pictures!

(many, many thanks, nick.)
(catch you next time, singapore.)

oh, singapore

Here I am, looking very excited that my camera battery charger has finally arrived from the other side of the world:


















And here are all the pictures I've been able to take because of how well the charger replenishes the battery:










Not too pleased with the results, I emailed Singapore to tell them I'm returning the charger and expect a refund. I figured I'd just suck it up and pay the extra money for a charger that actually works.

I didn't expect the email they sent back. After addressing me as "dear friend" and making some seriously profuse apologies (I feel so sorry, so sorry for the item .), they said this:

can I give you my opinion for this matter?
in my opinion,I want to resend you a new one.and we will test one for a long time and resend it to you,then you don't have to buy another one.
and also I just don't want you feel dissappointed with us,
so can you give us the second chance?

please contact with us,if you have any good idea.
good day!

Normally, I would be seriously bugged (still kind of am: I've been without a camera now for a few weeks and my baby is growing!). But I can't help but smile about this effusive email's grammar. Almost makes me want to give them "the second chance."


And now for a picture taken by laptop:

to do

A few things on my list for the summer:

• finally finish reading Moby Dick
• take pictures of baby girl in the grass while picnicking in the park
  
• come up with a title for the novel I'm writing
• sew a baby-sized dress
• eat watermelon on the back porch while the sun sets

speaking of firsts

Last week, I got my first haircut (a trim) since the baby came. I feel like I should be a grown-up now that I'm a mom, but I found out that I still stink at salon small talk.

In an attempt to make conversation, I often end up asking stylists how long they've been cutting hair--not a question you can repeat at every visit. So, I've had my hair cut at lots of different places.

I really liked this last stylist, though; she cut my hair EXACTLY the way I wanted it done. But she had zero to say, even when I asked her about her kid and her summer plans. I left with questions: Am I not hip enough? Could she smell my conversational fear? And should I have her cut my hair again? Or just go back to cutting my own bangs and shaking my fist at the mirror when I cut them uneven and too short?

everything's new

Baby girl is still new, so everything we do is a first, either for her (first smile, first hike, first trip to Ikea) or for us (first time we've felt okay about another person throwing up her dinner on us). A few highlights:

• First day at church. We dressed her in the gorgeous blessing dress my mother made 16 years ago when my little sister was born. And when baby girl's diaper could not contain her poop, I somehow saved the dress.
  

• We took baby gummi to her first craft fair to check out pretty pillows and paintings made by two of the loveliest ladies I know. She got a sweet nap in the stroller. And I got a belt made out of ties that makes my post-pregnant self feel skinny (it wraps around me twice!).
  

• My first Mother's Day. My brother (who just got back from India) gave the best Mother's Day talk I've ever heard. I had little tears in my eyes. And the other speaker? I couldn't tell whether or not he was trying to make women in the congregation feel like maternal failures for not raising ten children on the frontier as second wives.
  

• First time I've been without a camera for this long. Apparently, ordering a battery charger from Singapore is a bad idea, regardless of how much money it will save you. Ever since our camera battery died for good two weeks ago, we've taken lots of pictures with my laptop. How did I manage to snap a picture of baby girl's smile with Photobooth? Let's just say it's the first time she has ever heard me sound quite so goofy.
  

magic numbers

More than one veteran mother told me that six is a magic number: six weeks of new baby and then life will start to feel normal again. We must be slow learners at our house because today marks eight weeks since baby girl joined us. But regardless of the exact number, those mothers were right. Today I feel like I'm finally catching my breath. Today I feel more like myself. Today I'm loving this motherhood thing.

we did it for the photo op

We almost didn't go to graduation. Reasons?

• We technically graduated 4 months ago, before Christmas break, when there were no graduation ceremonies.
  
• Cap and gown rental fees seem like a racket after you've already paid your four years' tuition.
• My husband often scoffs at pomp and authority (and so also, possibly, at "Pomp and Circumstance"). He initially didn't look forward to the fancy hats, color-coded tassles, and terrible parking.
  

But one of my favorite pictures of myself as a little girl was taken on my dad's graduation day. I wanted a picture like that for our baby girl. Possibly for tradition's sake. Or possibly to have proof to show her when she's a teenager (and thinks she knows everything) that she has smart parents. Caps and gowns make us look like we know something.
















Which is probably why I didn't take some of the other, non-smarty-pants pictures that I should have that afternoon:

• The mess I made when I didn't put the lid on the bottle correctly so all the milk we brought spilled in the diaper bag
  
• The spot where I would have gotten lost (on a campus I've known for years) if other people hadn't insisted I was going the wrong way
• Or the moment we had to break into the car because I'd locked the keys inside

I opted for the photo that makes us look smart, that we'll put in a baby book—which might be an unfair representation of everything we did that day, but reason enough to go to graduation.

last night, when I sat down to feed the baby again...

Him: Didn't you just barely feed her?

Me: More or less. She ate two-and-a-half hours ago.

Him: Wow. That went fast.


I couldn't agree with him more. I feel like I've entered a zone where time is accelerated—no, not accelerated, just radically altered.

For instance, I know exactly how many days this baby has been alive (29), and exactly how many days until my brother comes home from a two-year mission in India (only 2 now!). But my mom has often had to tell me what day it is when she's come to see how I'm doing. And I failed to wish some important people happy birthday—not because I forgot their birthdays, but because I failed to really grasp that it was April until 3:30 this morning. Hello, folks—we're almost halfway through the month.

She looks so harmless. Who knew she was capable of bending time?

someone's nesting. and it isn't me.

She's a bird. I've named her Molly. And she wants to build a nest in my dryer vent.













We hear her scratching around in there some mornings and then she leaves, which means she isn't trapped. Molly's smart: our dryer vent is the perfect place to build a nest. It's two stories up, with a little hood over it on the outside that would protect baby birdies from rain or sun. It's completely enclosed—and, I imagine, very warm.

Unfortunately, it's also our dryer vent, which means we need to clear it out.

But I feel a delusional sort of sympathy for her. I did some nesting of my own not that long ago. And I probably would have attacked anyone who barged into my little nest and destroyed my hard work. Poor Molly.

Perhaps it's a fitting tribute to her that we decorated baby girl's room in birds.

Pooped On

I've been pooped on. This week. So has K, twice. Changing diapers can be dangerous.

Our little bundle of joy has earned the nickname "squirtle" or "torpedo-girl."
I call this her Calvin and Hobbes face.
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