Internet Grapes

a few final words for now (and Katie is 7!)

Ok, I'll be honest.  I'm no longer really sure whether taking this blog private is what I really want to do.  I think that the judgmental comment from the other day carried a lot more weight, and hurt my feelings a lot more, because it was one of very few recent comments, so I thought (foolishly, I think now) that that person represented a whole lot of people, and maybe even the vast majority of people reading.  However, you very kind people (who like me! you really like me!) who have commented on the last entry are making it seem as if that person was more of an anomaly than a typical reader.  For that I am extremely grateful - and because of that, I've also been questioning my decision.

I do think I am still going to blog privately, at least for now.  If I am going to have even a very small photography business, I don't want to be publishing my very vulnerable types of entries alongside the website for that business (and even if it's not literally alongside it, anybody googling "Jessamyn North" or even just "Jessamyn" wouldn't have to look too long before coming up with both this site and the photography site.  I don't want to make potential photography clients feel like they have to console me about anything bad happening in my life that I've written about online - or feel awkward because they know things about me that they don't feel comfortable bringing up.  Or, let's face it, it's also possible I'd be the one feeling awkward if a client brought up something personal about me, that they'd gleaned from the blog, right in the middle of a photo session.  So I think going private is the right thing to do, at least for now.

I wanted to say a couple more things here, though.  First of all, THANK YOU to all of you who have commented or emailed.  You have helped me at a time when I feel like I can use all the help I can get.  Thank you so much. I have added all of your names to a list, and I expect to be sending out a link and a password to you sometime this week.  (Except!  Erin M. and (bowlegged) Kelly - you didn't leave an email address in your comment!  Please email me or comment again and include your email, so I can email you with the info!) 

Secondly, if you haven't already commented or emailed but would be interested in continuing to read, please don't feel like you have to prove your worthiness as a reader to me - or in fact, to prove anything at all - in order to be included.  If you are willing to comment or email to say you'd like to keep reading, then I'm going to assume that you are not someone who's going to take advantage of that by coming in and then leaving nasty comments.  I'm really not very suspicious by nature, and I really don't want to be.  Everybody gets the benefit of the doubt until they show otherwise, ok? 

Finally, so many of you mentioned that you'd been reading since before or just after my daughter Katie was born.  Today is her 7th birthday. Can you believe it?  She's practically a grown up!  She reads very well these days, and is pretty good with the computer.  I got her a gmail account long ago that so far she doesn't really use, but this morning I thought of something cool.  If you have the time and the inclination, maybe you'd be willing to send a quick email to her to wish her a happy birthday?!  I know she'd love it.  I can't promise she'll respond to them all, especially if a lot of you actually send emails, but I'll at least get her to type up a thank you that I'll post here.  Her email address is kathleen dot north at gmail dot com.  Thank you in advance! 

The top photo of Katie was taken about three weeks ago, and is probably my favorite recent photo of her; definitely one of my all-time favorites of her ever.  The three photos below were all taken yesterday, on her last day of being six years old.

 

Also, if you're interested, for years now I've been putting together a Flickr set of photos of Katie - one photo for every month of her life.  I updated it the other day to go through February 2011, so there are 84 photos for her 84 months.  The set - which you can watch as a slideshow if you'd like (or not) - is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessamyn/sets/72157594205839099/.  Looking through the photos, I feel 1) amazed that it's gone by so fast; 2) impressed and proud of who she is; and 3) impressed and proud of myself, for taking the photos.  

prayers, answered and un

One day, several months ago, as we sat in church listening to the sermon, I found myself looking out at some people in the congregation - a father with his son and daughter.  The father was wearing glasses, and the son was wearing his glasses (although I've also seen him without them), and the daughter didn't have glasses on. I tried to think whether I'd ever seen her in glasses or heard her mention contacts.  The mother of the two kids was not sitting with them - she was sitting with us in the choir - and I know she wears contacts.  We occasionally see her in glasses.  I only thought about this for a second (not nearly as long as it has taken me to type this). 

