor at my wedding, genuinely thrilled to celebrate Joshua and I even though we were barely legal, totally broke, and blissfully stupid. But she supported me through all those things that seemed crazy at the time and have now led to the life I have and love right now. I'm so incredibly thankful for my mom and the way she navigated the tricky passage into parenting adult children. Our relationship is also a deep friendship because of it, and my greatest hope is that I will be able to be the same kind of mother to Matilda - strong, passionate,honest,compassionate - that my mother was to me.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day!

Easter

I've gotten behind on posting because I am actually tangled up in writing so much. I currently have dozens of unfinished paragraphs regarding cloth diapers, how bad I am at grocery shopping and meal planning, and my new role as a working mom. (Those are three separate posts, don't worry). I also have another draft that contemplates how Matilda will ever learn the benefits of sensible shoes when her mother is happier ripping her feet to shreds in order to Look Cute. That last one is turning out to be quite the metaphor for the future challenges of raising a girl in a sexualized and superficial world. So, it may not be done until she's twelve. Or ever. And then in the meantime Joshua wrote such a sweet post about showing Matilda the stars and now I have so much I'd like to say about what a great dad he is and also about how being in places where you can clearly see stars sort of terrifies my urban self.

But in the meantime, while I continue to slowly organize all these posts and random thoughts, such as the perils of using diaper rash cream on a cloth diapered baby (don't do it! It stains, and she didn't even have a rash in the first place. I am full of regret!) I also have Easter pictures of our little lady to share.



Here is she is after Easter dinner at Joshua's parents. We celebrated on the Saturday before so we could be at our own church on Sunday. This was also her only chance for an Easter basket, since we are cruel and realistic parents who did not go shopping for pastel-colored, developmentally appropriate gifts for a three month old with no concept of the holidays. That's what grandparents are for.



As you can see, she's so excited to head off to church and joyfully celebrate the Resurrection!



I think this picture is a perfect example of how Matilda comes by her nasty expressions honestly. I have no idea why I am making that terrible face. Matilda wasn't fussing and I'm not upset. Church was beautiful, she was smiling and flirting with everyone she could see, and when she started getting a little bored Joshua took her out so I could listen to the sermon. I even had enough coffee that morning. Basically, I have no excuses for why it looks like I am verbally accosting my child. Because I certainly am not.



We finally pulled it together for a family Easter picture,and yes, we did overdress the baby and then wear jeans ourselves. She is the main event anyways, right?

We went out to lunch with a group of friends after church, and Matilda spent the entire time sleeping happily in her carseat. She woke up all smiley when we got home, so we figured we would take a few more quick pictures of her first Easter (you know we weren't satisfied with those screaming carseat pics). But she had another idea, which was to vomit profusely all over her outfit and at that point we just gave up.

Despite the setback in overdocumenting our daughter's life, Easter was lovely. It's the vibrant celebration of our faith and of the promise that we have life after this life - something that I appreciate so much more now that Matilda is here. Easter is the perfect reminder that despite how easy it is to get caught up in what we have and want,we have already been given everything we need.



And this little girl...armwarmers, bunny hat, peep-toe socks, puke-covered Easter dress and all...well, she is far beyond what we need. She's like an entire Easter basket of Adorable.

Family Ties

We drove almost two thousand miles this week, and it was all worth it for this...



...the beaming faces of Matilda's grandparents, who haven't seen her since she was two weeks old. She is inches longer, pounds heavier, and an entirely different baby since they met her. It was also worth it for the quieter, poignant joy of introducing Matilda to my father's parents, her great-grandparents:



I am the oldest of their fourteen grandchildren, and Matilda is the youngest of their four great-grandchildren. There are only four years between the youngest grandchild and the oldest great-grandchild, so we are the beginning and end (for now) of a 26 year long family baby boom.

Matilda also met several of my mom's siblings and my cousins when we stopped in upstate New York on both ends of our roadtrip:



And she spent hours being held (wrangled, really - unless she's sleepy, she's more curious than cuddly) by my brothers and my Massachusetts aunts, uncles, and cousins.



These aren't even half of the family members who loved on her, snuggled her, exclaimed how much she looked like me or Joshua or one of my cousins, and treated her as if she was just known to all of us forever.

My brothers were laughing about how many photos Joshua and I took every day. Besides the fact that we love (too much? can there be a too much?) documenting Matilda's life, we are also having fun playing with our new camera's lenses and settings and seemingly boundless options that hopefully end up as glowing, gorgeous photos. But along the way to this emotional moment as my parents were saying goodbye to Matilda:



We also had some moments of rage against the paparazzi:



What can I say, Matilda may be completely immune to the shutter click of the camera, but obviously my dad was still getting used to it. I'm sure by the time we left days later he barely noticed it either.

