THE MORNING LIGHT

whew.

what a weekend...

it was filled with visitors from new york and northern virginia, a bachelorette party, and a visit with a friend who just got back from a missions trip to india.  the weather was perfect then the weather was cloudy and then the weather was great again.  there was copious amounts of good food, baby-holding and i fell in love with sloane even more. i'm nursing a slight case of dreading-the-mondays, but it's being staved off right now by a slice of pie, glass of wine, and watching the emmy's on the couch with ken nearby (who is not watching the emmy's). i'm feeling decidedly satisfied with this hour of sitting next to my husband on the couch in front of the tv - me on the laptop and ken updating his new phone. it feels like the old days a little bit.

i have fuzzy feelings about the old days but let's be real, i'm in love with the new days.

this house gets great light as the sun comes up and sloane and i were hanging out in the living room when the sun filtered in through the windows very early on saturday morning and gave us mood lighting for our play. this little baby girl - i cannot get enough.

the morning light an hour later during breakfast:

WHAT A GOOD STORY I'M IN, I TELL MYSELF

i gotta say, i am feeling a little out of sorts lately.

i went to the grocery store the other day because i was thirsty for a watermelon. and only an entire melon would do. i was aghast to find that where there is usually a large bin of watermelons, there were pumpkins instead. i stared at the aggressively orange bumpy circles and let the disappointment wash over me.  pumpkins!

friends, i am not ready for summer to end. as much as i love the fall, i know that fall means that winter is up next and i shrivel up a little in the winter.

i am not ready to give up warm summer nights and the freedom of walking out in my bare feet. i am not ready to stuff my baby into so many clothes and chase around socks every morning to put on her feet. i am not ready for cold bones. 

may i state the painfully obvious here? the seasons come, ready or not.  i will bear down, enjoy the hells out of fall, and push through the winter.  after all, christmas is in there somewhere. and i'm wildly confident that a bout of apple picking will almost be worth leaving summer for. 

i finally did get my hands on a watermelon.  ken came to the rescue with a watermelon he found at costco.

 i also found myself at a starbucks one evening while i was running errands, and falling asleep while doing so, and decided a dose of caffeine was in order.  i saw the pumpkin latte on the menu, heaved a dramatic sigh, and ordered one as my way of saying, 'hey fall, i see you, come on in.'

COME IN BLUE SKIES AND CRISPY WIND WISPS TINTED WITH SPICE. Come on in.

yes, I'm grieving the end of summer, but trying to be all -  what's next? An adventure! The story unfolds - that sort of a thing .

 i weaned sloane off the boob as of last week. it was a relatively smooth transition for both of us over the span of a month. after she turned one, i dropped a feeding each week. i made the decision to do this based on several factors; the main reason being that i felt both sloane and I were ready to move on. I am proud of myself for nursing all throughout this last year and I am proud of sloane for transitioning like she did. 'we're rockstars!' i told her. we replaced nursing snuggles for book-reading snuggles. she loves bringing me books and snuggling into my lap to be read to every morning and evening. i love it too.

but it has also been tough these past few weeks. i kept my eyeballs peeled for depression because i had heard that it was a thing that could happen, but what came first was all sorts of unexpected physical changes. i had all the symptoms of pregnancy and i panicked: I took tests; went to the doctors, and worried that if i wasn't pregnant, there was something wrong with my IUD. i was uncomfortably bloated, the 5-6 hours of sleep that i had been getting used to was not nearly enough, i had piercing pain in my breasts, there was blood in the toilet and i didn't physically feel like myself. then I started noticing how blah I felt all the time. it wasn't notable at first, but it was as if everything had been turned down to a dull roar. like the difference between watching a vivid and riveting television show and having it be background noise while you stare out a window. i didn't necessarily feel sad, i just felt ...off. also disconcerting was how i secure I felt all of a sudden about my appearance. i wanted to wear paper bags over my head and body all the time and it got increasingly difficult to get trough a work day. i still don't feel entirely back my normal self, but I am aware that this is the transition phase. i got confirmation from my doc that my physical symptoms are probably due to my body adjusting after the weaning and getting itself back on a cycle. And physiologically, my prolactin and oxytocin (them love hormones) levels are dropping and my body is trying to get me back on track.  this body of mine has been doing pretty amazing things thus far; here's hoping it sees me through this chapter. 

so i guess what i'm saying here is that even when you are ready for something, the change isn't easy. (is this just me? I used to thrive on change, but it is getting harder, the older I get ...) but what kind of story has no changes in it? what kind of story is about a girl having her experiences be exactly how she expected? that's not a story at all....!

A PEEK: SLOANE'S NURSERY

This has been Sloane's room for about a year, and I am just now getting around to putting up pictures and trying to make it a more cohesive space.  I guarantee that I will change things around a hundred more times but for now, peeks.

A really beautiful painting on silk canvas by a Korean artist named Youngmi Jeon from my mom that she brought over from Korea

(it's sloane and rusty!)

Under the sea mobile from Once Upon a Child/ giraffe doll from Rwanda c/o Laura

A made over dresser

Top row: giraffe print, woof print c/o Allen/ 

Bottom row: fearfully and wonderfully made print by Amanda Tobin, hot air balloon print 

Blocks and curtain from Ikea

I did this watercolor the other day and when i showed it to Ken, he said, "did you run out of paint?" 

i didn't...

