no better way.

This morning, I got up for my two o'clock pump and found you feeding the baby downstairs. I kissed you both good night after delivering the next fresh bottle and headed back to bed, only to hear Rowan start hacking away from her bed. None of us ever really fell back asleep after that, and the baby had a blowout after my six a.m. pump, and both of us have come down with Rowan's cold, and it was raining out, and we were short with each other as we tried to wrangle both kids into the car.

So, basically, a pretty accurate illustration of what this season of our marriage entails, seven years in. Not much sleep, not much patience, a lot of laundry, and a lot of love.

I never got around to posting about our sixth anniversary last year, but it was wonderful. Sunny, hot, relaxing. We took Rowan canoeing on the river and all napped in the afternoon. 

Ahhh, so relaxing. Remember having just one kid?!

This year, as I said, we were all awake all night. We went to library story time in the morning and out to lunch at our favorite deli, where I bounced Calvin in the carrier and tried not to drip mustard on his head while you helped Rowan with her water and wiped her nose a thousand times.

Nap time - and I use that term loosely these days - was spent pumping and cleaning a baby who had exploded of both ends while listening to Rowan jump on her bed upstairs. Calvin had something wet on his clothes, and our conversation went as such: "Is that poop or spit-up?" "I don't know, smell it." "I can't smell anything; my nose is stuffed up." "Bring him here and I'll smell it." Afterwards, we dodged the rain to get our annual picture in front of the red barn on the farm where we got married, and we braved witching hour to get dinner at the pizza restaurant that catered our wedding.

On the property where we got married.

Mmm, Cottage Inn!

Now we've been playing bedtime roulette for over an hour, both kids thrown off by our dinner outing. Rowan has called me up roughly a jillion times (most recently because she was stuck upside-down with her hands on the floor and her feet on the bed omggg), and Calvin just choked on his reflux meds while protesting what is usually his most solid block of sleep. 

It wasn't a leisurely bike ride or a fun canoe trip, and there was a whole lot of poop, snot, and spit-up involved, but I can think of no better way to spend anniversary number seven than navigating a typical day together.

J.J., I love doing this life with you. I'm so glad you're the one I get to laugh with and cry to and raise my babies with. It's even better than I imagined it would be on our wedding day seven years ago - and I imagined it being pretty awesome.

{wedding day}
photo: Michelle & Chris Gerard

{first anniversary}

{second anniversary}

{third anniversary}
photo: Lesley Mason Photography

{fourth anniversary}

{fifth anniversary}

{sixth anniversary}

{seventh anniversary}

Here's to seven more, and then seventy more after that.

before you know it.

Back in September, around Rowan's third birthday, I stumbled on her newborn pictures...and fell in love all over again.

Honestly, when we first got these shots back from our photographer (Lesley Mason Photography), I didn't appreciate them. It wasn't the photographer's fault at all; it was just that the photo session (and, um, that entire postpartum period) was torturous for me. We had to squeeze the session in between a lactation consultation and a pediatrician appointment, which turned out to be way more than my two-week-post-C-section-self was able to manage. Think: excessive pain, exhaustion, and bleeding. Feeding Rowan still took upwards of an hour at that point, and it was anything but photogenic (picture me sweating and crying while Rowan fussed at the breast, and then J.J. hovering over me as he held a tube that snaked down my chest into Rowan's mouth, and then me nodding off while pumping). Oh, and I tried to trim her nails for the first time that morning, and I had basically sliced the tip of her finger off (at least, that's what it felt like), so I felt like an all-around shitty parent. AND I felt like I looked like shit, too - still swollen and bruised and deliriously tired and unable to figure out what clothes fit me. Yeah. Not my finest hour.

These two, though...

And looking at these shots three years later, with the perspective of time and knowing now who Rowan actually is...oh, my sweet little baby.

You probably know we have a tradition of taking a picture of Rowan on her birthday morning in our backyard with a bunch of balloons, but I kind of forgot that it all started with this shot from her newborn session. It might be my favorite photo of the bunch. I just love her scrunchy little grump face. I can practically hear her thinking, "Why the hell are you taking pictures of me in a wooden crate?! Cut the hipster bullshit and snuggle me already!" If I remember correctly, it was drizzling a little bit that morning, too. Lol. Sorry, baby girl.