Some people, like my brother Aaron, just embraced it -and he will kill me for posting this, but I don't think he reads this blog. Ha. So yeah, it was also worth the 2000 mile drive to see him in these girly sunglasses and scarf:



What a delightful trip!

Our Traveling Companion's Just 10 Weeks Old...

...and she's now survived the infamous drive from Chicago to Massachusetts that Joshua and I have made countless times over the past seven years. Literally, we tried to figure out how many times we've done the 1800 mile roundtrip, and we cannot. We've done it with friends, with our dog; we've left in the morning, at night, and a few crazy times Joshua picked me up after a 12 hour night shift and off we went. It's not a terrible drive, but it's long, not particularly scenic, and not the kind of experience that would inspire one to think, "yes, a baby in the backseat would really improve everything here." But it's shockingly cheaper than flying (it cost us $77 in gas to get here - we've never been more thankful for our little Prius), and it allows us to stop in upstate NY to see my Mom's side of the family. We can also pack the hell out of our car and not worry about lugging a carseat, a travel crib, and clothes for three people (plus my fear-of-flying emotional baggage) onto a plane. Really, once we get ourselves and our ridiculous amount of luggage into the car and onto Lake Shore Drive, we always remember how much we love our crazy cross-country trips.



Bonus points if you can easily spot the sweet baby all ready in her carseat at 5am Saturday morning, surrounded by said ridiculous amount of luggage. More bonus points if you don't judge us on the cleanliness of our countertops, which is hovering somewhere around Don't Eat Off Us, It's Just Not Safe.



I'm going to use this picture as evidence of what I've been saying to Joshua since we got pregnant, which is that this wonderful, incredibly efficient, one-child car will need to be upgraded the second we start thinking about number two.



We make a big point of only eating healthy when we are road-tripping.



That's a huge lie. We actually go all out with the greasy road trip food and excessive caffeine consumption (breastfeeding put a damper on this, sigh). What I failed to photograph here, out of shame and also complete lethargy, was a bag of Whoppers and fries, and just to balance out the sodium content, a pair of Oreo McFlurries that we had to have about an hour before we arrived at my aunt's house in New York.

But our biggest question was not how many bags we could squeeze into the car or how many calories we could stuff into our sedentary day. Many years of experience have left us feeling confident that the answer to both is: A Lot. We were mostly worried about Matilda, who is becoming more vocal and alert and opinionated about how she spends her days. And while she loves to sleep in the car, we weren't sure if she would handle an entire day of being strapped down without a change of scenery.



She was...a total rockstar. These are all pictures Joshua took when I was driving and he was sitting in the backseat expecting her to wake up on the crabby side of life - instead, she was all sunshine and miracles.



Incidentally, this is how Joshua was even able to sit in the backseat - we strapped all that junk into the front seat. Because it weighed as much as a large child, we literally had to buckle it in to stop the fasten seatbelt alarm from repeatedly dinging off. We travel so light and efficient!

Matilda did have a brief breakdown as we were driving through that All-America city Buffalo, NY (no idea what qualifies Buffalo as so apple pie, but there are signs everywhere proudly boasting this status), but she also fell back asleep quickly once we started playing her favorite tune:



Am I advocating that your baby is lulled to sleep by the Glee Warblers singing Katy Perry? No. Is it totally creepy to be singing "put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans" as part of a desperate attempt to quiet a hollering child? Yes. But for some reason, we stumbled upon the fact that this song puts Matilda into a daze, and for the road trip at least, we decided to just go with it. If you have a suggestion of more lyrically appropriate music for an infant, maybe in the male acapella style, we are taking suggestions.

One of the things we've always done on road trips is read books out loud. Technically, I read them and Joshua listens while he drives, which keeps him from falling asleep and me from noticing how much he tailgates, and all in all this keeps our trips from turning into a slugfest. We weren't sure if that would work out on this trip because we didn't know how much baby-soothing we could expect. But thanks to our sleepy backseat traveler, we made it almost a hundred pages into this new Bill Bryson book:



It's a little bit rambling, and I would recommend some of his other books more highly, but it is funny and informative and I'm sure we will get 100 more pages knocked off on the way back.

We decided to take this road trip now when Matilda is still wee, mostly so all my family could meet her in this adorable stage of life, but also because we were hoping a sleepy infant would handle two days on I-90 much better than a finicky older baby. I know we'll end up doing it again at that point, but the 'practice run' wasn't anywhere near as horrible as we'd expected. We actually had a lot of fun.



