Happy Illinois Day!

A year ago today, my little family and I left Illinois. It was the saddest day of my life. We also left a big pile in the front yard of stuff we didn't have time to take to Goodwill. I still feel bad about that. I hope the landfill gods will forgive me for that one.

Today, Illinois (in the form of Noah and Cherry Ruggieri) left us. I was very sad to see them go. They also left a big mess.

I declare May 25th Illinois Day for the rest of my family's life. It will revolve around anything Illinois and making and cleaning up messes.

This gives you an idea of the mess:

Thank you, Elders, for helping us start cleaning it up today. 

A little piece of Illinois (though not dressed like it)

We were worried about a tree in our backyard that had a crack between the two main trunks. We were not expecting him to take us up on the offer, but we invited our good friend who conveniently happens to be a tree guy to come out and help us take it down. We couldn't believe it, but he said yes!

Just starting

Just finished. An unbelievable amount of work to get that tree down. And no one got hurt (although we won't mention the very close call and we won't count the fence).

See what I mean? Ginormous tree.

We were also lucky enough to have a visit from our other friends from Illinois, the Packs. It has been so much fun seeing these two families. Even though we have been gone for a year, it was as if no time had passed when we saw them again. The beauty of friendship. Thank you so much for making the effort to come out and see us. We loved seeing you. Please come again!

Since today is Memorial Day, which is much, much more important than Illinois Day, I share this picture. Amazing some of the things you randomly run across living in this part of the country! Samuel Whittemore, although apparently left for dead, wasn't actually killed by the British, but many others were. To him, to them, and to others that have given their lives, I say thank you. You didn't know me and I don't know you but I am the grateful recipient of the legacy that you left.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the women in my life!! (not just those that are technically mothers - because there are some women in my life with no children but that have been/are wonderful mothers.) This is my second Mother's Day as a mom and I know I often wax sentimental on this blog, at least after having my baby, so I will spare you that today except to say: being a mom is awesome! I never knew how much I would enjoy it!

I wanted to share a link to a blog of a friend Ashlee who wrote a great Mother's Day post last year. I was thinking of it recently and went back to find it and reread it. I love her message, so I share it with you here. She included pictures of many of her friends with their children and seeing those pictures makes me pine for Illinois and all the people I love and miss there...

And because I can't really resist posting pictures of C, here you go. Blast from the past:

I've been told a million times that the time goes quickly, they change so fast, etc. 

Well, those million people are right. These cheeks? they are a thing of the past. I miss them.

 I miss these moments too. 

Happy Mother's Day to my baby's grandmothers, great grandmothers, aunts and all the female role models she already has in her life. We both love you and are grateful for you!

A letter

A letter to my 13 month old daughter.
April 28, 2015 Dear Cecily, I want to write you a letter to tell you how much I love you and try somehow to capture these fleeting days and weeks before they are gone like sand running through my fingers. Now that you are over a year old and the dates and holidays we are living through are not your firsts anymore, I find my mind drawn back with some frequency to what life was like a year ago. It is hard for me to realize that memories of even those times are already fading.

Patriot's Day 2015.

Hi Paul Revere.

You have become a curious little person and like exploring things and places that are unfamiliar to you. You seem intent on mastering certain tasks, like putting the plastic coins into the slot. You don’t have many intelligible words yet, but it seems like every day we hear a new combination of sounds from you. You are social and like interacting with other people, often even strangers. You have started giving precious hugs, which melt my and your dad’s hearts. There is nothing sweeter than a hug from you. Leaving you with the babysitter often means that I endure frantic inconsolable crying on my way out, but I am always assured that you calm down quickly and are perfectly content for the rest of the time. You are a toddler now, preferring to walk instead of crawl. You are not completely steady yet but every day I see improvement. You are a good eater, but have started shaking your head to certain things and refusing even to try them. You take either two naps or one depending on the day.

