JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

Company

There's an old wives tale that says if your nose is itching, it means company is coming.  My nose should have been itching this month.  Although Brian and I are far from home, we're lucky to be living in an area that people like to visit and also fortunate to have a guest room in our house.  A year ago when we had just arrived in California, I worried that we'd be terribly lonely.  But between new friends here and old friends visiting, we're happy.

In the middle part of July, my friend Birgit came to visit.  We've been friends since my Atlanta days and she's one of the most positive, proactive people I've ever met.  When her daughter Rachel was born in 2006, I was lucky enough to be able to lavish a lot of love on her.  Now Birgit knows and loves Eli.  

Here's everybody at Baker Beach not far from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Birgit picked up pebbles to take home to Rachel.  (Birgit grew up in a seaside village in Belgium, so I think she got a real kick out of being on the beach.  Right now she lives in Washington DC, so she can get the shore but not very quickly.)

This week our friends Laura and Liz visited from Maryland.  We all had a good time exploring the city and playing with Eli.

Auntie Liz put up Eli's new baby swing for him.  (Thanks, Auntie Liz!)

How thankful I am to be living in a time of easy travel!  I often think about Laura Ingalls Wilder's family in the mid-1800s, moving west and never knowing when or if they would see dear ones again.

Every New Mom Should Have a Tracy

Yesterday you met Claire.  This is her mom, Tracy.

Tracy and I had our babies in the same hospital a day apart.  In retrospect, we remembered each other from a breastfeeding class before we took our babies home.  But it wasn't until Tracy posted an online message to the Berkeley Parents Network asking if there were any moms with small babies living near her that we connected and began hanging out.  

For the first two months of Eli's life, I didn't go out much.  I remember alternating watching Eli sleep in his Moses basket and watching television -- Good Morning America, Regis & Kelly, A Baby Story, and Jon & Kate Plus Eight.  I'm not much of a television person, so it felt like an odd existence.  I loved being at home with Eli and felt such joy caring for him, yet time often crawled.  Because of breast feeding, I did most of the night duty.  When Brian went to bed at ten, I knew I would only see him in passing the next morning and I wouldn't have real adult conversation until around six the next evening when he got home from work.  Twenty out of twenty four hours in the day I was largely on my own.  Because I worked so hard on the book after we moved to California, I didn't have any friends to hang out with yet.  And even zipping to the grocery store was a big deal when I had to do it by myself with a newborn.  

Those two months were a time of great joy, but there were a lot of tears too.  Lonely.  Brian was wonderful, but once the holidays were over he had to work regular hours.  Then Tracy reminded me that the hospital has a support group for new parents and I started going.  Soon Tracy and I were carpooling to group, but also meeting up to go shopping, take walks, and explore Berkeley with our babies on weekdays.  The world opened up.  

Tracy makes life easier and happier in many ways.  Adult conversation during the day makes a huge difference to a stay-at-home mother.  She's helping me learn my way around Berkeley and the surrounding areas.  Also, when it comes to this new role in my life, I have someone to compare notes with.  We're always swapping tips and ideas.  And then there is the fact that two sets of adult hands and eyes makes everything easier -- loading the car, carrying out groceries, public diaper changes, etc.  

Tracy and I are very different in many ways.  I'm a writer who can't go long without scribbling in her journal.  Despite being a book and library person, Tracy dislikes writing so much that her e-mails look like text messages.  Our parenting styles vary somewhat too.  Baby Claire enjoys ice cream and such, but I'm trying to hold off giving Eli sugar until he's old enough to know what he's missing (in the hopes that he may not be as much of a sugar hound as his parents).  But we're more alike than we are different.  Tracy and I both find a lot of joy in home life, adore our kids and husbands, try to always look on the positive side, and have the same core values.

