Dad...Dad?

Around 6am every morning the sun slowly reveals a sliver of it's golden glory atop the house across the street from us. It's beautiful if you're up to see it, framing the house in a very touched by an angle kinda way. It starts slowly illuminating the street and then the yard glistening with dew from the night before, eventually it rises to above the towering trees behind their house and like magic a baby begins to cry.

You see Addiston's room however beautiful and magical a little girl room it is, faces east and has a massive arch window, my girl is cursed with my light sleep and wakes with the sun every morning. Jared usually goes and gets her and she cuddles with her mama in the big bed for another hour or two before she starts to smack me on the side of the head (I'm pretty sure that's 13 month old for gentle) then as soon as I open my eyes I hear "hi" I can't help but smile and kiss the top of her crazy bed head. She pops up like a muskrat and looks from side to side, straining her neck to see into the darkened bathroom then pointing to the closed closet door, behind pacifier she declares in a questioning tone, "dad...dad?"

The last three weeks or so Jared has been going into work a little earlier. Addiston's schedule is a little better. When the sun wake's her he very slowly starts to get ready for work and usually by the time Addy gets up he's gone. I attempt to explain that he's at work and he'll be home later to which she points to my phone and says, "dad...dad?" so we call the daddy. You can hear the smile in his voice as he greats his girls giving us the report of his day so far then maintaining a one sided conversation with his daughter as she presses buttons on the phone. Eventually she always hangs up on him on accident and we go about our morning routine.


I've been boiling over with house idea's and projects lately. Pintrest is causing me to loose more sleep than I'd like to admit. The toy room is making slow progress. Yesterday I refinished two dressers for our bedroom and I've been re-organizing little odd spots around the house. Addiston is amused by me sorting papers and scrambling around. Sometimes she hops in on the action, but just like her dad she prefers to sit back and take it all in.


While I thrive on holiday adrenaline and birthday party planning sessions, new projects and crafts, it's the in-between that is truly worthy of celebration. Right now I miss my family, the little things, watching my sister's kids run around half naked after bath time, watching my nephew's latest tricks, being able to sit down and play cards with my grandma. There's something comforting about being able to just show up unannounced, having people pop in on you, having people love your kid like their kid. So to make up for not having family, live around the corner we improvise, with sweet older ladies from church who love on my girl and college friends who play peek-a-boo on command.

As much as we love our friends, sometimes it's just not the same. We mask the distance with phone calls and probably put way to many miles on the new car. Usually I talk to my dad about every day but he's been M.I.A for the last few days. So look dad the baby gate's up!


Well it's late, I've been chipping away at the bag of pistacios placed strategically next to me by my husband waiting to go to bed and in less time than I'd like I'll hear "dad...dad?"

The weekend

ok go. make plans. cancel plans, remake plans. change plans, blow off plans and decided to be spontaneous. That was our friday night.

We made plans to go out with some friends from college but because somewhere along the road we became grown ups things fell through. We already had a babysitter-(a friend who was crazy enough to volunteer to watch our separation anxiety laden kid.) So we took advantage of the misfortune of plans going haywire and had a date night!

We walked around the art museum downtown (I get to go frequently because we're members but jared is usually workin' for the man!) Then walked a block or so to a super classy sushi joint, there was a breathtaking sunset between the skyscrappers but I left my camera at home. We didn't have reservations so we were hopin' for a seat and sure enough there were 2 stools open at the sushi bar, we got to watch a super focused, super fast japanese man roll all kinds of crazy stuff for a few hours. It was yummy and entertaining. We split a cab with a group of girls in town for a bachelorette party to go down to broadway for dessert, and of all the places on earth they were from Ohio, so in their tipsy excitement they decided we were friends! We ended up at the Melting pot and as always I came to the conclusion that if you dip something in melted chocolate it is good. I mean really I'm pretty sure you can dip burnt fish that has been dropped in the dirt in chocolate and it'd be alright.

A HUGE shout-out to Heather, girl we needed friday night! Can I get an "amen" for how good it feels to watch your friends love your babies? This kid is my heart and soul and when you love her, you consequently just found yourself a deeper place in my own heart. Likewise, to let my friends know I love them...sometimes loving their kids is the best place to start.

