ONP

A few years ago, Steve asked me why I had never taken him to Olympic National Park despite him visiting Washington with me for years. I didn’t remind him that it took 8 years in California before I got to Yosemite and almost 9 before I got to Big Sur. Well, probably I did remind him of that. Nevertheless, he’s been lobbying hard to go to ONP for a while now, but we just haven’t had time since the longest he has been in Washington since moving to Boston is 4 or 5 days. So this was the trip. I have to be honest and say that I did not think this was the time to go given that we are moving to the west coast and will have ample time to visit when Grace is a little older. We decided to go anyway, invited my mom to join us, and booked the last cabin at Kalaloch.

We had a terrific time! We took the ferry from Whidbey over to the peninsula on Monday morning, and then drove to Hurricane Ridge to picnic. It was sad to see so little (almost no) snow on the mountains, but the views were still spectacular. We hiked up Hurricane Hill and could see north across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island. It was pretty foggy, so we couldn’t see much of the San Juans, but we could see Mt. Baker above the clouds.

Next we drove down to Kalaloch on the coast. Yes, we stopped in Forks for dinner, but no, we didn’t have the Bellasagna or Edward and Bella’s wedding soup. That town is cashing in! It was a lot of time in the car for Gracie, but she only really lost it toward the end of the drive and was delighted when we got to our cabin and she could hear and smell the Pacific Ocean. Gorgeous view from the bluff.

The next morning we walked on the beach and then drove over to the Hoh rainforest area. We took a few short hikes and picnicked. Then, we headed back to the coast, stopping at Ruby Beach. The tide was high and the surf was wild. Wednesday, we left early to go to Sol Duc. We hiked down to the waterfall, then went over to Crescent Lake for another picnic. We made a quick stop in Port Townsend for ice cream before catching the ferry back. The rainforest, beach, and mountains were spectacular, the weather was perfect (sunny in an area that gets over 100 inches of rain a year). The mini trip was wonderful. Good thing Steve is so often right.

Atop Hurricane Hill.

At Sol Duc Falls, which you cannot see here.

By the Hoh River.

The beach at Kalaloch.

Baptism

This trip has been all about Grace rising to the occasion. She met so many new people on Friday and then again on Saturday and was showing signs of fatigue. Being wise, we had scheduled her baptism in the early evening at just the time she generally melts down. To really up the stakes, we had some friends over ahead of time so she would be extra tired and peopled-out. Steve and I were strategizing about how to get her at least a half hour of sleep before leaving for the church… when she fell asleep on my dad’s shoulder for a good long nap. She woke up happy and ready to be passed around some more.

We headed over to church, prepared to step out if she lost it. Instead, she fell asleep midway through the service, spitting out her binky with such force that it flew over the pew and landed right in front of the alter. Of course the serious and reverent parents, godmother, and christian witnesses started to snicker and giggle. Good start.

I assumed Grace would wake up when we went to the alter for the actual baptismal rite. She doesn’t like to be awakened at all and usually hollers if she is (the way I can tell she’s ready to be awake is if she’s happy and cooing; if she wakes up crying it’s time to go back to sleep). She was still sleeping as Steve tilted her head down for the priest to pour the water so we expected a giant cry. Instead, she flicked her eyes open, then went back to sleep and slept through several more pourings of water and oil being rubbed all over her head. When Steve and the priest lifted her for the congregation to see, she stayed asleep. She even slept through the clapping, which is almost guaranteed to wake her under normal circumstances. So, she got her beauty sleep and was well rested to take a gazillion pictures. The priest said he’d never seen a baby sleep through baptism. That’s our girl – always finding a way to stand out!

Grace’s godmother is my step-grandmother Nancy. She is a woman of tremendous grace and warmth and faith. We are honored she agreed to be Grace’s godmother. Our dear, dear friends Andrea and Pete are Grace’s Christian witnesses. We deeply admire how they live their faith. We are blessed to have such wonderful people to play these important roles in our daughter’s life.

Wunderkind

As I mentioned, we were a little concerned about the flight and time change. We had to get Grace up at 5am when she usually likes to be up between 8 and 9, and then take the T to the airport. We foolishly hoped she would fall asleep on the T. We figured she would be overtired by the time we even got on the plane, then have to make it through the six hour flight, then see lots of people in Seattle, and then have to make the drive to Bellingham, and then we planned to keep her awake to put her to bed at her regular time, but on pacific time.

