Enjoying the Journey

Today was one of those perfect days. Baby girl took good long naps, which is out of the ordinary for her-we are lucky if she gets over an hour usually. She woke up from her naps with huge grins and giggles. During her awake time she was exploratory and content on the floor playing by herself. She’s discovered how to roll to things so she can get where she wants to go, which means Mommy has to be super careful that there is nothing on the floor that she might find because guaranteed it will end up in her mouth if she gets her hands on it. But it also means that she is occupied on the floor for much longer without me needing to entertain her. Yay! Then Reese ate an entire jar of baby food carrots, a food she flat-out refused to eat last week, AND drank almost 5 oz of breast milk immediately afterward (I know because I fed her with a bottle, we are trying to make a serious effort to get her more used to the bottle so I can leave her with Mark or my MIL from time to time:))

I love days like today. I feel like a good mom AND I get tons accomplished while Reese sleeps. There are fewer tears because Reese is getting the sleep she needs, and because she is getting the sleep she needs she eats better and is a better all-around baby. Who knew sleep was such an important factor in the overall demeanor of your baby?

I have to say though…I think the long nap trend (today and yesterday) won’t last. I’m pretty sure it’s due in large part to the fact that she had her shots yesterday at her 6 month doctor’s appointment. She always seems to react to shots with loads more sleep for a few days following the traumatic experience. Watching her get shots is the worst! She looks at me like “Why would you let them do this to me?!” while huge tears well up in her eyes. I dread trips to the Pediatrician’s office.

Unfortunately she has dropped in weight and height percentile this visit. I’m pretty sure my milk supply is decreasing. I’m totally frustrated. I don’t want to switch to formula! I’m not ready to give up breastfeeding! But Reese has always been a baby that likes to eat fast and gets distracted easily. She has been getting frustrated with the decrease in my supply and breastfeeding has been a struggle lately. I’m afraid she might be weaning herself, and I’m fighting it tooth and nail.

One more piece of big news is that we are MOVING! Those of you who have been faithful readers since last April will remember the Housing Nightmare post and my total melt-down about finding a place to live in the expensive San Francisco Bay Area. I have continued to look for a place to live despite the fact that we are locked into a year contract. Mark and I have always agreed that if we found an unbelievable deal we would try to re-rent our apartment and move. Well we have found just such a deal and we are moving this week. I’m so excited I can barely stand it. No more apartments, we are renting a house!!!! It feels like I can finally breathe. No more lugging laundry to the laundry room! No more juggling a 16 lb infant + 3 grocery bags + large diaper bag + keys all the way from the car in the parking lot to the apartment! No more walking into a cloud of cigarette smoke every time I walk out my front door! I could keep going but I don’t need to commiserate any more because in three days I don’t have to deal with it any more. Hallelujah!

We get the keys tomorrow and then I get to paint a few of the more hideously painted rooms(Pepto Bismal pink, really?). More pictures and news to come. I’m sure I will be gushing about all the joys of living in a house more than you all will be able to stand. Right now I am just glowing with the happiness of it all. *Sigh* Life is good.

I usually tend to be a person who stresses out on/or before major holidays. It’s mostly because I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I want everything to be just right. I hate it though. I don’t always get the chance to enjoy the holiday as much as I could because I’m too worried about the details.

On Christmas I worry and stress about each individual gift. Will they like it? Will they use it? Is it just right for them?

For Birthdays I worry about making that person feel special and loved. Are they having a good time? Did they get everything they wanted?

On Halloween I stress about the perfect costume choice and what fun activity we should do.

And on Thanksgiving I stress about the dishes I prepare, especially since I am not much of a cook.

I think having Reese has mellowed me out in the perfectionism department. So far the holidays we’ve celebrated since she was born have been relatively less stressed. Maybe it’s because I have somewhere new to focus my energy. Or maybe it’s because there is just no being perfect when you are a mom. Whatever the reason I am enjoying this new relaxed feeling on holidays. Thanksgiving this year was no different. Granted, it may be that the dishes I was assigned to bring to our family’s annual Thanksgiving potluck were somewhat fool-proof (I think that they’ve caught on that I’m not much of a cook:)).

It is becoming a MacAskill family tradition to hold Thanksgiving dinner at my brother-in-law’s house, and everyone brings a few dishes. That way no one person has to cook an entire Thanksgiving feast and some of us can bring the dishes we hold most dear. This year I was assigned the mashed potatoes and fruit salad, which may sound easy-but that’s not necessarily true. Considering that my father-in law’s diet consists of nothing but veggies, legumes, whole grains and fruit, my fruit salad would be a major part of his Thanksgiving dinner. We are a fruit-loving family, so I knew it was important to make it good. The end product was a layered salad of fuyu persimmons, grapes, pineapple, blueberries, oranges, and raspberries. My other assigned dish was mashed potatoes. I figured if I was going to do potatoes, I was going to do the best darn vegan mashed potatoes I could make! I looked up recipes online and finally settled on Roasted Garlic Herb Red Mashed Potatoes. I did a test batch on Tuesday to make sure they were good.