These thoughts led me to start thinking about genetics, and about how things like poor eyesight make their way from one generation to the next, and I wondered about the baby growing inside me, and whether she would need glasses.  Geoff wears glasses.  I have had glasses during two different periods of my life, but for eyestrain, not for vision.  I guess it remains to be seen whether Katie will need glasses. 

And then I started thinking about other members of mine and Geoff's families, and which of them have glasses, when suddenly, as clear as a photograph held right in front of me - no, as clear as a person sitting right in front of me - I had a vision of Stephanie, wearing her glasses, leaning toward me, beaming at me happily and maybe a little conspiratorially, the way she did so many times.  And as I saw her, I felt an urgent PLEASE rise up inside me, a plea for Stephanie to be alive, for her death to have been a dream (a nightmare), and for me to have a chance to see her smile at me like that again.  And even though I knew, of course, that my plea would not be answered, there was a part of me that kept hoping that somehow I had misunderstood, that even though all these months had passed, that she was really ok, and that her death had never happened.

On a different day, around the end of April, in the last month or so before Annabel was born, I was driving home from work on Lake Shore Drive when I realized that I couldn't remember feeling any major movements from the baby that day.  Usually there was a flurry of activity at some point every morning, and again every afternoon, that was so forceful that I couldn't help but stop whatever I was doing to focus completely on the baby in there, to wonder what she was doing, and to be grateful for her existence (but often also to wish that she wouldn't push quite so hard).  I couldn't remember any such flurry from that day.  There was no such movement right then, either.

I reached down to my belly to feel for her hard shape under my skin.  Just there, to the right of my belly button, I felt an expanse of babyness - maybe a back, or a butt, or a head.  I pushed on it gently.  It didn't push back. 

This was normal.  She slept, often, so the fact that she wasn't pushing back at me didn't mean anything was wrong.  I knew that she was probably just fine.  But still.  I had a nagging sense that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong. 

I pushed again.  Nothing.  "No."  I said.  I was alone in the car.  I said it out loud anyway.  "No.  No, no, no, no, no."  After a few minutes, I started to cry.  "No."

I kept driving, and I kept waiting for movement, and every so often I would push on my belly, and there would be no response (even though each time I could feel some part of her little body in there, under my skin).  Even though there was no real reason for it, I felt panic rising inside me.  I thought of the day, almost a year before, when we'd gone to the doctor and discovered that I was having a miscarriage; I thought of how the day had been sunny and clear and warm.  I thought of how up until that afternoon, there had been nothing to distinguish that day from any other day, no way to know about the grief that I was going to experience before the end of the day.  Nothing to warn me that I was going to spend the afternoon sobbing and the next few days despairing.  No clues. 

"Please," I said.  "Please," again, out loud.  "Please.  Please.  Please."   

I thought how easily this day could be another day like that day last May, how suddenly, with no warning, this day could turn from ordinary to unforgettable. I thought about how bad things so often do happen that way, coming out of nowhere, slamming you to the ground and knocking the wind out of you. I thought about how so many bad things happen not because we deserve them, but in spite of the fact that probably nobody deserves them.  I imagined getting home, telling Geoff, driving to the hospital, discovering that the baby had died, deciding where to go from there (I was eight months pregnant; there would have to be labor and delivery; there would be no miscarriage in the privacy of my own bathtub), and wondering whether I would ever find the strength to try again. 

And then, as I drove along, crying and praying and pleading, as I was preparing myself for disaster and despair (it couldn't really have been very long - maybe it was fifteen minutes, or maybe it was only five), she moved, gently, inside me.  And then she moved again.  And then again, more deliberately, and stronger. 

I gasped a huge sigh of relief.  "Oh, thank you," I said, still crying (maybe crying harder).  "Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you." 

