Our Elfin Family

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She's a Natural!

Okay, I promised pool pictures, so here they are (and yes, for those who are keeping track, that is three swimsuits you've seen so far. Does a child need three swimsuits, you ask? Of course not, but one was a gift, one I bought second hand before I got the gift, and the third is my swimsuit from when I was a teeny baby. So there):

This is my suit:


She fills it out quite nicely, considering I was born in January and couldn't have worn this before 5 or 6 months old. She is around 10 weeks old here!

This is the second hand one - get it? She IS the watermelon! Hahahahaha. I had to have it. And it was $1.50.


One last picture with my little swimmer -


Yeah, I'm not smitten or anything...

Here is the video from her very first dip in the pool.




And speaking of little swimmer, you wouldn't believe how well she already swims. From the very first day I put her in the water, as soon as I would start to drag her and she could feel the current, she started kicking her legs and moving her arms all at once (mostly, anyway). You can't see it all that well in these videos, but they're fun to watch nonetheless.

Beach Baby

I am finally getting around to posting pics and videos from our trip to Saint Simon's Island. The only way I am going to get this done is to just throw the pictures on here with some brief captions. The thought of narrating the whole trip is what has psyched me out thus far.

So, here it is in brief:

Cora's first trip to the Beach!!

She did wonderfully the whole trip, and even started sleeping longer than ever. Most nights: nine and a half to ten hours! (Yes, I know I am stunningly lucky and yes, I am desperately grateful for such a good baby.) We think it had something to do with the sea air.

These are pictures from her first foray down to the beach:

First, as a guide to how close we were to the beach, this is the two of us looking off MaMa and Pop's balcony, and the sand starts just past this courtyard area. You just walk out the gate and there you are. This is actually her first view of the beach:


This is the still shot from (one of) Cora's first dip(s).


How cute is my kid?? Love(!) the little water coming off her foot!

As you can see on the video below, she really didn't like her very first time because I put her in right as a big wave came up. Sorry, baby: Mommy couldn't see behind her. After that, though, I sat her on my feet like so


and she liked the waves splashing up over her.

This is Cora with her daddy


And with her mommy (sweet shades, huh? I forgot who gave those to us...maybe the Englekings?)


The whole beach family


And because we're (read: I'm) a little obsessive about pictures and videos, we also videoed her first time in the sand and the first time in the ocean. I've put them below. Check out how sad she gets when the big wave scares her. Oh, and my apologies for the end of the surf video - I don't know how to edit yet!







Next: Cora takes on the Pool!

I'm so cliche

Felicity is in trouble.

Apart from the many, many other things she has been doing of late (including mischievous morning activities that have woken up the baby...for which she is very lucky that she is not homeless), she has been trying to chew on anything and everything she can find.

Today she tried to gnaw on part of my [very expensive] breast pump. I didn't leave it out irresponsibly - I was in the middle of using it! So I go to shoo her away before she can puncture the plastic, and it causes me to spill almost half of the milk I had just been pumping.

I was livid. This is my body. This is my child's nourishment, which I had just labored (not very comfortably) to retrieve. And it spilled all over my clothes when I was trying to get ready to go to choir practice.

It had already been a tough day and I'm not feeling well, so that might have contributed to this, but I actually teared up I was so upset about the loss.

Yes, that is correct: I literally cried over spilled milk.

When it rains, it pours (poo)

What happened today could really have been on a sitcom. I think the episode would have been entitled "Bodily Fluid Extravaganza."

I heard a substantial development in Cora's diaper, so I went to change it pretty soon after it happened in order to avoid any unwelcome leaking incidents. Apparently, however, I jumped the gun, and she was not finished after all. I had taken off the first diaper, cleaned her up, and slid the soiled diaper out from under her with the new diaper already under that one (a little trick my favorite nurse taught me at the hospital). As I started closing up [dirty] diaper number one, I heard her begin further proceedings in the new, open diaper. I hurriedly reached for another wipe to clean her up again, and as I did, she had an explosive burst of poo that spread outside diaper number two and onto the wall of the changer. I had to laugh.

