family matters

We don't have much family living in the same city as us, but we've been lucky enough to have family willing to cross the state of Ohio pretty much every weekend to see baby girl. This weekend marked Ellie's first slumber party at our house. Nanny, Jagee, Uncle TT, Uncle D, and Chubbs all spent the night. Ellie was a champ, with no issues falling asleep, and no crying once she was wrapped in her Miracle Blanket. Mommy and Daddy stayed up later than necessary watching a movie that wasn't that worth it, but got to bed around midnight. Stupidly, we ignored the dogs before we went to bed which meant that they hadn't been outside since around 7:00. Woops. As we went to sleep I said to David, "Do you ever think there have been 7 people and 2 dogs sleeping in this house before?"

Somehow, barely (and thanks to the concessions of everyone!) we made it work. Uncle TT had the "guestroom" as he's been staying with us for the past few weeks. Ellie's room converted into a room for Nanny and Jagee, filled with the air mattress from wall to wall. Uncle D slept on the couch in the living room. Baby did great. The dogs were not so awesome, but not too bad either. It was our fault they needed to go outside at 4:00 in the morning to relieve themselves. Alden's never too happy to sleep when he has friends over, so the early morning hours were spent wrestling with him, trying to convince him to stay in bed. Ultimately, we made it til 6:45, when we released the dogs, fed Ellie, then handed her off to her grandparents while we slept in til 9:15. Nice work, family!

I've always struggled with hosting people at our house. It's small, usually too hot (in the summer) or too cold (in the winter), we don't have cable, there's only one bathroom (as of now), and no mudroom or closet to store most of our messes. Since we've chosen to live away from most of our family but we want our family to be part of our lives, it's important to make people feel as comfortable as possible here. At 5:45 this morning, I wasn't so happy with this situation, but waking up at 9:15 to Nanny, Jagee, and Uncle D lined up in front of Ellie's changing table making and watching her smile, every frustration went away. I'll put up with no sleep, annoying dogs, and mess on top of mess to know my baby girl is growing up with all the love in the world. I hope our family feels the same.

priorities

I admit, I used to be the pickiest, most demanding eater in the world. Luckily, David was incredibly relaxed and always content to let me plan our meals so we never had any problems. I pretty much decided what I wanted to eat and when, and he was happy enough to go along with it. In addition to my demanding relationship with food, I can also admit that I had quite a few demanding rituals or preferences related to food that also impacted our everyday life.

I tried to cook meals as fast as possible using as few utensils as possible (generally works great except for that one time chicken velvet soup congealed to the bottom of the pot and the numerous times I've scorched frozen chicken trying to heat it up too fast). I had very little patience for David's attempts to cook meals. Even though his meals usually turned out great, I couldn't stand to watch him cook. Why didn't he put the pot of water on for the pasta before chopping up vegetables?!

I also had a well-established grocery store routine that involved fully planning our dinners for the week to best optimize ingredients and grocery shopping as efficiently as possible, rarely forgetting anything we needed. I wouldn't dare send David to the grocery store without a list and even then he typically came home without one of the items on the list. Could David have succesfully done our grocery shopping? Absolutely, but it wouldn't have been fast enough for me. And how could he get that brand of salt and vinegar potato chips?

Yesterday I asked David to stop at the grocery store after work. I had tried to make a pasta dinner the night before and realized only after having put the water on to boil that we didn't have enough pasta. Oops. So David was supposed to get pasta, feta cheese, spinach, decaf coffee and a "good creamer." I was rounding the bend of taking care of Ellie by myself for the day, looking forward to when David would be home to burp her after I fed her, change poopy diapers, and otherwise enjoy our little girl. I love being with her and getting to know her, but I absolutely appreciate and am ready for the help at the end of his workday. He left work at 4:00--he didn't get home until 4:50. Granted, he biked to work (and thus, the grocery store) but that still seemed like a long time (maybe only to me). When he could tell that I as bummed about it (or maybe I whined about it...) he told me that he stood there for a long time trying to pick out a "good creamer." He had tried to call a few times, but I was with Ellie without my phone. So he took a long time waiting for me to call back and, I guess, contemplating what would make for a "good creamer."

I understand his concern. A year ago, if he came home with French Vanilla instead of Vanilla Caramel, I would have asked "Why'd you get French Vanilla?" expecting him to realize his "mistake." He would have felt bad that he didn't live up to my ritualistic expectations. I've been lucky to have a man that will do just about anything (except for ballroom dance) to make me happy. I'm sure David could recall many more of my overly-demanding personality quirks, and I love him for putting up with them. These are the things that used to shape our everyday life, but everything is different now. I don't care what I eat or when. Efficiency and planning have flown out the window. We're lucky enough to have a pretty mellow baby, but our lives still revolve around her. I've looked at my maternity leave from work as a chance to take care of our daughter, not myself (this is obvious if you've seen me in the past 7 weeks as, yes I'm still wearing the same sweatpants). Now Ellie is the one who should get the benefits of her dad's thoughtfulness. It's all about Ellie and she's more important than the right kind of creamer. But I still appreciated the Sugar Babies!

He did get home in time to enjoy this:
Chunk of Love <3

things we like

Ellie has been more fussy between 9 and 11 pm the past few nights. While we'd rather be watching Dancing with the Stars, she has other interests.

Things she loves:

• Laying on her changing pad and staring out the window
• Staring out any window
• Staring at any light
• Staring at anything bright
• Listening and dancing to music (Ke$ha is a fav, to Dad's disappointment)
• Kissy faces

Things we love:

• Our baby girl, even when she's fussy
  

sunday morning love