The Art in Life

These are the things making me really happy these days.

This video is the happiest thing on the Internet right now. I WANT TO BE IN THAT CAR SO BADLY.

But a confession from a related video: I am the last person on earth to still have not listened to Hamilton. It is almost a badge of pride, like James insisting that he wants to be the last person alive to have not seen Avatar. In this case though, I’m sure I will love it, so I am saving it for a moment when I really need the sort of life boost that only a new Broadway love can deliver.

The “Jam Session” and “Bachelorette Party” podcasts on Channel 33. I mean, I’m still mourning the loss of the dynamic Juliette-Jacobi duo and Food News, but I am warming to Amanda and the pop culture recap.

How to understand Brexit as an American.

Thanks for your Instagram input– I went with these sandals! The others had awesome sole support, but the straps rubbed and I cannot handle blisters.

We are in the best fruit season right now with peaches, nectarines, and cherries filling the aisles. It makes me crave this cherry goat cheese salad and this peach pie.

This face. I am excited for him to get to the smiley baby stage, but honestly, this grumpy old man stage is the cutest. He is like a disgruntled ginger Winston Churchill all the time and I LOVE IT.

What’s making you happy these days?

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Yesterday Henry turned one month old, so basically we are old pros at the parenting thing.

HA.

Pretty much we still have no clue what we are doing, resulting in the tried and true method of “this worked once so maybe try it again?” that has lead to the ridiculous amount of parenting books and methods that exist. Yes, everything has worked for someone at some time, and no, that doesn’t mean you should base a highly specific philosophy about something that worked in one Hail Mary moment. But I digress! A couple months ago, I asked you fine people for advice on what to put on our registry, and you all sent me so many good suggestions. I went through them all and made myself a giant spreadsheet with the common denominators. Many of the things we got we still haven’t used yet, as the newborn phase is its own special beast.

I wanted to share a list of the things that have proven so helpful to us in this first month. They are not, of course, “essential” as the title says, as few things in life truly are. One of the moms at our church told me that all you really need for a baby is a place for them to sleep and a way to transport them, and then anything else you “need” can be found in the baby aisle at the grocery store. She’s right. But these are the things that have been making our newborn days just a tad easier.

Swaddles. I have heard that there are babies who don’t like being swaddled, and while Henry protests as we are swaddling, the actual state of being swaddled has a voodoo like power over him. We love these Velcro swaddles and these great swaddle blankets, which we also use for a million other baby purposes.  (And I just saw this, which I am super into, as I am already sad that we have to lose the swaddle when Henry can roll over.)

Wubbanub. I was very holier-than-thou when my mom suggested we give a pacifier during the first couple days. No, I insisted, it will ruin his breastfeeding ability, blah blah blah. But when I informed the pediatrician at his one week checkup that I had fed him almost 20 times the day before, she just gaped at me and asked why I hadn’t just given him a pacifier. Thus begin Henry’s love affair with his wubbanub, which has comforted him in many an important moment. I am fully aware that someone is ripping me off by overcharging for a pacifier that just has a sub-par stuffed animal attached to it, but I do not care.

Quiche. Yes, Henry isn’t eating quiche. But a couple people brought us quiche in those early weeks and it was a lifesaver. When you have all of 2 minutes to make breakfast and then eat it one-handed while a baby screams and you just desperately need to stave off those hunger pains with something substantial- quiche to the rescue.

Rock-n-play. A lot of people recommended the Rock-n-play and someone passed on their old one to us. We have used that in lieu of a bassinet and it fits nicely beside our bed for Henry to sleep. Yes, I know that it is a “sleep prop” and that we might have a difficult transition to the crib later… but I also know that it has facilitated surprisingly good nighttime sleep in our newborn, so I am giving it all the heart eye emojis. Plus, I loved what this website had to say about using swings to help teach babies to sleep.

Gerber onesies. We birthed a long and skinny baby who quickly couldn’t get his lengthy torso in newborn clothes, but is swimming in all 0-3 month options. The generic Gerber onesies are pretty much the only thing that fits, and thus- he wears them allllll the time. I just tell him that it is a classic look that never goes out of style.

Nursing pillow. I, like everyone, registered for a Boppy, thinking I would use it to nurse, and almost instantly finding that it worked terribly for that, though it does serve other purposes. Meanwhile, a friend passed on this pillow, and I dutifully carry it around the house with Henry. It actually supports a baby while nursing to give your back a break, but also supports him when I want to read books and rock, or even sit at my desk and work, while he lies across my lap atop the pillow. (He is actually doing that as I type this.)

