Playtime

The last week or so Hendrix has been exploding with personality. His play has taken on all these new dimensions. I am so proud. I feel like I have become really redundant on this blog. You hear the words lucky, thankful, and proud so often. I make no excuses. Get a thesaurus, you probably think. I can't help but repeat myself. This life, this parenting life, it conjures those emotions on a daily basis.

I promise this isn't another love story. I have written enough of those on here, no? I did want to share Henry's newest milestone. I'm not sure its listed on the piece of paper you get from the pediatrician but I sure think it should be.

He has become a little daddy to his animals. He has started showing this need to nurture and care for others in his personality.

I didn't push this. A while back I did buy him a boy doll but he ignored it and I'm pretty sure it's smashed at the bottom of the toy box along with a half eaten cheezit, old socks, and random utensils he has stolen from the kitchen. I was hoping that he would learn how to be empathetic and loving towards others. Bond with the plastic little baby doll and maybe even deem it worthy of being his "lovey". He wasn't into it so to the bottom of the toy box it went and on he went to smashing things, blowing bubbles, and harassing the cat. Until now, that is. He has taken to a large green frog who he diapers, dresses, feeds, and puts to bed. Really, it is the cutest. The absolute cutest. I am (uh oh here is that word again) proud to see my son be so loving at such an early age. Especially being that this game just started on its on. I didn't hand him a diaper, he randomly went and got on to put on. Same goes for the puppy PJ pants the frog wears on a regular basis.

Kindness is something we are taught. Empathy and sensitivity are a gift that our parents bestowed. I am excited to be his teacher.  Sometimes I forget how heavy this whole parenting thing is. That's a definite good thing since I would probably go insane with the pressure. I mean, we have to teach another human how to LOVE. How to be a good parent. How to CARE. How do you even do that? Lead by example I suppose. It's nice to be reminded that I am doing something right.

and I must be doing something right, cause this boy? Man, he slays me.

 Pics taken by MICHAEL



SIDE NOTE: I want to thank everyone who has been voting for me on top baby blogs. I can NOT tell you how amazing it makes me feel to know I have so much support. SO THANKS!!! XOXOXOX

and on that note...how about another vote?

Who You Really Are

A couple weekends ago I had a quick overnight trip to NYC for work. I was there less than 24 hours which I was super nervous about since I have never left hendrix for more than a couple hours at a time. It went smoothly. Henry survived and I had a very productive and entertaining night away.

I took the train which is roughly a 3 1/2 hour trip. The outlet near my seat wasn't working and my lap top died pretty much as soon as I climbed aboard so it was just me and my headphones. Being forced to sit still and just listen to music is probably one of the best things that has happened to me in a while. 

The world moves a little too quickly for me sometimes. Ive been stuck so far into my parenting haze that its been a bit of a shock to the system to be out of it. Being alone becomes this rare opportunity. Sitting on the train just starring out the window listening to music was such a recharge. Just to lose myself in thoughts. Look for beauty in the everyday. I love discovering new worlds while speeding along the tracks. A pond filled with a hundred swans. Middle of nowhere farm houses and a backyard filled with about 50 plastic lawn chairs all perched precariously on top of one another. A deer sipping from a stream and a red balloon floating across a gray rainy sky scape. Disappearing behind trees and riding the winds current. Dip and flow. I spend so much time looking through diaper bags, checking stroller straps, and reading directions on a GPS that it's hard to be aware of my surroundings. I spend so much time behind a camera or a lap top screen writing, writing, writing about everything I think or see or do that its nice to just do NOTHING. Just stare and listen to songs I usually skip through.

also the fact that now I am writing about NOT writing is not lost on me. But it is what it is. I am what I am.

I love seeing the graffiti stream by in a blur. I couldn't help but day dream about the kids who put it there. How much talent is being overlooked in a classroom somewhere, little do they all know how much beauty that kid creates from a can of paint and his finger tips. We all have some secret hidden talent. Most of us let it go to waste. I don't want to go to waste.

