a blog for kate and gracie and friends
And it was actually rather scary!
Sorry for the poor quality, but the polar bear made it clear s/he was not concerned with my composition. It was also taken with my phone.
This was Baby Bear’s first trip to the zoo since coming out of my uterus. Was she at the zoo when she was in my uterus? Yes! It turns out Baby Bear was a Baby Pea when we competed in the 2011 Great Urban Race but we did not know it at the time. So there.
Ugh.
Last week marked my first week back at work. Although AO and Mollybear and I had gone to a work conference two weeks ago, I was fully unprepared for how I would feel on that Sunday before the Monday marking the end of maternity leave. Holy wow. I feel terrible for never really listening to the women who had told me it was hard for them. Although I don’t think I was particularly judgmental about their feelings, I fully admit that I didn’t pay much attention to them and I’m sure I was less than sensitive. On Sunday, I had a few mini-breakdowns, characterized by crying and snuggling closer with Bear. I must have kissed her and sniffed her (I can’t help it – I admit I love her little formula-head smell) a million times. AO is now home with Bear until Labor Day, for which I am more grateful than I can say. I think, though, that watching my sadness made him worry that I was somehow concerned about how he and Bear would fare together. When he said something that made me realize he was feeling that way, I told him, ‘Posh. It’s not you, it’s me.’ And that could not have been more true. I wasn’t worried about how the two of them would do; I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle being away from my Monster for 9 or so hours every day, five days a week. I mean, good God, who devised this system? She was inside me for 39 weeks and then she was in my arms or in my eyesight for the bulk of every day for 15 weeks and then BAM! ‘See ya, Bear. I hope you remember me! If not, I wish you well. It’s been real.’ It seemed to me like a cruel and unusual plan.
But Monday morning came and I left and I drove off to work. I parked the car, took a deep breath and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. As the elevator doors opened, I saw the smiling faces of two of my co-workers, both moms to three wee ones each. They looked at me, smiled, cocked their heads and said, “Hi! Oh, how are you?” It was both so welcoming and so empathetic, knowing. My eyes started to water as I uttered the obligatory, ‘Fine.’ And then one of them started to tear up. And then I smiled a real smile. I felt understood and not judged. I felt kindness and compassion. And then I suddenly felt like I could totally handle this whole thing. It won’t be easy, I thought, but I have smart, kind women all around me and I have a great support system. I am extraordinary lucky.
I came home at the end of the day, parking the car and racing into the house. There was Bear, on AO’s lap. She looked at me as if she didn’t even notice I’d been gone. She seemed to know my face. And she smiled.
Another short post is here! I just want to alert you, Dear Reader, that major changes are set to happen chez moi. Just as we thought we had the nursery under control, a baby girl joined us and now we’ve decided to change everything. Being home for so much time with our current faux-slate (vinyl) floors has made me wish them gone even more than I have wished for a two-bedroom abode. The upside of being home so much is being able to send emails to all sorts of home improvement folks. The downside is similar. On this coming Tuesday, the nice peeps that put in our bedroom floors are scheduled to come and start are new Bamboo-You project: horizontal bamboo flooring to cover all of our first floor. We’ll see how this goes.
We’re also in the slow-moving process of deciding to stay put in the condo for a few more years, which means we intend to put our bedroom downstairs and move Baby Girl’s room into our current room. We’ve asked a contractor to give us a bid on enlarging a closet downstairs and remodeling the small three-quarters bath that is already there. Not surprisingly, we’re more impatient than the contractor so here we sit, two weeks later, still waiting for his bid. C’est la vie.
While we are certainly not the family that jets off to Italy with our newborn or, say, California or Maine with our infant like some families we know (ahem, Heather), we will not let it be said that Molly has not seen a few places in southern Wisconsin. On Saturday, we loaded up the diaper bag — forgetting only a burp cloth — and took to the open road to check out the morel festival in Muscoda, a small town on the Wisconsin River. We went with AO’s lovely friends, Mike & Jess, and their bella bambina, Reilly. This new baby chapter of our lives has unveiled yet another change for us: the caravan. We needed two cars to fit us all. The drive to Muscoda is one of my favorite Wisconsin drives — out highway 14, through Cross Plains, Mazomanie and Spring Green. Lots of pretty land and Recall Walker signs. Muscoda, though, wasn’t as pretty as I thought it would be, being a Wisconsin river town in such a lovely part of the state. It had a serious wild-west vibe to it: it felt dusty (of course it was also 90 degrees) and a little lawless. The festival was spread out on the town’s main drag and the only real mushroom-related festivity was a booth serving fried mushrooms. I can’t stand mushrooms, so this wasn’t too much of a bummer for me, but AO left a little unsatisfied.
Best mushroom festival ever!
On Sunday, after a nice morning visit with Molly’s great aunt and uncle, we headed out to Miller Park to see the Brewers clobber the Twins. We met Heather and Dale and the adorbs wonderkid, Lucy, at Steve’s on Bluemound to have a beer and take the shuttle to the game. Before leaving for the game, though, Baby Girl got a little fussy. I took out one of the two bottles of water we bought specifically for on-the-road formula-making pursuits only to realize we’d forgotten a little something: the formula. Good God. What kind of mother am I? I don’t have working boobs for her and now I didn’t even have formula! AO leapt out of the bar to find a drugstore to pay through the nose for some name-branded powder. He returned, having found a tiny canister of Gerber formula selling for $20 behind the counter at a convenience store. Phew. Nothing but the best for Baby Monster. We carried Molly in our arms to and from the game and she sat (mostly) quietly in our arms throughout the game. We were even able to see Molly’s favorite cousin Maggie and her beau, Bryan, before heading home. We consider it a roaring success!
Aaron, Molly & the Brewers
Aaron rode with Mollypop in the back of the car to and from the game, which seemed to make both of them very happy. I felt like I was chaperoning the world’s most important passengers, which I suppose I was. It was a pretty great weekend.
life and puppies 