Changing station. A lot of people said not to get a changing table, and that they just change diapers wherever. Please tell me how your children are so neat in their bodily excretions. I can’t imagine not having a defined and contained location for both mess and supplies. We just assembled one atop an Ikea dresser that houses all his stuff, but it is vital to me feeling organized and keeping the house relatively clean.

Rocking chair. My mom insisted that we needed one, and she was so right. I spend lots of hours nursing, singing, rocking, and staring all googly eyed at our boy.

Stroller. Henry loves napping in his stroller in the 100% humidity, because DC in the summer is basically like my womb. It was our big baby splurge, but we have spent hours each day pushing him around the city in our stroller. He sleeps, I feel like a human out in society, everybody wins.

Add to this the nine million diapers and burp cloths that we cycle through, as well as the friends and family who have stepped up to help at every turn, and you have what’s getting us through the days.

I kept on looking for a good moment to sit down and type out a nice thoughtful blog post about life these days, but that moment never came. Or it did come, and it seemed a whole lot more important to actually go to the bathroom or eat something with two hands or shower. The new normal in our life has many fewer moments for waxing poetic on the Internet, but I’m ok with that. The new normal is an endless process of banal observations that seem life changing, little victories, and new experiences.

All pregnancy, it was hard to know what to get excited about when I thought about this baby actually being with us. I am not actually a “baby person,” not someone who has always been enthralled with infants. What do you do with a baby? While I love kids, babies were somewhat of a foreign entity- adorable in the abstract but mysterious. Yet I did know that I would love strolling around the city with our little boy, and this has proven true. We get in a walk of at least a couple hours every day, strolling with friends or just wandering Capitol Hill on our own. The humidity has magical power over our heat-loving boy and he usually falls asleep within minutes of being out in the swampy DC summer, ensuring this mama some calm and an excuse to be out and about. When James was off for paternity leave last week it was especially wonderful, wandering our neighborhood as a family of three.

I also looked forward to leisurely snuggling with my quietly sleeping babe.  Sometimes this happens, and it is wonderful. Other times, that babe is far from quietly sleeping, and the snuggle is more of a pace/bounce/panic embrace. And other times, I snuggle away, all while fighting nagging whispers from Babywise  or other sleep-training books that I should be forcing him to sleep on his own instead of in my arms. I struggled with this a lot over the past couple weeks, trying to balance the tension between wanting to start instilling good habits in him now in every domain, and wondering how much you can “teach” a newborn, and wouldn’t it be better to just cherish where he is at? So we have been snuggling our days away for the most part, and taking a little firmer stance at night, which has mostly worked.

There are  so many words to describe these first four weeks of learning how to be Henry’s parents. Fear, as I still panic at least once or twice a night and shine a flashlight in his face to see if he’s alive, often following it with a poke if he was sleeping too peacefully. Joy, as watching him experience even the tiniest milestones (eye contact! tummy time! baths!) has us squealing. Exhaustion, as sometimes I think that I just can’t wake up for another early morning feeding. Disgust, because babies are really gross. Stress, because I wonder how I will ever get anything done again and HOW IS THERE SO MUCH LAUNDRY FROM SUCH A TINT PERSON?

But mostly wonder. Wonder at this little life that is entrusted to us, at this little body that is so tiny and pure, but growing stronger each day. At this soul that trusts us so completely and this human who gets to be a new chance for something good in the world. Four weeks in and we are in total wonder at our baby boy.

I spend at least 40% of my time these days sitting with Henry in my arms, either nursing, or incapable of moving because he is sleeping so peacefully and I just can’t put him down. I know that eventually (read: “next week when James is back at work so I will officially be solo for the first time”), I will have to just put him down and let him cry so I can get some things done, but we just aren’t there yet. My captive position gives me lots of time for scrolling through my phone, reading the entirety of the Internet and pondering all sorts of weighty and trivial matters. Should you also find yourself trapped somewhere in need of some distraction, here are some of my late night cyber wanderings.

Building a quality and ethical children’s wardrobe. Ok, so really I just love all of Mary’s posts and the things she shares make me extra excited to be a boy mom.

Beautiful photos, recipes, and ramblings that made me cry, which is the right thing to do.