So I remove diaper number two and place it inside the still open diaper number one, and reach for diaper number three to put on her. Before I can even reach the pile, however, she decides that back end maneuvers are not sufficient, and it's time for a front end attack. She spits up a little, and before I can even finish thinking, "Yeah, that's just what we were missing," she begins to vomit voluminously. Keep in mind that she's lying on her back, so barf is now all down her front, soaking her romper and bib, is running down her neck, and is pooling behind her head. Her hair is soaked. There is puke in her ears. And she's still naked from the waist down.

I can't see any other option than to strip her down the rest of the way, pick her up, whisk her off to the bathroom and run a bath one handed. I finally got her cleaned up and calmed down, and then wrapped her in a towel on the bed. I'm attempting to dry her, diaper her (in diaper number three) and clean the puke that is still standing in the changer all simultaneously. And of course as soon as I get diaper number three closed up, she poos again. So I laugh, remove diaper number three, replace it with diaper number four, and get her dressed.

Then, as I place her on the floor for some "tummy time," I apparently activate her expulsion reflex yet again because I hear another poo. How she still has anything left to move is beyond me, but nonetheless, she did.

So, to recap, that makes the total damages rendered in a span of about ten minutes:

four soiled diapers, plus the one she's wearing now

eight to ten dirty wipes (including those used to clean up changer)

two cloth diapers, soaked in puke

one snappy romper thing, soaked in puke

one cloth bib, soaked in puke

one wet towel

one wet shirt (mine)

Now, that's efficiency.

Where Have All the Postings Gone?

...Long time passing - O, Pete Seeger, how I love thee! But I digress.

I'm coming back, I swear!

I was in Texas visiting my family, and when I got back, the laptop got sick and is still at the Mac doctor. It's been there a week, so we better hear something soon.

Whenever I get it back, though, I have lots to tell and many pictures (and videos!) to share. So don't stop checking in on us -- we'll be back soon!

Update (31 Oct): The laptop is no more. Long live the laptop. I promise to update again soon, though. Thanks for your patience!

Consider yourself warned

A notice to all my family who will see us this weekend:

Wear nothing that is dry clean only.

Miss Cora is particularly barfy this week, and spit up is a-flying.

Just don't say I didn't warn you...

Mama and Pop

We went to Georgia to visit Coleman's parents and to the beach the first week in September. I am just now getting to those pictures. However, one of the things that was keeping me from tackling them was how many and how many different ones there were. In order to spur myself into action, I decided to break them up into several posts.

This one is devoted to pictures of Cora with her grandparents - Mama (pronounced properly with a Southern drawl, resulting in "Maw-maw") and Pop.

Cora loved to watch tv with her Pop - especially football!

This is the two of them hanging out. Check out the sweet ducky pjs (formerly known as chickie pjs until I was overruled...I still think they look like a good mix of the two)!

Cora loved sitting out on the balcony, enjoying the sea air. She especially loved doing it with Mama

Just look at that sweet smile.

After the beach, we went back to their house and got to hang out with some of their friends and neighbors who wanted to meet the baby. She had lots of fun sitting out on the back stoop watching the "hummers" (hummingbirds) at their feeder. See?

This one cracks me up:

I know that's a lot of the same shot, but I really liked them. :o)

I also thought these were sweet:

This one is my favorite. Look at how she is hanging on to her finger. Pre-cious!!

One of the best parts of the week was getting to meet her Uncle Tripp for the first time (Well, she met him for the first time. Obviously, it was not OUR first time to meet him!).

It was a great visit and we hope to stage a repeat soon. Cora loves her Grandparent Fannins and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual!

Limber, anyone?

You know how I told you about Cora's new bending in half habit?

Well, just a minute ago, she got all the way bent over...and then fell asleep. We've told people that when she wants to sleep, she's going to sleep (and the converse holds true as well: when she doesn't want to, she is not going to sleep), but this may be a new level for this claim. Who sleeps like this, with your head on your feet?? Jen, I know you can fall asleep anywhere, but I think this even beats you!

I wish more than anything that I could have gotten a picture, but the camera battery was plugged in, recharging, in the other room. Stink!

