christopher is a dad

And he's a good one.

The other day, I was putting baby girl in her car seat so we could go to Christopher's work. She complained and arched her back and made sure I knew she didn't like it.

I said, "You need to sit in your seat so we can go see your daddy."

She relaxed, turned to me, smiled, and said one of the four words she says: "Daddy." She only says words for things that she's totally in love with: doggy, chocolate (caw-coe), agua, baby—and daddy.

Our baby says out loud who's her favorite parent every day: "Daddy."

I can see why she loves him. He tickles her, he swings her around, he got her her own computer keyboard that she can pound on, rather than just telling her no when she tries to get her hands on ours. She knows, without doubt, that she's his favorite kid. At least so far.

I think he's pretty great myself. He switches off parent duty with me every other night, just in case our sweet girl gets up at 2 in the morning. He'll change the poopiest of diapers. He's protective of her in ways that I know will be important later in her life. And he makes life just plain fun when the three of us are hanging out together.

The other day, he said something about it being weird that we're just living our lives, doing our thing while this other tiny person is supposed to be getting a childhood. She's got Christopher as a dad, so I think her childhood is going to turn out just great.

a thank you note. you know who you are (i hope).

I made the baby write her own birthday thank-you notes.

I kind of suck at writing thank-you-notes. Not because I'm not thankful—just the opposite.

I always feel super grateful for and almost surprised by people's generosity. And, even though I love to write, I never feel like I convey exactly how appreciative I am. Maybe I should just do what my coolest sister-in-law did for me once and slip in some cash.

I would, but we just paid first and last month's rent on a new place to live. We're out of here this weekend. It happened much faster (read: 6 months faster) than I thought it would.

I'm grateful that Christopher found his dream job, that we get to live closer to it, and that we always find a place to live that's better than the last in some way (in this case, it's bigger).

But I've cried a few times this week. And I need to say thanks:

1. To the people who gave us wedding presents. Seriously.

While packing, I found a list of unfinished wedding thank-you's (which I thought my husband had conveniently "lost"). There are people on it who don't know how grateful I am on a daily basis, when we use our dinner plates, or our salad tongs, or our towels.

Thank you—almost 4 years late. I'm going to stop feeling guilty now that you never got a note.


2. To the people around here. I take a minute to feel comfortable in a new place. And the minute here took a lot less time than it usually does. I don't think it was really anything I did.

Like I said, I often fail at conveying the extent of my appreciation. Please know that's especially true this time for every single person I've met here since we moved in last November. You made this feel like home in one second.

Thanks. For every little thing. It matters. We're going down the road a ways, but I will always consider you friends.


3. To the people around there. I sure hope you're as cool as the people around here.
I'm going to say thanks in advance and just assume you are.

Kathy is a mom

Kathy put together a lovely brunch for our moms this year.  She gave each mom a bouquet of chocolate-dipped strawberries (she's amazing).  I told everyone that today Kathy cleaned the house and slaved in the kitchen, so it was just like any other day.  I almost got booed out of the room.

She rocks my world.  She keeps our house standing.  She teaches Claire Portuguese and ASL and sometimes English.  Claire can say "here" in Portuguese (aqui), "more" in ASL, and "doggie" in baby-English.

She's signing that we're "losers" because we haven't given her a nap.

It's just amazing that Kathy trusted me enough to take half of my DNA and make a little copy of the two of us.  I'm glad we chose each other.

Did you know that a woman can carry a child for nine months, suffer an excruciating labor for hours on end, deliver a perfectly healthy baby, and still feel like she hasn't done anything worthwhile?  Women are so weird.  But I love them, especially my two girls.

We need to celebrate the wonderful women in our lives, because they don't get paid for doing their jobs.  They don't get medals or honors for wiping snotty faces, potty-training, cleaning, and teaching.  They just get tired.

I feel like that guy who stands at the pulpit on fast Sunday, and tells his wife that he loves her.  What a lame-o.  Tell her, not the congregation.

I'll have Neal A. Maxwell finish this up:
"When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this."

Bittersweet

Claire started walking (with some assistance).  SWEET

I'm leaving my job, and the friends I've made there. BITTER

I found a golden ticket (got a job at a chocolate factory). SWEET

We're looking for places to rent in Provo. BITTERSWEET

it was a good friday

All Fridays are good, in my opinion. But Christopher got off work early yesterday and we went downtown for a capital-Good Friday choral meditation at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

We arrived early enough to watch the choir walk in before they disappeared behind the screen up front. I had missed the memo that it was a children's choir. Like small children.

Also missed the memo that they would sound perfect and other-worldly. Third graders are not supposed to sound like that. In third grade, I learned to play "Hot Cross Buns" on the recorder.

Our own little one wanted to join them. As soon as the singing began, she started her own little croon. And the acoustics in there are just as amazing for the congregation as they are for the choir. Her goos weren't particularly loud, but I knew that as soon as she realized the echo going on in there, she would let loose.

Also, I worried about her noise when I didn't hear a single peep from any other kid in there (besides the angels up front). Do Catholics know a secret for keeping their kids quiet that Mormons don't?

