the snail delivers

 

today was a busy and snowy day for these wee wrens. though lounging in bed gave us a late start, by 1:00 p.m. we were all bundled up and ready venture out into the snow for a few errands about town. after a stop at the bank, we made our way to a few stores to purchase long sleeves to keep e & i warm at our local reny's, a hot cup of chai from the lovely cafe, then off to the co-op to restock our earl grey and treat ourselves to a little lambic framboise (raspberry belgian beer). while making my purchase at the co-op, i also picked up an application for weekend work. i am hoping to pick up a few hours on the weekends someplace in town not only to pad my pockets with a little extra cash but also for some adult related interactions that a mommy takes for granted. i love being a stay at home mom, but i forgot how important interacting with grown ups can be for mental sanity!

after the co-op, i talked e into a stop at the second hand baby store in town to look for pajamas for c. he's so tall that he has outgrown the 0-3 month size already! how is my two month old baby (two months to the day!) growing this fast, i wonder? truly amazing. i made out like a bandit and we made our last stop at the post office before heading home. we have been having trouble getting our mail because the snow prevents delivery on days like today. e picked up the package he had been waiting for, and we headed home thinking we were getting no other mail this day. but i was wrong! later, while sitting and feeding little c, i heard the mailbox being opened and closed. thinking it was just e outside cleaning it off, i dismissed the idea of mail. then, after a second thought hours later, i asked e if we in fact had received mail in our mailbox. he left the room and reentered with an armload to my surprise! handing me, first, a package addressed to us by way of royal mail. now i don't believe that i have mentioned this, but my grandmother is english. and i do not mean by extended heritage, but in fact born and raised. she moved to the united states in her early 20's, where she married my grandfather and gave birth to six children (one of which is of course my mother). she is now a naturalized citizen of the u.s. of a. but i do have family that still resides there. i opened the package sent all the way 'across the puddle,' and inside found a beautiful blue sleeper set and three white sleepers. just what we have been needing! i will be sending them a thank-you promptly!

after ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the outfits, i noticed e had also handed me a card with an envelope addressed to 'kaybet.' i laughed because this is what his big cousin calls him and upon opening the card i found an invitation to her second birthday party! (already???!)

what a great day for snail mail!!

a night for grown ups

yesterday my mother and my grandmother came down for a visit. mom had the day off and she and my grammy decided to pick up a delicious rotisserie chicken, some garlic bread, a potato salad and stay for lunch. it was nice to have them here, the baby was awake but tired and not quite bright-eyed. my mom fed him his morning bottle which includes his vitamin and he fell asleep. she asked when she could take him and e & i both said 'today if you want. have a sleep over.' of course the suggestion and the reality are two different things, but my mom was delighted with the idea. so i packed up all of little c's things, a large supply of frozen breast milk, baby monitors and diapers, his special blankets and a few toys he has taken a shine to and handed him over to his grammy and grampy's care for the night.

once they left, i admit i felt a little bit lost. e, being home until the beginning of next month, and i tidied up a bit, i finally got a shower, and we settled onto the couch to watch our netflix. we decided to make an early dinner and then head out to a local bar for a drink (avoiding the over populated, over drunk watering holes and opting for the quieter and more upscale three tides). getting dressed i couldn't help but smile. a night of adult conversation and an adult beverage outside of these four walls was very welcome. putting on jeans, a nice sweater, my dressy boots, and styling my hair while applying a bit of makeup is something i had forgotten could be enjoyable. despite the cold, the pineapple cosmopolitan was lovely while being sipped over to soft lull of chatter around the bar top. but, alas, my mind could not stray far from parenthood and eventually e broached the subject of our sweet boy and we began to wonder how things were going with my parents. finally the urge was too much and i dialed their number to ask. naturally everything was fine and i bid them goodnight.

after our glasses had emptied, one drink each was enough, we made our way home to snuggle in for the night. though i was able to fall asleep easily, i found myself out of sorts as i did not have a little one to feed and tuck in. waking at 4:00 a.m. as i usually do, i again felt a bit lost as i pumped and went back to sleep. by 9:30 i was awake to pump once more and bide my time until i made the phone call to check in.

now i await his arrival back home and admit that, though loving a little grown-up time, i missed my wee wren very much. it does make me wonder what my life was before him.

