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!

Thanksgiving: Vegas Remix

We had a Las Vegas Thanksgiving this year.  It's so crazy to me that this is the last time we'll have Thanksgiving while still doing the student-thing (ie while Harry is still doing the student-thing).

We found dirt cheap airfare by coming early and leaving 24 hours after Thanksgiving dinner.  Over the course of the week we got in some R&R and hung out with family and friends.

Oh wait, except for the part where Harry was stuck writing a 30 page research paper that will revolutionize the movie industry.

I felt so bad for him.  He had to spend the better part of his waking hours chained to his laptop, tippity typing away.  He even pulled an all-nighter.  On vacation.

I can't really complain because he's working so hard for our family/future, and I appreciate that more than I can express, and he never complains, but I do wish he could've had more time to just hang out.  I can happily say I don't think there are many more (if any) papers like that in his future.

The things we did manage to do together in his few off hours were:

• Tapas and walking around at the Bellagio with the in-laws (800 pound pumpkins!  Horses made of twigs!  Babbling brooks!  Sculpted glass!  It was like Disneyland).

• Two nights of volleyball
• and can I just toot my own horn for a moment?  I no longer break out in a nervous sweat when everyone says, "Volleyball tonight?  Volleyball?  After dinner?" because I've now played so much with these people that 
• a) I am totally accepting of how lousy I am at it
• 2) I actually am not afraid of the ball anymore
• d) I've gotten to the point where I score points about as often as I lose them

• "Muppet Movie"
• Recommending this to people
• Thanksgiving dinner!  45 family members/friends and amazing food!
• The most adrenaline-fueled game of Taboo I've ever been a part of (things got crazy when two brothers who will not be named Bob and Harry developed a secret language that enabled cheating that everyone caught on to immediately)

Since Harry was stuck with his paper, I cooked our portion of Thanksgiving dinner solo.  I wanted to make my grandmother's recipe for orange rolls.  We have them at every Thanksgiving in my family and they are always my favorite part.

After calling every single grocery store and bakery within a 30 mile radius of the house, I still couldn't find the fresh yeast cakes that the recipe calls for.  So I found another recipe for crescent rolls on the interwebs and combined that with some homemade Garlock orange butter and some orange zest/juice that SIL Sally zested/juiced herself.

Orange Roll Triumph

And if I may say so, the rolls were like crack... on crack (having never actually tried crack I'm unable to say firsthand if they were or not, but that's my assumption and I'm sticking to it).

What made it so difficult to come home was saying goodbye to all the amazing together-time.  I love getting to just sit and talk with family and friends.  I feel really blessed to be part of two families I cannot get enough of.

Now, bring on the Christmas times (I will be decking our 500 sq. ft. halls today with a mini tree, garlands, ribbon, and the two Christmas ornaments that we own!  And you know our balcony bannister is getting some white lights.  Even the blog gets a Yule Log).

Wishing everyone a Harry Christmas (they really are the best kind).