She didn't make it through the whole thing and we had to leave early. But we didn't mind. There was just something Good about walking around downtown on a spring afternoon with a one-year-old who wasn't embarrassed or nervous for one second about reaching her arms up to a vaulted cathedral ceiling and singing, "Oooh, oooooooh."

we're all growing up: an update

I swear baby girl grew up during her nap today—like she was a baby when I tucked her in and two hours later, she was taller, older: a little girl.

I'm not nostalgic (she's not THAT grown up: she doesn't walk yet and hasn't yet mastered the physics of spoons). I'm just realizing that every day is a serious gift.

We're trying to take advantage of those gifts in our own ways. A quick update:

Our not-so-baby girl recently conquered an ear infection and her fear of strangers while expanding her sign language vocabulary and capacity for at-home destruction.

Her dad sold his Xbox and used his freed-up time to start two new blogs, study for the GRE, and take up Arabic classes again.

Her mom wrote drafts of two new stories, read six books this month, and had a tickle-fest this afternoon with a certain baby who grew up so much during her nap that she can now put on her own sunglasses, thank you very much.

We're excited she's growing. We just hope she doesn't grow up so fast that she's a teenager by tomorrow morning.

sometimes i'm a lazy copycat

Between ear infections (baby girl's) and laziness (mine), our little blog has been neglected. Lots of things are going on, but I'm not sure how much or how little you want to hear, as I'm now one of those people who thinks too often about the regularity and consistency of someone else's poop.
    
While I think on that and figure out what I'm doing, I'll leave you with this great idea I copy-catted from my cousin: a 52-photo book. 

It's easy to take lots of baby pictures, but mom and dad sometimes don't make it into the frame. So, for the last year, I've made sure we take at least one picture of our baby girl with her mom or dad—ideally, some photos of both—every single week. I printed out my favorites (ended up as 200, not 52) and put them in a book that documents her first year with all three of us together. And now I'm in the habit of taking pictures of the family, not just her. Instead of posting all 200 here, I'll opt for two favorites:























Yeah, I'll probably just keep blogging about that girl. Even her poop is the cutest.

beware the ides of march

You might just die from a whole year's worth of cuteness:


 Happy March 15th, everyone. And to you, sweetie baby, happy birthday.

a mom hangover

Baby girl and I got sick last week (simultaneously gross and wonderful: baby girl barfed everywhere and then just wanted to snuggle in my lap while I watched tv).

The stomach flu messed with our sleep schedule. Baby girl's back to waking up every two hours—just like a newborn. How on Earth did we function back then? I get up in the morning with a thrumming head and burning eyes. And everything that Christopher does while he's getting ready for work is SO LOUD. He says I have a mom hangover.

Which is fine. I so expected lack of sleep to be part of parenthood that I even wrote an essay about insomnia and mothers while I was pregnant (during which I discovered an incurable form of insomnia that's only made worse by sleeping pills, for real).

A lot of other things have happened around here—I had a birthday, we went snowshoeing for Valentine's Day, Christopher downloaded every free book he's ever wanted onto his new Kindle—and maybe I'll blog about them. But right now, I'll leave you with a picture of the cutest girl I've ever met and then I'm going to bed early. It's the best plan on a day you go to get your hair cut and fall asleep while your hair is being shampooed.

dinosaur burritos and parenthood

 












This might look like another braggy felting post. I'll own it—it kind of is. A three-year-old we know was having a dinosaur birthday party and how could I NOT make him a little brontosaurus with purple dots on the bum?

 But I've been thinking about more than just bragging: After I finished making the dinosaurs and their lake and berry bushes, I rolled them up in their felty home like a burrito and wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper.  

A few days later, I heard that instead of giving the dinosaurs drinks from the lake, or making them fight each other, or any other thing I imagined he might do with them, this adorable kid kept rolling up the dinosaurs and unrolling them—like, what else would you do with them, really? I think that's adorable. And it's one more tiny image I can tuck away in my brain to remind myself of something I keep needing to learn. . .

I don't feel like I adjusted to motherhood very gracefully (and if you ask my husband about our conversation on Sunday, you might get him to admit that I still haven't). I love it, but I keep forgetting that kids put a spin on life that you wouldn't have thought up on your own.

Which is awesome sometimes. Like last night, I made my baby girl laugh so hard she snorted and fell over just because I turned my face every time she touched my cheek. I'm not funny, so it was weird to make someone laugh so hard by doing basically nothing.

Other times, it's not so awesome. Life is a bit confusing for people whose teeth are just coming in, or just falling out, who haven't yet figured out how to walk or read or use the toilet. Babies want to suck on batteries when they have a pile of toys (how on EARTH did she find one when all the batteries are locked away?). Or kids do things mine isn't even old enough to think of yet—like draw with rocks on cars, or microwave their barbies.    

I'm not so good at rolling with punches, but turns out, neither are they! They fall down and do dumb things and don't know how to fix them. Parenthood involves witnessing and assisting in that learning curve—and hopefully doing both with kindness and a semblance of composure. Maybe this won't sound helpful or even make sense to you, but I the next time I feel baffled and all my plans thwarted by the littlest person in my life, I'll try to remind myself to think of things a little differently—to just roll me up some dinosaurs.