a season to grow

yesterday was another typical maine winter day. we ended it with over a foot of snow blanketing our little coastal town, never a surprise to true mainers. waking this morning with the gorgeous white decor outside of the bedroom window leaves me wanting to snuggle in bed a while longer. the babe is fed and dozing back in his bassinet and i have netflix on my computer which may mean instant-viewing some movies and taking advantage of the quiet. the sound of a little boy's breathing is so soothing while i sit here, and the sound of his laughter bubbling up from dreams untold is nothing short of magical. he's quite a vocal sleeper as of late. he dreams quite actively, with smiles and frowns, laughs and whimpers. occasionally he throws his arms in the air and wiggles about. but at the moment, peaceful snoozing.

the most recent thing i've come to laugh about, if only to myself, is my mental proclamation of love for my child. the more interactive he becomes, the more excited i get and the more i feel the need to say in my head 'wow, i love this little boy more than anything!' it seems a wee bit silly at times, having to make such statements to only myself about my son, but i continue to do it for no other reason than how good it feels to know and acknowledge it. he is but a wonder, as all children are, and he infinitely amazes me with his growth both physically and mentally. to think that this wee babe will grow up to be, for lack of a more P.C. term, a person is at times slightly mind blowing. i am in no hurry for this great feat, but it's still curious to think of him as a man with a family of his own someday. oh, how it puzzles the mind that things so small grow up to do things so big. i hope my own sweet little c takes his time and enjoys being a child while he's still a child. sometimes i find it disheartening how quickly children of our time are growing up beyond their years. i want my own to take advantage of his fleeting youth and suck every drop of it's delicious splendor dry. as i did of my childhood, i only wish that for him.

boxers or briefs?

in moments when i intend to be brief, i find myself far more long-winded than intended. but this moment will be brief as i have many other things that need tending to as baby c has made his way to his nana & grandpa's for the afternoon.

my parents gave me a wonderful idea recently, and i just recalled it to the forefront of my memory; i find that "mommy brain" leaves me so forgetful these days! grr.. however, i remembered this and wanted to at least put it here to recount later. my dad has become an avid reader of my blogging as it keeps him in touch with our family happenings when they cannot be present. he mentioned to me that i might keep blogging for a time until c is old enough to read and appreciate it, and then i should turn my blog into a printed book for him to cherish always. i must admit to loving the heck out of this idea! i started blogging merely because putting pen to paper, though much more romantic a form, has never served me well in diligence. i always forget to write and leave large gaps in my journals, missing important events that i cannot again recall in detail. so i took to blogging as a way to keep up with my life and document the things i wanted to remember. also, with our society so technologically swamped, i have fallen prey to the siren call of my laptop and spend more time with my fingers on the keys than i do with them on a pen. but i digress.. the point it, i very much look forward to putting my blog in print someday for my wee wren to keep and read.

pampering from within

today is a hot cocoa kind of day. e was granted paternity leave by his work because they changed their policy just after sweet little c was born. so now he has four weeks off to spend at home, how lovely! he's out and about today running errands and picking up some things we need to weatherproof the house while i pick away at chores around the house. but for a brief moment i am indulging in a little hot cocoa and some blogging.

i am anxious to take advantage of e's time off for some fun projects and household improvements this month. i picture our living room finally painted a fresh minty-green to match our hallway and the crown molding and ceiling light completed. i am on the hunt for a low-cost but spectacular area rug for our living room floor, and i plan to paint some shelving to hang on the walls in both the living and dining rooms to adorn with beloved plants and nick nacks. the house, as it stands, is beginning to feel more homey and cozy by the day. each time i come across a unique item that must live in our house, i find it's like pieces clicking together in a puzzle. i know that e could not care less about some of the things i want to do or the overall cleanliness of the house.. but something about a clean and tidy dwelling seems to harness my chi and cleanse my soul. it's like cleaning the exterior of my life also lends a cleansing hand to my interior life as well. i think we could all use a "spring cleaning" no matter what the season. i am also conjuring up ideas for decorating in our wee wren's nursery. his room, as of now, hosts nothing on it's walls and i am trying to decide what and where things will live on those empty canvases.

making this house a home for my little family has become one of my favorite activities. watching my son grow and my relationship with my beloved man blossom even further is purely resplendent and it leaves me cozy in my role as mother and housewife. there are so many adventures ahead, so many new and wonderful experiences to be had.. i am unequivocally excited to take them all on as they approach.

