14 Weeks, Memorial Day, and two weeks till Maine departure

We spent a gorgeous Memorial Day with friends on the deck at the being-renovated Blue Iris, our friend, Matt's, restaurant. There was lots of food - hot dogs, chicken, potato salads, pickled carrots (surprisingly delicious!), watermelon, and the pie that we, needless to say, brought. We always show up bearing apple pie. The sun beat down hard, and folks worried over the exposure to Olive's new baby skin. I kept her pretty well covered with a light blanket, but we get her out in the sun every day, so she's gotten a little less sensitive to it, I like to think. At the end of the day, her pudgy arms were a wee bit pink, but certainly not burned. She stayed awake for most of the gathering, enjoying the socialization and being passed around between a few of our childless friends, making them long for babies of their own - but only if they turn out just like her, the sweet thing. Sometimes I wonder how I was blessed with such a pleasant, good-natured child, but then I remember my mother telling me that I didn't get rotten till a few years later.

The packing continues to progress well. It's a strange feeling, this knowing that, two weeks from now, we'll be nearly to our destination, the four of us (plus two cats) packed tightly into the station wagon. We opted to forgo the U-Haul this time, waiting instead to store our belongings here and returning for them at the end of the summer. I'm glad that we're not waiting till the last minute with the packing; I'll be so happy when the 13th rolls around and we'll have everything organized in labeled boxes ready to load into the truck. Our living room is the holding space for all of the packed items and furniture. Aside from having our piano-moving lineup, I think we're just about ready...

Phrophetic Dream

Last night I dreamed of a tiny new baby born with dark hair. There was also a little kitten that jumped off the deck, and that's what stood out in my mind the most, but then I was brought out of bed by the phone ringing. It was Kellie, already on her way home from the midwife center with her newest, Iris Faustina, checking in at a teeny 6 1/2 pounds, 18 1/2 inches. As most everyone in our family was guessing she'd have a boy, I was sticking to my feeling that she'd be a girl. So Olive already has a young cousin. Iris and Olive. I have a feeling these two are going to be thick as thieves.

Congratulations, Kellie and Mike!

Sleepless Morning

Yesterday Buggy was out cold for the majority of the day. Literature I've read on babies her age say that she should nap for no more than four hours during the day but, as we were busy with early-stages packing, putting items on ebay, and preparing a green curry for dinner, we let her sleep, figuring she must need it with all the growing she's doing. We put her to bed between 9 and 10, after she'd been napping in her Cocoon Sleeper for a while, and she slept soundly until nearly 4 am. When I pulled her into bed with us to sleep, her eyes stayed closed as she gave one of her silly, arched-back and duck-faced stretches (one day I'll capture this on camera). When she did wake, however, not long after family-bed time, she was up for good. Why we decided to go to bed at 2 o'clock is unclear; we simply weren't tired. Have I not been told to sleep when she's sleeping? No matter, though. This morning since I've been up and out of bed, I've been enjoying her company as I breakfast and do the laundry. She's been all coos, squeals and giggles as she amuses herself with the variety of sounds she's able to produce. This is a wonderful stage, even if her sleep schedule is a little bit off.

Packing ... fewer than 3 weeks left!

Our time left in Maine is quickly dwindling. On Monday we began collecting boxes from the grocery store (the old man in the produce department at Hannaford praised our decision to move to Pittsburgh). Rob's off to snag some banana boxes from the IGA currently. He spent all of yesterday vigilantly organizing my atrocious cd collection, putting errant discs in their appropriate cases and alphebetizing them in wooden cherry crates. It was a much more complex undertaking than he'd anticipated.
It's hard to believe that this time is finally upon us. Even harder to believe is how much I'll miss it; the friends we've made here are some of the most wonderful people I've ever met and will be greatly missed when we depart. Our Spades partners, Rafi and Anne, and their dear little monster baby, Cecilia, and Robert and Amy and their darlings, Cora and Ellis, are among the many who have made our lives in Maine that much brighter, and we'll look forward to visits with them on future trips to this part of the country.