A little over a week ago, at the end of July, we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, visiting Geoff's family while I was on maternity leave.  While we were there, we all drove out to Lawrencetown Beach, to scatter Stephanie's ashes in the ocean, from a beach she loved to visit.  There was fog everywhere, and the air was much colder than I'd realized it would be, so before we could walk over to the water, we had to spend a few minutes dressing Annabel more warmly, and putting a jacket on Katie.  Geoff strapped on the Baby Bjorn, and we put Annabel into it, and we all walked over to the rocky beach together.  As we stood there in the fog and wind, watching what was left of Stephanie's body fall into the water and blow through the air, I did not say "please."  I tried, really hard, to think about how glad I was to have known her, to be grateful to have had her as my sister in law and friend, and to feel lucky to have known her.  I tried, really hard, to pray "thank you," even though there will always be a part of me, I think, that can't help but say "no." 

In the car, driving back into Halifax after we left the beach, Katie (who had sobbed nearly hysterically at the beach) kept asking us to tell her about Stephanie and about how she had died.  We did the best we could to explain, again, what had happened, and why, and made sure to let her know that we didn't completely understand it ourselves.  Katie started to cry again.  "I don't remember her," she said, and cried as if she understood just how much of a loss that was. 

Annabel is two months old now, and except for a mild rash on her cheeks, she is completely healthy.  For the most part, she is a happy, alert, easily soothed baby, who makes me smile every day.  There is a woman at the church who wants to hold Annabel every time we see her. "A healthy baby," she says, "is like winning the lottery."  She smiles at us, and tells us how lucky we are.  We smile back, and nod, and say that she's right.

10 weekends until my due date. And counting.

To sum up the past almost three months: this pregnancy is kicking my ass. 

It's not that anything unusual or incredibly difficult is going on physically.  In fact, the past month or so has been really great in that respect; I'm no longer having daily headaches, feeling continous nausea, or suffering from extreme fatigue no matter how much sleep I get, and I'm not (quite) yet big enough that I have to have a debate with myself about whether or not it's worth it to try to pick something off the floor.  The cold and cough that lasted for over a month have been gone for at least a month by now.  And the baby in there kicks and punches and twists and turns many, many times each day, so often that even my newly cynical mind doesn't consider, morbidly, on a daily basis, whether or not she's possibly died in there.  (I was thinking that routinely for awhile, not because I expected it, but just because my frame of mind was very much along the lines of "anything bad can happen.) 

But I've been an emotional basketcase.  I think I've been better during the last week (although I probably shouldn't say that for fear of jinxing myself), but before that, wow.  Look out.  I don't have any way to test whether or not I'm more emotional and sensitive than I was when I was pregnant with Katie, but I know that I've been crying more often, feeling hopeless more often, wanting to throw things against the wall more often.  I blame, in large part, the awesome child I live with, who is just doing her part toward growing up - she's testing her boundaries.  Constantly.  I remember being weepy and sensitive when I was pregnant with Katie, but I don't remember feeling, over and over, like I was on the verge of a tantrum.  It's probably not a coincidence that when I was pregnant with her, nobody ever woke me up in the middle of the night.  There was nobody to stop me from going to bed as early as I wanted, or from falling asleep on the couch before dinner.  I didn't have to put anybody else to bed (negotiating with me every freaking step of the way) when all I wanted to do was to collapse in a chair in front of the tv.   

The two major issues we've been facing with Katie have been sleeping through the night - and going to bed on time - and pooping in the toilet.  The way things have shaken out, these end up in direct conflict with each other, because most days she will hold her poop all day, until after bedtime, and then she'll poop in her overnight diaper.  Sometimes it takes her 45 minutes or an hour to do that, and by then it's almost my bedtime. 

Work has also been incredibly frustrating lately.  I won't write much about that here, but I will say that the job itself, even on the best days, is full of possibilities for getting frustrated, since no one ever submits a claim unless and until something has gone wrong.  So by the time I talk to someone, they're usually already angry, and I am often the first person they can take it out on.  When you also take into account the suckage of the real estate industry these days, it means I'm doing spending more time doing more work which is more difficult for people who appreciate it less.  Despite that, we aren't getting any raises this year, and the corporate office adds new requirements on a near-weekly basis.  And this winter has been full of snow and ice and snow and ice and gray, dreary days with no sunshine.  Today it has already snowed at least 6 inches.