{newborn}

{first birthday}

{second birthday}

{third birthday}

One of my other favorite photos from the newborn session was this one, where she's all burritoed up and perched on our piano (yes, with spotters nearby, and she only rolled off a couple times. KIDDING). Rowan saw this one while I was lost in my nostalgia-fest last fall, and she loved it, too: "Aww, that's so cuuute!" 

So, naturally (?), I decided we'd recreate the shot, using the same swaddle blanket and flower headband...just three years later. (And with a different wall color, natch.)

I love comparing the two shots above just because it's so crazy to see how huge she is now, and how she still looks the same, even though I've insisted forever that she looks nothing like she did as a baby. 

Of course she does. It was my girl all along.

Looking at all those squishy little baby pictures makes me beyond excited to see what our new babe is going to look like. Rowan looked nothing like I imagined when she was born. I thought she'd be scrawny, fair, and bald, not chipmunk-cheeked and olive-skinned with a head full of almost-black hair. So I know better than to have any expectations about what her baby brother will look like. What I do expect, though, is that before I know it, he'll go from being an unknown in my belly...

...to being another love of my life, a person, someone with likes and hates and strengths and opinions and a personality all his own.

Before I know it.

Just like his sister.

a really lovely new tradition full of love and peace and love.

Found myself in a sneaky hate spiral this afternoon, and for no good reason. I guess that's the whole thing about a sneaky hate spiral, how it just kind of worms its way in with tiny frustrations until you find yourself throwing something across the room in a rage. In my head, I started making a list of all the things that are just fucking annoying me right now. The list grew longer and longer, and all of a sudden I realized - I did this same exact thing this time last year, and I turned it into a blog post, and I got some of my favorite comments on that post (the post: here's a list of things I hate. for love day.). 

So let's make it a cranky, pessimistic Valentine's Day tradition! Not forgetting, of course, as I noted last year, that "it's a totally assholey privileged list of bullshit, which makes me also meta-hate the list itself." 

:: I hate that I just quoted MYSELF in my own blog post.

:: I hate that I can't seem to get back in the groove of writing regularly.

:: I hate that the snow is starting to crash down on the sunny side of the house, because when that happens after it's been icy on the roof, a snow dam forms and it starts leaking in the family room. Which means I'm going to have to get up on the ladder to break up the dam later, which I can't actually do in my "delicate" state, which means I'll probably have to call J.J. to see if he can help, which he probably can't, which means I'll have to do flood damage control until he gets home, at which point the snow will have re-frozen, making it impossible to remove.

:: I hate the paper cut on my thumb.

:: I hate that Rowan is suddenly too cool for naps. I knew it was coming, but she's SO exhausted and still won't let herself sleep. (For the record, I wrote pretty much this exact same thing in my Things I Hate post last year. Interesting.)

:: I hate that I literally stomped up the stairs a few minutes ago and shouted at her to go to sleep. Yeah, THAT helped the situation. #proudmommoment

:: I hate everyone who went to that stupid blog conference this weekend, because I hate that I can't grow this blog big enough to warrant attending a conference, and I hate that it's my own fault that I'm not actively growing it, but I still can't seem to care enough to change that.

:: I hate that I haven't been able to find Easter candy in stores yet. No, lonely Cadbury eggs from an endcap don't count.

:: I hate that I have no self-control when it comes to sugar consumption. I've made peace with that in general, but it makes me feel like a shitty fetus-grower.

:: I hate that the president does at least one thing every single day that makes my mouth drop open in horror. Oh, and I hate reading comments, and it turns out I hate a significant portion of other people's opinions.

:: I hate that Rowan has picked up J.J.'s habit of dropping the last part of each sentence and mumbling it, and that she flips the fuck out when I ask her to repeat herself - or when I give up and offer a noncommittal "mm-hmm" response. I cannot win.

