More baby pics

Here are a couple of the latest photos. She is really starting to smile a lot now. I love it.

We love the park

We just love the park. Buddy Boy's full of "higher, higher, more, faster..." Each Wednesday we meet friends at a different park in the area and play for a few hours even if we have to bring a towel for the slides. Grammie and Granddad also have fun at the park with Buddy Boy. I'm not sure who enjoys it more. Buddy Boy loves the slides and swings and Granddad loves taking pictures of the big smiles. It is great to be outside in the sun and have run around time with friends no matter how old you are.

That's who I am...

Awhile ago one of my favorite songs was "That's who I am" by Sarah Evens. It starts out, I am Rosemary's granddaughter, the spittin' image of my father... I recently read or at least partially read the book Do What You Are. (Check out my GoodReads list!) It is a career planning book based on personality types. Apparently I am an ISFP, an introverted, sensing, feeling, perceiver. Interesting. What is interesting and funny is that some of the things that I do, have done, or would like to do are listed as suggested careers for this personality type (dietitian, interior designer, geneologist). I must have known it all along.

Back to the song... and the geneologist bit. Recently I have really been enjoying studying my husband's family's geneology. I am still compiling what the family knows and combing the census records for siblings and children. I have found an uncle that no one remembered and the names of family members at least one more generation back. I love it. I think it helps to know who you are when you know about the ones that you came from.

Pollyanna

I heard a bit of an interview on the radio the other day where a woman was talking about the story of Pollyanna and how her unreserved optimism is seen as a negative thing. In the story the title character is always seeing the happy side of things and playing the glad game. The person on the radio thought that this attitude was almost delusional. You can't be glad all of the time. I didn't like her side of things, she seemed too pessimistic. I think that there are too many people who are willing to see the doom and gloom around them whether it is on an international, national, or personal scale. It is true there is always something that you can find to complain about if you want to, but why? There is no value in it and you miss the good things that are happening. Acknowledge and accept the good things in life and about yourself and others. It is there if you are willing to see it.

Mini me

Here I am at about age 4 or so. I remember this day and the ooy gooey way the bread dough felt between my fingers. I loved baking bread as a teenager as well. There was something rather relaxing about it for some reason. I still like the way the dough comes together and turns silky smooth as you knead it.

Other childhood memories:

Reading Dr. Seuss books with Dad.

The tomato fight on the back porch with my brother. We were little enough that we were in our pajamas when it was still light outside. There was just something irresistably satisfying about the way a ripe tomato splats when it hits someone or something. We got in trouble for that one.

I remember cutting my own bangs in front of the foggy bathroom mirror while Mom showered. They were much too short and at a crazy angle. I don't know if it would have been any better if I had been able to see what I was doing. Mom did her best to camoflauge the damage, but there wasn't much she could do other that just wait for it to grow out.

We loved the Bookmobile during the summers. It stopped on the corner around noon every other week I think. I remember checking out the Mrs. Pigglewiggle books and Big Red and other books by Jim Kjelgaard. I thought that it was cool to have a last name with a double a.

Are you bored?

Over the holidays we went out to dinner with a former MBA classmate of Daddy. She is not currently employed, has a two year old and is expecting her second. She asked me if I was bored staying at home. I think that she might be. I have to say that I'm not bored. I don't miss my job even though it is one that is considered to be "intellectual" and "fullfilling". It was fulfilling is a bad way. It was filling my life full of stuff that wasn't really important. I now get to the end of the day and wonder where the time has gone. It is challenging in a different sort of way. Instead of trying to save the hungry children of the world my challenge is to feed two little ones.

It is a challenge to keep one step ahead of a two year old. The other day Buddy Boy was climbing on the cupboards while I was feeding the baby. The first time I caught him he had his fingers in the sugar bowl, the second time he was licking the salt shaker, and the third time he wanted to make cake and had a mix out of the box and was in to the the bag. All of this was in less than 20 minutes. After that we made cake.