new year, new things

i've taken to bringing caleb into bed with me when he wakes up for his morning feeding. he's gotten into a rather pleasant routine lately without my help and i cannot complain. he's decided to sleep from about 11:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m., waking to eat, then back to sleep until about 8:00 a.m. or later before waking to eat once more. when he wakes for the latter of the feedings, i like to keep him in bed next to me for a quick cuddle and snooze. yesterday, after he was happily full, he decided not to fall back to sleep as usual. instead he began his most recent act of smiling and cooing at me with great enthusiasm. so we lay, side by side, chatting away for a while before he dozed off. while falling into a sweet slumber, he suddenly burst into a brief moment of laughter! i kid not, a few little chuckles escaped his lips and left me stunned and in awe. i have yet to see him duplicate this action while awake, but i hope it's around the corner. after all, he began smiling in his sleep so it only makes sense he would laugh in his sleep, too!

i am positively amazed at his progress and growth as of late. it seems that time is flying by as my six-week-old babe is learning new things daily. and of course, this momma experiences new things of her own now, too. with our christmas cash in hand, e and i ventured to bangor on new year's eve in order to bring back a big haul of things we needed. leaving our wee baby wren with my parents, we headed to town with a long list of needs. unfortunately we wasted much time stopping at every gun store along the way (three to be exact) for e to look at holsters and ammo. then we decided to meet with my dear friend henrietta for some sushi at green tea. i happen to love this place and have not been able to indulge in sushi in almost a year. what a treat indeed! after e successfully knocked his miso soup on the floor and himself, we finished our meal and headed to the mall to begin our shopping. unfortunately we did not make it far for the mall closed at 5 p.m. on new year's eve and we were forced to leave with only a few shirts and video games for e while my hands remained empty. by this point i had been away from the baby for four hours and i was beginning to feel the affects of not breast feeding or pumping. the pain began to increase and instead of trying to find other stores that may have remained open later so that i could acquire the clothes i desperately needed, i begged e to just go to the dreaded walmart for the large bulk items we needed so that we could head back to pick up little c soon. we loaded our cart as quickly as we could, but for a moment of down time while e perused the ammo for his gun, i headed to the baby section to try to find a play mat for the wee one to play on now that he's become interested in hanging toys. after finding the mat, i began to browse. and of course, browsing baby things makes me think of my sweet babe and caused a massive sensation of let down to which i nearly cried from the pain of engorgement. i made a beeline for the breast pumps and as e approached, i grabbed a manual pump from the shelf and said 'i am buying this and using it in the damn truck!!' we made our way to the check out, but for a stop at the watches because e has found a new passion in collecting specific brands and styles, and once we were in the truck i broke open the box as fast as my hands could tear away the tape and wrapping. i had forgotten to buy wipes to clean the pump and bottle, so i knew i could not keep the milk that would be collected into the unsterilized pump but it didn't matter at this point. once we were clear of the lights in town and on the highway back to my parents' house i began vigorously pumping away. by the time we reached my parents' road, i had filled the bottle. so, in order to be able to keep pumping, e pulled to the side of the road and i dumped the milk out the window. all we could do was laugh and e looked at me and chuckled 'if you had asked me a year ago if i ever thought we would be pulling over to the side of the road to dump out breast milk while you manually pump it in the car, i would have said 'no way!'' but there we were!

arriving back at my parents', i was relieved to have my little wren back in my arms. he was good, as always, and had slept most of the time. but i had learned my lesson about being away from the baby, and when i made my trip to bangor alone yesterday to finally purchase some much needed jeans, i was prepared! i packed our second diaper bag with my manual pump, wipes, and my feeding drape so that i could pump in the back seat of the truck while parked. it worked wonders, needless to say, though it was a bit odd to find myself locked in the back seat since my child locks are stuck on..

i may still be a new mom, but i'm learning things very quickly and loving it. of course, what choice do i have!?

welcoming: two thousand eleven

the date today reads 1.1.11 and so far it's been the best start to a year i could ask for. i have a wonderful and dedicated beloved, a new and darling baby boy, a house that keeps a roof over my head, a man who keeps clothes on my back, two dogs and a cat scampering about, food in my belly and blessings abundantly falling all around my life.

last night we did not go out and party. we did not get drunk or yell very loudly with our friends. we did nothing typical of what our past new year's eves would indicate. last night, the eve of 2011, we set the timer on e's watch and counted down the seconds as they fell away into midnight. while lying in bed with little c in the crook of my arm softly snoozing, i kissed my loving boyfriend and my sleeping son knowing that i could not have celebrated in a better way this year.