Friday, January 29, 2010

rewind

Okay, rewind to a month ago.  Just a quick, picture-laden post here.

Two important things happened over the holidays for us and I wanted to pass along some photos.  1) Juniper made a pivotal, unexpected move: we may have left home on Christmas eve with a fragile, wobbly newborn; but we returned after the new year with a hardened, traveled, strong-necked babe.  She smiled and laughed for all of her grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.  She has discovered the world!  We fully subscribe to the 4th trimester theory, and she is definitely now, officially, BORN!






2)  We went clamming with family again on the northwest coast--this is fast becoming an annual tradition.  We love it.  And we love how much our family loves it!  Good food, good fun, good company, lots of love.  



This year was another night dig.  When you bother to peel your eyes away from the beach at your feet, the sight is almost magical.  A whole beach strung with bobbling lantern light at the water's edge.






Back at the house, the boys volunteered to do the dirty work: popping, cutting, cleaning clams.  Lots of them.



::  Love the northwest.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Adult Days

I'm having an Adult Day.  Yesterday was too.  It's a day when all of a sudden, my happy-to-spend-all-day-changing-diapers-and-playing-with-plastic-rattles new mama self spontaneously combusts and all I really want is to do Adult things.  Like the dishes.  Or mopping the bathroom floor.  Or--for once--surprising my hard working husband by not only making dinner myself, but having it done before he gets home.





Arrive: the Middle Infant stage.  Our "super-mellow" baby is now an active, talking, play-until-I-am-so-tired-I-can't-fall-asleep child.  It's crazy.  It's like we're starting over with a brand new kid.  And yes, this one still sleeps through the night (I KNOW), but otherwise we have nothing figured out.  Our communication wires were unsympathetically ripped apart, taped up, then plugged back in to the wrong socket.




So now, while nursing, I am having to put down the first novel I'd picked up since the EPT test showed positive, and am returning to the Baby Instruction Manual.  






But this is how I get the Adult Day feeling to pass: I remember TIME.  And how it is fleeting, and how fast She is growing, changing, and do I really want to remember these early months as the time in my life when I Just Wanted to Wash the Dishes?  No.



Thursday, January 21, 2010

A year ago today

A year ago today two life-changing, world-rocking things happened: Barack Obama became President of the United States and one particularly unique cell began dividing in my uterus. The result today is this: a leader many believe to have the ability to change the world (but as my dad likes to say, they forget about the other 535 assholes in congress).  And, this...





::  J bug was born in October, and since November one, I have kept an almost-daily journal of our happenings.  Like today, on her one-year-in-this-world-in-some-form birthday, Juniper successfully grabbed her crotch (she's been trying for weeks).  Unfortunately for me, she managed this major developmental feat in the middle of a poopy diaper change.  Everyday holds something new.

But really, it's almost midnight and I just wanted to get this thing started on this date because I'm all about that kind of thing.  (Whoops, it's after midnight and the whole date-thing no longer applies.  Did I mention?  I'm also all about procrastination.)  

::  A note from My Man: some nights, cooking dinner requires safety glasses...