Picnicking

We have been enjoying our summer by picnicking at various parks. Elanor sometimes sleeps and sometime squawks. It's a little difficult to figure out what apparatus we need and what can be dispensed with. The play mat works pretty well as a sun shade and Ellie snoozes in the cozy moby swaddle. It is wonderfully relaxing way for Jonathan and me talk over the week.

Five

Last year, we spent the weekend on Orcas Island after discovering that the next year was going to be full of changes.

This year, our celebration definitely showed the effects of those changes, but it still had the unmistakable signs of the new happy.

Jonathan decided to work a half day and then come home to rest. We picked up Indian food to eat in and then went to see Toy Story 3 while Elanor did this with my mom:


It was a little nerve-wracking to leave her for that long but, of course, she was just fine and we got to enjoy our movie.

On Saturday, the three of us took a day trip to Whidbey Island by way of Deception Pass. The last time that we were here, we watched a boat towing bunch of logs through. There wasn't anything quite as interesting in the water this time although we attracted plenty of attention ourselves. At least Elanor was in the wrap most of the time so people were less likely to come up and try to pat her on the head. It also reduced the urgency of my entirely irrational vision of her slipping out of my arms and falling off of the bridge. We did have her hat with us, but after it blew off and landed in the roadway, I tucked it away until we were out of the wind a bit.

It was a gorgeous day.

We walked down to the beach at Deception pass, something that neither of us had ever done before.

There's nothing like the bald back of a baby's head to make a romantic picture, is there?

Elanor loves the Flying Baby move. She was laughing until I got the camera out to take a picture.

We introduced her to the little bit of sand on the beach by trickling it over her feet. Fortunately, she isn't into grabbing fistfuls of dirt and stuffing them into her mouth yet.


We stopped at a few places that we have never been before to see the view and give Elanor some time out of her car seat.

Then back into the car, a quick dinner at DQ (the only place that we came across at the right time--Jonathan was anxious to get to the ferry line) and a long wait for the ferry back to Seattle. A good day and a fun way to celebrate our fifth anniversary.

Two

Two year-olds are all the same-fascinated with scissors.

What? I'm not supposed to play with these?

Blueberries

We went blueberry picking as usual this year. It was pleasantly overcast in the morning.

Elanor did her part by playing on the picnic blanket among the bushes.

And by taking quite a good nap.

We saw this fellow curled up at the base of a bush. He was a little shy but just enough interested to look back at us instead of slithering off.

Proverbs 4:4-5

"When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,
he taught me and said to me, 'Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live."

How am I teaching my daughter now while she is the only one in my care?

Bailing

We are coming to the end of our dual income time and as we look for ways to keep our financial ship from sinking, we've introduced a new concept that we're calling bailing. This not only involves cutting non-essentials but also looking for ways to spend less on the essentials.

Now I may be crazy to try this in the PNW but as part of our bailing attempts, I am doing this:


After all, how many loads of diapers do I do in a week? Several, that's all I can say. Maybe this will help counteract the fact that we are keeping our house a little warmer these days.

The New Happy

Keren wrote about realizing how happy she has become to be Charlie's mom after their difficult start. This reminded me of something that helped me get through the first weeks of adjusting to a new family member.

We had planned and hoped for a baby for a while before Elanor came along. The first two thirds of the pregnancy was pretty rough. I know there were moments (bent over the toilet or breathing deeply attempting to not be in that position) where I questioned how worthwhile this process was. But when I started to feel her move around inside me, it became more fun to think about how she was growing and get a sense of the small person who was being nourished and sheltered there. I'm grateful to have had a fairly easy end of pregnancy and, while labor was long, I always knew that it was going to be a finite and relatively short period. I hope that I never forget the incredible high of giving birth with Jonathan and seeing Elanor for the first time.

Then we brought her home.

Now Elanor was not a hard baby. She ate appropriately (after the initial adjustment period), cried when she was uncomfortable or tired, seemed happy to be held and slept a normal amount for a baby of her age.

But as some friends of ours very kindly put it, even a normal newborn is hard.

To make matters a little more interesting, one of our cats had gotten himself into some serious trouble while we were gone having the baby and needed several weeks of close observation, vet visits (culminating in surgery) and special care. Jonathan took over this responsibility while I was in charge of Ellie-care. All of my imagining of special cuddle time with the three of us or chats with Jonathan while Ellie slept in my arms were blown away by sheer exhaustion and the separation of having to each care for different, needy creatures.

All of this, in addition to that lovely postpartum hormonal crash, created this sense of horror about our new life. We had been happy with just the two of us, hadn't we? What had we been thinking to change things and bring this new complication into our lives? Had we ruined everything?

The breakthrough came with a realization that birth is a longer and more complicated process than I had realized. Our old happiness had left and was irrecoverable in its previous form. I had hoped for a new kind of happiness--that of expanding our family--but I realized that I didn't really know what that was going to look like and even the glimmers of it that I was able to imagine hadn't arrived yet.

That time between the death of the old happiness and the birth of the new was much longer and harder than labor.

However, as my hormones started to settle down and Maxwell got better, Jonathan was able to spend some time with Elanor and me and we were able to have a few moments that looked just a little bit like the picture of our new family that I had imagined.

There is something wonderful about seeing your husband croon over his tiny daughter. It turns out that a walk through the grocery store with the baby asleep in the wrap can be romantic. Sharing your baby's first smiles is just as thrilling as watching a glorious sunset at the end of a ferry ride.

As Elanor and our family embark on the fourth month of this new adventure, caring for her has gotten a little more complicated as her needs and pace of development increase. But this is usually balanced by more of these moments of the new happy.

Getting up with her at night sometimes can be a special cozy time for us now that she smiles when she sees me and snuggles a little before I put her back to bed. It also helps that we're down to twice a night too.

Changing her diaper is a time for singing and finger games.

It only takes me half an hour to walk to the library and Elanor does tummy time even better outside on the grass in the backyard while I hang laundry or weed the flower beds.

Sharing her coos and giggles with Jonathan is as delightful as sharing a movie.

A casual date for ice cream or coffee is just as satisfying right now as a date for dinner and a concert.

And, of course, sleep makes EVERYTHING better.