My life looks nothing like I thought it would. Years ago, day dreaming about what my adult years would look like I never imagined this is where and how I would end up. Somehow it feels right. Do we ever really know whats best for us? Is this the life my parents hoped for me? Things rarely turn out how we had wished and nothing is ever as it seems.

Looking back on what I wanted maybe I was just misinterpreting it. I mean, I always wanted to excel. I wanted fashion to be apart of my life. For it all to be effortless. To create and love and design and surround myself with people that inspired. To be an inspiration myself.

a red balloon against a gray sky.

When I got pregnant my career was finally going places. I was traveling, writing, learning and moving towards goals. I wanted to be a writer. and so I became one. I started saying it out loud, over and over and the universe listened. After I had the baby I took a break. I put it all on pause. Once I made the decision to go back to work a bit it happened quickly and I'm so grateful. While things are on a much smaller scale now it is there, a stirring within me to move. Dip and flow.

Red balloon, indeed.

If my dreams all came true I would pick up my loft and move it to New York.
San Francisco.
Paris, even.
I would add a few zeros to the end of my bank account and a few more stamps in my passport but the life I have? It's a lot like the life I had always wanted and everyday I work towards achieving more goals. I look at this baby of mine and he is lovlier than any day dream I could have conjured up.
Everything else is just icing on the cake.

What kind of life did you want for yourself? Are you there?

New Tricks

...and just like that his babyhood slips through my fingers...

Happy Tears in a Coffee Shop

I wish I had a treasure chest so I could fill it with all my favorite parenthood moments and keep them forever. Like kissing toes in the morning and each and every time I nurse my babe to sleep while he fingers his downy curls. Like when Hendrix reaches up for me, arms stretched out and eyes lit up. That perfect piece of time when I watch as giggles escape Henry's lips simply from the sight of my face as it slowly comes into focus after an early evening nap.

The intensity of my love for Hendrix has been feverishly growing by the moment. I didn't think it could get any deeper or more primal than it has been but it does. Every day another crushing amount of true love pours into my heart, gets pumped out and runs its course through my body and i feel it down my legs and in my toes.

It is truly a wonder. Having children is this insane magical part of life I am so lucky to get to experience. I want to bow down and just weep at the thought of never having this. It's hard to imagine I could have even existed before I had this love. Before I had him.

My little peach, plum, applesauce.

I get why women carry pictures and post 90 million pictures on facebook. Pictures of these mundane things that now seem miraculous. Because they are. All of a sudden a smile, a sneeze, a step taken are bigger than the Eiffel tower, more beautiful than a Caravaggio. A parents pride is like a sweeping plane, vast and wide and seemingly never ending and so we create photobuckets and flikrs and we fill them with all those moments of magic.

and Ive come to accept that maybe I wont visit every continent or see exotic locales or cure anything let alone finish college. I might never own a home or even bother to bake an apple pie from scratch, I'm sure there is a lot I'm missing out on but holy f**k people I created a LIFE.
A human!! and maybe he wont do all those things either but if he loves and is loved than I am the most accomplished person to ever exist. Then I live contented and I die happy because I produced love and sweetness and beauty.


This was supposed to be a post about breastfeeding and my insane attachment and love for the whole process but Ive gotten deterred and now I probably sound like some crazy, obsessed mother but maybe I am and so f**cking what.

Deal with it! I talk incessantly about my baby lately and I'm sure it's annoying but I'm still in the throws of this new human rocking my world and it will calm down, it'll be less fireworks, less big bang. ill stop seeing the Aurelius Borealis in my boys eyes, I'll stop spending hours breathing in his breathe as he sleeps, roll over to my pillow instead of nuzzling my face into his velvety hair and we will separate some but the attachment we have now, I'm basking in its warm, gooey sunlight.

