Archive | Lena

life in our chalet

During our trip to France, just as wonderful as speeding down the slopes and just as sweet as the boulangerie was the time spent with family.  The little ski chalet was cozy yet accommodating and we spent many happy hours there cuddling Lena, making and eating meals, and playing games together in the evenings.

My mom and I traded “shifts” with Lena.  I often skied in the morning while my mom was with her and then we switched in the afternoon.  My sister Emily also enjoyed half days of skiing which meant Lena, Em, and I often had hours of quiet playing, reading, and napping time while the others blazed new trails on the slopes.  I loved those quiet hours with two of my favorite girls!

Of course, being in France, there was a lot of emphasis on eating.  We ate very well!  We dined on local specialties, like this goat cheese that Elliott bought for me.  (He knows goat cheese is my favorite food.)

We also cooked most evening meals in the chalet and ate together in the living room with our plates balanced on our knees.  This was a spicy spaghetti with marinara sauce, compliments of my mom and Emily:
And another night we went out for cheese fondue, a specialty of that region of France.  Lena enjoyed goofing off with her Poppy before the three-cheese fondue came bubbling and steaming to our table!

And then there were the quiet moments when it was just Lena and me, spending time together as we do every day.  I never knew how much time a mother spends with her first-born child!  There is a bond there that I can hardly imagine will be the same with the second, third, or sixth (?) child.  I love these hours with my baby, whether we read books or explore pine cones, whether we cuddle each other or read/play side by side in our own separate worlds, whether we talk or not talk, for hours. 

And lastly, here’s a photo showing that Lena can stand up all by herself!  The week at the chalet you kind of had to trick her, like asking her to clap and she forgets to hold onto something, or helping her hold two toys in two separate hands and letting go of the chair or shelf.  This week at home, though, I can set Lena down and she’ll stand there on her own for up to 10 seconds!  Still hasn’t figured out the “taking steps” part, but we’re working on it.

4 :: in family, friends, holiday, Lena, motherhood, travel

life in our chalet

During our trip to France, just as wonderful as speeding down the slopes and just as sweet as the boulangerie was the time spent with family.  The little ski chalet was cozy yet accommodating and we spent many happy hours there cuddling Lena, making and eating meals, and playing games together in the evenings.

My mom and I traded “shifts” with Lena.  I often skied in the morning while my mom was with her and then we switched in the afternoon.  My sister Emily also enjoyed half days of skiing which meant Lena, Em, and I often had hours of quiet playing, reading, and napping time while the others blazed new trails on the slopes.  I loved those quiet hours with two of my favorite girls!

Of course, being in France, there was a lot of emphasis on eating.  We ate very well!  We dined on local specialties, like this goat cheese that Elliott bought for me.  (He knows goat cheese is my favorite food.)

We also cooked most evening meals in the chalet and ate together in the living room with our plates balanced on our knees.  This was a spicy spaghetti with marinara sauce, compliments of my mom and Emily:
And another night we went out for cheese fondue, a specialty of that region of France.  Lena enjoyed goofing off with her Poppy before the three-cheese fondue came bubbling and steaming to our table!

And then there were the quiet moments when it was just Lena and me, spending time together as we do every day.  I never knew how much time a mother spends with her first-born child!  There is a bond there that I can hardly imagine will be the same with the second, third, or sixth (?) child.  I love these hours with my baby, whether we read books or explore pine cones, whether we cuddle each other or read/play side by side in our own separate worlds, whether we talk or not talk, for hours. 

And lastly, here’s a photo showing that Lena can stand up all by herself!  The week at the chalet you kind of had to trick her, like asking her to clap and she forgets to hold onto something, or helping her hold two toys in two separate hands and letting go of the chair or shelf.  This week at home, though, I can set Lena down and she’ll stand there on her own for up to 10 seconds!  Still hasn’t figured out the “taking steps” part, but we’re working on it.

4 :: in family, friends, holiday, Lena, motherhood, travel

Skiing in France!