Obsessed with this Old Navy Shirt dress, because NURSING and shirt dresses that actually work for wide hipped women!

On that note, when I needed to wear nursing friend attire for the wedding a couple weeks ago, I quickly realized that my wardrobe is not at all nursing friendly. Christine kindly loaned me this nursing (and bump!) friendly dress and I am thinking I might need to buy one of my own – maybe in mint or teal?

I’m in the market for good summer sandals that I can wear with everything and walk for miles. I have always been emphatically not a sandal person, so this is uncharted territory for me. Any suggestions? I have my eyes on these and these and these and these . So really my eyes are all over the place.

And the last shopping link, but I am a devoted sunscreen wearer and always in the market for better blends. During one lengthy feeding session, I made it through the issue of Real Simple that I have been carrying in my purse for a month and discovered this sunscreen mist that you can spray over your makeup. Finding that someone has invented something I constantly wish existed is the best feeling ever.

What good is it being queen at 90 if you can’t wear lime green and freak everyone out?

Sometimes, instead of sitting with my phone, James and I stay up and watch TV when Henry is asleep which I know is stupid stupid stupid because we are losing precious opportunities to sleep. But we just can’t resist the call of chilling on the couch together and not focusing on the baby for a couple minutes. We just started watching Sherlock Holmes, and we are already distressed that there aren’t many episodes. Any recommendations for similar mystery shows?

Loved reading these reflections on “scruffy hospitality”.

I re-read or re-listen to this about once every other year, I found myself thinking about it in the midst of another late night feeding, when I was nodding off and just desperately wanted to go back to sleep. This is water, I told myself, this is water.

Happy (almost) weekend!

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I didn’t need Marie Kondo to tell me to get rid of half my stuff.

My mom is a master purger and she taught me well. Space, light, absence of clutter — these things are their own reward and it is worth sacrificing your stuff to obtain them. I routinely cull through my belongings to eliminate things that are unwanted, unused, or out of place. Living in a small apartment in a big city has taught us that minimalism has to be a lifestyle to avoid feeling suffocated by our stuff. We aren’t as sparse as some are, but we do resist having things around that aren’t useful or loved.

This means that there isn’t a lot of space in our lives for sentimental stuff. I don’t keep t-shirts because they are from some college event that I loved, and I read and love letters — and then have to throw them away. Cards are enjoyed and then tossed, momentos are studied and then abandoned. Memories are what matter, I preach. Things are just things, I practice. My phone and computer are filled with photos of the moments I want to hold onto, but I keep physical traces of these moments as trim as possible. And as a result, I feel at peace in my home, uncluttered physically and mentally.

My dad is a professor of Old Testament and has been working on establishing a center for archeological studies at the seminary where he teaches. He frequently participates in digs in the Holy Land and he can regale you with stories of pottery fragments, vases, and other old things that take on a whole new meaning when they are slowly removed from layers of sacred dirt. Artifacts, traces of another world, pieces of time that pass from one era to the next — that is what he loves.  These remnants hold stories within themselves.

We don’t have much from my dad’s childhood, no saved old clothes or childhood toys. When his mother died while I was in college, a family friend helped my mom go through some things from my grandmother’s home and she found a tiny baby bracelet. She kept it and gave it to me at my baby shower in Kentucky, a tiny beaded bracelet with his name on it, mounted in a little box. I have that box sitting on a shelf in Henry’s room, the only artifact we have from my dad’s early years. On one hand, it doesn’t matter. It isn’t valuable, not having it doesn’t change the fact that he was born, and it is just another thing to sit around. But it is just a little artifact of his childhood, and it stops me every time I walk past.

It started towards the end of my pregnancy, this desire to save things. I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the invitations to the showers people threw for our baby, and I started folding blankets and tiny outfits  to stock the dresser and they seemed immeasurably precious even before they ever touched our little son. I started imagining the years of school projects and favorite stuffed animals and firsts that I would want to cherish forever.

And now? Now I find myself grasping at all the physical traces of his birth and his life. I have a stack on my desk of his hospital bracelets, the card that was stuck in his rolling bassinet, the little cap and blanket he had when they put him in my arms. Our minimalist life has no place for these things, but my heart has no way to toss them out. I have a post-it note on the counter that just says “memory box for H,” because I am desperate not to let these early weeks disappear. I want to gather up all the physical traces from them, every remnant, and box them up in a desperate attempt to save something from the effects of time.