This wont be the last of this kind of post I'm sure ill have more days where I can not contain all this love in my little body and i feel like i might burst and spray these walls with little rainbow sparkly hearts and giant yellow smiley faces and cupcake sprinkles (cause that's what love must look like right?) and here I am in the coffee shop with my sunglasses on to hide the tears of happiness, of thankfulness, that I have something so profound to call mine.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

****We interrupt this regularly scheduled program to tell y'all that my baby just CRAWWWWWLLLEEEDDDD to his daddy! CRAWLED. AGGGGGGGGGdhjsgfhmhfcghzjhgzhd****


Oh and these beautiful pictures are by Hendrix's cousin Jill. Check her stuff out HERE.

Easter is...

Dressed up babies...

Dying Eggs..

Baskets full of goodies...

Pastel chalk on deep gray asphalt...

Painted toenails in fancy shoes...

Fresh berries drizzled on pancakes...

Yummy treats...

and easter egg hunts with fruitful endings...

Springs Eternal.

Easter weekend always feels like a turning point in New England. Spring is upon us and while snow still lingers, covered in deep brown mud, melting on the sides of roads and in piles in parking lots, the sun is peeking through those rain clouds and that chill in the air has less and less of a presence by the day.
What a hopeful time of year.
Good bye we say to the bleak and hello to the bright.
Lightness and rebirth.
Sunlight and life anew.
Pastels and chrysalises.
Windows down and grass tickling ankles.
Change is in the air.

I see the world through new eyes now that I am a mother. I have been reborn. Started anew.
I see for the first time the world through the perspective of my baby.
Tulips. Bunnies. Fresh Baked apples. The smell of fresh mint.
Never before have I seen them like I do now.

The beauty. The softness. The sweet. The fresh.
It is all as new to me as it is to to him.





I use the word joy a lot lately. What else can I say? To explain what it is like to see a human lay eyes upon life's simplistic treasures for the first time and really appreciate them.

Joy.



A walk in a neighborhood that is so familiar to me I could navigate it blindfolded is a new and strange place.

We are great explorers. Call me Magellan. Columbus. We are Lewis and Clark.

There are shadows to follow and leaves to crunch. Rays of sun are meant to be played with. We grab at them. Little dust particles disperse and float away. I point and name it all.
He sucks in the wind. Slurping and drooling. Sucking and licking at the rush of air.
And this is it. Joy. The visible definition. Because some words are too big for a simple verbal description. They need examples. and colors. and objects to encompass them.

and trips to the park. and the playground. They are firsts. I mark them in a baby book. Date and time. Mapping my son's childhood for him. So he can always have his direction. His own little compass pointing him back to his beginning. Where he took pleasure in the small. In the new.

Joy.

The 5th Month! Before and After Edition.

Happy 5 Months!

Hendrix. Day 12.

Hendrix. Day 152.

In Pictures: Bananas and The Baby.

The Smooshster enjoying Bananas for the first time.

one

two

three

four


five


six

1.2.3.4.

One

Hello world! Bonjour Bebe!
Gracing us with your presence.
With your Grace.
Changing our worlds. Our lives.
The way we think.breath.live.love.

You are light.Sun.Dawn.Daybreak.

Two

You grow so strong. So quick. Take root.
You are questions. and answers.
You teach. and learn.
Light at the end of the tunnel.
The prospect of success.
Relief. Escape.

1. Future.

Three.

You are no longer rolly,polly newborn.
But rosy cheek infant.
Big Belly. Chubbzy Wubzy.
Kissable.Sweet.Sucrose.Sugar.
Cuddles and Lovies and Razzamatazzberries.

Four.

A little man, you are! Smiley Wiley.
Rolling giggles. Infectious. Squeals and Coos.
Ocean. The tide.
You change and change and grow and move.
You make me grateful in ways I had never imagined.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
ThankYOU.

Happy Four Month Mini Birthday Hendrix!

Full Circle

Big Bed.Little Baby.Lounging at The Liberty Hotel.