I wish every new mom had the opportunity to team up with another new mom in friendship and with the workload.  The television stays off all day and we have plenty of good adventures.  If company is coming or one of us had a hard night, we help each other catch up by pitching in or watching both kids so the other mom can have a few free moments.   When I look back on Eli's baby years, I won't think of them as lonely.  I'm deeply grateful for that.    

Baby Claire

Eli likes to hang out with an older woman.  In fact, Baby Claire is a whole day older.  You've seen Claire on the blog before, but you haven't been officially introduced.  Everybody, meet Baby Claire...

My friend Tracy and I hang out together a lot, so of course our babies do too.  When we first started meeting up at a local parenting group in late January, our babies were still little noodles.  Here are Claire and Eli in the window of a Japanese restaurant in February while the moms from the group ate lunch.

At Easter...

And more recent adventures...

Sharing Eli's little red wagon

And sharing a swing at the park

Sometimes I think the babies are in cahoots after hanging out together so much.  On occasion Tracy and I get tag-teamed.  ("Okay, Eli.  I'm tired out now.  Your turn to cry.")  I swear they teach each other tricks.  ("Hey, look Claire.  If you pull that baby blanket somebody left hanging off the sofa, that nice crinkly magazine will come down too.")  They learn new skills together.  ("Let's take turns shrieking to see how loud we can get!" or "Hey, let's see if we can pull this toy apart!")  But the babies are also already learning how to share.  And they love each other's company.

Red Knees (with Late Breaking News)

Our little guy has been crawling for over a month, but it's mostly been an "army man," belly-to-the-floor crawl.  Yesterday morning, however, Eli woke up and decided to start crawling on all fours.  He's much speedier that way, which seems to please him.  He also gets a big kick out of being able to go up the single carpeted stair from the sunken living room to the dining room.  But last night when I put him in his high chair for supper, I realized what a toll his adventures took on the poor soft baby skin of his knees.  Don't know if you can tell by the photo below, but Eli's knees were quite red from carpet burns despite spending a good portion of the day in long pants.

I think before I spent so much time with Eli, I assumed being a baby was pretty easy.  But actually they are working quite hard to build muscle as well as brain neurons.  To them, their adventures are  sometimes scary and painful.  Last night I doled out some calendula cream and mama kisses on those red knees.  But I also told Eli how proud I am of him, not just for growing but for his sweet baby courage too.

Happy and safe journeys, Little Man.  

Late news flash:  Today Baby Magellan circled not the globe but the bottom floor of the house.  He crawled all the way across the living room, up the step, through the dining room, across the kitchen, and into the den.  At this point, I think he felt a little lost because he sent up a small wail.  So I played peek-a-boo in the hallway to point out the way back to his toy-filled living room.  All smiles again, he came crawling.  So he circled the first floor of the house on his hands and knees!

Baby Hat!

Eli's first baby hat is almost finished, thanks to Maggie's patient help.  I got into some big messes at home when there wasn't anybody around to show me how to undo a dropped stitch or tangled yarn, but I decided just to press on.  It was the right thing to do.  In last night's class I was able to figure out what I had done wrong in many cases and also learned the rest of the steps to finish hats (including some ways to change tops and stitching for variety).  The next hat will be much better!

If you don't look at Eli's first hat too closely, it looks pretty good.

Just kidding.  It is a little hard to see because the yarn is dark brown, but the hat has green stitching along the band and is gathered at the top like a paper bag.  It's a little big because of extra stitching inside, but Maggie is going to help with that later.

With this knitting class, I feel that I've crept into a whole new creative world.  This may not make much sense to some folks, but I've always been a texture person.  I realized it in high school when I went walking along a railroad track with a buddy.  We started picking up pretty rocks and she gathered anything with a streak of pretty color.  All my stones were smooth.  Not long after, I took up black & white photography, capturing still life images of rounded pebbles, eggs, canvas, dry grass, and other items with interesting textures.  Sometimes, though, I miss color.