I get my intellectual challenge by trying to keep Buddy Boy interested, learning, and engaged in life. That doesn't happen on the mornings I let him watch too much TV so that I can clean the house and do the laundry without his help. I also read the news and books for my book club or just for fun. Reading always gives me something to think about when my hands are busy. My husband also helps a lot by talking about economics, politics, and some totally random and obscure topics that keep me thinking. Even an episode of the Simpsons can trigger deep thoughts that we talk over. Like George the monkey said life is neverdull if you are curious.

They sure change fast

Here she is at 6 weeks. It is amazing how quickly they change. The personality and her individual look are coming through. Her eyes are changing color and she is starting to smile. It is great to see the little person emerging.

Granddad took a bunch of pictures the other day. He really experiences life through his camera. He took 4 gig worth of pictures, filling his memory card, before he was through.

I am feeling almost normal now. I am really happy about how much more quickly I have recovered this time. Last time I was pretty wiped out for quite awhile. Looking back I think I was burned out from other things in life going in to childbirth and needed to recover from life as well as having a baby. This time I was feeling the normal pregnancy discomfort, but life was sane and stable. It made recovery a lot easier. I also had a lot of help and support from family and friends.

Here she is!

Here is our new little one. After an extra long wait she is here, healthy, and happy (most of the time). It took a little time and some medical intervention to get her here, but it all worked out and our baby Evelyn is officially and finally part of the family. Her big brother isn't quite sure that he likes sharing Mom, but he is getting used to having her around.

Granddad and Grammie are thrilled to have another girl in the family after 3 grandsons. Grandpa and Grandma and equally pleased even though this is grandchild #14 for them.

We are doing well and slowly returning to a new state of equilibrium. It will take a little while, but life is still good!

Netflix Pics

Here are a few of our favorite series from Netflix in no particular order. You will probably notice that they are heavily influenced by my husbands love of military history. I enjoyed them too.

1. Danger UXB - Set in WWII England, UXB is unexploded bomb. This is a series about a team of engineers who are sent in to disarm the UXB.

2. Sandbaggers - This is also British, about goverment intelligence agencies in during the cold war. It deals with the harsh realities of beurocracy.

3. Sharpe's Rifles - This time the British are fighting the French in Spain in the Napoleonic era at a time when rifles are specialized equipment.

4. Frontier House - a recreation of life on the western frontier of the US. It is interesting to see how modern people deal with some of the restrictions of frontier life.

5. Colonial House - a recreation of life in colonial New England. Again it is an intersting social study.

These last two prompted a lot of discussion about how people deal with modernity and how that is so different from the past. Many of the difficulties that the people had in these series was accepting social structures and norms.

When I grow up...

So what do I want to be when I grow up? I'm still deciding. When I was little I wanted to be a baker or a florist. I really like baking, especially breads (even though I don't do much now). Then I realized that bakers get up REALLY early and I decided against it as a career. I also wanted to be a florist because I love fresh flowers. Then I realized that florists work most around holidays and weekends. Again this didn't quite work for me. When I was choosing a major for college I seriously thought about interior design and nutrition. I liked the visually creative yet practical aspects of interior design, but I didn't want to have to cater to someone else's taste. I really liked the combination of science (especially physiology) and the practical that nutrition offered. After all everybody eats. I studied that for a long time and have had several different nutrition related jobs. It has been a good path. Now I am ready to get back to some other things in my "spare" time.

One day as some fellow students and I were sitting around the lab we talked about what we wanted to do with the degrees we had spent so many years working toward. The answers were decidedly not nutrition related; teach English in Japan, study and teach Yoga, be a wildflower artist (me). I like to sketch when I travel. (Traveling with kids will make that a lot more difficult now.) As a break from the classes and research I took a couple of sculpture classes in clay and bronze. All I can say is that molten metal is really cool. I loved it. Those things are a little hard to do in your living room so I am back to being an aspiring painter. I don't do much, but my latest project has been to paint a couple of flowers for our little girl's room. They are a little Georgia O'Keeffe. I like it. I hope she likes them too. She is a little too young to express an opinion since she won't be born for a couple more weeks.

A couple years ago I painted frogs on some furniture we had for little Buddy Boy. My grandfather originally built it for my aunt when she was a little girl and then I used it growing up as well. I have painted it several different colors in the time that I have had it. So this is just the latest version.