Falling Up

I've been terribly grouchy the past couple of days. And for no real good reason either. So this post is mostly a reminder to myself that it actually isn't that bad, stop whining and enjoy the weather. 

Over the weekend we went to the Hyde Park Oktoberfest just down the street. There was live music, food and vendors, and a special children's section. We mainly went as an excuse to be outside together as a family (something that's harder to do when daddy stays at school until 5 or 6 and then it's starting to get dark!). This was Lily's chosen outfit for the day: reindeer PJ shirt that she slept in and purple princess dress. Since it was 40*F when we left at 11AM, I made her wear some warm fuzzy purple pants under it, a pink fuzzy coat over it, and a warm hat, too. It felt really nice to need to bundle up a bit. 

After walking through the main part of the street fair, we made our way over to the pumpkin patch so Lily could pick out a pumpkin to decorate. She LOVES pumpkins because she associates them with Cinderella. She kept running around picking up pumpkins saying "punk!" and showing the lady who was keeping an eye on things. Then she decided what she really needed to do was to line them up on all the hay bales around the edge of the patch. Oh my little one, you are an order muppet on the inside just like your mama. 

And of course Lily wanted to try the bounce house (Lily does this great thing when she's saying a two word phrase where she completely pauses between the descriptor and the noun, I don't know why, so bounce house becomes 'bounce... haus', just like that). She's too afraid to actually climb on the fun stuff and just wants to bounce a little bit near the edges. And oh my do I look like a pumpkin in this photo. Just ignore me and look at teh cute little girl in pink. 

Then Lily actually turned into a pumpkin! Just kidding, but Joe was in charge of taking pictures that day and when I went through the camera this was in there. 

There was also face painting. Lily said she wanted her face painted, but when the time actually came she chickened out and had the nice lady paint on her hand instead. She got a pretty purple flower ('purpa... fowr').

One of the things I've been trying to work on with Lily is her remembering what we did each day and being able to tell someone else about it. This means that when Joe gets home he hears a lot of 'Go tell daddy what we did today' and then he gets to guess at what she's actually trying to say. It's usually a fairly humorous conversation to listen in on because Lily likes to throw in random things that didn't happen. Like taking the bus to the beach (we have NEVER done this, we always walk or ride bikes) or taking the train to Ainsley's house (Becky - this is a frequent destination in our pretend travels. We'll have to come visit you for real soon). It's fairly obvious when she's making something up because she smiles very sweetly and tilts her head to the side. She is going to be trouble. But since Joe was around all day, she got to tell Grandma over the phone. And I was so proud of her! With minimal prompting she was able to tell her that she got a pumpkin, played in a bounce house, and had a purple flower painted on her hand. Language development is pretty cool. 

Sigh, I have to admit, I do feel like my mood has picked up a little bit. Hopefully it'll stay that way through tomorrow...

Resolution Check-in 9

I really can't believe it's the END of September already. 

1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. Does just being alive count as exercise? Cause it should when you're almost seven months pregnant with a toddler. Seriously. I've managed to keep doing my Summer Sanders Pre-Natal workout video twice a week. And each day I do enough walking, chasing, lifting, etc to count for the rest of it. 

I'm going to stick in the 30 week pregnancy news update here. I made it all the way to six months before needing to pull out the maternity clothes stash. I could have made it a couple of weeks more, but since we were leaving to spend two weeks in the car, I wanted to make sure I was going to be comfortable. There's nothing worse than sitting for hours at a time in too tight pants. I was pretty pleased to discover that my maternity clothes all feel bigger than last time, which is good because I was about seven pounds heavier when I got pregnant with Lily than this time around. 

All's well with the baby. He appears to be the exact right size, although he's still in the breech position. Hopefully that will change in the next couple of weeks so we can actually take advantage of the ABC rooms at the hospital. I'm still freaking out about that a bit. 

2) Send one letter per week. I sent lots of postcards this month. Some of them twice. I don't know how I managed this, but I wrote the to and from addresses in the wrong places and ended up sending myself a few postcards from Minnesota and Niagara Falls. So I apologize to anyone who is receiving an offensively late thank you note for something. I'm just slow.   