First bit of good news was that my ploy to get her a seat on the plane worked! I followed all the advice and booked us in an aisle and a window and then when we checked in took that cute baby up the counter and asked if there were any extra seats. We got sooo lucky because the flight was not quite full and Grace got a seat. We got Dunkin and started waiting for our flight. And waiting.

Steve heard something about a maintenance problem. Despite all rationality, I’ve grown into a wee bit nervous flyer. The more I travel, the more antsy I get, and I spent a year commuting cross country which more or less did me in because I learned the “normal sounds”. I am not so irrational, however, to not be afraid of cars also. I am basically afraid of all forms of transportation other than walking. Steve is also a nervous flyer, and I actually hold him accountable for my fears because he taught me about Bernoulli’s principle. The trouble with marrying an engineer. But I digress. Anyway. Eventually, the gate attendant announced that there was a dent in the plane and they had to call Alaska’s maintenance headquarters in Seattle to find out what to do. So we waited. Then, they announced that they had to take measurements of the dent to send to hq. Great. My approach in such situations is to assume that the pilots do not have death wishes and that since they have to sign off on the maintenance before the flight we should be okay. I mentioned Ford not recalling those cars in the 80s and that Alaska would be doing a cost-benefit/risk analysis, but Steve said Alaska wouldn’t want to risk losing a multimillion dollar plane. Oh, right. So then I felt better.

Ultimately, they must have decided the dent was okay, we boarded, and Grace slept through take off while I kept twiddling her binky to make sure she sucked and didn’t have ear trouble. She charmed _everyone_ around us, especially the grandparents in the seats behind us and the flight attendants. The flight attendants were so nice _and_ there was a changing table in the restroom (all things parents flying with infants are told to fear). Grace only fussed a little twice and completely slept through landing, refusing to take the binky despite my efforts to jam it in her mouth to prevent ear trouble. SUCCESS!

Then round two started. We got the curb, said hello to my mom, and when she tried to start the car… the ignition switch had locked. Many calls to the dealership and AAA later, we were told AAA would be there within the hour. So we settled in to wait and Grace continued to be a total champ. Cheerful and smiley, but unable to charm the cop who came to find out why we were still parked at arrivals after an hour… where was he for the first 55 minutes!?

We finally made it to Bellingham, via Ivars on the lake - yum. Despite my better judgment, we decided to push Grace to the absolute edge by waking her from a nap and taking her over to a park to walk with my dad. She perked right up to bond with Grandpa. Then we came home, put her to bed and she slept till 4 am, and then went back to sleep till 8am. Whew!

Yep, I'm back dating these posts to when I thought about writing them. Hope that doesn't violate the blogger's code.

Vacation!

Tomorrow we go on vacation! And rarely have we needed one so badly. Steve has been working so much this summer that Grace and I have hardly seen him. He's been working 80+ hours a week and had only 7 days off since June 25 (but who's counting). The rotation he's been on the last four weeks has been especially rough - incredibly sick patients. Our dinner conversation has often been about how many families he had to talk to about withdrawing care for their loved ones, the number of codes, and how many people he thought would die during the night. All this on top of leading a team of junior residents and being accountable for their work. There have been many days that he has only seen Grace for two minutes when he got up to bring her to me before leaving for work. Plus, the moment he gets home he starts on chores - cleaning up Grace's toys, heating her bottle if she's not asleep, or helping with dinner. I started this post about vacation... but I guess I have to also note how awesome my husband is and how much I'm looking forward to vacation together!

We head to Washington early in the morning, and aside from all sorts of anxiety about flying with an infant and her adjustment to the time change (really don't want to ruin her excellent sleeping habits), I can't wait. In particular, I'm looking forward to:

- Seeing my parents, Steve's dad, Mark and Lindee, Andrea and Pete, and lots of extended family and other friends!
- Introducing Gracie to everyone
- The sun setting over the water
- Our little jaunt to Olympic National Park (Steve's never been and I haven't visited since elementary school)
- Grace's baptism
- Walking at Boulevard Park and looking out over the San Juans
- Ice cream from Mallards
- Seafood
- Browsing at Village Books
- Walking at Lake Padden and along the Interurban trail
- The color of the trees and views of snow-covered mountains
- Waking up to the sound of birds rather than sirens, trains, and helicopters
- Celebrating our anniversary with a real date while GoGo babysits

Boston declared a "heat emergency" (whatever that is) yesterday, and there's a hurricane headed this way. Seems like a good time to get out of town!

