Grateful.

Thank you for these wet summer days.

We get to stay wrapped up in our house like a birthday box-- 

sitting at the table, eating eggs at 2pm and listening to the cd's Violet checked out from the library.  

I am grateful for this day.  I feel like I don't say it enough-- 

--for Tyler who makes oatmeal with raspberries in the morning

--for the healthy happy baby that smells like apricots and cotton.  

--for my work that sits and waits for me in my closet-studio, and I can put it down and pick it up whenever I want.  

-- for my girl that fills this house with curiosity and laughs and arguments that are surprisingly sophisticated.  

I am grateful.  

  

Summer musings

Hey, remember that summer when your cousins -- Big S and Little S-- came up to Whidbey?  

With crayons and stickers you made that box into a rocket ship.  

You three played fat-bat, and hit the ball over the bluff.

Later, you went with your dad out in the kayak for the very first time ever, and helped him throw the crab trap.  You dug clams, and found oysters.  We picked cherries.  It was grand. 

-------  

And hey, you.  The tiny one with the big smiles.  

Do you remember stretching out on a towel in the shade, on the beach with the aspen trees and eagles flowering the sky above your glassy eyes? 

And snug against mom's chest in the carrier, snoozing to the warm steady beat of her footsteps, out through the eel grass, through the tide pools, and the sun on your bucket hat.  

Everything was warm.  

Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, cousins-- all holding you, on the deck, in the living room, in the big chairs, and under the trees.  

 

3 Months Old

3 Months.

A milestone.
--Because they always say the first 3 months is just an extension of life inside the belly.
But now you're really here.  Cracking jokes, watching the petunias grow.
Now you've hatched, and the screen has been lifted, and you're seeing things, more and more each day.
Things are funny, like your dad pretending to eat your belly.
Your sister is fascinating.
We look right into your eyes and talk to you, and you focus in and smile this huge smile that almost lifts you off the ground, and then you reply in this rolling singsongy language.
You have found your hands to be useful for sucking on, and yesterday you rolled over for the first time.  I suppose you have places to go?
You scoot this way and that.  You spin around on your back like a turtle.
You are a jolly little thing.  Wide eyed at 4am, ready for a snuggle and snack, and then you sleep until 6 like any decent person.
Well done, Eloise.
And welcome!  Fully, completely, wide-eyed, welcome.
Our little sprite of sunshine, you are adapting to this world quite well.

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

PS: This one too (below).  I had to share, even though she is just shy of a month here.... amazing what 11 weeks can do!

To Dad, on Father's Day

My dad used to pick me up from school in our VW bus.  Sometimes I had a friend with me, or my trumpet, or even my bike, which I rode to school and then was too tired to ride home after swim practice--

Dad, with me

--The sound of the VW bus; the clutch; the ricky-tick engine.  And then the sliding door.  And my dad.  So welcoming and familiar at the end of the day.  He always let me pick the music on the way home, which seemed like an enormously big deal at the time.  

Dad, do you remember how you loved those Jewel songs?  And Eva Cassidy?  Ella Fitzgerald was your favorite of my phases I think.  

Then there was Ani Difranco.  

Well, dad, I wish always that I could be with you on Father's Day to give you peanut brittle--  Like when I was little and someone would give it to you, and you'd have that secret beautiful tin in your study for a week-- every night bringing it out after dinner, and we'd all get a little shard.  

Or we could watch an episode of the Cosby Show and laugh ourselves to pieces like we used to every Thursday in the 80's.  

I wish I could be with you tomorrow to tell you how much it meant to me when you came up with mom, when Eloise was born, and played billions of games of Sorry with Violet.  She plays it now with me, and always mentions that grandpa Eldon likes to be blue, and grandma Joy yellow.  I pick green and she's red, I guess because those other colors are reserved for you guys.  

Anyway-- Happy Father's Day.  I love you so much and can't wait to be on the island in just a week or so-- listening to you play the piano for my girls, and hear your fish stories while we sit and watch the birds peck the feeder.  

Mom, Dad, and Eloise

2 Months Old

Our Eloise is 2 months old today.

Happy Eloise. 

Peachy, pinky, fuzzy-topped, and smiling Eloise. 

Long drawn-out stares, resolving in smiles and chirps Eloise.  

Snacking, snuggling, squishy little love.  

Bunny in a footed sleeper, watching her sister buzz about.  

I'm so happy she is here to fill a room, my arms, my heart.  

