Quick Takes

1.) I hope you had a lovely love weekend! We got a babysitter on Monday and had dinner at a delicious French bistro on Lake Washington. I got Adam some fancy chocolates from a local place and he let me pick the chick flick of my choosing for our Saturday movie night. I went with About Time and we actually both really liked it. After the movie, we started talking about the one event we would go back and change if we could. We immediately settled on Claire's birth - if we could go back in time, we'd go to the hospital the night we started worrying that something might be wrong, instead of waiting until the next morning. Does something come to mind for you guys?

2.) Fittingly, Claire said "I love you" for the first time over the weekend. She hasn't said it without prompting yet, but it was still a very sweet moment. One time, though, she got a little confused.

Me: Claire, can you say, "I love you?"

Claire: I love me!

Maggie's greatest accomplishment of the week was sleeping through the night, from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am. It just happened once and I'm not expecting a repeat performance quite yet, but that full night of rest was a pretty awesome treat for her parents.

3.) Our little music class was cancelled this week thanks to President's Day, so we went to an indoor playground instead. You know how we've all read those articles making parents feel guilty about being on their phones too much around our kids? Well, I feel like the relationships we're really hurting are the ones we could have with other parents. This could just be a Seattle thing, but at every indoor/outdoor playground we've been to, most parents are on their phones. The only people talking to each other specifically came together. It makes me wonder how different things must have been when I was Claire's age.

4.) We bought a washer and dryer! They're going into the garage at our new house, so we went with a high efficiency top loader and the coordinating dryer at Sears. We've heard that front loaders are prone to mold problems and since it was going to be outside in rainy Seattle, one of those didn't seem like the best idea for us. I can't believe this is our last weekend in this apartment. I think that calls for one last walk to our favorite French bakery for croissants, don't you?



5.) This week was one of those postpartum weeks where I just wasn't feeling super great about myself. Sometimes, you just can't help feeling frustrated about how you spend too much of the day in pajamas because you never seem to get dressed until the baby's morning nap, how you rarely get to do your hair and makeup without the attention of your toddler sidekick, how limited your wardrobe is when you only consider things that actually fit and don't have spit-up stains on them, and how you never seem to get anything done besides the basics of laundry and preparing meals.

6.) These early years of parenthood are hard, no doubt about it. Your kids just need you so, so much. You have to feed them, change them, soothe them, bathe them, dress them, teach them, entertain them. But last Sunday at Mass the family behind us remarked on how lucky we were to each have a baby to hold and how much they missed those days, now that they have teenagers. That conversation made me remember how great these years are because our kids don't just need us all the time, they want us all the time. At no other point in my life is Claire going to hug me as often and tell me she loves me as much than during these toddler years.



7.) A huge, huge blessing to us in this beginning stage of parenthood is Adam's job. When we were talking about Claire's birth earlier this week, we thought about how her arrival (survival, really) and Adam getting this job are the most remarkable things that have happened to our family so far. He was all set to apply for math PhD programs when this job opportunity fell into his lap. I'm so glad God provided this path for us and that Adam's been really happy with his work because, in hindsight, we know that grad school was definitely not the right move for our family. His flexible schedule and benefits (like a month's paid paternity leave!) are just amazing. It's really not about the sizeable salary differences between the two careers, it's about the time. Although the fact that Adam just got the next installment of his signing bonus certainly has us feeling particularly grateful this week!

And, as a bonus for the grandparents, here are two recent videos of the girls: