Archive | life lately

of toddlers and kittens

she stretched out her paws to rest them on my leg and then fell asleep like that

I wish I had captured today on film, but the photo above is the first photo I took all day.  After a weekend where my camera barely left my hands, I was DSLR’d out.  So the camera never took a picture, and even my phone mostly sat by itself.

That’s fine.  It’s just that today was so peaceful and homey and full of love.  I wish I had a few more photos capturing the little moments.

Lena slept so much today.  Two 2.5-hour naps… what?!  My poor darlin’.  I guess she’s still recovering from jet lag and travel exhaustion and she also had a super busy weekend with friends and festivals and hikes and late bedtimes.  She was a happy camper today, though, with a sweet attitude that just made me so glad to be at home with her, savoring every day of her being 18 months old.  I watched her as she busied herself with her toys.  She is very into stacking and sorting things.  Later I found all her wooden puzzle pieces in two neat little stacks, one for each puzzle.

(I wonder if I will have another daughter?  I have been sorting and storing all her outgrown clothes from this summer.  Will another girl of mine ever wear them?  Or is she my only one?)

Lena can’t really say “cat” yet (“ca… ca?”  or “dee-tee” for kitty) but she can say “meow,” and so that is Siena’s name in Lena’s mind right now.  Watching her squat down beside Siena and gently rub a hand in her fur, then stand up and look at me and giggle gleefully… oh, my heart just melted into a big puddle of love juice.

As for Siena and me, well… I’m smitten.  OK, I wasn’t so smitten when I saw her on my kitchen counter licking butter out of my butter dish, but she is just five months old and part of me thinks of her as a toddler in need of guidance.

The other part of me looks at her as this beautiful, foreign thing–a cat!  in my house!  my cat!–and marvels at her, the mystery of her, the delicacy of her grooming, the lightness of her leap, the austerity of her gaze.

But I think she loves me.  She followed me all over the house today.  She really is like a dog, just like they say Maine Coons are.  At one point she lost me–I had gone into the laundry room and partly closed the door–and I heard her yowling at the top of the stairs.  I stuck my head out and called, “Here I am, Siena!” and she took one look at me and came bounding across the room to join me.

Big puddle of love juice.

In other news, this is how we blog now, apparently.

13 :: in Lena, life lately, motherhood, Siena

life lately

Here are a few Instagram photos from our visit to Virginia thus far.   
fun times at a park near my parents’ house

 no trip to the park is complete without a picnic in a basket, right?

how to keep a sick baby entertained in church for a very short time
& are you allowed on the dining room table, kitty cat?

when you’re walking around the neighborhood and you get tired… by all means, lie down
& enjoying a book from her great-grandparents, Brother Sun, Sister Moon

so many fingerless glove orders, so little time!
& can you spy our baby bumps??  My dear friend Abi and I are due just 5 days apart!
“playing” Banangrams with Lena, wherein she dumps pieces out and I spell her full name
(and her baby brother’s potential names, but I can’t share those photos!)
& reading with her Poppy
learning to walk in Mama’s new shoes 
& out on another walk in a sweater her mama knit her
6 :: in Lena, life lately, Virginia

life lately

Here are a few Instagram photos from our visit to Virginia thus far.   
fun times at a park near my parents’ house

 no trip to the park is complete without a picnic in a basket, right?

how to keep a sick baby entertained in church for a very short time
& are you allowed on the dining room table, kitty cat?

when you’re walking around the neighborhood and you get tired… by all means, lie down
& enjoying a book from her great-grandparents, Brother Sun, Sister Moon

so many fingerless glove orders, so little time!
& can you spy our baby bumps??  My dear friend Abi and I are due just 5 days apart!
“playing” Banangrams with Lena, wherein she dumps pieces out and I spell her full name
(and her baby brother’s potential names, but I can’t share those photos!)
& reading with her Poppy
learning to walk in Mama’s new shoes 
& out on another walk in a sweater her mama knit her
6 :: in Lena, life lately, Virginia

bits & pieces

During a traumatic bout of diaper rash last week, Lena ran around stark naked,
sometimes in her daddy’s shoes.

I thought it might be fun to take a break from epic photo updates and just share some snippets of news instead.  Here are a few fun facts about our lives these days:

  • First of all, happy first day of 4th year at UVA and happy 21st birthday to my amazing, beautiful, and brilliant sister Emily!  If you get a chance (and you know her, I guess), tell her you love her.
  • I feel like poor Bambino #2 never gets mentioned on here, but I am still so very pregnant, folks.  Eighteen weeks tomorrow, meaning I’m well into my 2nd trimester.  “They” say that the 2nd trimester is always the best because you’re not as tired as during your 1st trimester or as enormous as in the last one.  So far I would have to say that sounds about right.  The belly doesn’t show much yet but I have some fun photos to share tomorrow (more about that later in this post) and you might see Baby a little bit in those!
    • How cute is this camera?  I saw it yesterday—but not for the first time—on Rockstar Diaries, one of my favorite blogs out there.  I have drooled over Little Sapling Toys before for Lena, and how I’d love to get some of their teethers and toys for our new baby, too!  I’m so smitten for anything wooden.  (Hey, does that rhyme?)
    • My newest blog crush is The Year of Less in which a hippie mama chronicles her daily endeavors to purge clutter from her life.  It’s kind of amazing how extreme she is (ie. dreadlocks this weekend?!).  But on the less extreme side, she’s an inspiration to me to keep going with a lot of things I’ve been trying to do already, like…
      • line drying all our clothing (our dryer sucks up so much energy which = big electricity bills in Italy)
      • canceling subscriptions to all catalogues and junk mail
      • moving all our bills and bill-paying to an online paperless system
      • keeping Lena’s toys to a minimum (ie. buying used toys or generally not buying toys at all)
      • read her blog for more great ideas, and visit her other blog (The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking) for more
    • I love this knitted toy snake pattern from Purl Soho?  Makes me hope just a little bit that we are having a boy (we find out September 7), but whether we do or don’t, I think Lena and Bambino #2 would enjoy a playful stuff snake for a pet.  My fingers are beginning to get that familiar autumnal itch back to start knitting.
    • We borrowed my friend Shannon’s ice cream maker last week and Jess and Sarah made peach and toasted pecan ice cream.  It is to die for.  Makes me want a bowl right now.
    • I got a haircut!  Lopped off about 6 inches.  I’m back to “wedding length,” or the length my hair was 2.5 years ago on my wedding day.  (Confession: I haven’t had a serious haircut since, and I only get a haircut about once every 10 months!)  I already feel so much more girly and energetic and don’t feel nearly as weighed down by my heavy, long hair.  It was really long.  Really long.
    • The haircut was perfect for our adventures last weekend because we went camping!  Oh wait, no we didn’t.  We just felt like we did because we were so hot, there were so many mosquitoes, and… well, there were so many mosquitoes.  We stayed here and doesn’t it look positively dreamy?  I thought so too!  But the photos fooled me.  More about that tomorrow.
    8 :: in Baby Numero Due, good reads, Lena, life lately, wishlist

    bits & pieces

    During a traumatic bout of diaper rash last week, Lena ran around stark naked,
    sometimes in her daddy’s shoes.

    I thought it might be fun to take a break from epic photo updates and just share some snippets of news instead.  Here are a few fun facts about our lives these days:

    • First of all, happy first day of 4th year at UVA and happy 21st birthday to my amazing, beautiful, and brilliant sister Emily!  If you get a chance (and you know her, I guess), tell her you love her.
    • I feel like poor Bambino #2 never gets mentioned on here, but I am still so very pregnant, folks.  Eighteen weeks tomorrow, meaning I’m well into my 2nd trimester.  “They” say that the 2nd trimester is always the best because you’re not as tired as during your 1st trimester or as enormous as in the last one.  So far I would have to say that sounds about right.  The belly doesn’t show much yet but I have some fun photos to share tomorrow (more about that later in this post) and you might see Baby a little bit in those!
      • How cute is this camera?  I saw it yesterday—but not for the first time—on Rockstar Diaries, one of my favorite blogs out there.  I have drooled over Little Sapling Toys before for Lena, and how I’d love to get some of their teethers and toys for our new baby, too!  I’m so smitten for anything wooden.  (Hey, does that rhyme?)
      • My newest blog crush is The Year of Less in which a hippie mama chronicles her daily endeavors to purge clutter from her life.  It’s kind of amazing how extreme she is (ie. dreadlocks this weekend?!).  But on the less extreme side, she’s an inspiration to me to keep going with a lot of things I’ve been trying to do already, like…
        • line drying all our clothing (our dryer sucks up so much energy which = big electricity bills in Italy)
        • canceling subscriptions to all catalogues and junk mail
        • moving all our bills and bill-paying to an online paperless system
        • keeping Lena’s toys to a minimum (ie. buying used toys or generally not buying toys at all)
        • read her blog for more great ideas, and visit her other blog (The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking) for more
      • I love this knitted toy snake pattern from Purl Soho?  Makes me hope just a little bit that we are having a boy (we find out September 7), but whether we do or don’t, I think Lena and Bambino #2 would enjoy a playful stuff snake for a pet.  My fingers are beginning to get that familiar autumnal itch back to start knitting.
      • We borrowed my friend Shannon’s ice cream maker last week and Jess and Sarah made peach and toasted pecan ice cream.  It is to die for.  Makes me want a bowl right now.
      • I got a haircut!  Lopped off about 6 inches.  I’m back to “wedding length,” or the length my hair was 2.5 years ago on my wedding day.  (Confession: I haven’t had a serious haircut since, and I only get a haircut about once every 10 months!)  I already feel so much more girly and energetic and don’t feel nearly as weighed down by my heavy, long hair.  It was really long.  Really long.
      • The haircut was perfect for our adventures last weekend because we went camping!  Oh wait, no we didn’t.  We just felt like we did because we were so hot, there were so many mosquitoes, and… well, there were so many mosquitoes.  We stayed here and doesn’t it look positively dreamy?  I thought so too!  But the photos fooled me.  More about that tomorrow.
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      8 :: in Baby Numero Due, good reads, Lena, life lately, wishlist

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