Ten Years

Wow, 10 years seems like no time at all. I think I love my husband more now than I did when we got married. We've matured, both of us, in different but compatible ways. I don't know whether to blame luck or foresight for the fact that as we've both changed, we've settled into a comfortable and loving spot rather than growing apart.

Anyway, like I said before, we're sitting at a big anniversary with an infant again. But it's not for lack of childcare offers that we spent the day with our kids. Another unknown: is it a good thing that we spent an ideal day with our whole family, or does that say something pathetic about us as a couple apart from the fact that we have children?

We had planned nothing. I pulled off some pretty convincing dancing around with the kids in the morning:



But Francesco had left for work on schedule, ass-early in the morning. Unbeknownst to me, instead of his usual routine, he went to the gym and then went and got flowers and pizza and surprised me back at home, just as I was settling into a pretty deep "wow we suck" kind of funk.



Fed and happy, we headed out to the beach:





And then dropped a somewhat appalling amount of money on supplies for the kids to make us dinner:







Maybe it's pathetic, and maybe it wasn't, that it was a really good day. We have a lot of years left for having good days without the kids, and I think it says good things about the rhythm we've set for ourselves that we're NOT sick of the life we have right now.

Chubbles!

Chubble's most common expression:



And now, a bunch of pictures just because, well, she's a baby. She's cute. And she'll look different next week.

Kids at Play (Wordless Wednesday, a Day Late)

Love

I love my family.

And I love staying at home, even though I feel oddly unsatisfied at times, like there's a further level of relaxation that I'm just.not.hitting despite cooperative friends and family. It might just be that the current level of stress-out and my maximum relaxation level aren't far apart enough. Still, I'm enjoying "just" being "at home" (those things in quotes because "just" is kind of funny given what gets done in an average day, and "at home" is just a joke given that I actually stayed home all day only once in the last two weeks).

A few days ago I sent in the last little bit of paperwork to get my midwifery license. While I don't anticipate trouble, I also know that it's been almost a year since I passed my exams and am wondering whether the late completion of my application will be suspicious given that most people push everything through ASAP. I'm crossing my fingers that things move smoothly through and I'll have license in hand soon. I am reluctant to use it. I like having my baby time. And family time. And I am supremely lucky in that Fran understands the whole "me" time thing, so much so that Tuesdays are "him and kids" days and when he wanted to do something else today (a Tuesday), he got his brother to babysit rather than co-opt my "me" day.

Anyway, I forgot to mention in my last post that last week we went kind-of-hiking again. It was a little (2.5 mile) baby (relatively flat with a huge-ass driveable-if-it-was-open) trail.



We went to the new Pen Met 360 park (so named because it covers 360 acres). We knew it wasn't "finished" yet, but what we didn't realize was that there wasn't any forest left to speak of. It was a hot day. The trail was dusty. It was not a peak hiking experience. It will be GREAT to bike on, though.



A little over half a mile in, Girliness and ~L~'s 10yo girl ran ahead and didn't bother to check in with us. For the rest of the hike. They left little hints about where they were going...



...but we didn't see them again for quite a while. Which wasn't exactly our idea of fun or safe hiking, despite the really safe trail. And is also completely, totally against the hiking rules we've set for the kids (no walking ahead without an organized plan and a GPS), which we didn't think that we needed to tell them they needed to follow even though the trail was easy. They were required to write two-page papers on hiking safety in the aftermath.

They only did their papers, I think, because we required them before Girliness and ~L~'s daughter were going to have their Nerd Party (they ate Nerds candy, acted like Nerds, and in general had a massive sugar rush). They had their Nerdy sleepover party and acted like hungover jerks the next day, particularly Boyness. I've decided that Boyness and food colorings don't mix...it wasn't at all just a sugar thing, because I let them have a TON of sugar on a regular basis. It was the food coloring in the candies, which the kids almost never have.

And I'll leave you with a slightly happier picture...



Cubble and Boyness listening to music together. Love, love, love.

I forgot to mention: I also finished Dragonfly in Amber. I liked it more than I expected to given the slow beginning and some mediocre reviews from my friends. It still feels like a placeholder book, the way so many books that are in the middle of a series wind up feeling. It isn't that I want major action and resolution in every book; it's that I don't like it when a whole book essentially becomes a background-information book, where it exists only as a source of information for further novels. I liked it anyway.

Write Something

There are almost too many somethings to write. None of them particularly interesting, but oh well. Here they are anyway.

We had a great get-together last night. Fun with friends and kids getting along. Chubble even slept for quite a while during it. The 5-6yo girls were particularly cute.

I forgot to take out the trash and am listening to the trash truck make its way around the rest of the neighborhood. I think the crew is taking extra long just to rub it in.

10 month year anniversary this week. Nothing planned. We thought maybe we'd do "something" but are a little short on cash and a lot long on children. It's kind of pathetic because we also had our 1st and 5th anniversaries with babies too young to go and actually do anything big (big, in my world, being the-two-of-us-somewhere for a day or two, not two weeks in some far-flung tourist spot). There's always 15 and 20, right?

Hmmmm...I helped Girliness temporary-dye her hair red. It came out pretty awesome. BittyPrincess wants to do hers now.

Chubble is:

Giving big wet baby-kisses
Sleeping through the night (for real! 10pm-7am!)
Loving her Johnny Jump-Up
Laughing maniacally at a friend of ours

And peeing (and usually pooping, too) in the sink. She's done it for me, Fran, and Girliness. We just hover her semi-sitting over the sink and she goes. On purpose. It's awesome. As long as someone gets her there before she really had to go, we avoid the whole wet diaper deal altogether. Which is kind of funny given the hip-high stack of diapers we have for her that aren't really getting used all that fast. But also kind of awesome given that I still hadn't found a diaper arrangement that didn't result in a rash. And kind of awesome all by itself. There are whole communities on this subject that I have never bothered looking into, and since this is just kind of working for us I don't think I will now, but this is a "thing." Until Chubble came along all super compatible with this kind of arrangement, I thought it sounded totally nuts.

I think I used the word "awesome" about 20 times in that last paragraph just because I recently heard about somebody who can't stand how people use the word "awesome." Awesome, awesome, awesome. I can't remember who is being driven up a wall every time I say it, but AWESOME. Teehee. Of all the weird things to get bugged by.