Woohoo!

I weighed myself today at the gym. I don't own a scale, so this is where I have to do it.

Anyway, I am proud to say that I have reached pre-baby weight. The bad news is, I'm still not back in shape, so this must mean I've swapped some lean muscle mass for some baby flab, but I'll get that sorted out - sooner rather than later, I hope.

I've still got a few pounds to go even beyond "pre-baby" weight, but that's just so that I can feel better. It's never about the number with me (hence, not owning a scale) - it's about how I feel and how my clothes fit. Not surprisingly, these two things are directly related.

It was the first time I have been back in the pool since the baby was born. Did you know it's a lot easier to swim without a giant belly? Go figure. Plus, my arms are pretty strong from holding up my "solid" child so much, which also makes swimming easier, so all in all, it was a better experience that I had expected. I'm not quite as out of shape as I had thought.

I also got a pair of my old jeans on and zipped up/buttoned. I'm not going to lie - it was pretty dicey around the waist (can you say muffin top?), but it was a milestone nonetheless, and I'm going to count it. This is key, since I can't afford a new wardrobe, so I'd like to be back in my old one by the time winter gets here.

Wish me luck!

Time is Money

Who knew that when you don’t have a full-time job you actually have time to save money??

I’ve been reading coupon blogs (oh yeah, they exist, and they’re stunning – I’m not half as serious as these women are) and printing coupons and getting all the circulars from the Sunday paper. In fact, if the Richmond paper had more of these savings inserts that I keep hearing about, I’d be really dangerous.

However, I must say I haven’t done too shabby as of late, even without them. I promise not to post this regularly, but this week was my first full-throttle deal week, and I made out like a bandit.

At Babies R Us, I used $7 in coupons on diapers and wipes, and saved 15% on a baby gift for a shower we are going to next week.

Target has a weird receipt, but I know I saved at least 33.5% of my bill (not including a gift I had to buy for a shower I can’t attend) – and that’s including an emergency purchase of over $7 (on ant killing supplies, yuck) that I didn’t have time to find coupons for or deals on. Sorry for ending the sentence in a preposition, but fixing it would have been a mess. Plus, I got a $5 Target gift card as part of a savings deal, too.

At Walgreens I only saved $6.28, but that represented 41% of my total bill (including tax).

At CVS I saved $34.96 PLUS got $12.50 in extra care bucks (which is essentially like cash because that’s how much will be subtracted from any future purchase), which represents – including the extra care bucks – a 58% savings on my total bill.

And at Kroger, I saved $28.50, plus I got $3 off my next purchase. This was only 28% of my total bill, but that’s still not too shabby for the grocery store!

As Coleman reminded me, you have to spend money to save money, but I assure you that 98% of all these purchases were things we needed anyway: food we already eat, razor cartridges, toothpaste, contact solution, detergent, etc. And I didn’t buy any toiletries we weren’t low on already. Plus, all three locations are nearby, and I just did one per day so that I wasn’t harried and stressed (not to mention that shopping with Cora pretty much prohibits piling on too many stops in one trip).

All in all, I officially proclaim Deal Week a success!

P.S. - My mother used to clip coupons and make spreadsheets for what items were cheapest and where, which she did while holding down a full-time job, commuting, cooking daily meals, and taking care of two kids. I have nothing on this woman!!

My little yogi

Do any of you do yoga? You know when you get in a particularly challenging pose, when you're stretched as far as you can go, and then you just relax into it and breathe into it, and all of the sudden you find yourself sinking further and further into it until you're way past where you thought was your limit?

That's the best way I can describe Cora's newest quirk.

She'll be sitting upright on my lap with her legs out in front of her and will begin to bend forward until she's in about a 45 degree angle and halts. Then slowly, slowly, she keeps bending further and further until her nose is nearly between her feet. She looks like she's folded in half.

And I still haven't figured out why she's doing this. Is she fascinated by her feet? She doesn't really grab them when she gets to them, but perhaps she's just trying to get a closer look? She's shoving everything in her mouth these days (and I mean shoving), so perhaps she thinks all those little piggies would be fun to gnaw on. Who knows?