Because the truth that runs deep in our culture, in direct opposition to rampant materialism, is that things are just things. That they don’t matter, that they are replaceable. We horde digital things, but they usually don’t cross the threshold into physicality. Photos go un-printed, emails replace letters, and we are left with nothing to hold in our hands of the beautiful and real lives that we are living. Things are seen as just things and so we forget that sometimes they are so much more.

We are living in a world without artifacts, without relics, without a value placed on saving tokens of everyday existence and believing that they are powerful. We are both horders and purgers, but very rarely treasurers. I didn’t think about this much until I started watching the days slip by in Henry’s life and I started wondering how I can save them – what I can save of them.

My mom spent the past two weeks with us, and along with taking care of our every need, she brought the notebook that she filled with memories from my first year of life. She and I laughed over those entries, and cried over them too. She was able to share a part of myself with me that she knows better than I ever could.

Because that’s what everyday objects, everyday memories, become if you preserve them: artifacts that can recreate the past. Yes, I want our lives to be free from the clutter of too much stuff. But watching my son change by the day also reminds me that I want a life free from clutter, but commemorated by some special stuff. A life marked by artifacts that hold these days within themselves, that allow me to touch the past once it’s gone.

Because go it will, no matter how tightly I want to hold on.

*These photos also help preserve baby Henry at 6 days old and they are by the ridiculously talented Alumbra Photography, baby whisperer extraordinaire.

Maybe you didn’t spend the last nine months stressing about whether or not I would deliver a baby in the middle of my big brother’s wedding, but let me tell you- a whole lot of people did. When you plan a wedding, you try to eliminate every stressful factor so that the day will go smoothly. But you know what is hard to eliminate?

The groom’s sister having a due date three days after the wedding.

First babies are late, I assured them. I think the doctor was wrong about the due date, I promised. I’ll just get my dress extra large, I calmly said. Because I was absolutely set on going to this wedding, on celebrating Zach and Liz, and this baby just needed to fall in line. When May rolled around and my doctor started saying that I wouldn’t make it to the wedding pregnant — I panicked. I think everyone involved in the wedding panicked, and the prayers for this baby to make an early (and safe!) arrival redoubled.

And arrive he did, reflecting the severe FOMO that characterizes his mother, determined to show up at the party. One week after welcoming Henry, James and I loaded every single baby item we own into the car and headed to Charlottesville to party down. I was nervous about the weekend, nervous about Henry screaming all weekend, disrupting everything, and about how I would handle all the activities at one week postpartum. I think that it is only due to the mass collective prayers of people I had never met (like, I think that half the wedding had been following my cervix dilation from afar and stress-praying), but it really was a wonderful weekend. One week-old babies are way calmer than two week-old babies (as we are finding now!), and Henry basically slept or snuggled the entire weekend while his parents partied down like the carefree youths that we are decidedly not.

Zach and Liz hired the most amazing wedding photographer, but I hauled out my camera for some candid dance floor pics…and then I pawned the camera off on others to help take them so I could get my dance moves on.

Maybe because I spent weeks fearing that I wouldn’t make it, but I think this was one of the most fun weddings ever. It was the finale wedding for my siblings, the last of us three to get married and complete our family. And what a finale it was!

Dancing with my new sister!!!These three TORE IT UP all night. Charlie (far right) and his wife are friends that we love getting to see, and we were bummed when Ellie couldn’t make it. Even though her due date for her second child wasn’t until mid June, she was showing signs of coming early. Charlie came… and then woke up to a text early Sunday morning to COME HOME. He dashed back to KY and welcomed a little boy hours later! Something about this wedding… it made all the babies come early! My people! My brothers have excellent taste in women. Those two ladies bless my life more than I could have ever imagined.Two sets of very proud parents……and one extra proud grandpa! My mom spent the week before and after the wedding with us in DC helping out, but the wedding weekend was the first time my dad met Henry. He is one very smitten grandfather!These ladies. Childhood besties who spent a lot of the wedding holding my child so I could celebrate my brother.

I don’t necessarily recommend trying to have a due date on top of a major family wedding… but it sure happened to work out well, leading to a weekend celebrating one new member of the family, and introducing another!

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I love reading birth stories. During the last trimester, I devoted a lot of time to two of the top preggo hobbies: reading birth stories and stalking Instagram pics of other pregnant women to compare bellies. It’s compulsive.