:: I hate that I never do cool projects with Rowan anymore. I just want her to play by herself so I can relax. When did I turn into that kind of parent? And I hate that it's only going to get harder when the baby comes.

:: I hate that I'm the worst at responding to texts and messages. Like, the WORST. I'm a dick.

:: I hate that the basement is packed full of disorganized boxes and broken toys. I cleared a path from the stairs to the laundry area, and I'm just ignoring the rest of it. But it's there, taunting me, waiting for the nesting urge that just won't come.

:: I hate that I still haven't finished the last few tasks to finish Rowan's "new" bedroom (the one she moved into in - what, September? October?). I just need to fix the rug, paint a swatch of the closet, and build/install some wood cornices on the windows. None of it is difficult or overly time-consuming. But uggghhhhhh.

:: I hate that our trees need to be trimmed so badly. It's going to cost thousands of dollars that we don't have, but the other thing we don't have is a choice. A seven-foot branch cracked and dropped the other day in the backyard...and that's not uncommon. I hate you, black walnut trees, and your stupid walnuts, too.

:: I hate that the lady from Lowe's keeps not calling me back about our bathtub, which is crumbling and needs to be replaced, but which we can't replace until the stupid lady from Lowe's CALLS ME BACK.

:: I hate that I'm too cranky to hang out with friends tonight like I had planned, even though that's probably exactly what I need.

:: I hate that I can't just be mindful and grateful right now, because I have way more reasons to be thankful than to be full of petty rage.

:: And, lastly, I hate that Rowan FINALLY fell asleep while I was typing this - after I'd given up on it happening - because she's usually waking up from a nap now, not going to sleep, and now she's going to be awake until forever tonight, and she's also going to be cranky as hell when I wake her up from her nap. WE CAN'T BOTH BE CRANKY AS HELL, KID. TODAY IT'S MY TURN.


Let's conclude with a video of Rowan in one of her own sneaky hate spiral moments. This is from last week, and it's all about how I, being the evil sea witch that I am, don't let her see her grandma (J.J.'s mom) enough. Please keep in mind that she had just spent the night at Gramma's a few nights before this, and then gone to Chuck E. Cheese with her the next morning, and then had a play date with Gramma a couple days after that, and she was scheduled to go to Gramma's house about two hours after this video took place. I don't know WHERE Rowan gets this ridiculous self-pity from...

Awww. I do love her. A lot.

...But I still feel hatey.

let your heart be light.

I was so annoyed with myself last night.

I was annoyed because I was annoyed (and depressed, and cranky, and grumpy) for no good reason. NO GOOD REASON. Christmas is in a couple days, and we're just about ready for it. My siblings and I are planning to spend New Year's Eve together, and I'm so psyched about that. My three part-time jobs (consulting, writing for a local journal, and my Etsy shop) are all on welcome hiatus for a few weeks. Hell, I even HAVE jobs, which was my primary source of anxiety this time last year. And not only do I have JOBS, I have a warm, happy home, full of fresh food and clean water and the people I love, including a sweet little babe percolating in my belly (sixteen weeks along now!).

Right, so no good reason to feel crummy. But I did. And I was shouty with Rowan and short with J.J. and just...exhausted. So then I fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 and had to summon all my will to drag myself up to bed later that night. Because first-world problems.

I woke up this morning fully expecting to continue feeling Grinchy all day. I still have a thousand last-minute Christmas tasks to attend to, not to mention that I need to start catching up on all the household chores that I've been neglecting since I started feeling so sick back in September. J.J. and Rowan had plans to go out to breakfast together and then sledding and shopping, so I ended up with the house to myself for the morning.

And instead of shopping and wrapping and cleaning and baking, you know what I did? Freaking NOTHING. I laid in bed and checked Facebook on my phone. I read a book for awhile. I watched some Netflix and ate a lot of Christmas cookies and accidentally took a nap and made a delicious (vegetarian) Rueben sandwich. And then I did actually get some wrapping and cleaning done, before settling back onto the couch with my book and some more cookies. 