I know it sounds like I stressed about Thanksgiving, but really it was such a laid-back day. I tried to get Reese to sleep a lot at home before we went to dinner, and she refused to do so:). But she was a pretty mellow baby that evening and my dishes turned out good. For once I didn’t worry about everything being perfect. I just sat back and enjoyed the time with family and the good food. And believe me it was GOOD FOOD! Some of it healthy and some of it not, but who cares? It’s Thanksgiving!

For a wonderfully summed up home video of my Thanksgiving, click here.

And now, on to Christmas! Hopefully it will be just as stress-free.

Yes, that’s right people. I broke out the Christmas decorations. And I’m not apologizing for doing it a full 6 weeks early!

Maybe it was the arrival of Reese’s Christmas stocking in the mail that set me off. It could be that Starbucks started listing Peppermint Hot Chocolate on their menu. Perhaps it was the arrival of the PotteryBarn Christmas catalog. Whatever it was, I am now in full-blown holiday mode. *Sigh* I love Christmas time. If only was were room in our apartment for a Christmas tree. Who am I kidding? If only there was room in our apartment for a Christmas twig! Alas, the tree will have to wait until next year maybe.

One of my favorite Christmas decorations is beautiful nativities. Someday I hope to collect gorgeous creches from all over the world. For now I have 4 small but cute ones-3 of which were given to me by my sweet mother-in-law who also has a serious creche addiction. This is the one I want next. But for now I’ll settle for putting up my four nativities and hanging our stockings on hooks instead of our nonexistent fireplace, and dream about beautiful nativities and the room to display them:).

Now…*Meghan taps her fingers together mischievously*…the Christmas fun can begin!

Santa sure does deliver, and a full month and a half early! Reese cut her first bottom tooth a few days ago. I wouldn’t have even noticed it breaking through except she grabbed my finger and bit me with it! I kept waiting for the usual teething symptoms to appear-fever, excess drooling, crankiness- but they never really came. I’ll admit that she has been a bit more cranky than usual, but that’s about the worst of it we’ve seen(knock on wood).

Then, a couple of days following my discovery of the first tooth, I was trying to get a good look at it to see if it’s grown in any more, and I noticed that not one, but BOTH her bottom teeth are coming in. Poor thing, that can’t feel good! Little overachiever…

Add to all that the fact that we have started Reese on solids, and you’ve got a very busy mouth! So far we’ve tried rice cereal and bananas. She actually has taken to the whole thing quite well. Except for yesterday when she figured out how fun it is to blow raspberries with a mouth full of pureed banana. Cibo didn’t mind in the least though, he enjoyed licking up all the splattered banana. I knew there was a reason we got a dog!

Thanks for the toothies Santa!

I just love the Fall. It’s probably my favorite time of the whole year. I love when the leaves change color and the weather gets just a little bit cooler. I love the smells of Fall, like cinnamon and caramel, rain and pumpkin pie. I love the contrast between the cold outside and the warmth of home. I love the excitement of the holidays, the time with family. I love sweaters and fires in the fireplace and hot apple cider. I love planning thoughtful Christmas gifts and wrapping them up in pretty paper. I love snuggling up under loads of blankets to sleep at night. I could go on and on about my love affair with fall, but I’ll stop there:).

I’m lucky because in the bay area the fall weather and changing of the leaves lasts for months, rather than weeks. Today I walked out my front door and saw the leaves on the ground and the gorgeous lighting and felt the desperate need to pick up my camera. So instead of heading out to run errands as originally planned, I took some pictures of my favorite time of year, with my favorite little girl.

I am just finishing a book in a series, and it was a vast let-down. It’s so sad to me too because I heard so many people I know rave about all three books, and I was so looking forward to losing myself in a good book. I love finding a great read. The kind of book that you just can’t put down and reading it makes you forget about everything else for the hours that you spend wrapped up in the dialog and characters. It’s been awhile since I read a new book like that. More recently I’ve had to reread old tried-and-true good books to make up for lack of new material. So I was really excited when I heard that these three books-“Twilight”, “New Moon”, and “Eclipse” by Stephanie Meyer-were so great. Were they awful? Not really. Would I read them again? No, probably not.

*Sigh* I’m so bummed out. I don’t have that end-of-a-good-book high that I normally get. I need a good book to read to make me once again believe that good literature is not dead. Any recommendations?

Never let my baby out of my sight again.