Two words: volume and hands

The last week has been all about Grace munching on her hands and even successfully sucking her thumbs a couple of times, once or twice until she fell asleep. I'm not wild about thumb-sucking, but I like the idea of self-soothing in the middle of the night! She also seems to have found her voice. Her "talking" has gone up several decibels and she's full of shouts of glee! The shouts are adorable and hilarious, and it's shocking that someone so tiny can make so much noise. I'm hoping to get a video. When I put her in the crib for a nap, she lays there and shouts for a while. It's also how we can tell she' s awake in the morning. We start hearing "eeeeEEEEeee" sometime between 5 and 6... I guess it's a pretty good alarm clock as these things go since she sure does sound happy and excited.

A few snaps from the week:

At the beach in Southie.

Showing off her barrette.

Picnicking with Kei Li and Mei-Lin when they visited Boston.

Tummy time.

Playing with buddy Eli.

More playing with Eli. He showed her how cool it is to touch the toys and make them move and rattle, but here he's grabbing her ear.

More photos here. Or there will be more soon... we need to take advantage of it being in the 80s to get out for a walk before it gets to the 90s later. City. So. Hot.

Swings

Grace loves them.


In fact, we're headed out to swing some more now... hope I'll manage to post more pictures later.

And - Happy Birthday, Markie!

The book project

I have a task before me. Instead of getting any new books from the library or buying any more books, I must read the books I already own but have not read. Most of these books moved cross country with us at least once, some have moved cross country two or possibly three times. Since I am married to the person who likes to get rid of stuff and does not believe in owning books because that is what libraries are for, I am under pressures to read or get rid of these books before we move again. So, I moved all the books we own that I would like to read onto one shelf (shouldn't I get credit for the fact that they only take up one shelf plus a small stack?) and now I have to get cracking. It's not that I don't want to read them; I wouldn't own them if they hadn't been appealing at some point. It's just that libraries and bookstores have untold volumes (ha! did you like that, dad?) of books that I haven't seen before and they are so enchanting... so wish me luck. If I haven't read it by next May, it will probably have to be donated to our library branch so we don't have to get an extra pod. Our life now revolves around "we don't want to get a second pod" although we came here with two. But I suppose that is another story and you'll get to hear all about it as moving day approaches.

French rubber giraffe

Apparently, this is the most popular infant toy. It was the talk of mom and baby group this morning. Back ordered 1-3 months on Amazon, one left at the inconvenient toy shop, and sold out at the nearby toy shop because it's their most popular item. It is a rubber giraffe named Sophie with a pleasant squeak and lovely soft rubber and food paint for the spots and rouge. I was searching for said giraffe because every baby I know has one and each of their mothers claims it is their favorite toy. A rubber giraffe manufactured in France for which I paid an obscene $22. But clearly, Gracie too must have a Sophie if this rubber giraffe is so popular. So now I shove it into her hands any chance I get and make it squeak and talk about Sophie to her all the time because at least one of us needs to thoroughly appreciate the French giraffe.

3 months old

Steve and I both had a moment this week when we picked Grace up and said "woah, somebody grew overnight" (and it was only partly from a wet diaper). She is already almost too long for her bassinet, which we use so she can sleep later in the morning away from the east facing windows. She's always smiling and wiggling and starting to laugh more often, even in her sleep - she may end up with my old moniker, "happy baby." Yesterday, she was laying down and I used her hands to pull her to sitting as I often do, but she skipped sitting and stood right up! She is working so hard on getting and keeping her fingers and thumb in her mouth, but she still can't reliably keep them in her mouth and she gets so frustrated! It has been a fascinating past week or two because she seems almost to be maturing before our eyes.

I can't believe she is already three months old and that we made it this far. I'm also feeling very wistful. We go on vacation in about 10 days and when we return, I'll be starting work (more on that soon when the contract is signed!). I'll be working part time, but I suddenly feel like it's the last week of summer vacation and we have to cram everything in and relish every moment. She's such an efficient eater, that the time we used to spend cuddling simply because of feeding is diminishing. I feel like I really need to focus on just "being" with Grace in the next few weeks because once I'm working and Gracie is going to daycare and Steve's schedule is still really busy, it's going to be a whole different ballgame.

Some pix from the last week. And more here.

