The Friendly Skies

A couple of weeks ago, we flew down to Florida for the wedding of my dear friend Lauren.  I won't say Walden's first flight was a total breeze, but it went SO much better than I had imagined in my very terrifying pre-flight nightmares.  Walden was an angel, but there are just certain things that babies do that are more difficult to deal with when you're 30,000 feet up in the air. You see, Walden is a big fan of spitting up.  I know this and I plan for it.  The girl wears a bib even when she's not eating and we just pretend it's a lovely, chunky necklace.  And we have hundreds, if not thousands, of burp cloths within arm's reach at all times. And if spitting up was all that we needed to worry about on our flight to Florida, then we would have been so prepared.  So prepared!  But spitting up is not what Walden did.  What she did...well, no bib or burp cloth stood a chance.  There we were, flying along through the air, peacefully and without a care in the world...

when a sleeping Walden opened those sweet, beautiful, blue eyes, looked up at her adoring mother and Linda Blair'd all over the place.  And then went right back to sleep.  Leaving me no choice but to sit there and soak it all in.  What made this extra special was that this happened a mere 30 minutes into our 2.5 hour flight.  Ah, yes.

There is also the matter of diaper changing.  Walden declined my request that she 'hold it' until we arrived in Florida, so we were faced with the challenge of changing a diaper in a place that simply was not designed for such a thing.  People don't really take kindly to having their already-pretty-rank cabin air further polluted, so changing her in the seat wasn't an option.  But here's what I don't take kindly to: airplane lavatories.  They are nasty and not a place I want my precious baby girl hanging out for any amount of time.  But...and I still have a hard time talking about it...to the airplane lavatory she went.  With James.  I sent her with James.  The man who has actually walked barefoot in one of these airplane bathrooms (fortunately for him, i had already married him).  The man who thinks showers in hockey rink locker rooms count as real showers (they don't).  The man who thinks the lyrics to "Every Breath You Take" include "I'm a pool hall ace" rather than "how my poor heart aches" (perhaps this is unrelated.)  The point is, James is the least germ-conscious of the two of us and yet, because I was covered in baby puke and might have lost it if I'd added poop to the situation, I put her in his arms, armed him with disposable changing pads and watched them disappear to the back of the plane.  And so, I sat in my seat and prayed.  I prayed that the immunizations Walden had just gotten at the doctor included one for airplane bathroom disease and I prayed for forgiveness.  According to James, "Everything went fine.  I covered every surface and closed the toilet lid before I changed her on it."  Thanks, James, for closing the lid first.

Other than that, things really did go pretty smoothly.  And despite his questionable hygiene, James was a life-saver on this trip and I couldn't have done it without him ;)  The weekend in Florida was absolutely flawless...the weather, the wedding, the beautiful couple...everything! Here are some pictures from the past couple of weeks. Enjoy!

happy birthday, daddy

free babysitting

walden makes friends from india

walden and will's first date

wedding by the bay

college buddies + babies!

walden learns to fly

what's better than a pink tracksuit?  a pink tracksuit with ears.

sweet girl

sitting in her bebe pod

tummy time is getting easier.

can't resist an outfit with ears

Happy Girl

I have lots of pictures to post from the past couple of weeks, but I'm having some technical difficulties getting them up.  So for now...

one of my favorite times of day :)

The Way Life Should Be

Walden got to spend her two month birthday in Maine!  Which means she also went on her first road trip.  Which means that we went on our first road trip with two dogs and a baby which is about as simple as it sounds.  I spent about three weeks preparing for this trip, agonizing over questions like, should we take the swing and the bouncy?  Or just the swing?  Or just the bouncy?  (Answer: just the bouncy.)  How many times will she poop while we're away?  (Answer: not that many. Walden has travel anxiety just like...some other people in the family do.)  Do we really need to pack the dogs' special hypoallergenic food or can we get away with non-special non-hypoallergenic food for a week?  (Answer: no we cannot get away with non-special food.  Jake makes that very clear and we couldn't deal with him making that clear for an entire week.)  So we packed up our bouncies and diapers and special food and set out at 9 p.m. thinking that Walden would sleep the entire 5.5 hour trip.  Except she didn't.  So the trip was more like 7 hours, but who's counting?  Good times were had, lobsters were eaten and Walden got her first whiff of ocean breeze.

nap time

relaxing

relaxing with lobster pillow

by the ocean with mama

circle of life moment

by the ocean with daddy

by the ocean + cute little face

by the ocean + kisses + cute little face

a little light reading from pa's library (james thinks this is incredibly funny.)

yay! two months old!

napping with bee

same mama. same ocean. different rocks.

family portrait

bee tries to hide walden in a bag

what bee doesn't know is that the bag is labeled with its contents

so we are on to bee's shenanigans

 Can't wait to get back to Vacationland!