Good news this week: yesterday my Mac, which was laid up for a few weeks, was put back in the ring; I brought it to my school to see if a USB keyboard would work, and it did. Dana, the vice principal/tech guy, was able to set me up with a spare keyboard and sent me on my way, free of charge! And today we were able to pick up Rob's laptop (whose hard drive had been destroyed and replaced) from Rafi, so now we're back to a house with two fully-functioning computers. It wasn't so bad not having them around; we took walks to the library and played a lot more Spite & Malice, that's for sure, but it was necessary to have them at home for the purposes of sending pictures and such. Speaking of which, here are some long-overdue images from the last few weeks.
A bundled Buggy with her Aunt Jana. Buggy with Grandma Cramer

One Year

We've been without personal computers this week, as mine was a casualty of a tabletop tea spill, and shortly thereafter, Rob's fell victim to what we presume to be a crash. It's currently in the capable hands of our friend and computer fix-it man, Rafi, who says that the prognosis is not good for the hard drive. So we have no means by which to upload photos (or backup for the photos and other information on Rob's laptop. Lesson learned).

That said, today is our one year anniversary. I couldn't imagine things being any better. Thanks for being the most wonderful husband and father, Rob.

Mother's Day and a Reminder to Stock Diaper Bag

Just as we did last year, Rob and Zoe and I spent Mother's Day in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, for the PBSO's (Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra) final concert of the season - and Rob's last ever, presumably. His mom and younger sister, Jana, were in town visiting from Alaska, but Jana stayed on this side of the border since she was without passport. So the five of us hopped across the border (leally, mind you), getting there with enough time to drop off Rob and go and get ourselves a bite to eat before the concert began. During my pot of green tea, Olive was in need of a change, so we ran out to the car to take care of. I opened the diaper bag, which was always seemingly bursting forth with Huggies, and saw a lone diaper staring back up at me. Uh oh. I bit my lip trying to figure out how we were going to make it through the rest of brunch, the 1 1/2 hour-long concert, and the trip back home on that very same diaper*. We headed back to the Fairmont Algonquin, the Tudor-stye castle of a hotel whose ballroom/poolhouse serves as the setting for the PBSO concerts. We took our seats among the 75 or so other audience members - mostly women or sectogenarian couples seeking a little Beethoven for their Mother's Days. Olive, as usual, impressed those around us with her sweetness and superb behavior, gazing around wide-eyed and smiling at the strangers. Her fresh diaper, though, was not pulling through for me as I'd hoped. We soon had to slink away to the downstairs bathroom to remedy the situation. Occasionally, my nose will decieve me, and the suspect diaper will, in fact, be spotless, or nearly so. Not the case. Being that she'd successfully soiled her only diaper, I had to make due with the supplies I had: the Martex washcloth I'd been usng to dap the spit-up curds from the corners of her mouth, and the ladies' room's paper towels and facial tissue. I felt like a destitue mother, fashioning a makeshift diaper out of those things and trying in vain to center the contents into her little bloomers. This would not do, but would hopefully get us to the nearest grocery store without incident. I excused us from the concert just as it was breaking for intermission, and we hurried to the market. The baby aisle was ill-stocked that day, carrying diapers only as small as a size 3, but I snagged them.
We got back just in time to catch most of the latter half of the concert - a song composed by the conductor's grandfather, Harold Seaverud, the second most famous composer in Norway. Pretty cool. We headed straight home afterwards, where Jana was preparing us tacos for dinner.

Karen and Jana left this morning to go back to Alaska. Their trip was short but full, with lots laughs, sea glass collected, trips to Canada, food consumed and games played by all of us. I'm just sorry I won't be going to Alaska next month with Rob and Zoe to see them again. Soon, though, I hope!

The Kindness of Strangers

The adventure of today needs to be told:



Rob and I got an early start today, heading up to Calais to run some errands, including picking up our order of seven pounds of local tofu (yum.). We swung by My Favorite Things, the store where I used to teach guitar and piano lessons and worked during the summer of 2008, to visit and introduce Olive. Melissa, the owner, was there, who excitedly picked out a little lime green dragonfly romper as a gift for her.



On our way home while driving through the little town of Robbinston, the car started making a worrisome sound; Rob pulled over and it was as I'd expected: a very flat front tire. Fortuately, thanks to some of my sister's recent mishaps with her van, I had the forethought to sign up for AAA, after all too many incidents where I wished I'd had it. While roadside assistance was not a problem, calling the 1-800 number sans cell phone was. Rather than wait for a motorist to stop and offer help, I began going door-to-door in search of a phone. The first two doors produced no answers. I walked down a hidden driveway guarded by young Siberian huskies. Two trucks sat in the driveway and the front door was open. I knocked and a toddler in a diaper saw me and screamed for his dad. A pleasant-looking woman opened the door and I explained our predicament. She welcomed me in with a delightfully - and foreign - southern accent. Texans! Just as good as North Carolina up in these parts. She handed me her iPhone and I made arrangements with the good people at Northern New England AAA. Rob and Olive joined us, and we waited it out with the couple, Amanda and Jeremy, and their darling, homeschooled brood - Jordan, Faith, Jeremiah (whom they called Bubba), and 8 month-old Beth. Our car was towed to the shop just up the road from their home, and Jeremy drove the three of us there. We really lucked out; we could've easily gotten a ride with a dim-witted redneck, or any number of sorts, but he was a great conversationalist, and we enjoyed his company. He'd make subtle references to Dumb and Dumber, a movie I find wildly hilarious. He also gave us some pretty good tips on how to train your children to not walk off with strangers - for example: don't have your child's name embroidered onto his backpack so predators can call him by name. Pearls of wisdom.