Bookshelf: And The Band Played On

I was reading And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts when Grace was born and had about 100 pages to go. I should have been able to finish it during the week o' waiting, but I had the concentration of a gnat so I would read a paragraph and then nap, whine, eat, or head for the loo. But, I finally got back to it and it's an amazing book! Shilts chronicles the emergence of AIDS, how it spread, who was affected, the scientific process of identifying the virus and its transmission, and the politics around financing research and education about the disease, particularly the role of the Reagan administration. Shilts spares no detail and builds the book chronologically, which is especially interesting because we now know the horrors of the AIDS epidemic - if only we could travel back in time and shake some sense into people. He keeps it very readable through human interest angles, tracing the experiences of a huge number of real people, including AIDS victims, CDC researchers, public health officials, gay activists, and politicians. It's a very dense book, but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the intersection of politics and public health/policy.

Yes, in this post I did mention toilets and time travel. It may be time to take this blog to the big time.

Celebrity sighting

There was a star even bigger than Gracie at the Esplanade today. We were walking with another mom and baby when I noticed a very familiar looking gentleman pedaling toward us on a bike. Longish hair, English features, and super casual t-shirt (think yard work). I looked at him trying to figure out if he was who I thought he was and he looked right back as if saying yes, it's me, be cool (and from my vast celebrity sighting experience I know how to stay cool). I turned to Annika and said was that...? And she sort of freaked out because he was supposed to be in town for a show but she'd been looking at her stroller and only saw his back. A lady behind us walked by and asked if we'd seen him, and she confirmed it was him because she had stared and actually said hello to... Paul McCartney! Pretty sweet. Grace was mildly intrigued by her Beatle encounter, but she was way into the swings with her buddy Grady.


And don't get any ideas just because Paul doesn't wear a helmet...

History lesson

More from the DVD files... but this one to redeem myself. I have been gradually watching the HBO John Adams miniseries. It is fantastic! I learned so much about the American revolution that I didn't really get in school and about John Adams and the whole Adams family. Not the most flattering portrait of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and very intriguing depiction of the famous friendship between Adams and Thomas Jefferson. One of the episodes showed the newly built white house (in "Washington City" and built by slaves) - surrounded by forest, unfinished and barely furnished. Such a different view from what we see today and hard to even imagine that part of Washington without buildings, streets, cars and bustle. The best part of the series? The relationship between John and Abigail Adams. I'm not sure if I'm in love with Abigail or Laura Linney as Abigail, but she was so wise and humorous and piercingly honest with her husband while being respectful. She and John often called each other "my friend", which I found to speak deeply to the essence of a strong marriage partnership. They seemed so enchanted with one another but also clear-eyed about one another's humanity and failings. They lived much of their life apart and Abigail seems an extraordinary woman. I have had a book of their correspondence on my reading list forever and now I'm even more eager to read it, but that will have to come after my book project... more on that soon. The Adams family home/historic site is on the South Shore and we're going to take a little trip down there sometime soon - I am so excited!

More Gracie news soon - for now a few August pix.

Good clean family fun

Steve and I finally finished watching season 4 of Weeds last weekend. We had heard it went seriously downhill this season... but downhill from what? A pot dealing mom in the Valley is not exactly a high starting point. And seasons 2 and 3 definitely were less hysterical than season 1 anyway. And we liked the San Diego premise with the thinly veiled Del Mar, tho seriously folks there's no pier in Del Mar, but nice try using your LA sets. Anyway, all this by way of attempting to excuse the fact that we loved it. Shamelessly. Who doesn't love drug and people trafficking over the international border along with plenty of old fashioned Mexican mafia. Especially when it reminds you of one of the places you call home.

Lovebug

We tricked her to get this picture of her smiling.

Last night we were playing with Grace and listening to music. Music often makes us reminisce, recalling the times when we listened to a particular song over and over. One of the songs reminded us of my last few months of pregnancy... we realized how hard it is already to imagine life before Gracie.

Grace is in such a marvelous stage. We went to a baby shower on Saturday (yay, Lisa!) and she was scooped out of my arms by the hostess with some serious mostess just after we got there and then passed around, sitting on someone else's lap to offer commentary on the gifts now and then (I think she was eyeing the clothes), and eventually falling asleep on another shoulder. It was great to have free hands for a glass of wine and a second piece of cake and Gracie was happy to drool on generously on others. I know that she'll move on and become more clingy and have stranger anxiety eventually, but for now I love that she is delighted by people, throwing smiles and flirting everywhere she goes.

Six glorious years

Happy Anniversary, Steve. Such an exciting new adventure we're on.