At dinner recently Michael and I got to talking about one of our favorite subjects: Lake. He actually had already gone to bed. And incidentally he’s been sleeping through the night all week now… about ten hours. It’s a great feeling! So, we got to talking about how remarkably happy he is in general, which you may have noticed is all the time. 

Michael loves a scale for quantification and classification. Therefore he invented the Tolle VanLaanen Happiness Scale: for infants. Exclusion criteria are greater than 12 months and cats. It’s a 0-3 point scale. 

0: no happiness 

1: lowest 5th percentile 

2: middle 85% normal distribution 

3: highest 5th percentile 

Lake is a perfect 3.

We are so blessed!

Pajama days. Pajama daze. First it was pajama Friday, then it was pajama Sunday. Mummy has been sick. Lake’s fashion cred has taken a hit. Or has it? Maybe he’s just rocking a few new looks. He’s such a good sport. He doesn’t mind. He’s all smiles!

I just dropped Lake off at Bright Horizons at 9:30. I have the day off. I feel light. The back of me feels free. The front of me feels empty. He usually rides up front. I feel a bit adrift but guided with a long list of errands to accomplish before my son gets hungry for his mummy. I don’t feel guilty… I take this as a good sign. I have a feeling the day is going to whiz by. 

It’s such a gorgeous day. And so cold; a cold snap! I woke up smiling; I woke up early. I started puttering around the house before six o’clock, excited for my day off. The air is so cold outside that the house thermostat set at 64 won’t let the natural gas furnace catch its breath. The walls and the floors of the house begin popping, like rice crispies… snap! crackle! pop! Brrrrr!

Lake continued to sleep until eight o’clock. He slept all through the night since 9:30pm! He woke up twice but went right back to sleep on his own accord. Hibernating and cozy?! Smart lad. 

So now still I’m sans son, out doing errands and I have to say, thus far I’m not seeing the advantages. At Hardwick Hardware both employees were rude to me and gave me attitude for my straightforward request for help cutting a key. It was a bit of a shock. First because they are usually so nice and second I think I’m used to the Service Culture at my place of work which I really appreciate and a bubble of special treatment outside of my workplace due to Lake’s omnipresent cuteness. I’m sure they would have been kind if Lake would have been with me. He’s such a harbinger of joy. He’s the kittens mittens. So, what you gonna do? Shed the layers of clothes and celebrate our new IMA membership by taking a sauna! I cheated… I didn’t work out first! Just out walking errands in the cold. But that’s something I couldn’t have Lake accompanying m for, though … so carpe diem!

An hour later I leave refreshed and transformed. My toes feel warm and alive. Once again the sun is shining inside and out. Even without Lake, that place is the bees knees. I walk home smiling. 

As aforementioned, Lake has been sick for seven weeks straight now. Michael jokingly refers to it as kennel cough. Additionally Lake’s non-purulent serous eye drainage started culturing bacteria and it was finally time for antibiotic eye ointment. We want nothing more than for Lake to be fully restored to health, but it seems elusive as long as he continues to be exposed in the daycare warren-like environment. 

So, for a multitude of reasons, getting Lake out of the warren among them, we are so excited to be welcoming our new au pair next week! It has been a fortuitous luxury to have had the Bright Horizons available for Lake in the interim. There were many advantages. It has allowed for me to return to work prior to us getting our new house and the au pair bedroom sorted. It has allowed me to maximize my feeding time with Lake before, during, and after work, because right now he commutes with me. The folks at the daycare center have been very interested to care for Lake and very complimentary of his disposition. Ultimately, however, we are preferring to have Lake cared for in our home. It will be nice to have him outside of a school like setting while he is still so young. 

So enter our au pair Jo. Jo is arriving here from northern Germany next week! She heralds from near Bremen, home to the famous Grimm traveling musicians. 

Jo will be coming to spend a year with us, maybe two if we are lucky. She will be living in our home as an extended family member and caring for Lake 45 hours per week while Michael and I are out “pharming”. We consider Lake and ourselves to be very blessed to have such a talented young woman joining our family. We selected her from a plethora of online profiles among three different international au pair agencies. Pardon the analogy but it was a bit akin to online dating. After just two Skype interviews, with both trepidation and excitement we decided to both choose each other. We matched! We are feeling very good about the match and are looking forward to Jo’s arrival next Wednesday night!