Upon our arrival at the garage, we were told that they didn't carry the tires we required, so
it was off to Calais again for the ones we needed. At the VIP auto parts store, the clerk happily reported that the tires we needed were inexpensive - wonderful! - and that they were in stock. As they loaded the tires into the back of Jeremy's SUV, they realized that only one of the tires was the correct one, sending them on a hunt for matching tires, to no avail. They then produced four other tires with a higher rating an gave us those for the cost of the others - cha-ching!

We arrived back at Brook's Garage to have them put on our tires, and in the lobby (that resembled more closely a dive bar-meets-landfill) they were giving away 6 week-old kittens. Adorable. Now Rob and I love kittens as much as anyone, but fortunately we have the good sense not to be seduced by the precious soundless mewing and pointy little tails. They were dear things, though. I returned to our chauffer to tell him the verdict (they needed to hang onto the car to work on the alignment - the cause of the tire wear), and mentioned the kittens within. He perked up: "They have kittens in there?!" he asked, excitedly. "Tomorrow's Amanda's birthday, and all she wants is a kitten!" It was a boy kitten she wanted specifically, and one out of the four was a boy - an especially fluffy gray guy with white paws. I'm a sucker for a little gray with white boots - I have one, myself. Jeremy came in and took a look, and we walked out with the sweet thing. On our way back to Eastport, since Jeremy was taking us back home, we stopped by their house so he could give his wife her early present. She was delighted, scooping him up into her hands. She asked me if I could think of a really cool name, and I gave her the first one that came into my mind. This cat's going to grow up to be a big, long-haired, handsome cat, and I said, "Cornelius". She loved it, and introduced him to her eager children.

So we all won on Tuesday. As we worked through our little scrape, we managed to meet a lovely family, get new tires and fix a problem we didn't know we had (oh - and a shopping bag full of really cute hand-me-downs that Amanda gave us for Olive, so we won't have to worry about outfitting her when this growth spurt is through), and brought a kitten and his new family together. I feel pretty good.

Growth spurt

For the last month or so, we've had Buggy on a pretty strict every-four-hours feeding schedule that was working out pretty well. Since last week's frenectomy, she's been nursing more, with varying degrees of success; sometimes she'll suck like a champ, while other times we wind up with more milk running down my pants and onto the bed than down her gullet. Frustrating. So right now we're about half-and-half with the bottle feeding and nursing. I was beginning to think that the unmonitored amounts from nursing meant that she wasn't getting as much as she needed, as she'd show signs of hunger much sooner than before, but when we tested out this theory by feeding her with the bottle more during the day, we found that she's simply requiring feedings far more often than before. I've decided to abandon the routine - at least for right now - and give her what she wants when she wants it. Judging by her ill-fitting clothes, she's in the throes of a massive growth spurt. Yesterday morning I was trying to cram her feet and legs into her "chickie suit" - a favorite of ours (lime green footies with a pink and purple chick pattern) - and realized that it was on its last go-round. Suddenly I've found myself trying to outfit her for the day, only to fold up the garment and toss it in the giveaway bag that's quickly filling.



Oh, and no tub baths for her until we conquer the Clog to Beat All Clogs; until very recently, our tub drain was working like a charm until BAM - no longer. No sooner had Rob commented on the smoothly-running drain than it was stopped up like you wouldn't believe. Ten hours since I showered this morning, and the tub's just as full as when I left it. I can only attribute this to my hormones letting go of the hair my scalp had been hanging onto for dear life since June. I knew that two to three months postpartum, women often begin to lose more hair. If this is indeed the case, I must be losing it by the bucketful, as my soda-and-vinegar home remedy, a bottle of Dran-O, stockpots full of boilling water, and plunging all failed to open the floodgates. Disgusting. Not quite sure what to do at this point...