Which is why we ended up having the time and energy to take a million silly, artsy pictures of us driving, including the always important feet-on-the-dash shot. And the lesser known diaper-bag-on-the-floor shot. And the witty no-I'm-not-looking while-I-drive shot.

Oh, we crack ourselves up. When Matilda is old enough to realize that twelve hours in the car isn't actually the world's longest and most comfortable nap, we are probably going to annoy her at least as much as she annoys us.

PS: coming soon - pictures with Matilda's Gramma and Grampa, uncles, and about a hundred doting relatives. Also, Baby Care on the Road: We Can Cloth Diaper Our Way Across the Country.

Holiday Spirit

I absolutely love making our house look beautiful for the holidays. Some of my favorite memories from being a kid are the nights we spent decking the halls, the walls, the tree, and everything else possible for Christmas. My dad would haul our well-worn cardboard boxes full of ornaments, lights, and garlands out of the basement, and every year I felt the same thrill of rediscovering my 'favorite' Christmas decorations.

Joshua and I have amassed our own cardboard boxes and plastic tubs full of holiday decor, and it's all I can do to wait until after Thanksgiving to start stringing up lights and hanging up stockings. I've cheated once or twice when we were going out of town for Thanksgiving - just for the joy of coming back to a Christmasy home.

But my mom is coming into town this weekend, and we have never decorated for Christmas together here in Chicago. So we are waiting (patience isn't my thing, exactly) until Friday night to transform the condo into a winter wonderland.

It's making me crazy. Today I went downstairs into the storage room to just stare at "Christmas Corner", as Joshua calls our ever-growing collection. I tried to decide if I could just put out one snowman, or find one pine candle to light. At one point the holiday welcome mat I threw in the cart during our recent trip to Home Depot (again!) was actually in my hands.

I didn't do it. I'm more excited about having my mom here for all of it. And Joshua, of course. And Cari. And the zoo - the cats are relatively indifferent to the sudden glitzy changes in their world, but I think Helo is really going to be crazy over the tree and the lights and the ornaments. It's sweet and terrifying all at the same time.

Another terrifying - but really thrilling - twist to this years' holiday decorating is that our new camera should be delivered on Friday afternoon, just in time to document exactly what happens when a dog is confronted with a live tree in the comfort of his own living room. I'm taking bets on how quickly he pees on it.

Joshua and I took advantage of the Black Friday sales (from the comfort of our couch; I'm not much of a 4am crowd trampler) to find a great deal on a Canon Rebel T2i. I have less than no idea what I'll be doing with such a sophisticated camera, but I can't wait to start taking lovely, dreamy SLR photos. Even if it does takes me a month to learn anything other than the automatic settings, I'm just thrilled about how rarely I'm going to have to use the flash now!

Lately I've been feeling a little sore and a lot sluggish so the excitement of the holidays has been a wonderful distraction from that. As soon as this house is fully bedecked and bedazzled, I'm sure I will feel even better. It may be taking all the willpower I have not to start looping garlands down the stairwell right this minute, but I know I will appreciate the experience of getting ready for the holidays so much more with the people I love.

Pictures...shiny, beautiful PICTURES...to come!

Grateful

Thanksgiving has passed but before it's too far behind us I really wanted to take some time to mention what Joshua and I are so thankful for this year...

- The gift of each other. We are so blessed to have celebrated FIVE years of marriage this past May. I'm thankful every day that we met when we were so young and that we've been able to grow up together without growing apart. At our (granola crunch style) childbirth classes this past weekend, we were asked to share the story of how we met and fell in love. This was an unexpected detour in between graphic homebirth videos, and we were surprised by how much fun it was to talk about our wild little teenage romance. We've come so far from those first crazy months of long-distance phone calls, cross country plane trips, 2000 mile roadtrips and lugging our physical and emotional baggage all across America. Our life now might not seem as spontaneous and passionate as it did when we were 19 and 20 and writing (bad) poetry and running off to Chicago together, but it is so much richer and deeper and more fulfilling than I could have ever expected back then. Every day that we have together is a gift and I never want to lose sight of that!

-The gift of our baby. Joshua and I weren't one of those couples who have a few extra drinks, tumble home and fastforward a few weeks to a totally shocking positive pregnancy test. A baby was prayed for and planned for (and cried over, let's be serious) before this baby became a reality. It's hard to put into words how grateful we are that after that struggle, I've had an incredibly uneventful and healthy pregnancy and we are only 9 weeks away from welcoming our daughter into the world. I wake up every day thankful for her jabs and rolls and karate kicks, all of which take my breath away. Sometimes because a swift punch to the ribs hurts like hell, but always because it means she is real, and we are incredibly grateful for the intense experience and privilege of becoming parents.