Our little ginger has been continuously sick since the moment he touched foot in his daycare on November 17th for an hour long trial visit. The most recent iteration includes a lovely viral conjunctivitis wherein Lake wakes up every morning with his eyes glued shut. Hopefully the five day course is running itself out any moment now. 

Michael and I have an active debate about if and how breast milk squirted in the eye might be helpful for this condition. Enthusiasts seem to promulgate the utility of breast milk as the panacea of therapeutics. My husband is a huge skeptic. I’ve just got to report that it’s a lot more challenging to get any breast milk near Lake’s eyes than one might imagine. But I’ve also got to admit that amongst cries of protest, head turning and hands that are clearly against the idea, I’ve tried. How can you not with a face that looks like this?

Yesterday we finally got around to opening our Christmas stockings on New Years Eve Day. Among other things, Santa had brought Michael a ginger root.

Lake immediately took to that ginger root and began gnawing on it. Combined with the breast milk elixir, it surely stimulated his vis …

It’s inspiring to experience Lake’s unfazed joie de vivre in the face of the most undesirable circumstances. Blinded, snotty, sick teething and smiling! And with such radiance and trusting curiosity. 

Happy New Year, little Ginger! You light up my life! May health and happiness embrace you and your loved ones on this Perfect Day and in all the days of the year to come!

Cheers to 2017!

We sent off the tail end of 2016 with a very cold spell. Kicking around our hood. The Ave. Michael and Lake grooving in Ave Rat style. 

 

Today we walked down to the IMA which was closed. The sunshine might have been out for a bit and was a bit misleading. We were underdressed. It was too darn cold so we hopped a bus back up to the U District. And another bus up to Wallingford for some fancy pho before going to see a film at the Guild on 45th. Manchester on the Sea. Such a great theatre. They have a private room for babies too. So awesome. We usually end up having a diaper blowout or decompensation right around the climax of the plot though and transition from the front up to the private room and somewhere in there miss some crucial dialogue. So we are left wondering how Michelle Williams gathered so many accolades for her cameo in the film. I think that the diaper change took up most of her screen appearance. It was still a deep film; I cried my way through most of the film. 

After the film it was colder and almost snowing. Lake only had one shoe and sock on because the other side became a casualty of the diaper blowout. I tied my hat around his legs like a sleeping bag foot to help protect him from the sleet. We walked home and swung by Trader Joe’s for some hot drinking chocolate fixings but they had just closed. So we seized the opportunity to check out our neighborhood Indian grocery Mr. B’s Indian Imports instead. No drinking chocolate, I think that was the Mayan Indians, but we did come away with an array of goodies for a delicious dinner Michael whipped up. And we discovered our local source for dried beans: lentils garbanzos and such. We also have a neighborhood vegan grocery. Real gritty Ave Rats. 

We arrived home and we were extremely grateful to have a warm house to call home. So maybe not true Ave Rats, but certainly in the spirit of the old school Ave. Good bye 2016. Thank you for bringing us Lake! You were SOME YEAR!

Lake is seven months old today. I celebrated by eating pie after he went to sleep at eight o’clock. I fed him all evening so he should be well tanked up. Then I needed to replenish myself too! My friend was right, it’s hard to keep the weight on after the breastfed baby casts off his training wheel appetite and really tucks in for his dinners. 

So, behold this beautiful pie Nana made especially for gluten free vegan mummy! Perfect with a Coconut Bliss accompaniment. Now, Happy (monthly) Birthday Lake! You enrich our lives so much with your ebullient spirit!

These are precious days. It’s hard for me to believe Lake will be seven months old on Thursday. We are enjoying watching as he explores the interface between his body and the world, both intentional and unintentional. 

He is practicing his dry ground swimming… 

His lean into gravity…

His pushing himself up for a better view. 

And how his smile invokes such delight in his mummy…

We are deeply appreciating what are likely the final days of his pre-ambulatory phase. It’s a luxury to set him down and know that within the confines of a roll or a spin he’s staying relatively “put”… We know his scooting and crawling and then running and walking days are coming up fast and will keep us on a whole new level of “our toes”…

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