Or maybe all that prenatal yoga got through to her early.

We're also getting really ready to see some family. My Aunt Mileta and Uncle Carter are coming up for a visit. They're flying into DC to see my cousin Jerrod, their son/my cousin, who is in grad school there, and his girlfriend Shana, and they are all coming down to spend a few days in the area, so they're going to get to meet Cora. Yay! Aunt Mileta has already said how excited she is that she won't have to share her with the rest of the family and can have her all to herself. Aunt Mileta was the person who acted most excited out of everyone when we told the family that we were having a baby last Christmas, so she's definitely due for some Cora time.

Then, next weekend, Sparkypants and I are flying to Texas to visit/meet the rest of the family. (For those of you shuddering right now, Sparkypants is the baby, not Coleman.) We're very excited and hope to see many of you very soon.

Baby Loves Her Mommy

I don't think I've made it into too many pictures thus far...that will tend to happen when one is attempting to lose the 36 pounds one gained while pregnant (yikes!), has little sleep, and no time for things like putting on makeup or fixing one's hair. Hey, in those early days, it was tough to manage clean hair, much less fixed hair!

So, I am posting a few pictures I ran across of the baby and me. I'm not any more glamorous that I was a few months ago, but my standard has been lowered quite a bit, I think! I just wanted you to know that I do still exist...

I told you I love to kiss her!!

Look at that beautiful little girl. She's mine, can you believe it?!

What a steal

Some of you have seen the bebe au lait nursing covers or the "hooter hider" brand, but I hadn't heard of "udder covers" before. However, they look the same to me and they serve pretty much the same function.

And they're free.

They're having a great promo right now (can't get much better, actually), where you can get one for free as long as you pay shipping and handling (a $32 savings!!). The s&h is $8.95, so this is only a deal if you were planning on getting one anyway. But if you're nursing, going to be nursing, or have a baby shower to go to soon, I wouldn't pass this up.

Just go to their site here:

https://www.uddercovers.com/

And then enter the promo code "backorder" when you checkout. I did it. It works.

(and be sure to disregard the photo in the slideshow where the two friends are drinking wine in front of the nursing mother, who isn't. Jenny pointed this out to me, and I think that's hilarious. What jerks!)

As I told a couple of you to whom I sent this deal earlier, I'm not usually intensely modest about breastfeeding in public. I do cover, but don't go hide away somewhere and don't make a concerted effort to shield everyone from everything. For me, it's a matter of principle. No one asks women in low-cut blouses to cover up, and they're flashing at least as much breast as I am when I'm breastfeeding AND I'm feeding my kid!! They're just showing them off for funsies and it's okay, but me doing the most natural, God-given thing in the world is somehow offensive? I think not.

I think that the message that sends (woman's body as sex object = okay; woman's body as nourishing, comforting life-giver = gross) is demeaning to women and the people who have a problem with breastfeeding in public are the ones who ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And like I told the girls earlier, they're boobs, you know - this is what they are for.

Okay, so if I'm all hot and bothered about this, why did I get one? Yeah, good question. However, I'm going to be flying soon and do feel like that's pretty close quarters in which to be exposing myself, in addition to which, Coleman won't be there to help me get set up (sometimes it's difficult to keep something draped on you while you need two hands to get positioned, latched, etc.). So, I'd been thinking about getting one and this deal just made it an easy choice. I think I may like the two-free-hands thing in the future, too, you know?

So, I'm proud of you if you don't want one (power to the milk mamas!), but if you do, check it out. It's quite a deal.

What a morning

I've just spent the better part of an hour on the phone with the electric company (always a joy, and no, my issue is still not worked out) and the postal service.

It turns out, the moron they employ as our [former] postal carrier says he "didn't know" about the forwarding order we had on file. It has been in effect for FIVE WEEKS and has been on file even longer than that. And the only reason I suspected this is because two people told me mail had been returned to them. Who knows how many other pieces of mail he returned??