Spring has finally arrived after one of the longest, and definitely the snowiest, winter of my life. Today we met Bex and Saul at Whole Foods for dinner and afterwards you and I walked some in the park by the river across the street from Whole Foods. You really wanted to pet the Canada Geese, and you liked picking up brown leaves and trying to steal my sunglasses. You totally messed up my hair when I put you on my shoulders to go back to the car. You pointed at the birds in the sky and I finally showed you the real moon, instead of all the pictures of the moon in the books we read. I love spending time with you and watching you learn things about the world around you. I love being your mother. Every day is an adventure with you. You have even started helping with small chores such as “go get your shoes” and “put these stamps back in the box.”

We visited Buckman's Tavern last weekend. This is where the Lexington Militia waited from about midnight until 4:30 am when the British Regulars showed up on their march to Concord. It is directly across from the Lexington Green where the fighting took place.

The painting on the wall is of the fighting that day.

I was thinking on the drive home today how every single human, those people playing softball over there, the drivers in the other cars, were also once tiny babies like you were a year ago. They all grew up and so will you. Someday I will look back and wish I could spend a few minutes with my one year old again, or hold my precious baby in my arms. That is not the way life works, though. We take the good with the bad every day on earth that we get and hopefully we are present, truly present when the good moments happen. That is the stuff life is made of.

I love you my sweet Cecily. ***

By the way, I owe you an ice cream cone, Candy!

Spring IS here!

Friends, neighbors, countrymen: 

I am pleased to announce that the last of our snow melted on April 11th and while a few stubborn patches hang out in parking lots around town, they cannot last for long. The weather has been getting into the 60s! I went outside the other day and actually felt warm! I couldn't believe it. 

I think that may have been the longest winter of my life. I don't really know if I am any stronger for it, but I survived. I lived to tell the tale. I feel almost giddy sometimes when I think about all the months of warm weather that await us, all the parks we can visit, the fact that I can go outside without a jacket. You heard me: without a jacket!!

Cecily is a little toddler. Meaning that she toddles. She will take a few steps before having to regroup but I think her days of having to be carried everywhere are quickly coming to an end. Just like every milestone, it is a wonderful thing and a little bittersweet. 

I realize that 99% of the pictures I have of her are in her high chair. And, yes, that may just be a prefold diaper that she is using as a bib. It seemed like the right thing to do.

We are thinking about putting wallpaper on one of the walls in our front room and maybe a wall in our bedroom. I have assembled quite the wallpaper sample collection. I think I have narrowed it down to three favorites. If you guess which ones, I will buy you an ice cream cone.

Someday I might have hair, guys.

Spring is here?

There's lots of things I could post about. Let's start with the fact that spring is officially here and has been for a week and there is (only) about 6 inches of snow in our yard left. I am going to call that a good thing. The not good thing is the months' worth of poopcicles that need to be cleaned up as the icebergs recede.

I could also post about how good homemade maple syrup tastes... And how it might even be worth the tank of propane that it takes to boil it down.

But let's just post a few pictures instead.

Took a walk with a friend yesterday. It feels sooooo good to get outside after a long winter of hibernation. Even though there is still snow on the ground and it is still rather chilly. 

 Ephraim and family visited a couple weeks ago and we had a great time with them. They coped nicely with five people crammed into one bedroom... 

We went to the Museum of Science together and Cecily decided to study the elements. 

Guys, come here! I need to show you something. 

 Oh yes, this is quite interesting...

It suits her. Little cutie. 

3.14.15 Pi Day!!

Cecily's first birthday coincided with the Pi Day of the century. I didn't realize this was the case until a few days ago. Just like I didn't realize that she was actually born on pi day until a while after the actual event. I had other things on my mind, you know? Since she is not old enough to know if she prefers cake over pie, I decided that a new tradition in our family is having pies on pi birthday. This is a major change in attitude for me as I have always avoided making pie crusts on the basis that they are difficult, which is not a reason in and of itself, but also that I almost always avoid eating pie crusts when I eat pie because I prefer the filling. The pie crust is just extraneous. Not good enough to justify eating it instead of another piece of crustless pumpkin pie, for instance. However, this year was the year to overcome my passive aggressive relationship with pie crust and dig right in. 

