We set out under dubious skies. Nana accessorizes with a fleece and rain jacket and I with my straw hat and sunglasses. It feels like the weather could go either way, and most probably both ways given sufficient time. The impetus for our excursion was to take a piece of outgoing mail up the mailbox. Friday had been thus far a pretty off and on rainy day overall. We had a fire going inside in the fireplace and a we enjoyed a leisurely brunch. Our cabin is at the end of a long shared gravel driveway, and it’s a short walk up to the paved peninsula road where the cluster of mailboxes and newspaper boxes reside. So getting the bill in the mail was our overt objective, but the covert aim was more that it was an excuse for a walk to liven up our day.

So the three of us, Nana, Lake and I are out for a walk. We were nearing the paved road when I hear a vehicle drive up fast then stop. I guess it’s the mail truck, and sure enough it zooms by past our field of view at the end of the tunnel of vegetation. We are thus committed to walking down toward the end of North Peninsula Drive to catch her on the way back. Indeed we do. We successfully flag her down as she comes zipping back up the road and hand over our letter. 

Inertia has us continuing along down the road, and before we know it we arrive at the end where our friends Craig and Kathryn Ann live. We drop in unexpectedly for an old fashioned visit. Kathryn Ann is home so we visit and enjoy iced tea and coconut water with fresh mint on the welcoming porch. They have a beautiful view of the lake from their charmingly restored cabin on the point. I’m wearing my sunglasses and there are big swaths of blue sky and puffs and whisper of fluffy white clouds. Kathryn Ann has fun meeting Lake and singing him songs they wrote for their own blue eyed red headed baby boy who’s now 22 years old and living in the American Southwest on a conservation corps. Funny how they grow up! 

Nearing the end of our social call, as we are inviting them over for dinner tomorrow, the skies turn ominous and black. Nana puts her jackets back on which had been around her waist for the ride, and I prop my sunglasses up on my hat. The weather suddenly shifts.
It threatens rain our whole walk back and we duck down to the beach at the tip of our bay. It isn’t until we are crossing our next-door-neighbor’s beach when the first gigantic raindrops begin to fall. Nana takes a quick documentary photograph, and then we scurry up the steps to our side porch as the hail arrives with a vengeance, driving down with unrelenting fury. One of my hands covers Lake’s soft head and the other his tender feet, and we dash into the cabin. We look out as the hail and rain sheet down, the wind torrents, and the electric lights flicker. We are secure and dry and we don’t lose our power; we make it in the nick of time! 

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After our eventful journey to Newman Lake, we  are enjoying a few very relaxing days of rest. Grandpa and Nana are keeping us fed with delicious food and lots of quality bonding time. 

Next up: brother and family including nearly three year old cousin are set to arrive for the day. Boy cousins to meet and maybe splash in the lake together!

Saturday we three walked up to the University District Farmers Market to meet an old friend and shop the market together. It was fun! We were all baby carrying and optimizing efficiency as she pointed out, visiting while taking care of shopping errands. The organic apricots were definitely the seasonal highlight. Then we bumped into some new friends from the collective PEPS peeps who were also out cruising the market. Later in the evening our friend Lena came over to join us for our favorite German board game Agricola, our first post baby go of it. We talked and laughed and played and caught up on our daily vegetable intakes. As it turns out my attention was incredibly divided. I was primarily taking care of Lake. Yet even though I had an impossible time concentrating on the game, earning possibly the lowest score ever, I was grateful to be back in the game. Feeling gratitude for community!

Meanwhile Lake continues to deliver egregiously on the cuteness front. 

Today my husband and I got out for a date. We chose to go on a running date. It wasn’t quite at the level of Sarah Brown’s two week postpartum Olympic trials training epic proportions, but it was my own version of the postpartum running story with husband-coach. We’re at 6 1/2 weeks and we did a leisurely 5 miles. In addition to some hill work it included bowls of steaming pho on the Ave at mile 4.6. 