3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. I didn't do a lot of decorating, but we did a lot of baking. Cookies for my dad's birthday, pumpkin spice muffins just because, and Wellesley Chocolate Fudge Cake for our anniversary.  

4) Stop comparing myself to other moms. This went pretty well this month. The nesting instinct is kicking in pretty hard, so I'm trying to focus that energy on being the best kind of mom I can be to Lily before she has to share me, as well as get things ready for the new baby. All of our fall classes are beginning and it's lots of fun to see Lily interacting with other kids on a regular basis again. This session of Wiggleworms Lily is one of the older kids. She's so fun to watch with the smaller kids. She really likes to try to hold their hands and touch their feet and say "Cute baby!" In her toddler speak though, it usually comes out "Toot bebe!" I love it. 

After the chaos and unscheduled-ness of the summer, I was eager to start using my planner more regularly again. And I am happy to report that for the last two weeks I have dutifully crossed off everything on my to-do, to-go, to-buy, and to-cook lists. I keep trying to use the calendar and scheduling functions on my phone more effectively, but it just doesn't give the same satisfying thrill as physically scratching something off of a list. 

In addition to organizing my brain, I've been organizing our stuff. First I went through all of my clothes to make room for the maternity clothes. Then I went through all of Lily's clothes and pulled things that are too small, things that could work for a boy, and put them all in her new drawers and closet. I've planned out organizing my craft stuff this week, the toys next week, and our very messy and over-stuffed front closet the following week. I really like planning a chore for a week and not a specific day so I can break it down into discrete steps and just do one at a time whenever there are a few minutes. Then by the end of the week it's done, and I haven't stressed everyone out by being crazy for a few hours all at once. 

So as I wrote in the last post, thank goodness it's fall. Everything just seems easier when the whether is cooler, the days are a bit shorter, and there's a greater rhythm to life.   

Fall in Love

Thank goodness it's fall. That's basically the point of this whole post. So if you just read that one sentence and look at the pictures, you will have understood most of what I have to say this week. 

One of my favorite things about fall is the food. Specifically food harvested from your own garden. After two weeks away from the garden, we came back to quite the bounty. Our random planting of watermelon seeds has yielded a few small ones. The package said they were Sugar Baby watermelons, the small little round ones. So we picked the largest one to see if it was ripe, and it was! It was very sweet, and VERY seedy. Although it tasted good, it was kind of hard to eat because of all the seeds. I think if the next one looks the same, we may just strain it and make a delicious sorbet out of it. 

We also had a ton of tomatoes, huge green peppers, and we finally pulled the rest of our carrots. So we made delicious pizza. I'm not usually a fan of home made pizza, it rarely seems worth the effort. But we found a delicious whole grain pizza crust at the grocery store and some good sauce. I used the mozzarella veggie shreds on mine, and Joe and Lily used real mozzarella. Lily really liked putting her pizza together, it's the one on the very bottom. She put on a lot of cheese and one of each kind of vegetable. Then she gobbled the whole thing up over the evening. 

Another of my favorite things about fall is the fashion. Here Lily picked out her outfit. It's a little overall jean skirt, knitted sweater jacket, and purple suede fringy boots. She is definitely a fan of the layered look. 

And another thing, the weather. Oh my goodness the weather. I love 60's during the day and colder at night. It's perfect. Perfect for being inside and snuggly in the mornings and evenings. Perfect for being outside during the day. Perfect for sitting in Wrigley Field and watching the Cubs lose with my favorite guy. 

And perfect for kite flying. 

Fall is probably my favorite time of the year to go the beach as well. Sure, summer has it's charms because you can actually get in the water, but since Lily isn't really into that (the waves freak her out a little bit) fall is much better. The sand is still warm on your toes, it's sunny, the wind is blowing so you can fly kites, the water's not too cold to build sand castles, and it's just lovely. 

And on top of everything else, I love love love pumpkin spice flavored goodies. Yummy lattes, tasty cookies, everything pumpkin spice flavored. We'll be making some pumpkin pancakes (from a mix I got at Costco) and I can't wait to get my hands on a bottle of fall flavored non-dairy creamer. 

And Lily just woke up and won't settle for Joe. Happy fall everyone!