"I woke up from my nap and there were a million people in my house! What is going on?!"

I dove in and it was a horrible learning experience. The first set of crusts came out almost inedible and also very ugly. The second came out much more edible but very ugly. The good news is that Cecily didn't seem to care that the crust was chewy instead of flaky and it shrank into the pie plate when I prebaked it so the filling overflowed over the edge of the crust and the fluting disappeared completely. Butter is a wonderful thing, but I am thinking next year when I try pie crusts again, I might just have to try lard. 

I am done talking about pie crusts. I would like to talk about this last year I have had. It has been an amazing year. The first thought that comes to mind is "thank goodness I survived." The second thought that came to mind is "thank goodness she survived." I can't really summarize effectively the first year of motherhood. Alex and I were talking about some of our fond memories of the past year and especially those early days. Alex remembers being up with Cecily in the middle of the night before she knew what sleep was. Not that he was necessarily having a lot of fun bouncing a crying baby for hours on end, but he remembers it fondly. I fondly remember sleeping while he was up with the baby. 

Nothing can prepare you for those first few weeks, just like nothing can prepare you for labor. But, just like labor, where your body knows what to do and it is going to happen no matter what you say or do or think, somehow you manage to make it through those first few weeks. I have to say, I have so so many sweet memories of my sweet, tiny little baby. It was such a miracle to me and such a blessing. 

Moving with a 10 week old was hard. Perhaps the hardest thing I have done. Thinking about the moment when I drove away from my house in Urbana, sobbing, with Alex in front of me with the moving van and Cecily and the dogs in the car with me, still brings me to tears. I remember too the day we closed. We left Philadelphia at 5 am so we would have a chance to see our house before the closing and of course traveling with an infant takes time and we also didn't take into account the fact that the moving van wouldn't fit underneath all of the cute little bridges on CT-15. We didn't end up seeing our home before closing (I had never seen it in person) and Alex showed up 1/2 hour late for the closing. We left the attorney's office just in time to hit rush hour and getting stuck in the same stupid roundabout in Cambridge for the second time made me wonder "why exactly am I doing this?" Then I showed up at our house and couldn't muster a bit of excitement for it and sat in the rocking chair holding Cecily, cold but too tired to find a blanket, while two great guys in our new ward moved all our stuff in. I think I probably didn't even tell them thank you. I should do that. 

Things are better now. I know my way around. I have some friends. And Cecily. Oh my goodness. What an amazing miracle it is to see a helpless infant transform before your very eyes to someone that can crawl, eat, sleep through the night (!), point at things, say a few words, hoard magnets, want very specific things, and just be an amazing little human... how can I describe that? Let's not sugar coat the fact that sometimes I really, really miss those days of being able to decide I want to go to the store and then go to the store without having to plan to do it at the exact right time to coincide with nap time and lunch time and bring a huge bag of stuff along and then not take too long because she is getting bored and needs to get back so I have time to give her a snack before her nap... I do miss the freedom. But, oh, it is amazing to be a mother. Such a miraculous process. And to feel love for this little person that I didn't know was possible to feel... While I miss some things about life before motherhood, I can't say that I have ever regretted it. 

Happy 1st birthday, my dear sweet little Cecily. You are the one that made me a mommy. I look forward to so many more years of growing up together, sweet moments together, learning how to be a family together. I know there will be hard times too, and I know we will get through them together and God will help us to do it. 

more snow

 The snow, it just doesn't stop...

Looking out the front window. Good thing we don't have goats because they would have walked over the fences by now.

We were able to visit Philadelphia during Alex's recent vacation. We had a great time visiting family and seeing some sights. We went to the Eastern State Penitentiary which was cool... and creepy... and cold. 

Cecily turned 11 months old yesterday. She is generally very happy, is getting close to standing and walking by herself every day, and makes all sorts of fun sounds. Did I mention she likes chocolate?