Sweating to the Oldies

On Monday, I was finally cleared by my doc to start exercising again.  The moment she gave me the 'ok,' my first thought was:  "I am seriously about to go all Heidi Klum up in this piece [because that's how I talk now]. If she can be bikini-ready mere weeks after giving birth, then so can I!"  My second thought was: "Jamie, you are delusional. Please get ahold of yourself immediately."  In case it's not obvious (because apparently it wasn't to me at first), there is a vast array of differences between Heidi Klum and me.  For starters, I don't know that I've ever been bikini-ready so...there's that.  Also, unlike Ms. Klum, I gained more than 6 pounds during my pregnancy.  Way more.  Turns out keeping your own weight a secret from yourself during pregnancy ain't such a grand idea.  I mean, ignorance is bliss at the all-you-can-fit-in-your-cup, pay by the pound fro-yo and topping buffet, but there comes a time when you have to face reality.  And reality can be an ugly little bastard.  The good news is, I'm only about 9 stomach viruses away from my goal weight.

As appealing as it sounds to let influenza do my bidding (because who doesn't just looove a good stomach bug?), I suppose I'll go about it the old fashioned way.  I'll ride my sweet new bike, swim with my old lady friends at the JCC and hoof it through the neighborhood with my baby.  It's less Heidi Klum and more Jane Fonda.  Less of a Project MILF and more of a Project MILLAWG (Mom I'd just Like to Look At Without Gagging). Should be fun. Wish me luck.

And speaking of my baby...here's the cute little face that makes every single pound I gained worth it :)

smiley girl

silly hairdo

chubby baby face

mugging for the camera

trying to laugh

this cracks me up

pensive

in her red sox pj's

sweet baby

Blast from the past...

When Walden was 10 days old, we had a sure-enough professional come to the house to take some pictures.  Rebecca Murphy of Rebecca Murphy Photography was amazing and fun and she might as well be called The Baby Whisperer because, before she showed up, I was pretty sure I would have the only baby she'd ever photographed who would scream the entire time and refuse to do the cute little baby poses I'd seen on her website.  But Rebecca knows exactly what she's doing and she had little Walden under her spell during the whole session.  Seriously, Walden was putty in her hands.  I'm thinking of inviting her over at 4 a.m. whenever I'm having a hard time getting baby back to sleep.

All of the photographs were amazing, but here are our favorites!

(Rebecca Murphy Photography/www.rebeccamurphyphotography.com)

This is what happens when we try to do tummy time.

Girlfriend is tired.  All. The. Time.  Some people might hear this and say, "Wow, what a good, quiet little baby you have!"  And they would be right.  I do have a really good baby.  But consider this:  What if I'm just really boring?  Or even worse, what if she's just not into the showtunes I sing to her all the day long and she'd simply rather stare at the back of her eyelids?  Could I possibly have given birth to someone who doesn't feel the same way about Julie Andrews as I do?  As Cinderella (played by the lovely Lesley Ann Warren circa 1965) would say sing, "Impossible!"  I'm pretty sure she's just really tired....right?

In other news, Walden is officially out of her newborn size diapers.  Unfortunately, she's not quite filling out her Size 1's either.  This makes life very interesting for us because diapers are not an item of clothing that you want to be blousy.  First of all, it does nothing for the figure.  Second of all, things can get messy very quickly and unexpectedly.  Like when you're...say...strolling through the greeting card section at Target.  Here is my suggestion to the makers of Huggies:  either make a plus size newborn diaper for those with a little more junk in the trunk or a slimmer size 1 for more delicate frames.  Otherwise, I'll have to get out the duct tape.

baby got back?