At some point, J.J. sent me an adorable video of Rowan sledding, and I realized I'd officially snapped out my funk. I saved the video to my phone and started looking through old pictures, and I realized that I wanted to remember all of the things that have made this season really, really wonderful so far (last night excluded). Of course, they're pretty much all centered around Rowan, because she is my best thing.


So here's what I want to remember most about this year's Christmas season:

:: Rowan was so excited to decorate our Christmas tree, which we did a week after Thanksgiving. We're still going strong with our fake tree, even though I really do miss the scent of a fresh one. She insisted on wearing her Santa jammies and a too-big Santa hat for the big tree lighting event.

And, naturally, she wasn't above judging our twinkle-light placement.

:: I love Rowan's love of Christmas cookies, and how excited she gets to help us make them. Here's her genuine looks of cookie ecstasy, first when I showed her all the sprinkles she was going to get to use, and then when she was frosting her first cookie of the season:

She also made cookies with Gramma (multiple times, including special Grinch cookies because Rowan loves the Grinch so much). They made gingerbread people one day, and Rowan made our family: a daddy cookie, a Rowie cookie, and a mommy cookie with a baby cookie in her belly. (And those are the mommy cookie's eyes, NOT her nipples. Despite evidence to the contrary.)

:: I love her Christmas list this year. It's such a kid Christmas list. For her first and second Christmases, she was too little (three months and fifteen months) to get the concept, and last year, she only asked for one weird, random thing: a train track toy, which we found on eBay (after figuring out what a "train track toy" actually was). This year? She gets it. She gets the idea of Santa, and she has actual toys that she pines after. Granted, they're pretty much all toys that she's seen on the wretched YouTube channel I let her watch while I do her hair for ten minutes every morning...but they're real toys. (The YouTube channel is Come Play With Me, and it's basically two little girls playing with their Anna and Elsa dolls, along with other assorted Disney princesses and Barbie characters. Whatever.) Anyway - her list consisted of four main items: the toddler Ariel doll (as opposed to the grown-up Ariel Barbie); a toy car big enough for her grown-up and kid Anna and Elsa dolls; a grocery cart that her kid Anna and Elsa dolls could sit in, but small enough that her grown-up Anna and Elsa dolls could push; and a Shopkins ice cream truck. It turns out the ice cream truck is no longer being manufactured, and it took me plus an army of my friends scouring the Internet to finally track one down that was being sold for a very reasonable $15, as opposed to literally $150omfg. Miraculously, that means that Santa found all of the toys she asked for...just in time for her to proclaim two days ago that she changed her mind and all she wants is a pogo stick. And thus Rowan learned the important Christmas lesson that Santa doesn't take orders past December 18. #sorrynotsorry



:: Speaking of Santa, it was such a joy to take Rowan to see him this year. Our mall hosts a couple of sensory-friendly Santa times, and we always go with my nephews during one of those times. One of my nephews has cerebral palsy, and it's so much better for him to attend during a time when we don't have to wait in line for an hour and there aren't dozens of screaming children swarming his wheelchair. Rowan was super pumped to see Santa, but I wasn't sure how she'd actually handle the big moment. Turns out that the girl who still sometimes gets weepy when I drop her off to the same gymnastics teacher every single week had no problem hopping up on a strange dude's lap and asking for toys.

(Sorry so blurry, had to zoom in and crop my illegal phone pic)

I guess he's not really a stranger; he's Santa. Still! Maybe give your sweet gymnastics coach a break, eh, Rowan?



:: This isn't exactly relevant to Christmas, but Rowan's excitement about our baby is possibly the number-one thing I'll remember about the holidays this year. She is CONSTANTLY hugging my belly, kissing it, and talking to her baby. She asks all the time what she can do to be a big helper when the baby comes, and she'll randomly say things like, "I'm so excited that we get to have a baby in our family," and "I can't wait to meet our baby!" I'll tell you more about all of this soon, because there are a million examples, and each one makes me feel a kind of joy and peace I didn't even know was possible.

Snuggling her baby.

:: And, of course, Big Rudolph is back in our lives. You might remember him as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Tool of Bribery, the toy Rowan chose as a consolation prize after giving up her pacifiers last year. Well, he's back, and Rowan enjoys reading him "his" story on the couch...