Now normally I would be loathe to call anyone a "moron" who provided me with a valuable and necessary service on a daily basis, but this is also the braintrust who broke three dvds in the first month we lived there by shoving them into our mailbox. Three! Broke them in half. How much force does it take to snap a dvd in half? And you can imagine what our other mail looked like if that's what happens to a disc.

Incidentally, this is also the post office that, when I called about the three broken dvds, responded with, "What would you have us do about that?" Yeah, really instills the confidence in their level of service, doesn't it?

So anyway, this is all just to say: if you have tried to mail us something and it has been returned, I'm sorry. We were not so remiss that we didn't have our mail forwarded, it just didn't work, apparently. We have gotten some mail here, so if it hasn't been returned, you can be relatively sure that we got it. Well, maybe "relatively sure" is even stretching it. Hey, why don't you just check with us?!

Indoctrination: Starting Early

In the past, Coleman and I have made fun of people who use their kids (well, their clothes anyway) to exhibit their own personal views, preferences, and political stances. You see babies wearing onesies with peace signs or "future republican" on them (I always read those - and others like it, I'm nonpartisan on this issue - to myself as "future kid who will totally rebel against you for stuff like this."). Or they just say things like, "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" or "I'm a flirt." Your kid is not a flirt: you just think that onesie is cute.

And let's face it - we still mock them.

But we've also joined them.

This is Cora's Tree Hugger onesie:

We love it. And yes, we know that it says way more about us than it does about her and attributes our attitudes to our daughter who cannot yet express her own, but we don't care.

It's hilarious.

And doesn't it look like she loves it, too? Look at her grinning and posing. She IS a tree hugger!

Oh My

These are just random pictures, but I thought they were hilarious.

She fell asleep like this, with her hands on her face, and I call it, "Oh my":

Getting Handsy

Cora has now discovered her hands and is obsessed with them.

She will stare at them for half and hour or more at a time - watching them, moving them, playing with them, and even talking to them. She also uses them to grab things, like hair and ears (no, I don't want to talk about how I know this...let's just say we're working on that). And when she's feeding, she has started putting her top hand up on my chest and just dancing her hand all around while she eats. I think it entertains her.

The rest of the time she has them stuffed in her mouth, but my friend Sara (a speech pathologist) says this is actually good. Apparently babies need to do this - even shoving them in so far that they kind of gag themselves - so that they can desensitize their gag reflex in preparation for eating solid foods. She's so smart.

Anyway, I got a couple of pictures of her doing this the other day.

This is one of her just talking away

Look how intently she focuses in on them

And this is her talking TO them

Look at that face! Is that stinking cute or what?!

Happy Birthday, Cora!

Today is officially Cora's three month birthday! Can you believe it has been three months??

I go back and forth between thinking that time has flown by/she's growing up so fast and then thinking that, yeah, it does feel like it has been three months. Some days it really feels like it. That was mainly true early on, though. Sarah, a friend of mind, when I mistakenly referred to the next month as September instead of August, just laughed and said, "Well you've probably gone to sleep and woken up enough times that it does seem like it ought to be September by now, doesn't it?" As a mother of a one year old son, she knows...

But these days, things are pretty wonderful (apart from last night, but we think she's hitting her three month transition right on schedule and hoping that's all it was!). She is sleeping beautifully - between eight and ten hours every night, putting herself back to sleep if she does wake up at night, and the little night owl has even allowed us to back up her bedtime to between 10:45 and 11:00pm (10:20 last night!). She's getting so long and is holding her head up very securely on her own (very little wobbling, but you still have to watch her).

As I told some of you already, we were at a faculty/student cookout last Friday. She was 12 weeks at the time and was around an 11-week old baby and a six month old baby. I'm telling you, she looked and acted far more like the six month old than the 11-week old. He was lying in his mother's arms and she was sitting straight up as people held her, talking their ear off. And speaking of talking, I am trying to get good video clips of her talking. She is a motormouth these days! She'll just be having a gabfest all by herself (or to one of us), and then as soon as I grab the camera, she shuts up. It's a riot to listen to, though. You know she's having an entire conversation, if only she had the words to make us understand!