Epic Road Trip

We just returned from a 12 day road trip to the eastern US. We went tons of places, saw tons of friends and family, and did lots of fun things. I won't bore you with all of the minutiae, but instead will write about some of the highlights from the pictures we took. 

On our way out we spent a few days in Hagerstown, MD to visit the Antietam Civil War battlefield. We also made time to drive through the Shenandoah Valley and hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was like the foggiest day in history, so we didn't see a lot of the actual valley, but it was really pleasant to spend an hour hiking and a couple hours driving through.

Here I am looking epic on the edge of cliff with a supposedly spectacular view. I'm just about 6 months pregnant to the day. I can't think of a better way to spend the beginning of the LAST trimester of this never ending pregnancy. 

There were some really beautiful spiderwebs along the trail that were shimmering with all the condensation. They are surprisingly hard to photograph though, so this was my best attempt. 

Our token cheesy family shot on the AT. There was one that was better of me and Joe, but everyone complained that Lily didn't look happy in the backpack last time, so I sacrificed our own dignity for the sake of our daughter's happiness. 

The whole reason for this trip was to go see Joe's cousin Sarah get married! It was a lovely wedding, that we managed to not take any pictures at. Thankfully, Joe's uncle is a professional photographer so he took lots. Here are a few of his.

Here's Lily dancing in the driveway. Seriously the cutest girl ever. 

Here are the two lovely brides, Sarah (on the right in the dress) and Melissa. The ceremony was really lovely and the reception was really fun. The whole thing was held at Peebles Island State Park where they went on their first date. The weather was perfect and Lily danced her heart out. 

Afterwards we stayed with some friends, Joe and Rachel, in West Point, NY. They have a wonderful little boy, Carter, that is almost exactly one month older than Lily. They got along fabulously! Here they are sitting on the stairs eating some graham crackers before bath time. 

Finally, we drove home through Canada and stopped at Niagara Falls! Even though I've driven through there at least 5 times moving back and forth to New Hampshire, I had never seen the falls until now. I've always wanted to ride on the Maid of the Mist, and we did! It was so much fun. I was surprised by how loud the falls weren't. I was expecting this really loud, sort of muffling roar, but it wasn't like that all. It was loud, but not deafening. 

Here's our designated cheesy family photo in front of the American falls while we were waiting to get on the boat. 

Our little Maid of the Mist.

This was our attempt at a cheesy family photo in front of the Horseshoe Falls (the Canadian falls). I was doing pretty good just holding out the camera, and then this nice lady offered to take a picture for us and this is how it turned out. Lily looks slightly special, the mist is pluming up in the center, and I look like a hunchback. So this goes in the collection of awkward family photos, as well as cheesy. 

I'm probably forgetting lots, but these are the best of the pictures. Lily is such a great little car traveler. She can sleep away the whole morning, then we stop for lunch and an hour or so of exercise and she's ready to hop back in for an afternoon shift. If she's not asleep she sings little songs to herself, lists all of the people and characters that she can think of, and sometimes plays with a stuffed animal or two. We've tried really hard to keep her backseat amusements to a minimum so she learns how to do it herself, and so far it seems to be working. And she did amazingly well sleeping in a different place almost every night. Whenever we got out of the car she would should "New house!" and be really excited to check out the new space. 

It was a really great trip, and good last hurrah for the summer. Now we're ready for Joe to go back to school, Lily's activities to start, and gearing up for the new baby. Yay fall!

ABCs

Today we attended the mandatory orientation of the Alternative Birthing Center at West Suburban Hospital. Thankfully, we don't have to take another childbirth education class because having done it once you're considered qualified to have another. But, this was the one hoop we had to jump through, so we did it. 

It went about as expected. The rooms are big, without as much scary medical equipment as a regular Labor and Delivery Room, and there were lots of people asking questions about emergency C-sections. 

What was totally unexpected was my reaction to it all. I came pretty close to having a panic attack while just standing in the ABC room. Thoughts were racing through my head, with the most prominent being "Why am I touring this? I'll never get to use it. It's all going to go wrong just like last time." It's like I didn't even want to look at any of it or think about the possibility of actually delivering there because the best laid plans...

