Buttoning up: It's Getting Late

I've been a terrible documentarian lately. That bums me out because the time will come when I'll want to look back on this period of our lives and I will have not recorded anything. So, in no particular order, here is an effort to button up some loose ends. So many of these stories deserve their own space but the truth is that if I don't get them out there now, it'll never happen.

Tim's first week of temporary unemployment was spent deep in planning mode. That long, intimidating list I started with has been tamed considerably but the truth is that there is still so much to be done. We did manage to complete Project Beige-ification 2012 so the whole apartment is painted. This was no small feat and I'm eternally relieved to have it just over with. If I may say so, it looks great. We're enjoying the lightness and neutrality of our home in this state. In fact, it would be downright soothing if it weren't for all the chaos.




Ada turned 3 years old a couple of weeks ago. Man, what a difference it has made! When she is sweet, she is so sweet I can't stand it - I have to grab her and squeeze her and kiss her.




But the defiance, the "No!" and tantrums...Oh man, when they're bad, they're so bad. Being super pregnant = slow, breathless, chronically tired, etc. makes these moments even harder to deal with calmly and patiently. I find myself feeling like I need to explain to some people that no, a three year old doesn't really need an actual reason to loose their shit. Today a full 20 minute melt-down including a thrown chair (by her, not me) ensued because I flushed the toilet. She wasn't even in the bathroom with me so how was I to know that this task had been declared hers?

Sticking to the positive cause I don't really want to remember how hard parts of this phase are:

Her imagination is on fire! It's almost palpable since her third birthday too. Just a totally new series of expressions and fears and songs, stories, games. Sometimes I have no idea where she comes up with these things and other times it's a mash-up of her favorite stories and songs. A few examples:

She got a doll house for her birthday. Her grandma Judy kept texting, asking for pictures of her playing with it. I would be happy to except for that she has dispersed the furniture to match ours. How she has managed this amid the chaos of our house is beyond me but her doll bathtub is on on the rim of our bathtub and the bathroom sink sits near our bathroom sink.

My phone doesn't take great pictures, sorry. My memory card for my camera was busted though so I have about 10 days of pictures that are just gone. Ugh :( 

Then there are things like a "scary bee", which is actually a small gnat that only her young eyes can see. These things, including "scary monster", can send her running to us for comfort. Still the response is that "mommy is here, I'll take care of you. Oh look! The bee flew away."




My favorites at the moment are the games that come along with convincing her to eat real fruit. We have to ditch the squeezy fruit. Convenient? Yes! Super freaking expensive? Hell, yes! So we have a game to get around this. Sometimes it involves a race car or police siren:



Other times the United States and Russia are on a peace mission to space or it's up to Ada, the space monster to save the day by gobbling up the bad rocket. Blast Off!




It's not been all painting and packing. We have managed to have fun. Take for example the day we rode the bus to the playground at Mission Dolores followed by a lunch date with mommy AND ice-cream at Bi-Rite AND a bus ride back home. It was more than her little head could handle and I was totally over-the-moon in love with my scrambled egg-devouring date.

Droid = not a great camera.

While other people were grilling out on the 4th of July, we met friends to go bowling at Lucky Strike. Ada thought this was the best thing in the world. It's 3 days later and she is STILL talking about how cool bowling was.



It doesn't look like she has much of a future in bowling - didn't hit a single pin on her own and only about 60% of her balls eventually made their way the full length of the lane. Her dad, on the other hand, deserves a parade for the frame he bowled with her on his shoulders. He's a good bowler and I'll pretty much never let him live it down.

For real, Droid? Can you even see that she's on his shoulders? I swear she's up there. 

Oh, and the girl who wouldn't wear a hat if it were to save her life insisted on wearing the hat and mittens we bought for Thanksgiving in Tahoe to the bowling alley. On July 4th. It was an anti-packing tactic that Ada has perfected. Because of this I get about one box packed per day.



Along her new fashion lines is the insistence that my toes be painted blue. I started this off just because I thought she might like it. Turns out the girl is obsessed with my fun-colored toes. Why not? It's just nail polish....




Finally, a taste of the future. Our new landlords offered to let us plant a garden. Holy lord am I ever excited! I'll go into it later but I'm a little bummed out by the food scene in New York. In San Francisco it is laughable how easy it is to find local, organic, seasonal, amazing produce all year long. There's a whole movement here that makes it easy to really nourish your body with minimal environmental impact. I like it that way. Like, really like it and will really miss it. Besides, this pregnancy has turned me into a near-vegan so our food has become an even bigger issue than ever before.

Ok, we found a community garden near one of our favorite playgrounds. Ada thought it was cool and looked on at the strawberries for a good 10 minutes while we talked about how they go from being flowers to baby strawberries to ripe ones that sometimes the pill-bugs eat.




Despite our very best efforts to grow things here, it hasn't been meant to be. Living atop a windy hill right at the fog line with a beautiful but sun-shoking giant cypress tree in the backyard has worked out to be VERY unfavorable for growing food. We'll try next spring at the new place. I'm already dreaming of vine-ripened tomatoes and more zucchini than I know what to do with. Ada will be at the perfect age for putting a seed in the ground and seeing it on her dinner plate later. I can't wait to do this with her!



OK, it really is getting late. This mama needs to head off to dreamland. Tomorrow we conquer the garage. This is going to be a huge task. I'm not sure if I'm ready. Certainly, waking up at 2:00 am like clockwork with my hips on fire doesn't help. I know new babies don't sleep a lot but man, I'm really looking forward to the sleep that I do get being good, pain-free sleep.



Good night.