While this blog was so quiet last week, we were very busy.  My family met Elliott, Lena, and me in France for a week-long ski trip!   All the credit goes to the guy in red fleece in the photo below, our dear friend Daniel Roe. 

Daniel went to school in England and took up skiing in the French Alps each winter with groups of friends.  Daniel’s been telling us for years that we need to take advantage of his sweet connections and please come skiing with him.  Finally he convinced us… and now the only thing we can’t figure out is what took us so long to get there.
Daniel’s friend let us use his ski chalet, a cozy little cabin located just a stone’s throw from a ski lift in the Grand Massif ski area.  We were about an hour from Geneva and completely surrounded by the magnificent French Alps.
Every morning we found our ski boots warming by the radiator in the kitchen.   (Thank you, Daniel.)
IMG_2776 
We ate breakfast and sipped mugs of coffee and then all bundled up for a day of skiing.  Lena also bundled up for various adventures such as playing in the snow, visiting a local boulagerie for pain au chocolat, or going on walks around town.  More photos of those activities later this week.
After that we headed for the gondola near our house which took us to the top of one of the ski mountains.  My mom and her favorite son-in-law enjoy the ride:

IMG_2174 
Once on top, we snapped into our skis and prepared to hit the slopes. L to R: Elliott, Julia, me.
 IMG_2187   photo(6) 
Look how beautiful it is!  Elliott and I love to ski; we’ve skiied together since we first met in Boston and have covered many slopes in New England; Colorado; and Tahoe, California (on our honeymoon).  Nothing we’ve seen compared to the quality and natural beauty of these slopes.  One day my family covered a nine-mile-long piste that started in Switzerland and ran all the way into France!
IMG_2272 
We all agreed about that!  Pictured below L to R: Emily, my dad, me, Elliott, Daniel, Eric.
IMG_2236 
 IMG_2258 
 
It snowed twice while we were there, leaving behind a thick layer of fresh snow.  All of us loved skiing “off piste,” or off the trails onto the fresh snow, like Elliott is doing below.  We found a great green-level run that wound slowly down through the woods; the gentle slope and abundance of trees and snow meant we were blazing trails in the woods almost as much as we were on the piste!
IMG_2271   photo(28) 
We spent plenty of time on the ski lifts and standing in line for ski lifts.  And, in general, not holding up the ski lifts with our antics.  In general.

L to R: Emily and then Emily, Elliott, Daniel, my dad 

photo(25)

photo(22)

We also always looked forward to a long lunch break.  Even our homemade sandwiches were fancier in France: fresh baguettes from the boulangerie, cured meats, and Camembert cheese.  And chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  For energy.
  
photo(26)

We pretty much always skiied together, accommodating everyone’s various ski levels.  Along the way there was plenty of laughter, lots of skiing tips thrown back and forth, and exciting discoveries being made every minute as our skills improved with our knowledge of the mountains.  
L to R below: Eric, my dad, me 

IMG_2244

Check back tomorrow for some photos of the boulangerie we visited religiously each morning!
5 :: in family, friends, holiday, Lena, travel

Skiing in France!

While this blog was so quiet last week, we were very busy.  My family met Elliott, Lena, and me in France for a week-long ski trip!   All the credit goes to the guy in red fleece in the photo below, our dear friend Daniel Roe. 

photo(18)photo(21) 
Daniel went to school in England and took up skiing in the French Alps each winter with groups of friends.  Daniel’s been telling us for years that we need to take advantage of his sweet connections and please come skiing with him.  Finally he convinced us… and now the only thing we can’t figure out is what took us so long to get there.
Daniel’s friend let us use his ski chalet, a cozy little cabin located just a stone’s throw from a ski lift in the Grand Massif ski area.  We were about an hour from Geneva and completely surrounded by the magnificent French Alps.
Every morning we found our ski boots warming by the radiator in the kitchen.   (Thank you, Daniel.)
IMG_2776 
We ate breakfast and sipped mugs of coffee and then all bundled up for a day of skiing.  Lena also bundled up for various adventures such as playing in the snow, visiting a local boulagerie for pain au chocolat, or going on walks around town.  More photos of those activities later this week.
IMG_2711photo(14) 
After that we headed for the gondola near our house which took us to the top of one of the ski mountains.  My mom and her favorite son-in-law enjoy the ride:

IMG_2174 
Once on top, we snapped into our skis and prepared to hit the slopes. L to R: Elliott, Julia, me.
 IMG_2187   photo(6) 
Look how beautiful it is!  Elliott and I love to ski; we’ve skiied together since we first met in Boston and have covered many slopes in New England; Colorado; and Tahoe, California (on our honeymoon).  Nothing we’ve seen compared to the quality and natural beauty of these slopes.  One day my family covered a nine-mile-long piste that started in Switzerland and ran all the way into France!
IMG_2272 
We all agreed about that!  Pictured below L to R: Emily, my dad, me, Elliott, Daniel, Eric.
IMG_2236 
 IMG_2258 
 
It snowed twice while we were there, leaving behind a thick layer of fresh snow.  All of us loved skiing “off piste,” or off the trails onto the fresh snow, like Elliott is doing below.  We found a great green-level run that wound slowly down through the woods; the gentle slope and abundance of trees and snow meant we were blazing trails in the woods almost as much as we were on the piste!
IMG_2271   photo(28) 
We spent plenty of time on the ski lifts and standing in line for ski lifts.  And, in general, not holding up the ski lifts with our antics.  In general.

L to R: Emily and then Emily, Elliott, Daniel, my dad 

photo(25)

photo(22)


We also always looked forward to a long lunch break.  Even our homemade sandwiches were fancier in France: fresh baguettes from the boulangerie, cured meats, and Camembert cheese.  And chocolate.  Lots of chocolate.  For energy.
  
photo(26)

We pretty much always skiied together, accommodating everyone’s various ski levels.  Along the way there was plenty of laughter, lots of skiing tips thrown back and forth, and exciting discoveries being made every minute as our skills improved with our knowledge of the mountains.  
L to R below: Eric, my dad, me 

IMG_2244

Check back tomorrow for some photos of the boulangerie we visited religiously each morning!
4 :: in family, friends, holiday, Lena, travel

Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom: Cloth Diapering

first cloth diaper ever!
& morning wash

I ask myself a lot these days (as I wash and rewash and then wash again): why am I cloth diapering my baby?  I don’t have a good answer.  I’ve heard a lot of good reasons touted by cloth diapering advocates, including these:

  • Baby’s comfort.  Cozy cloth is more comfy than wearing paper and plastic.
  • The environment.  Less garbage in the landfills.
  • Saving money over the long-term.  (More on this later.)
  • Supposedly potty training is easier and happens earlier because toddlers can actually feel when they are wet.  I’m holding out for this one to be true.
  • No polyacrylate gel, and I say this one tongue-in-cheek, because no one really knows that much about it yet.  But it is suspected of exacerbating asthma.
  •  Cloth diapers are cute, and–I’ll just say it right now–they are really really hip!

About that last reason.  Crunchy mamas are just kind of expected to use cloth diapers these days.  If you went through a Bradley class, if you birthed your baby tough ‘n’ natural, if you breastfeed with any kind of enthusiasm… well, where are the cloth diapers?  This is a sad and silly truth about mama-to-mama peer pressure, folks.  And I am raising my hand and admitting that I’m a pushover.

But hey, at least being a pushover in this case does probably mean better things for this earth and better things for my baby!  We’ll probably chuckle at ourselves in 20 years, about the same time we wonder why we endured so much pain for natural childbirth.  But at least right now we honestly can’t see any negatives to natural childbirth, breastfeeding, organic food, and cloth diapers.  Other than more work for Mom, these seem to be fairly positive things for our children and our world.  So, not knowing much more than this, I decided to embark into cloth diapering, foolishness or not.