A few days ago we spent the afternoon at The Liberty Hotel (my husband is their resident DJ so we spend a decent amount of time in their amazing rooms). We lounged, ate, Smoosh napped, I watched bad television. It was perfect.




My first time staying at The Liberty was when I was about four months pregnant. I slept in the huge kind size bed, butter soft sheets, feathers for pillows.

Princess and the Pea.

Four months is such a fun time. Everything tasted so good. I felt great. I was aching for others to notice my mini baby bump.

I took the longest shower in the morning. They have amazing glass enclosed showers with the perfect amount of light and just the right water pressure. I kept starring through the door into the mirror admiring my new body. The little nest I was growing for my baby bird.

The light illuminate a roundness below my navel.
A glow on my cheeks.
The mirror reflected Hope.
A future.
Bright and long.

When I got out I wrapped the long white robe around me and tied the sash just above the bump. At the time it got lost under the material. But it never got lost in my mind.

You were always in the forefront. My baby bean growing, changing, living within me.

When I was about 8 months pregnant my husband treated me to another night at the Liberty. Again, we lounged, ate, I complained. I was sick of eating. I was exhausted from waking multiple times every night. No longer did I want attention for my belly but to hide it away as my little secret.

Just for me and your father. Our sweet secret. Hidden gem. Buried treasure.

I was sick of sharing you with the world already.

Peek-A-Boo!

Again I showered. I remember being frustrated because I couldn't reach a dropped shampoo bottle.

The light illuminated fat thighs.
A bloated face.
The mirror reflected chubs and flubs and small inconveniences piling up.

The towel wouldn't fit around my waist. I had to tie the robe high up, just below my breasts. I was hot. Uncomfortable. Impatient.

After he was born. While Hendrix was still in the NICU, again we had a room. Michael and his son would sleep there so they could be closer to the hospital. The plan was for me to eat, shower, and catch a nap with them before heading back to my baby.

I picked at my food.
I cried in the bathroom.
I changed my mind.

I wanted to go back right away. It had been 45 minutes since I'd left.
My husband pleaded with me to at least relax and shower.

So again I showered. This time I hated the light.

It illuminated the bags under my eyes.
I hated the mirror.
It reflected back my grotesquely empty abdomen.

I sobbed. I cried so hard I couldn't breathe. I gasped for air. Choked on my own tears. I rested my face on the cool stone tile.
I put myself on repeat.
Out loud, I begged myself.
Just Breathe.
Just Breathe.
Just Breathe.
It was in those moments that in my head I wrote this and this.

So on our perfect afternoon, about three months later, I of course, showered. This time with my rolly, polly, jelly bean.
I pressed him up against me. He sucked on my shoulder. put his fingers to my mouth. This time,
The light illuminated wide eyes.
Rose petal mouth.
Curled toes.
The mirror reflected Joy.
Pure, unadulterated, deep and wide as the ocean Joy.
My.Bundle.Of.Joy.

He fell asleep. In my arms. In that shower. The same one where I cried and begged the universe to care for my son. To teach him to breathe. Where I begged myself to do just the same.

How far we have come.

Three month milestones

The last week has been insane on the milestone front. Hendrix is like a whole new baby. He has started to laugh and I mean really laugh. Big, infectious, rolling giggles. On Sunday I was able to finally be the one to make Smoosh crack up since he was reserving all snickers and chortles for his dad. Hendrix also has begun to hold rattles and bring them to his mouth and yesterday he rolled over a few times. But the biggest and best milestone in my opinion?? He is sleeping a loooong stretch through the night. About 8 hours and then he eats and sleeps for another hour or so. I haven't been this rested since I was about 4 months pregnant.

This week marked a few milestones for me as well. I feel like I have turned a corner as far as dealing with H's birth. I could finally sit down and write about my labor experience. While I only really skimmed the surface of my emotions I still managed to get a lot of it out. With that said I am starting to relax a bit about his breathing and health issues. I don't check on him as often when he is sleeping and I don't have as many nightmares.

