crawling and cool kids

So...It turns out it was a bit too early to try cereal on Ellie's 4 month old, exclusively-breast-fed tummy. We had some interesting poops (I could go on in great detail relating it to food, but will spare you.) Her tongue liked it, however. Our eating adventures will continue at a later date.

Ellie's next big-girl adventure: crawling. While she isn't quite there yet, I know it will be any day now to when she starts those little legs and arms a-movin. Here's her favorite playing stance:

As you can see, she is propped and ready to go for the crawl. She pops her legs up and does this adorable little swaying-rocking think, like she's counting "1..2...3" and then she belly flops.


On a different note, I've been thinking a lot about social dynamics this week. After becoming a mom, and being home alone a lot, I think my awareness of people has become more sensitive. Sometimes, even in the 'grown up' world, I feel like I'm reliving middle school all over again. There's still the 'cool' kids that everyone else tries to follow and be like. It just seems silly. I wonder if God just laughs sometimes at the lengths we will go to feel like we are a part of the 'in' crowd.

As a new mom, I don't have the energy to even try be 'cool'. I don't get cool moms. Do they have magical cool-mom perfume to mask the smell of spit-up? Do they have cool-mom jeans that shrink them back to their pre-pregnancy size (or smaller!)?  Do their kids sleep 26 hours a day so they have time to do the dishes, laundry, finish 12 sewing projects and have their other cool-mom friends over for dinner? I'm baffled.

Then there are the Pinterest boards that all the single people have about stuff they are going to do when they become moms. You know, all creative and skinny and beautiful and organized...and definitely not sleep deprived. When I'm on it too long I begin to think I can be like that...then I look at our pile of laundry that's been sitting there for days that I haven't had the energy to do and am snapped back to reality.

Am I complaining?...maybe a little. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade the sanctifying work Jesus is doing in my heart through all of this for anything. But...it doesn't always make it easy. I just don't always like to pretend it is all kitten-farts and butterflies.

I thought I was cool once. It didn't work out well. Here is a brief snapshot of my issues in middle school, personified through my 8th grade yearbook picture. Yes, I crossed that line from quirky into weird.

Ug. I know. Gasp in horror. Or roll on the floor laughing.
It's hilarious the photographer found it necessary to focus the picture including my hair sticking out to the side.
And why, mom, do you display this picture with such pride on the piano?

Well... at least I thought I was cool. In that maybe-I'll-be-cool-someday way.

I sometimes think of Ellie being in middle school one day. I holding my sweet babester, who now spends her days caring about what she can chew on, and think - I am so, so sorry, love, if you experience hurtful things during those trying years. But I know God will use them to shape her and teach her and sanctify her, just like he's using these awkward, sleep-deprived days to shape my heart.

 Here's to being incredibly awkward, and to being done with being cool. Because in the end, there's only One opinion that matters.

a study in snack

After the Doc's ok at her 4 month check-up, we decided to get along with feeding Ellie a bit of oatmeal cereal.

Even though both her parents are avid lovers of food, I wasn't totally sure she would follow suit.

So momma...whachya making over there?

I'm suppose to do what with this?

OOOHH it goes in my mouth!

(inspecting spoon)
Its not too strange...

In fact...I think I even like it! 

Wait, you're gonna what? 

Hey, there's stuff on it now!

(nom nom)....yummy stuff....

MORE!

MORE!

Yup, I think we have a foodie-in-training.

you know when your'e a mom to an infant when...

Sometimes you put your baby down for a nap when really its you that wants one.

You get frustrated because, even though you're home all the time, the dishes and laundry manage to pile up anyways.

Having your husband home during the day feels like he's interfering with your work.

When people ask how you have been, your response depends on how many hours your baby slept in a row the night before.

When you think about how often you are feeding/changing/generally attending to your baby at all hours of the day, you marvel at the fact you can get anything done at all.

During their naps you start a fun project, and have to stop literally as soon as you start because that nap ended up not being long. Two weeks later you pick up back where you started.

Every shirt you own has also doubled as a burp rag.

In the middle of a long baby nap, you start to look at the clock and think, "any minute now...". An hour later you decide you should do something productive. Baby wakes upon the thought.

When you don't have your baby around, you feel a bit more sane because that half of your brain that is always atune to what your baby is doing at every moment can rest.

Every baby you see reminds you of yours and is compared to yours.

Your shirts are organized by a boob-access scale: 1 - no access (think, I can only wear this for 3, 4 hours max) to 10 - complete access (only wearable when you will see no one else for the day).

Even though you are with your baby all the time, when you leave, you catch yourself wondering 1. if your baby will have pooped when you get back, 2. how long it has been since their last poop 3. what color it has been/will be, as you enjoy your Indian curry.

No matter how many sleepless, screaming nights there have been or will be, you will do anything and everything for your little one. Your love and dedication for them knows no bounds.

two years.

Its been two years since my last post.

Two.

Years.

 Two years ago, I might have chosen to try and reflect on it all, to ponder for hours what I thought life would be like as a bright-eyed, smitten newly wed, how I never thought about having babies and being wonderfully-horribly pregnant, or what it would be like to be a crazy sleep-deprived momma, or how I blogged before everyone else thought it was the 'cool' thing to do...

 but I think it will be just easier to jump into life. Perhaps there will be snapshots along the way of the past several years, but there's just too much to unload.

Ellie liked touching the flowers. (in the future we might have to control this...for now it's tame I suppose)

Today our little family (Peter, Ellie, and me) ventured into a magical place for too short an hour - Como Zoo Conservatory. The greenery, the thick air, the memories of heart-felt conversations with friends, does something for my soul.

I see hope there.

Hope that the bare branches outside, the arctic air, cold death, leads me to forget. What? It can be over 40 degrees? There will be green things shooting out of those branches? What, we will be sweating outside again? ...its too easy to forget we don't permanently live in a frozen tundra. Its also sweet (torturous?) to feel the contrast of 75 degrees to -3 in a matter of seconds.


Here's to hope and new beginnings. To old blogs revisited. To lives re-reminisced. Who knows, maybe you'll even seen a poem or too up again.


Well...lets not get too crazy. After all, the dishes are indeed piled high, the laundry overflowing, the baby, crying.

That's another (LONG) post.

Well...things have begun to pick up! Now i'm a little less turtle-ish, maybe a little more grazing cow-ish? I definitely like to eat like one sometimes...mmm now I want beef...

I've been meeting with old friends recently. Isn't it weird when you tell someone that you're completely free (or a few people, I suppose), and then suddenly you are booked again. Like, can't there be some kind of consistency? Maybe that is my scheduling probably. But how pick can you be? "Oh, well I have to meet with someone the day before that, and just to keep my schedule open for other opportunities, let's meet two days from then!" Umm...probably not.

Although, I suppose that does allow for the many hours of Etsy-ing I end up doing every day. It's probably a horrible habit, and I've even begun to feed it monitarily.

And it allows me to go to the post office. There's something magical about the post office - I really love the smell of packaging materials. I love the feel of a crisp box, never been used, and the contrast of that with an old beat-up, well-loved one that's been used many times. I love licking stamps.

tbc