After the tour, everyone filed back into the classroom to listen to the instructor talk about what happens from the moment you walk into the hospital until you are discharged. It took about 15 minutes, but I eventually calmed down. Turns out West Sub is the only Chicago area hospital that is considered a room-in hospital (I think that's the term she used, I can't quite remember). That means that it is hospital policy for the baby to stay with the parents, in the room, unless it is medically necessary for the baby to go down the hall to the nursery. Even in the regular LDRs. This is different than at TMC, where we had Lily, and the policy is that every baby is taken away from the parents shortly after birth for about two hours for monitoring. (Note: this is not the policy of the Birth Center where we had hoped to deliver.) So that's a HUGE relief. Even though I slept through the two hours she was gone, I would have much preferred she stayed with us. 

I just re-read Lily's birth story trying to figure out what exactly it is I'm so worried about. Overall, things turned out great the first time. It wasn't exactly how we wanted it to be, but we all came out of it healthy and ready to be together. Then I remembered the feeling of not being in control of the situation. I don't know how much control one really has when bringing another person into the world, but I felt like I had none. Like decisions were being made for me without my even knowing there was a decision to be made. And that's what I don't want to happen again. Just sitting here now and writing about it my chest is getting a little tight and I'm angry about Carol. 

I'm suddenly feeling very not ready for this. Sure, there are two and a half more months before Lily's brother (!) comes, but I don't know. I feel like I'm ready to handle two of them, and I'm definitely ready to not be pregnant any longer, but I'm not ready for the actual process of having the baby. I'm not afraid of the delivery, per se, but everything that comes with it. The hospital setting, the monitors, the nurses, all the tubes and wires. Then there's all of the rigamarole with the insurance company on what they will (not much) and won't (lots) cover. It feels like it's going to be such a battle and I'm dreading it already. All I really want to do is go to a cozy little place with a labor ball, a tub and Joe, and come out together with another baby. Is that too much to ask?

Resolution Check-In 7 and 8

I'll just write this for two months in one post. 

1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. Ugh. This was a total disaster the past couple of months. I haven't even been keeping track of it. Between the heat, and the exhaustion, and the traveling, and the feeling like my pelvis may crack in two at any moment, it just didn't happen. I did manage to do my weight routine at least once per week, and realistically I end up walking for at least 30 minutes a day except on the days I work, and then I'm lifting and standing and bending all day. So far I've gained about 12 pounds, and that puts me in the healthy range for weight gain. At least I'm not losing weight anymore. 

2) Send one letter per week. This went a little better. I sent out a bunch of thank-you cards for Lily's birthday, and I'm about to write a couple more right now. That should average out to one per week for the past two months. 

3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. July was pretty cake heavy. I made a Wonder Pets birthday cake for Lily and a 4-tier wedding cake for my brother. In August I did a lot of baking up at the cabin where it was cooler and we had a larger kitchen. We made cherry turn overs, pancake muffins, and chocolate chip muffins. Nothing requiring great decorating skill, but still a baked good nonetheless.

4) Stop comparing myself to other moms. I've been struggling with this again. Maybe it's all of the back-to-school-ness happening around me, but it makes me question some of the choices we've made as a family. I know deep down that not sending Lily to day care or early pre-school is the right choice for us, but that doesn't mean I don't consider all the things she's missing out on by not doing that. I keep worrying about socialization, but selfishly I want to spend this fall with just her, learning, exploring, playing, one last hurrah before the new baby comes and she suddenly has to share everything. 

I'm especially looking forward to some new activities together. We're going to continue with Wiggleworms through the Old Town School of Folkmusic. This is such an awesome class, and Lily has loved it from the beginning, starting when she was about 9 months old. Additionally, we're going to go to a dance class offered at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club. We tried to go once in the spring, but it was scheduled right for the middle of Lily's nap time, and it was a disaster. Now it's on a new day at a new time and it should all work out just great. She loves dancing around the apartment and on the sidewalk and anywhere really, I think she'll really like this class. And finally, she's signed up for an art class at the Hyde Park Art Center. This is the only class that I won't be going to with her. I can if I want to, but an hour and a half alone each week to sit and drink tea while reading a book in silence sounds too good to pass up. She also goes to Sunday school each Sunday. This year she'll be in a real class, not just the nursery. So with all these fun things to go to, I'm actually not that worried about socializing her. 