I also feel more confident to venture out without my lil man. I have started to work outside the home for about 12 hours a week and Hendrix is staying home with Michael. I think it's nice for them to have some time to themselves since I have been stuck to H like glue. Poor Michael is lucky to get 20 minutes with him alone while I shower. I'm going to get my hair done tomorrow at Mizu and I am taking a yoga class on Friday. Finally starting to make my way back to my former groomed and pampered self. Much needed since my bangs have grown out to be so long I, well, no longer have bangs.

The last three months have been so full of ups and downs, I am relieved to see things settling down a bit. Who knew routine and stability could be such a hot commodity? I'm actually jealous of those with structure in their lives. I'm working towards a more relaxed lifestyle.

YAY!

Happy 3 Month Mini Birthday Hendrix!

My Baby Bunny! My Lil Chub Chubs! Smooshy Wooshy! You are a quarter of a year old! I am so so so proud to be your mommy. All the love in the world to you my sweet bebe.

Milestone Mania!

(Blue knit sweater (gift) by Little Wonders,
"I'm bringing chubby back" onesie from Baby Gap,
Pants from Target, and Booties(gift) from BunnyGarden.)



The last few weeks have been flying by and so has Hendrix's infancy. He is already rolling from his tummy to his back, smiling like crazy, and he has found his voice. We had an emergency visit to the doc's the other day to take care of a reflux issue (which has since been solved...thank youuuu zantac) and found out that Smoosh weights a whopping 11 lbs 3 1/2 oz!!!! Holy Crapola! What a fatty. I guess I should have noticed being that his thighs have practically tripled in size and he has some serious double(triple, quadruple??) chin action going on.

Smooshy has also decided to make a regular habit of 5-6 hour sleep session during the night. That is all I'm gonna say on that topic since it's going so well I don't want to jinx it.

We are going to start cloth diapering this week now that Smoosh has gotten big enough to fit into his diapers. I think i'm gonna ease us into this slowly since I'm not sure that my hubby is 100% on board...he does most of the changing since I do most of the feeding. I think the idea of having to play around with a poopy diaper and rinse it and what not has him (and I as well) a little freaked out.

I can NOT believe how quickly this is all moving. I look at my son and no longer see a brand new, teeny, tiny, infant but a chubby, rosey cheeked BABY. As cheesy as it is to say, I'm so grateful to be able to watch him grow. Being that there was a point in time where we weren't sure he would even make it, it's nice to see how far he has come already. You grow boy!

Bye Bye Bebe Burrito

(Happier times...Smoosh all wrapped up)

Well I guess we've hit our first milestone. Smoosh has decided he is all grown up and no longer needs to be swaddled. After fussing and struggling to free himself for about an hour we realized what was up and he graduated to one of those outfits that's half onesie, half blankie or a "baby bag" as my hubby calls them. I'm pretty bummed about this. I mean, this is just a sign of more to come. They really do grow so fast, I wish I could pause time.

Smoosh also decided he was finally ready to get a good nights sleep and slept a whopping five and half hours straight the other night. However, I woke up around the 4 hour mark thinking he was gonna get up any second and got everything ready to change him and feed and then watched him sleep for a half hour before finally dozing off again. AND then when he finally woke up and I realized what time it was I had such an adrenalin rush that I literally did a lil dance. I was so pumped that I couldn't go back to sleep after he fed. I laid awake thinking about how psyched I was that he would be sleeping longer stretches now. Of course it ended up being a fluke and hasn't happened since. So I wasted my one chance at sleeping a large amount at once. Fuck.

I'm pretty sure I should be happy about Smoosh's new found freedom. I'm not. I want my lil man to stay just that...LITTLE. Every second of every minute of his infancy is being yanked away from me.

Not Cool Smoosh. Not cool at all.