Breastfeeding is still going well, and she's still gaining height and weight at a respectable pace. She's been in her 3 month sized clothes for awhile now, and most of her 3 to 6 mo. stuff fits perfectly. I'm going to have a beast of a child if this keeps up! Preempting her nana, who might take offense at the term, I mean "beast" with the utmost affection.

Okay, I'm going to get pictures and videos up soon, but I just wanted to do a little developmental recap in honor of the day.

Oh, and I just realized the other day that her half birthday will be Christmas!

Allow Myself to Introduce...Myself

I have now given up hope that the name Cora isn't "coming back." Cora has officially met another Cora. Luckily for us, though, it wasn't another little baby - it was an eight week old Beagle puppy!!!

Look - can you read her tag? It says "Cora Pittman."

Is she not the most adorable puppy ever?? When she howls it'll break your heart.

She belongs to the woman in charge of recruitment here at BTSR (Kristen, if you're reading, you'll be pleased to know that Coleman refers to her as "the Kristen Richardson of BTSR...well, the old Kristen anyway"), though Cora is just a nickname. She and her husband have three dogs, all named for guitars. They have a Gibson, a Taylor (I think), and now a Cordoba - hence the nickname "Cora."

Here is their first introduction:

"First we sniffs her..."

"And then we licks her head!"**

While we were all standing around talking, a really funny thing happened. Two other male staff members walked by and were introduced to the puppy Cora. One said, "What did you name that dog??? That's an old, old lady's name!" At this point, I couldn't stop myself from saying, "And you should meet our daughter, Cora."

He looked stricken. He stammered about how he had an aunt named Cora so that's why he associated it with older women, at which point I helped him out of it by laughing and saying she was named for her Great-great-great grandmother, so she was indeed named after an "old, old lady." He still looked pretty embarrassed, though.

Tiffany (the Kristen Richardson of BTSR) also mentioned that someone else on staff had told her not to tell us their dog's nickname for fear we might be offended. I assured her that we were a little harder to offend than that, and as long as she let me play with her Cora on occasion, we'd be even.

Now don't worry, Max - she'll never take your place in my affections! She's merely a placeholder until we meet again.

**Andy and Jen may recognize this as my Gollum voice, which is terribly applicable here since I want to have a Beagle and name him or her Smeagol. Coleman says only a boy puppy can be na,ed that, but that's another argument for another post...

The Proof is in the Piggies

As more and more (read: all) people point out to me that they think my daughter looks a great deal like her father and nothing at all like me, I keep reminding them that she has my toes. This is my one consolation and the only thing I claim on her on which I get no argument. Sidenote: when we were in Georgia and all of Diane's friends said she looked like Coleman, she said, "Isn't it funny how all the people who know Coleman thinks she looks like him. I bet when you are around your family, they think she looks like you." I had to tell her that, no, my family also thinks that. Where's the loyalty, huh?

At any rate, here is the proof for my claim. Check out these piggies:

Check out how long they are!! And they're talented, too. One night, just a few weeks after we were home from the hospital, I heard Coleman yelp. He yelled to me, "She just pinched me with her toes** - she IS your kid!"

** something I'm terribly good at

And while I was taking shots of her toes, I couldn't resist the opportunity to document another prominent feature of her anatomy: her rolls! She's not pudgy, but she does have some serious thighs and even some creases on her arms. Her pediatrician, as I have mentioned, refers to her as "solid."

When I was at the OB/GYN for my six week checkup, Cora was with me and an elderly woman who was leaving at the same time we were looked into her stroller and said, "You need to stop putting rubber bands around that child's arms and legs." Don't call CPS, she was only joking, but this was clearly her referent:

Look at her ankles - they've even got creases. She looks like a baby elephant! An adorable elephant, my adorable elephant, but elephant-ankled nonetheless.

I'm Losing It

My hair, that is - although Coleman might say it is an apt description of my mental state as well.

I had read somewhere (probably What to Expect) that during pregnancy, your body doesn't shed hair at its usual rate. It preserves it, keeping your body better protected and insulated, etc. It did result in some good hair days, I must say. For this same reason, it can also grow extra body hair, but thankfully I didn't have the good fortune to experience that one!

