Cora demonstrates her unregenerate nature by screaming through her baptism

a good time was had by all.  here we are looking much happier afterward…  turns out she was hungry and was much nicer-looking after a long nurse.  she’s wearing the same gown I wore, which my mother thoughtfully brought along for the occasion.

my mom had the presence of mind to turn on the video on her camera, so I’ll post it below with a few more pictures.  henry’s lovely parents were also here from michigan– it was so sweet to have all the grandparents here to say their “we do’s” and commit “to bring her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

we all traipsed up the hill and had fajitas for lunch… it went well, except that henry is on the verge of permanently banning me from cooking under the stress of my own domestic expectations (and also in heels) after an unfortunate incident that resulted in the lid not fitting on my biggest pot anymore.

doesn’t she look sweet in her dress?

apparently the pregnancy brain is permanent

4 months post-partum and I’m still having trouble finishing sentences promptly, getting the hair done and the makeup on and my shoes on the right feet every day.  Not to mention the laundry folded, dinner on the table, clean clothes on the baby… and this is only with one kid.  I know I’m not the only one, and I feel that I understand my mother so much more now than ever before.  But I’m wondering… when does it get better?

or does it?

whacked.

all I have to say about this is that post-baby hair cuts are easily as cathartic as post-break-up cuts, but sooo much happier.

and many thanks to carrie for doing the honors.

happy inauguration day!

For the first time in my memory, we are inaugurating a president I am really proud of.  We seem to have elected the best man for the job, not just the lesser of two evils…  I am delighted that Cora’s first understanding of what a President is will be shaped by this man.

And thanks to Ben and Carrie for the onesie.

milk coma

homegirl has doubled her birthweight.  she is nearly 14 pounds, and has grown four inches (!) in the last 3 months.

best gift I got this year

…was the home-made biscotti.  I’d been lobbying hard for my own batch.  My mom makes a lot of baked goodies, but the biscotti is really my favorite.  Both of my sisters (that live on other continents) are the regular recipients, but when I asked for some I was told in pointed terms that I could make my own if I wanted some so bad.  (To which I retorted, geez, do I have to leave the country… what’s a girl got to do?)

Anyway, the biscotti is delicious.  Nice and crunchy with big Willamette Valley hazelnuts and a thick slick of chocolate across the bottom… given the amount of tea getting drunk around here, it is nice to always have a stash on hand.  I opened my stocking on Christmas and discovered the little plastic bag (albeit only half a batch, but it gives me something to hope for next year…) tied up with green yarn.  I’ve been hoarding it, and then Cora and I finished off the rest of it the other day.  The recipe is below, if anyone’s interested.  Maybe I’ll get around to making my own batch one of these days.

the full purse theory of life management

It is generally true that, whatever size your purse is, it is always full.  I am trying to decide how big the metaphorical purse in my life actually is.  Do I want to go to med school or (ultimately just settle for) nurse practitioner school? Do we plan to go live in Another Country to be missionaries (in the traditional sense), or are we called to stay here in the US?  Am I the kind of person that will enjoy being a mom more or less part-time and having a big career too?  Is it possible that I could enjoy staying at home full-time?  How much flexibility do I actually need in my work life, and do I even want to stay in medicine? Will I always regret it if I walk away from medical school?  Will I hate being away from Cora and Henry so much if I do go to medical school?  Can we even afford it?

I’m down to brass-tacks, theorizing mostly aside.  I told myself I would wait and have the baby before trying to make any decisions, and now here I am, having to fend off questions from folks at work about what I plan to do next, and not having any answers.

I will say, I’m happy to have the luxury of choosing, and of being married to a guy that is willing to flex his career however he needs to keep all my options open.

happy baby, dancing birds

all I have to say is, I am pleased that the one handmade thing I actually got finished is the thing she most adores.  she spends an inordinate amount of time kicking her fat little legs and cooing at those birds.

(and yes, she’s usually supervised so she doesn’t wind up in the er with a head injury.  I have no idea when she’ll start rolling over.)

I miss miami.

“It’s been cold this week, speaking of sorrows.  It got really really cold– what we call ass-burning cold.  Your butt gets so cold it’s hard to resist the temptation to sit down on a fire and people do and then your pants catch on fire and then you have to make that choice between modesty and survival.”

–Garrison Keillor, this week’s News.

photo stolen from the selby.  go there and check it out if you haven’t.

snow emergencies and other drama

happy belated christmas to everyone.  we had a lovely day that started with a sleepy baby in bed, and me thinking about next year… she’ll be walking and probably trying to eat the wrapping paper, but it will be so different from this year.

henry and I got each other snow shoes for christmas, and cora got baby capilene long-johns… a bit of a splurge, but adorable.

we got an obscene amount of snow this week… the most since 1928 or something crazy like that.  it was lovely and beautiful and magical until the following things happened:

1. we used up all the firewood.

2. the temperature stayed in the low twenties and continued to necesitate the use of chains to get anywhere.

3. the transformer outside our window blew up at 4:30 monday morning and left us in the cold… with the aforementioned no-firewood situation and a bag full of dirty cloth diapers.

4. and only 3 disposable diapers.

5. and with only cereal in the house to eat without cooking.

6. and a dead battery in the trailblazer.

7. and a broken chain on the other car.

it was a slow process of panicking… too cold for the baby, nothing to eat, no way to get warm, and no way to get to my parents’ house out in the country.  my dad eventually came and rescued us, brought us a new battery for the truck, and the best sight of the day was the five PGE guys marching up the hill through the snow, stripping off their jackets and shimmying up the electrical pole to get our power back on like it was No Big Deal.  I wanted to kiss them.

the rest of the week was much better… and I am delightedly looking forward to a new year.  I spent so much time this year thinking about having a New Baby and how to cope with it, and now we are more or less over the worst of the hump… and I find that I am juggling the mom and wife and nurse roles and trying to figure out what I want all of it to look like.