Meeting Everett!

After spending the weekend in Portland, Billy, Nora, and I headed to Bend to see Nate and Ashley and meet Everett!  As an added bonus, we were joined by Mom for the first two days.  I was glad she was there for Nora and Everett's first meeting, and it was fun to see her play Oma to both of them at the same time.  Mom works really hard at a pretty thankless job, so I was glad that the timing of our visit allowed for her to take a couple of days away from the office to spend with us, all together.  We tried to get a nice picture of the her with both grandbabies, but Nora seemed intent on sabotaging the photo in a variety of entertaining ways.  At least you can see she's got plenty of personality!

Over the course of the visit, I loved seeing Nora and Everett interact with one another.  She was quite intrigued with him, and though it took some prompting, she often said her version of his name, which sounds something like Evv-vvvieeeee.  She also knew he was a "babyyy!, would say that periodically without any prompting, and would look for him when we asked where the baby was.  She was noticeably jealous when she saw me holding him, but she calmed down each time when she was allowed to climb up onto my lap to investigate.

She also figured out pretty quickly that we thought it was adorable when she would kiss him on the head.  Billy captured this with a short video:


Baby Everett might not be able to see too far yet, but he was pretty intrigued by her, as well.  During the short daytime periods when he was awake, he loved looking at her!  In my mind, I was imagining what he must be thinking.  How much milk did she have to drink to get that big?  Why is she so LOUD?  Doesn't she know I'm the center of attention here?  Can she show me how to get out of this chair and move around? This prompted a few chats with him, in which I told him he can ask her anything he wants someday but he better be careful about trusting her answers.

I have been quite charmed by Everett since the first picture popped up on my phone, so I loved getting to see the little man in person and hold him for myself.  He is such an adorable little string bean!  I have so little experience with babies who are not Nora that I couldn't get over his little bitty head, his skinny straight legs, and his long long feet.  He may have been a month old, but he still had that sweet, cuddly newborn smell.  There are exactly two things I miss about having a newborn-- letting them sleep on your chest and carrying them cuddled up in a soft carrier-- and I got to do both!  Having Nora and Everett there together felt like two bookmarks in time, and the juxtaposition of their levels of development made me nostalgic for when Nora was itty bitty while also excited for the visits down the road when Everett will be old enough to introduce us to his unique personality.  I can't wait to watch him grow!

 

I also loved getting the chance to watch Nate and Ashley embrace their role as his parents.  When we first arrived, Nate wasn't feeling very well, and I could tell it was paining him to try and keep his germs away from his son.  I about died of cuteness a few days later when he loaded E up in his Moby wrap so we could wander around a shopping complex.  I stood back and watched Ashley in amazement about her near-perpetual state of calm.  I felt completely frazzled, overwhelmed, exhausted, and clueless for the first three months of Nora's life, but Ashley is definitely a natural mama.  I know she has been around babies a lot more than I had, but I also think she and Nate have personalities that are better suited to parenting a newborn than I do.  Everyone in their little family of three just seemed so relaxed!  Do calm parents make for a calm baby?  Or does a calm baby make for calm parents?  I guess it probably works both ways.   : )  Either way, I was envious.  Given the way they've managed to handle the stress of the professional obstacles they've been working to overcome since Everett's birth, I can already see that he has helped make their home a safe harbor from whatever else is going on at sea.

And as an extra special treat, Mimi and Aunt Dana also paid a visit to Bend to meet Everett and see Nora while we were there!  Mimi and Papa came to meet Nora when she was the exact same age, so seeing Mimi with Everett made me happily nostalgic and extra thankful that they made that trip to Maryland.  I know it was hard for Mimi to make the trip without Papa, but I am so glad she did, because having her there made me feel like he was with us in spirit, as well.  I am so sorry Papa will not get to meet Everett or his other eventual great-grandchildren, but I am thankful he at least got to meet his first one, and I know he would have been so proud to see them grow.  It was also nice for me to have a chance to see for myself that Aunt Dana is helping Mimi to hang in there as best she can to get through this difficult time, and that Mimi is able to focus on the bright spots in the midst of what must feel like a very, very dark time.  Plus, I enjoy their company, so I am always happy to see them for my own selfish reasons, and I love seeing Nora interact with them.  She may be at a stage where she doesn't want anyone to hold her for more than two seconds, but she was never far off while they were around!

We really could not have asked for a better visit.  We got to eat a delicious meal at Old Mill Brew Werks, and we enjoyed several other meals together, but most of all I enjoyed we spending time joking around and relaxing around the house.  And as always, I was touched by Nate's affection for his neice.  Everyone always tells me that he adored me when I was a baby and would often get into my playpen with me, so when I see him playing with her I can't help but think it's like a repeat of those early days for us, except that this time I get to see it for myself.  : )  Naturally, she is quite enamored by this especially tall, kind man who seems to be missing the hair on top of his head, and she does her best to follow him around and mimic his every move.