Yet I always balked at the idea of writing one. I am an oversharer by nature, an extrovert with few inhibitions or secrets who loves talking about life, all life, even the ignored bits, with pretty much everyone. I have to make a concerted effort on this blog and social media in general to curb my sharing when it affects others because it doesn’t come easily to me. With Henry in our lives, I’m reeling, trying to find a way to share, but also protect. To put forth the bits of motherhood that bring life and joy while also holding tight and close the things that are most precious just for us. It meant making a separate and private Instagram account just for people we actually know and love, not just cyber friends, so I can be more free with what I share about Henry. It will mean reassessing how and what I share here, and it will probably take us awhile to sort that out.

But I did want to share about his birth, partially because it was the best day of my life and I want to gush about it to everyone, and partially because I know that by sharing it here, I can come back and read it myself, remembering things afresh.

So in lieu of an actual birth story in all its details, here are some highlights from Henry’s birth. The moment that they announced that they would be letting me stay at the hospital and have a baby. Every birth is different, and mine was so different than what I expected, namely the charting of contractions and the anticipatory car ride as I huffed and puffed and counted. If you follow on Instagram, you may have seen me posting about trying to walk this baby out, and you might have done the math and rolled your eyes at my impatience as I was 37-38 weeks along rather than 40. There is a reason for this. At my 37 week appointment they told me that I was 3 cm dilated and that they would not be letting me go to my brother’s wedding on June 4th pregnant. Instantly, I burst into tears, begging for an induction, which they can’t do without reason before 39 weeks. People- I scheduled one for June 1st, and ACTUALLY THOUGHT I COULD BE IN A WEDDING ON JUNE 4TH. Laugh with me. But in the meantime, I started doing everything I could to get labor started. When my 38 week appointment rolled around, I had still experienced 0 contractions… which was why it was strange when the doctor checked and announced that I was at 5cm dilated. They did a membrane sweep and said that contractions should start soon… which never happened. All the following day I bounced, walked, even jogged, ate pineapple, chugged raspberry tea- NOTHING. Finally I called James during rush hour and just asked if we could go to the hospital to have them check for progress. We trekked out there, received some eye rolling when they strapped me into triage and watched for 20 minutes and found no contractions. But then they did a cervix check and found that I was at 7cm, 80% effaced, station 0, just not having any contractions. Given this strangeness and the fact that it meant that they had no clue how fast labor would go, they went ahead and announced I could stay, at which point I literally skipped down the hall to bare my back for that sweet, sweet epidural.

The moment where my mom walked in. I had called her that morning in a flood of anxiety, saying I wasn’t in actual labor, but I needed her and could she please just start driving from Kentucky. She calmly announced that she had felt this might happen so the she had packed the car the night before, and she hung up to start driving. She walked into the hospital minutes before they broke my water, and I can’t imagine her not having been there. The moment I did finally feel a contraction (after having my water broken with still no contractions and then some strong Pitocin) and was able to hit my epidural button to crank it up. Um, I’m officially ruined for later babies if this scenario doesn’t repeat itself, because contractions are the worst. But by feeling a couple, I was relieved that this was HAPPENING, the baby was actually coming.

Listening to the monitors. I loved being hooked up to beeping screens. It meant I could watch Henry’s steady heartbeat all night and hear it thumping through the room. Late in the night, shortly after they told me I was at 10 cm and we would start pushing soon, I had the most amazing calm. It was dark and still, James napping next to me holding my hand, my mom dozing on the couch, no sound but the strong thumping of Henry’s heart pulsing through the room. We were surrounded by the sound of the life that I alone had felt for so long, and I can’t even tell you how special that was. The moment where, after almost two and a half hours of pushing — punctuated with moments of despair where I kind of just wanted to give up and have them cut him out — the nurse announced that we would start seeing the head.

