Rower, etc.

So, I was just flipping through some old blog posts from a few years ago to find a recipe that I'd blogged about because I want to make it for dinner tonight. And as I was looking through, I couldn't help looking at photos of myself, and thinking, "Oh, you poor, lovely, well-slept idiot. You have no idea what you're in for, and no idea what you're missing."

I can't really remember what it felt like to not have a child. I can imagine what it must have been like, but the memories are strangely impersonal to me. Like I'm watching a movie of my memories instead of remembering them from my own point of view. And, stranger still, I don't really care!

Most of the people who read this blog (all three of you) have children, so I don't want to restate in paragraph form all the tropes and cliches of new motherhood that we've all heard so many times (it's the hardest and best thing ever! It makes your life so much more meaningful! They're so cute and sometimes they make you want to scream!).  I've learned a truckload about how I handle sleep deprivation (excruciatingly poorly), how bad labor really is (BAD but fast!), how tricky nursing can be to learn (replace "tricky" with "surprisingly counter-intuitive"), and how on the worst of days, I just glance down at my baby's chubby, wide-eyed face and think, "Oh, I would so clean up any amount of spit up and poo for you."

Baby Row, 3 days old

Sleeping Row, 3 days old

Cozy Row, 11 days old

Bathing Row, 3 weeks old

Milk Coma Row, 3 weeks old

Tired Row, 5 weeks old

Angry Row, 7 weeks old

Pucker Up Row, 7 weeks old

Sassy Row, 8 weeks old

Posing Row, 9 weeks old

Cat in the Hat Row, 3 months old

Beach Row, 16 weeks old

Rower is growing and filling out and becoming my best little companion. He's smiley and giggly and jibber jabbers constantly. Sometimes he gets a wide-eyed look and starts yammering on with this sense of extreme urgency, like there something he just has to tell me right now. The earnestness melts my heart into a puddle of goop. Maybe this is pretty typical of most 4 month old babes, but he's not extremely social outside of home. When we travel anywhere and spend the night outside of our home, he reverts back to newborn stages of night wakefulness and seems really on edge all day. At home, he's a laid back dream who smiles readily and falls asleep just about anywhere. We'll see how that pans out in the long run. My mother tells me that my bro Cameron was a lot like that as a baby- he did very well at home but struggled when presented with too much noise or commotion. And he grew out of it. And, if Row ends up being like Uncle Cameron, we're in for a very pleasant, obedient, compassionate kid.

Thankfully, he really likes third-wheeling it on dates with us. He has successfully slept through FOUR movie theater movies with us without making a peep. He hangs out patiently in restaurants (95% of the time) and for the most part falls asleep in his carseat in the car.

I take him on errands, runs, hikes, visits, and most recently, the beach.



Having him around for Christmas will make everything so much more sweet and fun (and probably tiring but I'm becoming an expert at functioning in that state).

We had an uneventful Halloween, a fun Thanksgiving in Vegas, and Christmas will be an adventure.

Thanksgiving: my huge Reynolds family.  And this isn't even everyone.

Chilling at the end of the Thanksgiving table, photobomb courtesy of cousin Rob.

This year for Christmas we (thankfully) get to spend time with both families, despite Harry's crazy busy work schedule. He's been plugging away, seemingly doing the work of 5 people by himself, and he never complains. He's learning some cool and interesting things and working with creative people, and we're both really grateful he landed in such a great place.

Christmas Bumbo Row, 16 weeks (That tree was my own creation, made of textbooks, a trashcan, garland, and lights.)

I'm still figuring out how to balance things that I want to do and need to do with his schedule, but as hokey as it sounds, I wouldn't change that. We love this dude so much. Welcome to the blog, Rower. I'm sure, like most other things in our life, it will happily and mostly start revolving around you.

Merry Christmas from our family of three, taken on a visit to see Dad last week during his lunch break.

And everything else in a mild hurry

Well yay, now I've caught us up to the end of October. Way to go me! Here's the rest of our lives in compression format.

Girl's Trip 2012

We all drove/flew to Orange County for the annual girl's trip last November!

We went to Disneyland, did some shopping, and Tiff, Karina and I ran a 10K in the Woodbridge area of Irvine.  It's such a treat to get to spend time together.  Megan went above and beyond and surprised us all with matching sweatshirts to commemorate the weekend.

Girl's dinner

Tower of Terror

RunLove 10K race

And then a few days later, on election day, I hacked about 7 inches of my hair off.  It's been fun having a long bob!  I am glad I was brave enough to take the plunge and Natalie did an amazing job.

Thanksgiving:

We all trekked to Elizabeth's beautiful new house in Draper, Utah.

Bowling with McO cousins the night before Thanksgiving

Jubes is the cutest

And knows how to make a good funny face

Early morning giggle fest

Best buds and only 10 days apart

Fan-damily

The apple pie goddess

The orange rolls goddess

Thanksgiving = 8 busy and fun hours of cooking and about 30 minutes of eating.

Hungry

The cutest Juju there ever was

A morning stroll in beautiful Draper

Harry timed it just right and managed to appear in this panorama twice!
And sadly only a segment of Jeff got captured.