Knitting is all about texture!  You pull a soft yarn in the same direction over and over and suddenly you've got pattern and texture.  By varying stitches, you can create complex patterns and textures.  You can even make things that are sculptural.  Ever thought about how amazing it is that with varied stitches you can encompass the complex form of a foot?  Think about it.  Knitted socks are amazing!

Ah, and knitting has color to it.  Oh, the yarns come in dozens and dozens of lovely colors!  Texture meets color.

Knitting Again

Several years back one of my adopted aunts taught me how to knit, but I forgot how.  Then this past February, my actual aunt visited and taught me how to knit in the Continental style.  (See the February 27th post, if you are interested.)  She wasn't here long enough to show me what to do with long blocks of knitting and purling, though.  And I'm not a scarf person.  No, I want to learn to make baby hats.

A long time ago I read in an article that actress Tyne Daly knits baby hats for charity -- AIDS babies, crack babies, foster kids, etc.  Groups like Newborns in Need or websites like Knitting for Charity are always in need of hand-knit baby hats.  What a comforting thing to do!  And there are times when I have spare moments and idle hands, but can't do anything absorbing like reading.  If I'm visiting people in the hospital, sitting in a long concert, or such, sometimes I get antsy.  Having something to do with my hands helps.  As Eli gets older, I anticipate a lot more times like that as I watch him at the playground or wait while he is at an activity.  It would be so nice to have small, simple, easy-to-accomplish projects to do on the go.  Mmmm.  And I could periodically buy yarn in delicious colors too.

In nearby Oakland, The Tulip Grove center for new parents offered a class on how to knit a baby hat taught by Maggie Pace who owns a knitting pattern company called  Pick Up Sticks.   Perfect!  Two weeks ago I slipped out after Eli was in bed and joined four other moms sitting around a table, talking and laughing and learning to knit.  Tonight we gather again to see if our work will actually come together into wearable hats.  Good thing at this point Eli isn't too picky.  Hat-wise, all he cares about is that the hat stays out of his eyes and is nicely chewy in case he can pull it off and get it in his mouth.

The Adventures of Eli:

"Hey, look!  I have a belly button!"

Gratitude

Sometimes when I am standing with Eli in my arms, he will decide to snuggle in.  I can't quite explain it, but he knows how to shift and wiggle until he is nestled exactly up against me.  We end up cheek to cheek, but it also feels like soul to soul because it is so peaceful and somehow nourishing for us both.  We are two puzzle pieces that -- in this moment -- fit together perfectly.  As Eli continues to change, our relationship will change as well.  Just as his body will grow too large for me to hold him this way, so our interactions will grow and we'll need more space between us.  The fact that these sweet baby days are fleeting make them so dear. 

When I hold Eli in my arms in this close way, I wonder what he is thinking.  I wonder who he will grow up to be and how his life will shape the world around him.  But I also think about the fact that right at this moment I know that he is happy and healthy.  As he grows and ventures into the world, I won't always know exactly where he is and how he is doing.  With my son resting on me and my heart full of rest in return, it is a moment of deep gratitude that is something like a living prayer.  

A sandy Eli at the beach earlier this month.

We Have Air!

Loooooong happy sigh.  The air conditioning is working again.  

And the pool is filled in.  The carpet is installed.  The water damage is repaired.  Everything is moved back to its proper spot.  The house feels comfortable, clean, and organized again.

Ahhh.

Thankfulness.

Still No Air Conditioning

It is a little cooler today, but we're still without air conditioning.  If it was just Brian and me, we wouldn't care much.  By the time we go to bed around ten, the cool nighttime air is flowing across the valley from the bay and into our bedroom window.  But Eli goes to bed much earlier and it has been miserably hot for him the last week or so.  

The main problem is that the temperature here drops sharply overnight -- from the mid eighties during hot spells to the fifties.  We're using fans and open windows to try to drop the temperature upstairs, but the biggest windows face west and we have several skylights too.  It gets in the nineties up there.  We have to resort to cool baths and thin pajamas so Eli will be cool enough to sleep.  Then in the middle of the night -- even with the windows closed -- it gets cool enough that he's chilly, waking up early and crying.  The last two nights he's balked at bedtime, crying in his crib when he used to fall right to sleep.  His bed is no longer a cozy place.