At any rate, at a certain point, it realizes that it no longer needs this extra protective layer and it sheds all that conserved hair.

I'm terribly glad I read that; otherwise, I would be out purchasing Propecia.

Coleman, having observed the alarming amounts of hair I am losing, asked me if I were getting my "summer coat." Oh, how I love being compared to a canine. The other day, he came out of the bathroom, where I had just cleaned out my brush, and he walked over to where I was sitting and began to rifle through my hair, inspecting my scalp. As I shooed him away he looked at me and said, "I promise I'll still love you when you're bald."

He's a keeper, isn't he? I tell you what: I may be losing hair, but if he keeps this up, he's going to be losing limbs!

Three Major Accomplishments

Okay, two major accomplishments and a stroke of good fortune.

First, the monkey ma’am is a champion sleeper. Almost overnight she went from sleeping seven hours at night to sleeping nine (or more) hours at night! A couple of nights she has slept for ten!! Even better, we have now moved her start time back to midnight, which is a vast improvement over her past bedtime. Before we left for Richmond, we’d gotten it moved from 2 am (which she had stubbornly stuck to for-ev-er) to about 1 am, but all of a sudden, she was getting to sleep around 12 – a couple of times even 11:45. It’s a miracle! I fully realize that this may just be a phase, so I’m keeping my expectations low, but it is a beautiful phase and I am not taking a single night for granted.

The second accomplishment is mine. While we were in St. Simons, I wore a complete pre-pregnancy outfit. We’re talking top and bottom. Not maternity clothes, not a ‘transition’ size. Yay! It felt so great. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that these shorts were one of my looser pairs, but I think the feat stands. It marks a milestone and gives me great encouragement to fit into all the rest of my clothes!

The third thing has nothing at all to do with the baby or with pregnancy, but it made me very, very happy. When we were unpacking last night, I found two pair of underwear that I thought were lost forever. This may seem an odd attachment to undergarments, but they’re my favorite kind and the store I bought them from doesn’t make them anymore, so they were essentially irreplaceable. They’ve been missing for months, but apparently I had just packed them the last time we used this suitcase and didn’t get them out with the rest of my clothes. Funnily enough, I had even checked all the suitcases when I was hunting for them, but I guess I didn’t look hard enough. So yay for finding much beloved things that you thought were gone forever.

I have a bunch of pictures and video from the beach – I’ll post those soon!

We get by with a little help from our friends

I would be exceedingly remiss if I mentioned the move without telling you all how thankful we are for our friends and their help with it.

Many people went out of their way to ask if we needed help or offer to do whatever we needed.

Friends brought us boxes from their offices, a professor who just moved to town - and didn't even know us - gave us some of their recently empty boxes, and our friend Liza even checked at Trader Joe's to see when they were getting a shipment so that we could get their boxes before they crushed them. Just imagine how proud I was to pack my things in TJ's boxes!

Liza and Jennifer came over one Sunday afternoon and took Cora to the park so that I could get some packing accomplished. I didn't ask them to - they offered.

And, as always (and they can attest that I do mean "always"), Andy and Jen were the superstars of our move. Without them, we wouldn't have left town until this Monday at noon! Andy again (as in again...again...again) negotiated our small doorways and pokey halls with our large couch. He lifted and carried and brought bungees and straps and strategized how to keep everything from flying out of the back of the truck on the way to the storage place. Hmmm, perhaps we should have consulted him about the placement of that trash can...

And Jen was awesome. She came over several times and either helped me pack or did the packing herself while I was immobile during a feeding or had to hold Cora to keep her from fussing. She figured out how to pack oddly shaped items like my gigantic serving tray or the blender. She wrapped and wrapped and taped and taped so that my dishes and glassware will still be in one piece when I retrieve them from storage in 10 months! I'd be feeding and just pointing at stuff while she did all the work. And she would happily do my bidding, then reemerge every so often to repeat the refrain, "What else?"

They also let us stay with them the night before we left, since our bed was stored across town. We showed up late, even though they had work the next day, and they had breakfast waiting on us when we woke.