The moment where Henry entered the world screaming and the doctor turned to pass him to me. James was between us, and before putting him in my arms, she held him up to James’ face. The two touched foreheads and in that moment, Henry instantly stopped crying, staring at his father. Lying on that bed, watching my boys meet each other, seeing my mom grinning and weeping over their shoulders– that is the single best moment in my entire life. Holding my son for the first time. Taking in every molecule of him, from his ginger hair, to his ridiculously long limbs, to his pointy head that was quickly and kindly covered in a hat. The breakfast burrito that I inhaled post birth. Maybe it was the pushing, but I maintain that it was one of the finest delicacies that I have ever eaten. Ok, so because I love cafeteria food, I actually loved every single time that I got to order something and have it show up on a tray. But the burrito was a true standout and I ordered it three times. Deciding on a name halfway through his first day, and then having an exhausted and holy moment praying for this baby by name there in our tiny hospital room. Watching our people meet our son. The stream of family and friends who flowed through that hospital, and through our home in the days following, have helped us experience the joy of him anew at every meeting. My friend Jackie had a baby recently and texted me, “It’s like holding an entire world!” And she’s right. From the months of planning for him to enter our world, to the moment of reality when he did, it feels surreal and natural and exciting and terrifying all at once. And we, James and I, people with no real clue what we are doing, we get the ridiculous privilege of caring for this little world and introducing him to the big one.

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On Tuesday I texted a bunch of my girlfriends the following picture with the very ambitious caption of “38 weeks and hopefully the last bump shot ever!”For a number of reasons that might someday be discussed in agonizing detail in the birth story post that I swore I would never write but will probably cave on — we were really serious about hoping for an early due date and fairly certain it would come. I optimistically took my hospital bag to my 38 week appointment… and back home. But Wednesday evening, we were back at the hospital and Thursday morning we welcomed this perfect squish into the world.Henry.

Born in the wee hours of the morning and weighing in at a sizeable 7lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long that had this mother very thankful that he didn’t stay in the full  40 weeks. And people- he is perfect. James and I just stare at him by the hours, marveling at every detail of his tiny body, talking at length about every aspect of his new soul.Welcome to the world Henry. We’re pretty much obsessed with your existence.

I’ve been thinking lately about the intimate smallness of the big city that we live in.

I’ve lived three places since moving to DC 5 years ago, all of them scattered about Capitol Hill. Maybe it is this commonality, this rather small radius of lodgings and daily sights, this familiarity, that makes the city feel delightfully small. I’ve lived here longer than any one place since high school, and this big city has long felt comfortable and close. Now of course, it feels even smaller, as a whole bunch of our favorite DC people have all clustered our addresses on one several-block stretch of the same road on the edge of Capitol Hill. We walk to each others’ houses, see each other out and about, and enjoy the ease of visiting that I remember as a kid, running back and forth to my friends’ houses.

But it’s more than just that.

Somehow, somewhere over the past couple years, my routines in this city have turned it from a big place teeming with people into a small community that I recognize, even if I don’t know the name behind every face.

I’m talking about the man who dutifully stretches his slackline in the park, morning after morning, occasionally moving it to the sidewalk when it has rained the night before. I’m not sure what he does all day, Slackline Man, but I know that he starts his mornings off with the world’s least impressive tightrope walk in Lincoln Park. And he feels like an important part of my life, because he’s part of my little big city.

I’m talking about the guy who lives down the road and looks every bit the frat boy, but spends hours pruning his meticulous yard, caring for each peony bud and rosebush, making his tiny plot of land perfect. We smile and nod when I pass by, recognizing his superior greenthumb. And he feels like an important part of this neighborhood in this little big city.

I’m talking about the woman who works at the post office, who always holds up the line when I get to the front, reaching across the counter to rub my gigantic stomach and speculate on the baby’s due date and a million other tiny things. I ran into her walking home the other day, and she got to meet James, and it just felt normal to be standing in the rain with this almost-stranger rubbing my stomach and laughing with my husband. And it’s that same feeling you get from old church ladies, the ones who have seen it all and seen you grow, only it’s just my postal worker, a key member of my little big city.

I’m talking about the people I see in the park on a regular basis, recognizing which kids go with which parent, or which dog with which owner. I’m talking about the baristas and barre instructors and servers who I recognize and see out and about. All our routines move like concentric circles, our patterns overlapping and making us all comfortable backdrops in each others’ lives. I wonder if they feel the same way about the pregnant woman they see devotedly getting in all her Fitbit steps in endless laps around the park, pausing to take pictures of the same pretty houses over and over.

Sometimes it feels daunting to think of raising a kid in this city, worlds apart from where either James or I grew up. Worlds apart, but maybe not so different. Maybe there is just a little bit of the small town reality of our childhoods at play in this little big city.

(PS: Weren’t you just hoping that blog silence meant that baby boy showed up early to surprise and distract us? YEAH- ME TOO. Insert all the “over-it” faced emojis, and the botmoji of the stuffed turkey with the human head, as I have been using those on repeat to communicate my feelings to any texts I get from friends.)