It seems like splitting hairs about an otherwise perfect visit, but as always, I also wish my dad could've been there to see it.  I know he is always with us, through our stories, our jokes, our genes, our facial expressions... but seeing Nate with Nora also makes me aware of how unfair it is to her that she never got to enjoy the special type of spoiling her Grandpa would have had in store for her.

And if we're splitting hairs, Nora would've liked to have been allowed to spend most of her time in the dog room.  She kept trying to open the door to let them escape, and during the times when they were allowed in the house, she followed them around constantly.  : )  Some things remain the same, no matter which coast you're on.

In closing, I want to say a big thank you to Nate and Ashley for letting us share several of these fleeting, helter-skelter newborn days with us.  I can't wait until the next time we're able to get our families together!

Back to Portland!

We've just returned from a trip to Oregon to meet our family's newest addition, Everett James!  All in all, it was a fantastic trip, and I loved getting the chance to see so many of my family members and friends who feel like family.  It was also fun to see them interact with Nora.  Since she last saw her West Coast family, she has perfected walking and begun to really engage with people.  Since we say every stage of her life is our "favorite," we were glad to be able to share this favorite stage.

We arrived late on the 11th, so the first thing we did when we woke up on the 12th was go to Dad's niche to pay him a visit on the second anniversary of his death.  I took one of our New Year's cards to leave there, and before we left I wrote a short note on the back and traced Nora's hand.  She picked the pen up and started scribbling all over it, which she has never done before even with prompting.  I don't read scribble, so I'm not sure what her message was, but it warmed my heart to know she was leaving him one.  The trip up there was an emotional one for me, but Billy was as supportive as ever and having Nora along reminded me that, as Bubbles says on The Wire, "Ain't no shame in holding onto grief as long as you make room for other things, too."

We spent the rest of the day hanging out with my mom.  Nora was not a fan of flying this time around, so it was a relief to have a low-key day to recover from traveling.  It was great to spend time with Mom, and I think she liked getting the chance to play with Nora.  We also took a walk to the library, where Mom helped Nora play with legos and a giant abacus.  Mom also tried to read Nora a few books but learned that her attention span is pretty short in exciting new places.  My mom's spaghetti is my favorite, and Nora enjoyed it just as much as I do!  As an added bonus, we even got to watch the Ravens make an amazing comeback against the Broncos.  In addition to letting us relax, I was glad Mom got the chance to share in a fairly "typical" day with Nora.

On Sunday, we paid a visit to Jordan, Krista, Clara, and Evie.  Clara had been so excited to see "Baby Nora" that we were all disappointed she wasn't feeling up to playing with her when we arrived.  Nonetheless, it was fun to have a quick chance to hear in person how they have all been doing, and we got to spend enough time with Evie to see how much she has grown since we visited in July.  At that point, she was talking a lot in her own language, but this time it was much easier for me to understand her.  Nora even got to practice her scribbling again on the cardboard castle from Clara's birthday party.  Jordan is exploring possibilities for grad school next year, so I am crossing my fingers for a Pennsylvania placement that would allow us to get together more frequently than every six months!!  Even though it isn't the best picture of any of us, I'm thankful we remembered to get one of all the girls together.  Krista and her girls have been such a big help to me and Nora as we find our way-- I just wish we could go back and tell 15 year old Liz and Krista that our lives would continue to get better every year.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with the Shiras.  We made it for the tail end of Connor's basketball game, which they won in the last minute!  Nora surprised me by sitting fairly still while she took in all the new sights and sounds.  After the game we went back to their house for dinner, which was delicious, and it gave Nora a chance to play with the boys.  Connor and Caleb were so sweet with her, and it was fun to watch her warm up to them over the course of the evening.  I can't believe how old the boys are getting! I know Dad would have loved to see Connor, Caleb, and Nora playing together.  At one point, they gave Nora the ball signed by one of Connor's teams that Dad helped coach, and Connor snapped a picture.  After we left, I promised her that next time she'd be allowed to play with Bogey, the newest addition to their family.  But since she is so small and he is a big bundle of puppy energy, they were doomed to the fate of star-crossed lovers for this visit.

On Monday, we made the trip to Bend to meet our family's newest addition-- Everett James!  But that's a post for another day, so you'll have to stay tuned. : )

A few steps forward, a few steps back

Since I have had a lot more time to spend with Nora during winter break, I had a list of goals I wanted to accomplish with her.  We're always working on her age appropriate skills, which are mostly speaking-related at this point.  She's learning up, down, thank you, please, on, and off to varying levels of success.  But I had a list of specific tasks that I hoped to accomplish, too.  Some of these were things we'd been meaning to work on but were too busy to tackle while I prepared for my test, and some were things we needed to do in order to help get Nora ready for the toddler classroom at her new school.  The list of things included:
-helping her learn to use utensils while eating
-transitioning her to one nap a day and pushing it back to as close to 1pm as possible
-finish day weaning and switch from bottles to sippy cups

We were making a lot of progress with these goals.  Her utensil use has been pretty hit or miss, but overall she is making progress and taking an interest in using her spoon and spork.  She was no longer asking to nurse during the day, and though we had to use a soft spout sippy cup as an intermediate step, she had taken to those and was sometimes accepting milk in a regular sippy.  Her nap transition was going the best-- we'd pushed her back from 9am to 11:30, and most days she didn't need a second nap.  We even got rid of the noise machine and the room darkening plastic bags without much trouble.

