Those Women in the Park

You know, the ones sitting on a bench on an urban children's playground? Their sunglasses on, hands on their strollers effortlessly moving them back and forth to soothe a fussing baby, carelessly laughing as they chat with friends on a sunny mid-week afternoon? I always wondered to myself about these women. Who are they? How can they afford to not work? What do they do all day?

Well, now I can answer these questions for myself because yesterday I became one of these women. And we do both work. Courtnay is still on maternity leave and I had a day off after my typical 48-hour work week. What do we do all day? Well, on this day we decided to seize the day and squeeze every bit of life out of it that we could! And it was a beautiful day...

Cole is 4 weeks old and adorable. It's funny to look at him and know not very long ago Ada was that small! And not very long from now Cole will be as big as Ada is now! Being around a newborn just makes me lose my mind - it take all of my self control to not grab and smother with love. This is a new phenomenon given that I haven't traditionally been a big lover of children. These days it's as if a light switch was flipped on so that when I see other babies I see Ada in all of them. It makes me just love them.

Oh newborn!! With the gripping little hands, curly twig legs, dark eyes, smiles while sleeping, the tender cries and gummy mouth.

Yes, I'll take another, please!! 

I love hanging out with Courtnay - she's funny, smart, and has that sarcastic sense of humor that I so love in a friend. Irony is not lost on this girl! After she and Cole had gone yesterday I reflected on how different it is getting to know someone over the background noise of infants. Barely a conversation gets finished, truly, and the worst part: I feel like you can never be 100% focused on the words the other person is telling you. And I really want to hear! Rather, you are listening as well as you can AND plucking a wrapper out of a mouth, or retrieving a pail and shovel, or moving a hot double latte farther away from curious little grabbing hands...

Ada slept through most of the park incident but woke up in time to enjoy a brief spin on the swings. She loves the swing. I love my girl. We both love the BOB. I mean L-O-V-E!

This kid cracks me up!! I love her cheeks, her wispy hair, her little bow-shaped lips....but when she sleeps she has a tendency to purse them out and squish her face down so that she looks like a mini Winston Churchill. Mind if I zoom in for a laugh?

God, she gets me every time!!


In other news, I embarked on a little project where I turned these:

into these:

using this tutorial and all for about 1/5 the cost of these. Sweet! Now my little lovebug can wear all her adorable spring dresses AND not freeze her chunky little thighs in the mild San Francisco weather.


A closing thought: we're phasing out the exersaucer. It's really only good for using to prop herself up now and most of the time serves as a toy storage device in the front room. It's currently heaped with toys, a quilt, the bottle she didn't finish, 2 books, and 3 burp cloths. Sheesh.

Time. It goes so fast.