My dear friend Saena put this tree of hope for sloane together during my shower; the leaves are things that the shower attendees wrote down of things that they hope for Sloane.  Ken's contribution: "athletic"

Sloane's closet

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

ahem, if I could have everyone's attention please....

my baby has found her belly button and she would like you all to know...!

FIVE THINGS

how cool is this! photos from Target in the '60s (via Shutterbean)

hairstyle inspiration from Designlovefest

Confenzioni Crosby's Spring and Summer 2013 collection is right up my alley 

Inspiring travel photography from Mr. and Mrs. Globe Trot

i just dared myself to make and drink this mesa mule from Happyolks

SLOANE AT 13 MONTHS

I was going to quit Sloane's monthly updates when she got to one year, but there is so much to record and if I'm going to scribble these anywhere, might as well be here.  must keep up the marvel!

Yesterday morning, she pooped the most giant of all poops.  It was, I kid you not, the size of a softball.  I was taken aback to say the least, and grossed out to say a little more, but mostly incredulous about how she kept that in her diaper and kept walking around as if there was nothing all that unusual about having a softball-sized wad swinging around with you in your diaper.  Fact: I now I have to hold my breath when I change a poop diaper.  How's that for real talk.

When we were ready to go, I strapped her into the car seat, placed my bags in the passenger seat and buckled myself into the driver's.  Revved the engine. Nothing.  This to say, I got to spend an extra with her while waiting for roadside assistance to come over.  We spent most of that hour giggling over how much we love watermelon and stuffing our mouths with it.  We also saw deer in our backyard and marveled at them together, really looking.

Later that evening when we got home, she pointed to the fridge indicating that she wanted more watermelon.  I wish I could bottle up that face of hers lighting up like the sun with joy when she sees that I've understood what she is asking for. Brain, etch that image into thyself.

She marched around happily, coming back to where I was sitting occasionally to give my legs a hug, or pat my skirt.  On one of those trips back she noticed my feet, and as if really seeing them for the first time, cradled them in her hands and patted the bottom of my foot, jabbering the whole time.  A little later in her room, she brought me every book she could get her hands on, one by one, and we read each one together. She hands me a book, and then reaches both arms up to me so that I can swing her into my lap for the read, and I am a pool of oh-baby-I-love-you.

Today, she was just the cutest thing ever while we were working out.  She was trying to copy everything we did (push ups, squats) and yelling out to us when we did our laps up and down the street.  Ken and I just about died from cuteness overload.

Later on, she was doing this thing where she would carefully place a piece of paper towel down, put the tv remote control inside of it, wrap it up like a burrito and carry it to another location, where she would repeat the process. This went on for about 15 minutes.

You see what I'm doing here? Snippets.

At 13 months, Sloane is :

^ drinking whole milk! She didn't like the taste at first when I gave it to her a few weeks ago, so we had been mixing it with formula, but just a few days ago she is starting to drink it straight up.
^ down to nursing two times a day, morning and night.  This also means NO MORE PUMPING AT WORK as of a couple of weeks ago.
^ imitating everything we do. It's a riot.  She also once in a while does things that I'm sure she couldn't have seen from anywhere and it makes me wonder.
^ needing a few minutes to get used to strangers and warm up to people.  She gets stone-faced and solemn. And then she eventually loosens up and she is all smiles and marchy marchy.
^ dancing suspiciously a lot like ken's dancing.
^ doing twirls and going around in circles. The other day I saw her gazing at her reflection in the oven door, and then going in circles and flapping her arms while murmuring/singing to herself.
^ trying to run. So far it kind of looks like a gallop.
^ leaning against things. like walls, cabinets, doors, closets..apparently it's a thing that babies do?
^ decidedly prefers her green vegetables  (green beans, celery, green peppers, cucumbers) to her non-green vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes...)
^ is a fruitmonger. She loves fruit. She is obsessed with watermelon.
^ enjoys being read books, especially her two favorite ones. Over and over.
^ jabbering up a storm.
^ looking for her belly button when she remembers it's there, and pointing to her nose and ear when we ask her where hers is.
^ bringing me things when I point to it and ask her to bring it to me please.

This isn't a comprehensive list obviously; I'm just squeezing out everything I can remember because all these things are delicious.

THREE YEARS OF LURRRVE

The night before our three year anniversary, Ken and I were laying in bed, talking about our plans for raw oysters at Merroir the next day.

"Are oysters Paleo?" he asked.

"Uh obviously,"I chortled, "getting them from the sea and slurping them up raw is as Paleo as you can get."

Next thing I know, Ken had heaved his entire body weight on me, pinning me to the bed.

"I'm going to need to squish the sass out of you."

I laughed as hard as I could with the limited amount of oxygen I was getting on account of, you know, being squished.

The following night, after what was a fresh breath of a glorious anniversary day, we unfortunately ended up getting into an argument and as we were laying in bed, me feeling sad and woeful, he rolled over from his side onto mine and on top of me and the blankets, declaring, "Well, I'm going to need to squish the sorrow out of you."   And he did.

Happy 3rd anniversary, my love, I'm so thankful to have you around to squish both the sass and sorrow out of me, as need be.

Merroir is a small restaurant that at first drive seems like you aren't going to a restaurant at all. It was a little over an hour away from us and I learned about it from a friend whose recommendation I'm inclined to listen to.  It's an affiliate of Rappahanock Oysters and it is in this great place by the bay.  The day we went was grey and smoky with smatterings of rain and it somehow felt appropriate for cozy oyster-eating by the bay.  The drive to get there and back felt like an adventure and a luxury; I savored every bit of it.