...making him a sleigh to pull out of paper and yarn (totally her idea and execution - I was pretty impressed)...

...and tucking him into her vacant crib every night:

That's not creepy at all. Especially when you
walk past the nursery at three in the morning
and see his big eyes staring at you.

:: And "Rudolph" is just one of the dozens of Christmas songs that she's memorized and sings on an endless loop. They make her happy in a way I've never really seen before. Oh, except when she did the donut train shimmy this fall - this is a similar kind of happy. In fact, she even does a Christmas song shimmy:

Her favorite Christmas songs are "Rudolph" (obviously), "Frosty the Snowman", "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas", "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch", and the "Welcome Christmas" song that the Whos sing in the Grinch movie. Like, that song is mostly gibberish ("Fa-hoo-for-aze, da-hoo-dor-aze"), and she's got the whole thing down pat. She mostly practices her songs in her bed at night (she is literally belting out "Jingle Bell Rock" at the top of her lungs through the baby monitor as I type this), but every once in a while, I catch a snippet on video:

:: We've been lucky enough in southeastern Michigan to have a solid snow cover for the last couple weeks, and Rowan has been taking full advantage of it. 

She adores the snow, and she's fearless when sledding, even taking on hills that give me pause. As a GROWN-UP. I haven't been able to sled with her this year (I don't worry too much about doing different activities when pregnant, but I kinda draw the line at sledding, especially with a toddler in my lap and unpredictable lumps of icy snow under my ass), but she and J.J. have been out pretty much any day that it's been over ten degrees outside. This is the video he sent me earlier today that made me realize I'd snapped out of my funk - she's sledding down one of the biggest hills in Ann Arbor:

:: As for favorite indoor activities lately - I wish I had a video of this where you could actually make out the words, but she loves to make "tall, tall forts" and bring in a small lantern and her copy of  the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" book, which she recites from memory after hearing it on J.J.'s phone in his car over and over.



:: We've been watching my favorite classic Christmas movies with Rowan - at least, the ones that are appropriate for a three-year-old. So, basically, "Rudolph", "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", and "Frosty the Snowman". Here she is feeding popcorn to THE BABY (NOT me, mind you; I am but an inconvenient conduit):

:: And, last but not least, she and J.J. have been super into reading comic books together every night at bedtime, and J.J. is teaching her how to use the Force. One night, long after bedtime, she called me up to her room, crying that she had hurt her finger because she was "using the Force too hard." #jediproblems

She'll also use the Force on you if you try to take a cute
picture of her, so good luck with that.

********************
So in the event that you've been feeling Grinchy lately, I hope you can find something - a morning with the house to yourself; a walk in the snow; a cute preschooler singing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs - that helps your heart feel light.

someone turned three (ahem, two months ago).

Well, I was about to launch into a self-propelled guilt trip about how I never posted about Rowan's third birthday, but you know what? Who cares? Here it is, two months late, which is actually less late than I was with the post about her first birthday party. Thumbs up.

********************

Rowan's birthday was full of the little traditions we've picked up in her three years - but now all of them are infused with her own personality quirks, which makes them so much more meaningful. As usual, we started out her actual birthday with a special Rowie-Daddy trip to the store to get a bunch of rainbow balloons for her annual birthday picture in the backyard...

She was actually less cooperative this year than she was on either her first or her second birthday. It's harder than ever to get her to smile AT the camera, so I guess we're lucky we got any good shots at all! And we did end up with this funny one, where it looks like she's mega-pouting. I think she was just looking down, but it cracks me up:

"It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to."

A collage of pics from Birthdays One, Two, and Three:

We halted the photo torture session after just a few minutes and went inside so she could open her presents from J.J. and me before her birthday party started. We don't go overboard with birthday presents, since her aunts and uncles and grandparents tend to provide her with plenty of awesome gifts. This year, we got her exactly what she asked for: a little Kermit to hold in her hand (since she's been holding an Invisible Kermit in her hand for a couple months now), a soft Kermit to sleep in her crib with her, a dress-up doctor costume (because she wants to be a "cardi-lol-ogist for grown-ups" when she grows up...seriously), and a little mermaid toy, since she was on a kick of making us refer to her as "ABCD Monster Mermaid Ariel NOT Rowan".