Christmas:

We moved to LA!  And one of the very first things I did was drive down the street (literally- a 6 minute drive) to see my Katt.  She's one of my Palo Alto besties and seeing her was one of my favorite Christmas presents.

Megan lives nearby and we met up to hear Sherri Dew speak

And we went out to lunch with her cute little boy

Mistletoe given out by the Boy Scouts of America.  We put it in our car.
Those Boy Scouts.  Always serving our country.

Christmas Eve jammies.  It's all very serious.

Christmas morning for me and Hal.

A picture of one of our most notable gifts- handerpants.

Now we live in LA. It's been a few months and so far we've had a few adventures. Harry and I are both working, and we actually work across the street from each other, so we get to meet up for lunch!

Aaaand that's enough of catch up for now.  Whew!

Christmas and all it's diversions

Christmas was wonderful this year.

We giddily packed up Harry's car and mentally prepared for the 22+ hours of driving that awaited us over two weeks.

We had some book tapes on hand, but sadly, I hated all of them.  It’s amazing how much a narrator can make or break a book tape.  One narrator made Jason Bourne (of the Bourne Identity series) read like a slovenly, grouchy Santa Clause.

Thank Heavens my husband is so much fun to talk to.  After 2.5 years of marriage he still makes me laugh so hard that I am silently convulsing and slapping my hands together like a baby seal.  That's love.

For the first time in three years, my entire family was together (for about 48 hours total) at Christmas. Every sibling, spouse, and child.  When we were eating Christmas Eve dinner, my mom looked across the table at my dad, wide eyed, and said, “Hey.  Everyone is here.” I'd been waiting a long time for that.

We took the kiddies to the park and launched water balloons into a wide, open field.  Harry ran out to see if nephew Sam could aim and hit him.  Not only was Sam’s aim dead on, but when the water balloon hit Harry, it didn’t break.  A nice shoulder bruise appeared shortly thereafter, and in Christmas colors! Festive.

We ate like kings, mostly because my parents are a dynamic kitchen duo.  Their garden (I call it their “victory garden”) has been sprouting fresh oranges, lemons, Italian dandelions, basil, cilantro, thyme, rosemary, sage, and lavender.  When winter wears off, there will be raspberries, blackberries, and a plethora of varied lettuce and (HOT) peppers.  I brought some oranges home and am salivating just thinking of them in our little fruit bowl.

Christmas Sunday was exactly how I wanted it to be.  We visited my parents’ ward and saw what seemed like millions of familiar faces.  My in-laws also drove in from Vegas to be there for the blessing of my newest niece Juniper.  It was perfect—so perfect, I felt like I was getting away with something.

We had a little Eaton family talent show (yes, this song is real, and yes, we really performed it with the help of my tuxedo-wearing father), we walked around Newport Beach to see the lights, another day Cam and I rode our bikes down to Balboa, we saw the “toppest” tree at Fashion Island, we ate Mom’s caramels, we had a glorious time.

Christmas dinner with a cross-eyed Harry

We also managed to snap a family picture.  I love these peeps.

In a flash it was time to be in Vegas, and we had a blast hanging out and playing games, my new favorite of which is the iPod game, in which someone lies on the floor with their eyes covered, and they are plugged into headphones.  Then someone else selects a song for them at high volume, and the person has to sing it without being able to hear themselves at all.  I laughed so hard I cried.  Prince and Cat Stevens will never be the same for me ever again.  *The Circle of Trust still exists.  Anyone who ever posts any of those videos will be cursed with eternal Spattergroit.*

A major highlight was going to the temple.  It’s always a sweet experience to go with family and friends, and I'm so thankful that Aja is eternally woven into the family tapestry.  We love her so much!

It blows my mind that this time next year, people won’t be flying in anymore for Christmas—mostly everyone will just live there.  I know that’s been a long time coming, and it is exciting stuff!

We had a talent show, the kids wrote/filmed/starred in their own Christmas movie, we ate Thai food and hot wings, we opened presents, we had a wonderful time.  I'm embarrassed to say though that the only snapshot I have is of the group at Mac and Julie's watching the big UFC fight.  I have this app that stitches pictures together to create a panorama.  I don't know how the quality will be on a blog post.  Only one way to find out!

New Years was spent at home, snuggled up to Harry on the sofa with a fever and some congestion, watching a movie and pausing to watch the crazy fireworks on the strip from the family room window.  We made a solemn promise to go to a party next year, but to be honest, there are few things I love more than snuggling with Harry on a sofa.

Now we’re back.  Christmas always seems like a dream afterwards.

This will sound strange (it even does to me), but I’m always sort of mad at myself after a vacation is over.  And it’s for no real reason, other than the fact that I utterly failed to make it somehow last forever.  Like, I had one job to do, and that was to make it so that Christmas would never end, and I blew it. Does anyone else ever feel that way?

This was the last time we drove up the grapevine to return for another Stanford semester.  Next time we drive away, Harry will have a law degree.  Weird.

Happy 2012!

Impending January highlights:

1. Downton Abbey
2. Probably a few other things that I can't remember now because I'm thinking about Downton Abbey now
3. Downton Abbey