It's been a long haul.  It was the end of May when the broken water pipe flooded our house and the project to fill in the pool began before the indoor repairs were complete.  I have to say, I'm losing my patience...losing my cool...with the situation.  I've roughed it plenty of times.  Heck, I lived in tropical Haiti one summer without air conditioning.  I traveled through hot India with just a small backpack.  But it is different when you see your baby suffering because of silly unfinished repairs beyond your control.

Eli this morning

New Wheels!

At seven months, Eli is getting too big to be comfortable sitting in his car seat for long periods.  We have a new one that is larger, but it won't work with his stroller.  Our stroller until now has been a "snap n' go," a wheeled frame that supports his car seat.

It's difficult to plunk down a bunch of money on a stroller.  Not only does it hurt the wallet, but you're trying to anticipate future needs because you need to use it until your kid is done with the toddler years.  Should you get a lightweight and small umbrella stroller that is easy for sidewalks?  Or a larger stroller that can handle storage for shopping trips?  Or an all-terrain sport or jogging model for exercising and going across the lawn at the park?  Basically, the more money you spend, the better a stroller performs.  And you don't want to buy multiple strollers if you can help it.  

I did a lot of research and "test drove" a lot of models before I chose one.  Below is a photo of Eli and his best buddy, Baby Claire, testing out a Phil & Ted's brand double stroller just for the fun of it.

  

But here is the beauty we finally selected.  A boy and his banana ready for adventure in their Bumbleride Indie...

  

When a boy and his banana get tired, they can recline and snooze.

  

Mama likes peeking down at her little guy (and his banana) through the plastic window in the canopy.  If Eli is awake and sees me looking through the window, he always starts to laugh.  I'm checking to see if he's asleep but he turns it into a game of Peek-a-boo!

  

If Eli is asleep in the car when we arrive somewhere or if we need his car seat with us, it snaps into the stroller.  (At least until we have to permanently switch him to the bigger seat.)

  

And the sun shade for the stroller matches up with the one for the car seat to keep Eli out of the elements.  But it still gives him a peep-hole to see the world -- unless Mama wants to drape a blanket over and keep out every bit of wind.  If we need more ventilation on a hot day, part of the zipper opens for air flow while still keeping the stroller shady.

  

The bottom line:

--The Bumbleride is good for all terrain as it has blow-up tires (like miniature bike tires).  In fact, we tested it on dirt and gravel hiking trails in the Presideo yesterday with great results!  We also tested it with one of the tires flat just to see if that would be a problem.  A flat tire makes steering harder, yet the stroller is still functional.  That makes me feel safer on the go even though I have a tiny, portable tire pump.
--The back tires are smaller than on many sport strollers, so this stroller is easy to pack into the car.  In fact, if you have a small car, the wheels can be quickly removed!

--The Bumbleride has a better recline system than most jogging strollers; it goes from almost fully sitting up to a complete recline complete with a foot-rest that clicks upwards.  The "hollow" that Eli sits in is also a bit more shallow than most jogging-type strollers, which means he can easily see out the sides.  I read that some toddlers hate jogging strollers because they recline too much and restrict side views.

--The Bumbleride is only 20 pounds, so it's not bad to lift.

--The Bumbleride sun shade is larger than most.

--The storage space under the stroller is also larger than most sport strollers.

We love it!

2012 update:  At age four, Eli no longer wants to ride in a stroller even though he still comfortably fits in the Bumbleride Indie (despite being 95th percentile for height and weight).  He'd rather pedal his bike beside me when I do my morning speed walks!  Thus we'll be selling the Bumbleride soon.  Hands down, this stroller was one of the best purchases we made when he was a baby.