One Month

Two Months

Exercise after baby.

Exercising after having a baby.  This is a new thing for me.
After I had Violet I didn't do anything for about two years.  Then we went to India and I carried her in a front pack around the streets of Chandigarh every day for three months, and got strong like a pack mule, and realized how much better physically and mentally I felt with even just a little core strength and endurance training in my life.  Upon our return home, I made it a priority to stay in shape and we started going to the YMCA.

So now fast forward.  Here we are nearly two months past having Eloise, and after taking quite a long break, I'm starting to bring the joy (and pain) of a weekly exercise routine back into my life.
Let me tell you, it is not easy.
I have already lost most of the baby weight, but for me that is absolutely not the hard part.
My body literally feels like it has been taken apart and put back together with silly putty and popsicle sticks.  All the muscles from around my joints have disappeared, and it has taken me a few weeks to feel like I'm not going to hyperventilate with every step.
Good grief.  I knew it would be hard but.... After coming home from the gym a few nights ago I was sitting on the couch, piled in a mess of sweat and water bottles and socks, trying in vain to get the sleepy baby to eat --and I needed her to eat after being away for over two hours (other mommies will know what I mean)...  sitting there listening to an overly-tired Violet go reluctantly through her bedtime routine (nightgown or pajamas?  I want to floss my teeth on the rug.  Don't brush my hair, daddy.  I want you to pick the book tonight, but don't pick that book or that book or that book....etc).
.......I couldn't help but ask myself, as I balanced my second plate of dinner on Eloise's head, if going to the gym is really worth all this hassle....

-- But the answer was simple.  Yes.  It's worth it.
It's worth it for 3 reasons that Tyler points out every time I sway about actually getting up and going.

1) It's worth it because it is pretty much the only time during the day when I get to just focus on my own being.  No one to hold, or feed.  Nothing to type or paint.  No one to write to.  Nothing to clean or read or fix.
Just me.  And it's so wonderfully selfish, in that way that selfish can be wonderful.
For just an hour I get to feel my knees and arms and stomach, and be lost a little in how everything feels.  It's like sitting down with an old friend.  Or like a therapy session, where my body is lying there and I'm next to it with a notebook asking questions-- So, how are the hips feeling today? 

2) It's a chance for Tyler to have alone time with Eloise, and for me to have alone time with Violet.  Even though Violet goes in the childcare place while we're at the gym, our drive there and back (which is a good 25 minutes each way) gives us some good time together to talk and sing songs.  Just the two of us.  It's horribly hard for me to leave the baby, but I know it's good for everyone.  Eventually Tyler and Eloise will start coming too-- and that will be fun, but for now-- in these early months-- it's been working out well to leave the baby with daddy, and drive away with my big girl and my water bottle.  

3) Getting exercise, especially in a fun group setting, keeps my spirits up.  This is something I really could have used the first time around.  A little exercise does so much for my mood and overall emotional state, especially when I'm with other people.  It's fun and up lifting.  I always feel like the cobwebs and dust have been vacuumed out of my head after a night at the gym.

So, anyway, long post.  In summary: going to the gym after having your second kid is worth the hassle.  

Rainbow Baby

I learned a new term today:  Rainbow Baby.

Rainbow Baby is a term people use when they are referring to a baby they have following a loss.
--Sort of like how a rainbow is a special beautiful thing that comes out of a storm.
Just pure happiness.  A bit of magic.  You wonder how it even came to be.
For a long time I've thought about Eloise in this way but haven't known how to put it into words; this term just explains it so perfectly, I had to share.  

Anyway... This week was big for our rainbow baby.  She's 6 weeks old now, and suddenly doesn't fit into her bassinet at all anymore.  She's growing like crazy, so we've transferred her into her big crib (when she's not sleeping snuggled on top of us).  Also, Violet has decided that Eloise is now mature enough to be read to.  So we have a lot of book reading going on, which is very sweet and actually quite helpful when I need a moment to myself.
BUT, the BIG NEWS is that we've started seeing some smiles!  REAL smiles (not just the accidental ones that come with farts).  She makes all these sweet little gurgle coo sounds, and then bends her face into the most wonderful happiness smiles.
I guess her constant eating and power sleeping has been put to good use.
It takes a lot of work and energy to grow a smile, but oh Eloise!  You've got a good one.  You bring your mommy and daddy and big sister such happiness.  You are indeed our rainbow girl :)