-The gift of our jobs. We both love what we do. Not every day is a great day at the office or the hospital, and sometimes when things at work are stressful we forget to be thankful for our careers. (Last night when my patient's ostomy bag came off twice and she was screaming bloody murder, and my other patient decided to start hollering at that moment for a bottle, I would not say that I was particularly happy about my choice of poop-covered workplace). But when we step back and look at the people we work with, the experiences we get to have, and the fact that we do totally different things that are perfectly fitted to our personalities, we know we are blessed. We have job security, we have benefits, we have so many opportunities to be challenged by our work and make a difference in the lives of people around us.

-The gift of our families. We both have intact, supportive, loving and slightly crazy families who have been there for us every step of our lives. We're thankful for that every day, and especially at the holidays. This fall my cousin Cari moved from Massachusetts to live with us in Chicago (she sweetly shares her room here with our emotionally disturbed cat Hala, who would like to say that for Thanksgiving she is grateful we got her an extra human). Cari is hilarious and incredibly thoughtful and helpful and even sobbed at my last midwife's appointment when she heard the baby's heartbeat. Which of course made me cry because I can't overexaggerate how happy I am to have someone from my side of the family here after the six years I've spent 1000 miles away from everyone I grew up with. It's been one of the best seasons of my life so far.

The gift of our friends. We have great friendships that we've built over our almost six years in Chicago. Some of our friends here are actually my elementary school friends from Massachusetts that have migrated here over the years (yes I take lots of credit for this). Some of our friends are Joshua's college friends from the year when he lived in Colorado. Some of our friends are our college friends from here in the city. Some are our work friends, some have slipped in through roommates and friends and family of other friends, and all I can say is that they are all wonderful and our lives are so much better for knowing them. Joshua looked around the room at our baby shower last weekend and said to me, "I really really love everyone here." And we do.

-The gift of our home. We can say for certain that after almost a month of living in our condo (pictures are COMING SOON, I promise!) that this is exactly where we are supposed to be. It's both cozy and spacious, easy to keep clean, perfect for us and our animals and getting closer to being ready for baby girl. We have already made lots of wonderful memories here and I know there will be so many many more.

There are a hundred more things I could say (I'm thankful for my zoo! Joshua made me dinner tonight and just did the dishes! My fancy dream stroller is being delivered this week! I don't have any stretch marks yet! My mom is coming into town this weekend and I'm finally going to decorate for Christmas!) but I think the most important thing is to continue living our everyday lives thankful for all that we have been given. I know there will be years where things are much more difficult and don't fall into place as beautifully as they have in 2010. There will be times when we struggle in our marriage and struggle as parents and and as friends and just in general don't wake up as excited about life as we do these days.

So that's what this list is for - to look at on the crappy days when the baby is screaming and the cat throws up on the rug and the dog is chewing happily away on Joshua's favorite hat and the fridge is empty and I have the flu. We have been blessed with so much, and we are so thankful for it.

Home Sweet Home

In the eternity since I last posted, we have gone from this chaotic mess:

...to this calm new home:



Sorry for the pictures, our camera is currently MIA after the move, and my phone will have to do. I think the lack of towering boxes at least gets the point across! We are so thankful that the packing and moving experience is over with and thanks to so much help from our AMAZING friends and family we have been able to quickly settle in. Actually Joshua has attacked the experience of home ownership with a passion that is (while not totally surprising) very overwhelming. I woke up yesterday afternoon after work to find that he had spent the weekend completely organizing our two (TWO!!) storage rooms, the linen closet and the office area downstairs. He had also patched up a hole in the brick living room wall, fixed a bunch of things related to the heater and humidifier that sort of made glaze over when he tried to explain them, and he had scrubbed down the kitchen.

Before we moved, I made a big deal about getting ready for the baby, keeping things clean, and the biological drive to nest (I was whining a little ok), but I'll be honest - Joshua's intensity to make and keep this place nice has so far exceeded my own. And I can't even describe how great it was to wake up after 3 nights of work, including a 13 hour daylight savings shift, and find out how much he had done.

Then last night we went to Babies R Us to attempt fixing up our registry and it was at that point, surrounded by brightly colored plastic baby crap, that we both sort of felt like we needed a drink and we had worked way too hard over the weekend. He got to hang out on the couch with some whiskey, I "enjoyed" my lemon water and started a Countdown to Wine calendar, which ends promptly on my due date with this baby getting an eviction notice.

Watch, I am going to be so overdue. Anyways more pictures of the new place, more baby updates, and more blogging coming very soon!

Soon-ish.