And then Nora got sick.  Suddenly she's napping at crazy times, nursing during the day since it soothes her and gives her some extra antibodies, and she doesn't have enough of an appetite to make mealtime a lesson.  There's nothing to do but laugh!  Thankfully, I realize that all the work we did before was not for naught because re-learning these skills will be easier for her than learning them the first time.  Bouts of sickness are also times when we can see how much we all benefit from the other skills we worked so hard to help her learn.  For example, Nora's so good at self-soothing that she goes right back to sleep after coughing and sneezing fits, which helps all of us maximize our sleep.

She's feeling much better now, so we'll be back to working on these skills in no time.  It's hard to believe I've been away from campus for almost a month now!  When you're a stay-at-home mom, the days sometimes feel long, but the weeks go by at lightspeed.  Here are some pictures I've taken in the past few weeks that haven't yet been posted to the blog.

We got a little bit of snow right after Christmas, so Nora got to see it falling for the first time.  She had no idea what to make of it but was very interested in her footprints.

She finally grew into the onesie I bought her almost a year ago!  When you grow into a 6-12mo onesie at 15 months, I think you lay special claim to the "Though she be but little" half of this quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream. : )

There is one silver lining about times when she's not feeling well: she gets extra cuddly.  Here she is sitting in bed with Dad while he shows her a keyboard on the iPad.

Nora's family members gave her generous monetary gifts for Christmas, so we bought her this foam chair and put the rest of it away in her savings account.  I didn't anticipate that it would also become Oscar's favorite piece of furniture, but I should've known!

Kiss my sass, Oscar.

 

Her hair is getting so long!  Sometimes she'll leave it in a clip or a ponytail holder, and we're hoping that any day now her bangs will be long enough to tuck behind her ear.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today's my dad's birthday.  He loved his birthday and he made a huge deal about it every year.  He would've been 60.

Billy and I went to see Louis CK in Baltimore on New Year's Eve.  It was a perfect evening.  The mexican restaurant we ate at beforehand had delicious food, powerful and interesting cocktails (habanero infused Patron is the real deal), and seven options for made-to-order fresh guacamole.  Billy didn't think he liked avocado until he tasted it.  Billy and I had a great time being out alone together.  And Louis was great.  I laughed so hard my face actually felt sore the next day.

Louis makes me laugh so hard because he speaks to me right where I'm at.  His willingness to face the darker aspects of life head-on is always undergirded by an overall appreciation for the human experience that conveys a sense of flickering yet persistent optimism.  That's how I feel most of the time, too-- especially these past few years.  At some point midway through the set, Louie was talking about how being 45 means he's not too old yet because people would still be surprised if he died.  He said the cut-off for death shock value is 60.  If you die before 60 people act like you've been robbed, and it's a tragedy that you don't get to know your grandkids, but if you're over 60 people are like "Well that's pretty sad, but, you know... nobody lives forever..."  I started crying, thinking about my dad and how he didn't get to see his grandkids.  This was serious, true sadness about the profound absence I feel in my life and my heart, but somehow I was laughing hysterically at the same time.  I was thinking to myself, I really lucked out that he died at 58.  He maxed out the amount of time he got to live and I still get to play the "my dad died too young" card.  Two more years and people would've been thinking, "He didn't get to meet your kids?  Well he *was* 60, maybe you should've had your baby a little younger."  As I type this, I fear it's not going to come across as funny, except maybe to my brother or sister.  But I could just imagine my dad and I laughing through a conversation about how he really got the best of both worlds by dying at 58, about how somehow that number means he lived a full life but still died too soon.  Well played, Dad.  Well played.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  We miss you so much.  I wish you could see us all now.  I wish you could hold Everett, and see Nora running around hugging and kissing everyone and everything, and have a drink with Nate and Ashley at their pub, and talk to Vickie about poop explosions and penis reconstructions, and talk to Billy about moving up the management ladder at work.  I can't begin to list all the things I wish I could talk to you about.  I wish I could've read what your Christmas letter would've had to say about me passing my comprehensive exam and everything else that our family has accomplished this year.

I can't have that conversation, though, so instead I watched Dad's farewell message slideshow again.  He says about me, "Lizzie would hustle around the soccer field, one of the most natural scoring machines we could find, but was always relegated to defending the opponent's best scorer because we knew she'd keep up and do the right thing."

Keep up and do the right thing.  I try every day, Dad.