It's comical to witness the conversation change from dating to married with a kid on a date. We rarely discuss movies, sports, and the goings on of friends lives anymore but somewhere along the way have made the shift to schedules, and responsibilities, the sporatitic world news-current event will pop in but will inevitably be forgotten when one of us brings up the laundry list of things that need done around the house or budgeting. Then food comes and there is the undescribable joy of knowing that I didn't have to shop for the ingredients to make the masterpiece in front of me, I didn't have to juggle a curious 13 month old while making it and I certainly will not have to do the dishes afterward, (or rock-paper-scissors my husband for dishes duty) ah, date-night how I have missed you! Won't you please come visit again soon?




sorry no pictures-like I said I forgot my camera!

sweet sleep

Addition slept through the night in her crib for the first time last night in about 6 months. I went out with a friend for ice cream about her bed time so the daddy put down about 9 o'clock (a little past her usual bed time.) But she slept until 7:30 this morning when jared had to go in and wake her up. She made a noise about 3:30 but neither of us went in and she just worked it out herself and went back to sleep after a few seconds. It was so refreshing to get a full night's sleep. Addiston is such a good baby that I don't feel like I should complain about her at all but she hasn't slept through the night in her own room since before she cut her first tooth which was super bowl sunday. Needless to say last night was much needed.

My 8:45 am looks like this!
My new favorite mug, and while I'm sipping on coffee and feeding addy her usual breakfast, oatmeal, half a banana, milk and an egg. I looked out my window to spy my neighbor pulling in his driveway eating an ice cream cone. I mean really ice cream for breakfast? and where on earth is there an ice cream parlor open for breakfast?

Addiston has been so much fun lately. Learning so many new little things you can almost see light bulbs illuminating inside that little nogin of hers! There are so many ways that she's like Jared but I love it when she does something that's all her mama. For instance, the chick loves to floss-ME. She sees me do it every morning and one day I gave her a lil flosser and sure enough she loved it, pit it in her mouth, bit it and wouldn't let go for anything, just laughed and every morning since then she flosses.
She's always wants to be cuddled in her sleep-totally her dad, I need some personal space. But she's a lite sleeper-me. She's super reserved in a group-her dad. But in the privacy of her own home she kicks back and practices her race car driving.
Vroom-vroom noises and all! She will eat just about anything which both of us will do, she's got some killer balance-me, and loves to take super long baths-both of us.
It's so amazing to watch her form a little personality, and it's kinda creepy to see your own personality come out in your kid.

We said goodbye to these guys last week.
We've had them for about three years and I teared up when we were loading their stuff into a friends car, but right now at this point in life they need attention and we just don't have the time and energy to give it to them. But they are in a good home and got to stay together. Fortunately, Addy hasn't even noticed they're gone. New house rule, no pets until kids are old enough to ask for them, meaning they're old enough to help with them!

This weekend, I spent hours in my closet in an amazing purge that was, believe it or not, actually enjoyable. Addy tried on discarded old clothes and climbed over the obstacle of hangers blocking the entryway, and together we surrendered to the beautiful potential of...more organized. Then it just crescendoed to heart-racing levels of potential. Cleaning overlapped to other areas of the house while I dreamed of room makeovers, DIY projects and thought about the potential that dwells in the coming months. So I got a little carried away and cleaned out the closets in the two spare bedrooms, and began purging the down stairs, deciding that we are now converting that bedroom into a toy room, which turned into a need to move some furniture out of there, so at 11pm on a Saturday night Jared and I rearranged the furniture in our bedroom to make room for more, and did you know I fit inside our lil black cabinet?


Well that's all I gotta get my girl to bed, here's hoping for another all nighter!

short and sweet

Life has been busy! I've been on an insane organization kick lately, sick of tripping over stuff and not knowing where stuff is, trying to streamline and be more efficient. Life is going too fast, I need a pause button. Addiston is a walking machine, climbing onto everything and fearlessly attempting to go head first in attempts of getting down. She's eating more solids and SLOWLY learning how to use the sippy cup.

