SLOANE GOES TO THE BEACH

It’s only the middle of July and it may be going down as my favorite month of 2013 so far, albeit the sporatic and incessant thunderstorms and relentless humidity.  There is so much more to come this month but let’s make a list of what has been, shall we?

^We got to put our new deck to use

^We had so many babies play in our little kiddie pool with Sloane

^Fourth of July weekend meant time of work and get togethers with friends

^The walk through the woods to try to get to Texas Beach. Unsuccessful, but refreshing

^That time we probably had fleas – not a pro, but memorable.

^When I finally accepted the fact that my baby is most definitely now a toddler

^My parents came to visit!

^Both my cousins, Joe and Lois, stayed with us

^My sister Sharon came into town with her fellow

^My sister Eunice got married!

^We celebrated my dad’s birthday all together

^I got to take a few days off work to go to the beach

^I got to finish a book I’ve been wanting to read for a while (David Sedaris’s “Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls”)

^Ken ending up in the ER due to what we suspect was an especially bad case of food poisoning. Also, not a pro, but it seems like it should make it on to the list.

And with that, one of my favorite things this month – baby Sloane meets the beach!

^sloane steps on sand for the VERY FIRST TIME!^

^clinging to papa^ 

 ^looking amusedly on at me doing....^ 

MY SISTER'S WEDDING

It's been quiet on the blog front because we had a wedding this past weekend and then went straight into vacation mode for a couple of days down in Virginia Beach. I have so many words in my head that there may be a flood of posts in the next few days, or maybe I will just continue to be in vacation mode and save the tower of words for another time and place.  So much has happened in these past few weeks, the most important of those being that my youngest sister got hitched to a sincere, funny, and Romanian guy named Val. I learned so much about my sister throughout these past few months of watching and helping her plan and I gotta say I am one proud big sister.  She continues to surprise me with her big heart, strength, resolve and creativity, and even though this next step in life is a big one, I feel more confident than ever that she will be all the better and brighter for it.

I RESOLVE TO TAKE MORE FAMILY WALKS THROUGH THIS CITY

It has been an unexpected and absolute pleasure to introduce my daughter to the things in my world. It brings me so much joy. That is increasingly what this blog is becoming about, as I’m sure you’ve noticed: my observations of Sloane experiencing the world around her, one sidewalk at a time. I get it now. Why parents go out of their way to take their little ones to zoos and museums and water parks and on travels. Just being able to get front row seats to a child seeing something for the first time, and seeing that lightbulb and connection happen in their brain, or imagining their mind and heart expanding because they have seen an alligator for the first time, or a piece of art, heard a band, or felt the thrill of going down a slide – it is its own kind of reason for living.

There is also the unavoidable fact that the older a child gets, the more that is required to keep them occupied and if you don’t have some sort of caged area at home, boredom is inevitable, which leads to more crankiness. Being in the wide outdoors with a toddler makes so much sense for a parent’s well-being.

We had some friends come down from out of town for a hot second last weekend – it started off with the original intent of throwing some babies in a kiddie pool and somehow evolved into doing things like an art walk and a visit to the river. All the plans didn’t pan out exactly as expected, but unexpected turns is my reality now, where with little ones and extremely humid weather and threats of thunderstorm around every corner and lack of sleep occasionally being an issue. But sweaty as it was, I loved being able to walk some streets. Sloane, this is Richmond’s First Friday’s Art Walk.

OUR HEARTS ARE ON FIRE

This morning, as we approached the door to daycare, Sloane stuck her pointer finger and pushed the doorbell.

My hair is getting ridiculous. I could hide secrets, snacks, and Sloane all in there if need be.

If I could make love to this potent and delicious cup of coffee, I would… and then tell you about it.



Now that all that is out of the way....



I feel particularly raw about all of the wretched news lately. There is always bad news, but it has been hitting the bull’s eye of my sadness and fears. 55 civilians killed in Egypt over the conflict between generals who forced out the president and his Islamist supporters, 2 dead and 160 injured from a plane crash in San Francisco, 5 dead and 40 missing from a runaway oil tanker that derailed into a town in Quebec, 19 firefighters from Prescott killed while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire, man on trial for holding captive three women in his home, seven year old boy killed when he was struck by a bullet that someone randomly fired …freak car accidents…freak diseases and bacteria. It may have something to do with being a mom and realizing how much more vulnerable I am to fears and worries. I feel so helpless in protecting my family from all the bad in the world.

What a balancing act it is. Be aware, let yourself feel the sadness but not too much, don’t drown, lest you can’t function, feel frustrated, realize you have to keep living your life, be grateful, try to believe prayers are actually powerful, pray, take in the admonishment that worrying is pointless, be grateful for what you do have, but don’t forget, don’t block out the world, weep, take a good long look at how healthy and beautiful your daughter is, resolve to focus on the one, dream about having several, enjoy the present, plan for the future, sleep.

My house is full with family right now and I love it. It’s a little bit of a madhouse at times, and I blame it on the fact that I am not on a summer break, so I still have full working days, which means I can’t lounge around to hang out for as much as I like, so I have to take things in little bit sized pieces as I am running on to the next thing I have to do. My dad is here for two weeks, my mom is here for a month, my cousins are here for the week, my sister will be here for the weekend and my other sister is getting married on Saturday. I need this entire month off.

One of the things we discussed with friends this past weekend was how one of the crucial responsibilities of a father, especially a new father, is to help out with the housework. It’s not glamorous, but it’s real life. This is part of what Ken and I both learned over the past year, and are still learning now. Along with how to delegate, initiate, manage expectations, communicate, sacrifice, and rest. I’d like to give both of us pats on the back at this moment about how we have been growing in this regard. I’d like to give Ken an extra pat on the back for folding laundry last night. Laundry is one of those things that just does not get folded in this house (gotta pick and choose the priorities) and in the midst of bummer moment that he was having because the desktop is being a little dog, he did some laundry folding. He’s good at it too.

Speaking of friends over this past weekend, one of the other things that we tried to do was spend the morning by the river. I was so excited for this because it had been so long since we got to go to my favorite river spot, and it would be Sloane’s first river experience, but ALAS, it has been raining too much and the water turned out to be way too high. It was still nice trekking through the woods and Sloane eyeballed me and her eyeballs said, we need to do this again.