So, our big night out post baby was actually a midday running date. We got sweaty. Our date included joint banking errands. In spite of that, it felt great to get out on our own, just the two of us talking about this and that. And to be up and running again. 

Well I did resume running at 6 weeks postpartum. It was just on the tennis court. So triumphant to get back out on the court! My Kindrick friends were incredibly supportive and maintaintained a round robin tennis approach, handing off Lake like a relay baton while I kept my eye on the ball. Last up was Papa who gave me a few solid pointers, a mini tennis stroke clinic! 

It was a whole new dimension to challenge my intellect with something to focus on: technique and strategic playing. The last and only tennis lessons I had were when I was nine years old. They gave me a surprisingly respectable foundation. I’m pretty surprised at how much fun I can have on the court with the few basics I learned nearly 30 years ago. This was at the behest of my grandparents enrolling my brother and me in city parks tennis lessons over the summer at Comstock Park in Spokane. Notable for how impressionable I was at that age, and that the lessons and exposure to art, dance, piano were all well invested. Note to self for Lake. 

Today my friend Jessica from PEPS and I walked around Greenlake. Beautiful day! She was remarking that it’s always such a nice day at Greenlake; maybe it’s a bit of a warm sunny microclimate. I joked that maybe it’s just always so nice to get out and walk around Greenlake that the weather presents as nice even if it’s a huge storm. I was thinking back to the day I killed my iPhone by walking around Greenlake the morning of my baby shower in April, taking pictures in the rain. That was a beautiful day too, but judging by the fact that I irreversibly ruined my phone it was a pretty rainy and blustery one. I have no photographic evidence remaining since I lost the pictures along with the phone.

So, today Jessica and I are walking our baby boys around and it is a truly brilliant sunny day. She has her son in a stroller and I’m using the K’tan baby carrier. We are enjoying our predictable and delightfully satisfying conversation revolving around being new mummies: daycare waitlists, bedtime rituals, baby friendly restaurants and movie theatres (Guild 45th has a private soundproof?!? two seater cry room), Kids on 45th and their dollar rack…

Suddenly this middle aged woman with pragmatically coiffed grey hair breaks her jogging stride and heads straight for me. It first crosses Jessica’s and my mind that she must know me from somewhere. I adore running into old friends, colleagues and acquaintances when I’m out and about in the neighborhoods, and Greenlake is a classic community “center.” 

But I don’t know her. She’s headed directly for me with an intensity that’s a bit alarming. She plants herself in my path and launches angrily and aggressively in with

I’m a pediatric nurse practitioner and you can’t carry your baby horizontal like that. He needs to be upright. The way you’re carrying your baby leads to sudden infant death!

I’m stunned. Lake continues to grunt (coo?) non-plussed, seemingly oblivious to how perilous his very life is at the moment. And every day for the past 6 1/2 weeks. I tell her I’m offended by her attack and that I am aware of the risk as it is plastered across the carrier in a huge (scratchy) warning label. He is horizontal because he won’t stay upright. He seems content, but if she would like to show me how to wrap him in a more upright position, I’m certainly open to it. 

Well, I work at [well known area children’s hospital] and we see all the worst cases. I’m sorry for offending you. 

She seems affronted and spits this out caustically. After this she zooms off in her self-righteous drive-by mummy-shamer cloud of dust. 

Jessica and I turn to stare at each other incredulously. Did that just happen? It was surreal in her speed of judgment and pronounced lack of desire to collaborate towards her proported safety aim. No Congratulations, I see you have a little one there. No, would you like some help? No I’m concerned. No Hello, actually. 

The death of a mother’s child is absolutely a tragedy at any age. This does not, however, necessitate or justify harassment. Even for low-hanging blog fodder.

Goodbye Sisters, Oregon!

Goodbye “Sister” Jessica!

It was great to introduce Lake, spend time together and share Aunties and Uncles and Nanas and Papas around. We engaged in some good ol’ wholesome summer fun! 

And now we made it home safe and sound. Whew! Have a good night!