So, I don't know. I feel a lot of pressure to have Lily be independent. But all I want is to snuggle her close and not have her grow up too fast. I already can't believe how much of a big kid she is. And there's another thing I'm starting to get paranoid about. What happens if I don't like the second one as much as I like Lily? I know this sounds ridiculous, but this keeps me up at night. I am not the nicest person on the planet and can be fairly judgmental for stupid reasons. It just so happens that Lily is the most awesomest kid ever. What happens if the second one isn't? What if he's the kind of person I just can't stand for one reason or another? This makes me sound like a terrible mother, but I had the exact same worries before Lily was born. Argh.  

Cabin Fever

The Hammons spent the last nine days traveling the Northwoods of Minnesota. My grandparents' bought a cabin on Sand Lake in the 50's, and generations of my mom's family have been going every summer ever since. This summer, for the first time, we went up alone. I was really worried we were going to burn the place down. But we didn't. Everything was great. No, everything was perfect. It was a lot of fun to watch Lily running around doing all of the things I did as a kid. Last summer she was just starting to walk, so she didn't really do much, but what a difference a year makes. 

This was a crazy summer. Joe worked long hours, it was ridiculously hot, I was tired and cranky, Lily was getting sick of me, I made lots of big cakes, and we were all at our wits ends. Then, suddenly, it was all done. Joe finished his position as Summer Associate, I worked a couple of days, a few doctors' appointments, and we were off. We REALLY needed a vacation. A time to rest, relax, and just be together as a family. 

The trip started with a fun visit to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to see my college roommates, Kate and Christina and their families. Lily and Ava had a blast... 

It was COLD at the cabin. Most nights went down into the 50's, and a couple even the 40's. This meant mornings were for snuggling on the couch reading books while mama sipped hot coffee and made delicious breakfasts. 

It was nice to have a kitchen that you could really cook in for more than a week. And cooler temperatures so that you actually wanted to turn on the oven. We baked and grilled and cooked to our hearts' content. It was really nice to just be domestic for a couple of days, playing inside and out, reading, knitting, just being. Here's Lily getting ready for some fun in the sun.

And oh the ice cream. I don't know what it is, but Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve ice cream just tastes better up North. Lily agrees. 

Baby Gandolf picked up daddy's fire stick and said "You shall not pass."

I picked up an honest to goodness porcelain tea set at an antique shop in town for super cheap. Many chilly morning were passed having elaborate tea parties for all of our friends. 

In the middle of the week we went up to Duluth to see some more friends, Jill and Jim. Jill showed us all around the Great Lakes Aquarium, let Lily terrorize all of her pets, and then took us out to dinner. Traveling really is more fun when you have people to visit. 

Jill also told us about a 108# agate in Moose Lake. I've been going there for 28 years now, and had never heard of this. So we had to check it out. It's smaller than I expected it to be. I'm a terrible judge of weight and volume, though. Lily wasn't terribly impressed, but she insisted on bringing her new friend, Binksy, along for the trip. Thanks Jill!

We hiked a bit. Nothing crazy, just enough to feel like it was worth it. Lily had great fun tramping around for a bit, then when she got tired we threw her in the baby backpack. Don't be misled by this picture, she LOVED it. The whole time she was in it, she just kept saying "Ba-pack! Ba-pack!" She seriously thought it was great. 

We went to the Carleton County Fair on our last day up there. Lily tried her first pony ride. She stayed on the horse just until it started moving. Then she was done. So we walked next to the pony for the rest of the ride.

Then finally, as a break in the middle of the second day of driving back we stopped at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. Christina and Ava had given Lily this pretty little purple fairy dress when we visited them earlier, and we bought a pretty little flower wreath for her hair. She had a great time there, too. Lots of people in funny costumes, interesting food to eat, fun things to touch, and just a nice place to run for a bit.

So that was pretty much our trip. Fun, easy, relaxing, restful, and a definite retreat. I feel much better. More centered, more calm, more ready for fall and school to start again.