& best $3 I ever spent at a yard sale: her LeapFrog table 

We started using cloth diapers when Lena was nine months old.  This was for two reasons:

  1. We were on the move from the day Lena was born.  Her homes included a Capitol Hill studio, my parents’ home in Virginia, a hotel room and various CouchSurfing residences in Israel, Elliott’s parents’ home in Virginia, a cabin in Colorado, a 19th century seaside house in St. Michaels, a hotel suite in Sicily, a carriage house apartment in San Antonio, a ranch in Santa Barbara county, and finally her own villa-home in Italy.  The laundry involved in cloth diapering was not feasible!
  2. We are on a tight budget, and investing in enough cloth diapers for Lena took more $$$ than we were willing to shell out at one time.  So we cruised along with gifted diapers as well as inexpensive deals at the commissary.  Finally I asked for cloth diapers for my birthday and for Christmas, and I bought three diapers on a Black Friday sale, and we ended up with a generous 19 BumGenius 4.0 one-size-fits-all cloth diapers by the New Year.  We were ready to begin!

Lena’s been in cloth diapers now for about two months.  There is a steep learning curve with these things, and I will not claim that it has been a cake walk.  At all.  Here are a few things I did not know when we started:

  • Poop.  You have to scrape it out of the diapers somehow.  I recommend GroVia liners.  (And maybe using your bidet, if you happen to have one.)
  • Smell.  They can give your baby’s nursery a permanent odor!  Invest in a trash can with a tight lid.  We use a Diaper Champ.
  • Wash.  You’ll be doing a lot of laundry, folks.  I do a load of diapers every other day, which involves one rise cycle and then one wash cycle [usually].  I can’t put BumGenius covers in the dryer, so I almost always dry everything outside.  Sunshine is an amazing natural bleach for any leftover stains; I had no idea!
  •  Stuffing.  No one told me that I would spend 15 minutes every other day “recreating” my cloth diapers.  At least with the BumGenius pocket-stuff type, there are two pieces that have to be snapped and fitted back together after every wash.  When the load is dry, I spend a good quarter of an hour kneeling on the floor snapping, stuffing, and stacking diapers.  
  • Mama’s job.  Daddy doesn’t do any washing, any drying, any stuffing, because he is at work when all that happens.  He changes maybe one diaper a day, maybe a couple more on weekends.  This commitment is almost entirely on my shoulders.
    stuffing diapers on my knees on the balcony
    & helping Mama with the clean laundry

    But in the end, is it worth it?  All the extra work, all the wash, all the intimate interactions with poop?  I have thought about it and decided yes, I will stick with it.  And here’s why:

    • Working with my hands.  I love to knit, to knead a loaf of bread, to fold laundry, to make a bed.  I enjoy working with my hands.  And so, poopy and stinky though this job may be, I get a deep and real sense of satisfaction as I pull clean diapers out of the wash and put up a fresh, dry stack of diapers in Lena’s changing table.  Silly as it sounds, this is the #1 reason I enjoy cloth diapering.
    • Cost.  These cloth diapers were free, almost entirely thanks to generous family members!  Disposables from the commissary are not.  We’ll stick with ’em.
    • Environment.  They say it’s better for the environment long-term.  I think I trust them… even though we do a crazy amount of laundry and use a lot of energy.  But they say it’s better.  So okay.
    • Potty training.  Like I said before, mamas and experts promise it’s easier with cloth diapers than with quick-wicking disposables.  I’m hanging on for that.
    • She couldn’t care less.  Lena doesn’t seem to mind if she’s in cloth or disposable.  (Or if she’s wet or dry, for that matter, so perhaps that makes easier potty training promises null and void?  Oh dear.)  Her skin doesn’t mind either; we haven’t had major issues with diaper rash with either option.
    • Peer pressure.  I’m a part of the cloth diapering club!  (The other name for this point is pride.  So this is not a good reason.  But I’m all about honesty here, and there it is.)
    •  Cuteness.  She looks so stinkin’ cute in these patterns and colors!  Don’t you think so too?
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    4 :: in Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom Series, Lena, motherhood, thoughts

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