I hope all of you have an Andy and Jen. I suspect not, since I'm not sure there are too many people out there like them, but I hope you can find them wherever they are.

We are so grateful for all our friends who recognized that this was a more complicated process now that we have an infant and stepped in to help whenever and however they could. We couldn't have done it without them - and I don't mean that rhetorically!

P.S. - Andy, I forgot to mention on the other post: I only got through one and a half Van Morrison songs (Brown Eyed Girl was on the radio, so we started with that one, and then I made it halfway through These are the Days, but was a little rusty on the lyrics). You'll have to teach her the rest!

On the Road Again (Again)

Whew.

We made it to Richmond…mostly in one piece. It was quite an adventure, though, making such a long trip with two cars packed to the gills, plus an infant and two tranquilized cats. Actually, the tranqs only partially worked on Felicity and they didn’t work at all on Perpetua (I suspect that body mass had something to do with it…Coleman compared it to that great big grizzly that you just can’t take down no matter how many darts you shoot at it), so they spent the whole drive meowing back and forth to each other and with Perpetua roaming around the truck, across Coleman’s lap, and up and down on the dashboard. I could hear them in the background every time I called him.

I, on the other hand, was traveling in the car with Cora. We had planned on waking up with her for her first feeding (anywhere from 7 to 9 am), loading the last few things into the truck bed, and heading out so that we could drive through the rest of her late-morning napping. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

We were still packing and cleaning the apartment all morning (which she did, thankfully, sleep through), and didn’t make it on to the highway until just past noon. I was certain we were in big trouble since we were just starting out when she should have just been waking up for the day. I couldn’t believe it, though, but she slept and slept and slept. It was downright miraculous.

We only stopped three times the whole way from Dayton to Richmond, which made what is normally an eight-plus hour trip into a ten and a half hour trip, but considering we were traveling like the Joads, I call that excellent timing!

It wasn’t all peaceful naptime, but I really can’t complain. Of those ten and a half hours, she only cried for about a total of two hours, in aggregate. Of those two hours, I probably spent half an hour driving with one hand and reaching into the back seat, over the car seat to hold a pacifier in her mouth with the other hand (and yes, that IS about as awkward a position as you are imagining it to be – but I was safe!). I estimate that I spent another two plus hours singing to her to calm her down or keep her calm until we could stop or to attempt to put off a stop if we could help it. And for a lot of the time that really worked. I was terribly pleased; however, when she’s crying, you have to sing louder than her crying in order to get her attention, so I had a bit of a scratchy throat after all was said and done.

And it’s actually harder than you might think to be able to string verses together and blend songs back to back with no possible down time or silences (the silences beget more tears). As such, I resorted to some odd choices, but I went with whatever popped into my head.

And when I came across words or phrases or verses that I couldn’t remember, I would make up totally random lyrics just to keep the singing going and avoid any pauses. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall of that mountaineer…with me driving down I-64, singing wildly and ceaselessly at top volumes, caterwauling absolute nonsense. Strange how such insanity was the key to preserving sanity…

As for Miss Cora’s musical tastes, they are quite varied. Most effective for getting her attention were selections from The Messiah, a medley of Peter, Paul, and Mary tunes, and even a Van Morrison song. Also popular were hymns and the majority of the soundtrack from The Sound of Music. She is SO my daughter!

So we all arrived safely (and from that statement I exclude the bathroom trash can and 5 rolls of toilet paper that were lost when the tarp came up – they flew off the back of the truck and now reside along highway 35, somewhere outside of Dayton) and with our sanity intact (but just barely).

We’re settling in and trying to unpack and organize during naps and in between feedings. I hope to get some more pics up soon, and I even have a new video, so stay tuned…

Progress on the Domestic Harmony Front

We think Felicity might be warming up to Cora…at least a little.

Granted, she didn’t approach her on her own – Coleman brought her over – but she didn’t squirm or back away. Prior to this, I would characterize her attitude toward the baby as “curious, but concerned.” I think we’d be happy with “tolerant,” but I was kind of hoping for “affectionate.”

We’ll see.