I mean - when's the last time you were this excited about...well, anything?!

Just as she finished opening her presents, our family started arriving for her party. We chose not to invite her friends to the party, just like we did for her first two parties. Our families are pretty big, and our house is pretty modest. Plus, it's always hard to judge what the weather will be like. At the end of September, it could be 80 degrees and sunny, or it could be 42 degrees and raining. Of course, since we didn't invite her friends, it was beautiful weather; had we invited them and needed the backyard for overflow space, it would have been crummy. (Or that's what I told myself so I wouldn't feel bad about not having her best little buddies over.)

We decorated the house in her favorite colors - pink and yellow balloons, pink and yellow streamers, and pink and yellow paper products. We ate pizza and all her favorite snack foods: popcorn, mini chocolate chip cookies, and pink lemonade. Oh, and we served her signature "Rowie salad". It's actually the salad I make for myself for lunch every day, but she's co-opted it and named it after herself. It has spinach, quinoa, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, red onions ("But only TINY onions," Rowan demands), walnuts, cilantro, and Gorgonzola cheese, with fresh lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, and apple cider vinegar splashed on top.

The best food at Rowan's birthday party this year, though, was her birthday cake. J.J.'s mom made her an EPIC cake last year (there's a link at the bottom of this post to pictures of it, but it was Anna and Elsa from Frozen standing back to back, with their skirts forming a cake. UNREAL), and she offered to make her another cake this year. When she asked Rowan what she wanted, Rowan didn't hesitate: "A Lina's house birthday cake." Gramma and I were both a little confused. "What do you mean?" I asked her. "A Lina's house birthday cake!" she repeated. Lina is our neighbor, and Rowan worships the ground she walks on. "Like, a cake that looks like Lina's house?" I said. "Yeah," she replied. "With BB-8s on top."

And what Rowan wants, Rowan gets, apparently:

You have never seen a human dive into a cake the way that Rowan devoured her Lina's house birthday cake. She absolutely loved it - like, couldn't take her eyes off it, even for a quick family picture.

After her party, Rowan crashed for a good long nap, and then we rounded out the day by taking her to "the donut farm" (Three Cedars Farm). The donut farm is, by far, her favorite fall destination. She wanted Gramma to come, too, and Gramma was a good sport and joined us, even though she'd already spent her weekend making a Lina's house birthday cake and hanging out at Rowan's birthday party. 

We almost got a picture with all three of us looking at the camera...

...and we let our daughter shove even more sugar down her gullet, since apparently copious amounts of cookies and cake that morning weren't enough.

She also got to ride the "donut train", which was the real reason she wanted to go to the donut farm. Rowan is o.b.s.e.s.s.e.d. with this freakin' train. Like, it has made her shimmy with excitement in the past:

She was thrilled to ride it once again, and then she did everything else the donut farm has to offer: belly-flopped into the corn box, scaled the climber, rode the tiny tractors, milked a pretend cow, played on stationary trains, and leapt off giant hay bales without giving Daddy any warning.

It was awesome to brainstorm about all of Rowan's favorite things and try to combine them into one special day, all to celebrate the kind, hilarious, loving kid she is. And we continued the celebration the next day at her preschool by bringing in a special birthday snack (frozen yogurt tubes and pretzel Goldfish, her faves). She was still so nervous about school at that point. Even though I stayed that morning as an assistant, it was only her third day at preschool, and she was just so unsure of everything. Here she is, painting at the easel, wearing her birthday crown, and trying hard to hold herself together. Poor sweetie.

I have another post in the works about my three-year-old and what she's like these days, but in a nutshell? I feel lucky every day that I get to be her mama. And for the rest of my life. 

{here's the post from Rowan's second birthday}
{here's the post about Rowan's second birthday party}
{here's the post about Rowan's first birthday party}
{here's the post from Rowan's birth day}