I haven't taken very many pictures the past few days as good light is absent, and that vibrant inspiration that's easily ignited by the sun seems to be a little lacking these days. It felt good to force myself to take a few shots on the holiday though. We had a great fourth, celebrated with good friends and our girl was patriotic!


she learned to use an ipad and got more than enough attention as she was the youngest one by about 23 years!

she's a rockstar on gymboree day's and I must admit I love watching her with her friends, she's adventurous and reserved, confident but patient.


It's rained three days in a row and the monotony of this weather pattern is wearing on me and affecting my mood. Right now I'm missing college days, sleeping in as late as I want on a saturday, spending hours watching re-runs while claiming to study, scrapbooking through dinner then getting way to dressed up to go out. I'm feeling a burnout comin' on! The last two weeks addiston has been sleeping less and the only way that she will nap at all is if I driver around for half an hour! BLAH! In ten years I'll want her to spend more time with me so I'm going to try and be positive and enjoy then time I have with her now! Well I promised short and sweet so there you have it.

balance

Addiston woke up about 10 times friday night after taking two hours to go down in the first place and I think each of us spent and hour slumped over the railing of her crib with eyes closed, patting her back and praying, for the love of God, that she wouldn't cry when the decision to finally withdraw a hand (gradually, of course, because any mom knows a full-on patting session must first decrease to a slower pat, then slower, then slow plus light, then lighter--until your fingertips are barely grazing their back. Then and only then can you quietly pull away with the chance they won't realize you've dismissed yourself).

She woke up for good when the sun was barely spilling its light into our bedroom window, and for a moment--in my squint-eyed, slow-to-rise wake-up mode--I considered canceling all plans for the day, but a cup of coffee later, I was psyched.

Someone had their first ice cream!




I love weekends. Usually we have a hundred and one things to do and never seem to find the time to fit them all in but this weekend was different, we had no set plans, just summer-stuff, like mow the grass (all jared) pull weeds, fold laundry, organize the spare bedroom that seems to have become a dumping ground for every lost sock, uncased DVD, broken doo-dad, undesirable thing-a-ma-jig and all things missing. We balanced it out with some time for fun, tickle parties, swinging, playing with the new water table that she flippin' loves, and of course some relaxing!


Addy's schedule's off, and she yearns to be secured to my hip and in sight of me at all times which makes for more trying days...and nights, but this too shall pass and when she's 16 and sleeps 18 hours on weekends I'll remind Jared of these days and how it' all balances out.



I look at balance a bit differently now. It isn't a game of keeping score so much where good and bad, chaotic and quiet, stressful and restful have to be even players in our home but more so a measure of our response to harmonize the presence of whatever circumstances happen to be hovering. When challenges come, we accept them, learn from them, chop and puree those dang lemons into something sweet and likewise, when the good and easy comes, we drink it in gulps knowing that, like hardships, it won't last forever. And sleep deprivation is always remedied with an afternoon iced coffee and the best dessert ever!


(yes that is a chocolate-chip cookie topped with an oreo then covered with a brownie)

We had friends over Saturday night, it was casual, laid back and fun. Sunday consisted of amazing burgers after church and becoming "family" with our good friend Nathan, ok so maybe only Verizon considers us family but psh, we're saving money so I'm happy! Then we decided to go to his place to balance it out that he comes to our place about 50 times for each time we go to his. And I must say my favorite quote from the afternoon, "you think your house is safe till there's a baby in it!" it's ok Nathan the 3 head bumps caused no serious damage! He loves her and it's so sweet (someday I'll get a picture of them together), it balances out the 10,000 "aunts" she has that claim her.



Addiston is become quite personable, saying hi to every single person we passed today at the grocery, where not to brag or anything I saved about $50, but in true fashion it balanced out when I had to drive back to the store to be refunded for the 34? green peppers I had bought (it was suppose to be a price match for 1 pepper at 34 cents!) Ah the cosmic scheme of things.

As balance would have it, I've just smashed my arm into cream cheese, and its sticky remains are glued to my forearm. Addy is unhappily waiting from bed, and we are avoiding, trash cans that need to be put away, toys scattered throughout the entire top floor, a basket of towels that need folding and a house with closed blinds that, if open, would reveal a hot mess that calls for clean-up.

When sleep schedules are amended, order will resume. Until then, have a happy week.