And on top of all of the other hard stuff, I find myself thinking often, lately, about my sister in law Stephanie, who in August 2002, three months before Geoff and I got married, asked me when we were going to make her an aunt.  Who came to visit more than once while I was pregnant with Katie, and who took me out to get manicures and pedicures about two months before my due date.  Who apparently bragged about Katie to everyone she knew, and who knew how much we wanted another baby.  Who told me often about how much she looked forward to having her own children.  I know she would have been excited for us, with this new baby on the way.  If she were alive, I bet she would be visiting sometime soon, to take me for a pedicure, to stock our freezer full of ice cream, and to offer to babysit for Katie while Geoff and I went out to a movie or dinner.  There aren't that many people who put their hands against my stomach and felt Katie kicking from the other side, over four years ago, but Stephanie was one of them, and facing the birth of this new daughter makes me think about her.  I miss her. 

And although I don't really grieve my miscarriage in an emotional way anymore, it has been on my mind lately, too.  It hasn't been quite a full year since I found out I was pregnant, but it seems like it, since I had my first positive pregnancy test that time on Good Friday 2007.  I found out that the fetus had died on May 31, 2007; this baby is due to be born on May 29, 2008, almost exactly a year later.  I certainly don't feel like the baby is cursed because of this; in fact, lately, when I think about it, it comforts me for some reason, as if this is all part of an intricate cylical plan. 

This is not how I planned this post to go.  This is where my head has been, a lot of the time, over the past few months.  But there have been plenty of good things, too.

We had a second trimester ultrasound, where we were told that the doctor was "98% sure" that we're having a girl. 

Katie started drawing pictures of our family holding hands.

And writing her own name.  (She can write all the letters of the alphabet now, nearly perfectly.)

My niece turned one.

Katie started participating in a new "liturgical dance troupe" at the church.  She's in a group with 2 or 3 other 4 year olds and one 5 year old.  She loves it.

As for that "other four year olds" part?  Katie turned four at the beginning of this month.  She is everything I was hoping I'd get when I wanted a child, and when I found out I was having a daughter - and lots more bonus things besides, and I told her so. 

Oh, and I've gotten a bunch of cute maternity clothes online from Target. 

At the beginning of the year, I decided to try to post one picture per day on Flickr.  I'm not exactly meeting my goal - I think I've missed 7 days already.  But it's still been satisfying - a tangible record of the past few months that pleases me to look back at, and reminds me in a very literal way that this year has not all been difficult and crazy-making.  Some of it has been downright wonderful. 

(Click on that photo to read the story behind it, because it's pretty awesome.)

It's just a little over two months before my due date, and we don't have a place for the baby to sleep.  (The old crib is broken and has pretty much had it.)  In order to create a place for the baby's bed to go in our room, we need to move the Ikea wardrobe in our bedroom out to the back porch.  But in order to move it to the back porch, we need to move lots of stuff back there down to the basement.  And it's possible that things in the basement will have to be moved around to find a place for what's coming down from the back porch.  Counting this weekend, we have 10 weekends until my due date, and I think we need to make them count.  Geoff also needs to complete his doctoral requirements no later than June (according to the school), and no later than we have a NEWBORN IN THE HOUSE (according to me).  I think it will be a busy spring.

But I also think it will be a good spring, and an even better summer.  The cynicism that's been surrounding me for the last four or five months seems to be lifting, and I feel like I am going back to my old self, able to see and appreciate my blessings even on bad days. 

I just wanted to let you know.

mostly good

I am all right.  Mostly good, in fact. 

I know some of you have been a little concerned about me; maybe something I should have done awhile ago was to highlight the link to my Flickr photostream, because although I have lately been prone to go a month or more without posting here, I rarely go even a week without posting something new on Flickr.  There's been all kinds of news you'd have gleaned from Flickr (not all of it actually new) in the past month or so, while I've failed to post anything here, including: 1) Katie talks a lot; 2) the ultrasound went just fine (and I posted a scan of our ultrasound printout); 3) Katie really won't leave our cat Zellie alone; 4) Katie and I made homemade Christmas ornaments involving LOTS of glitter; 5) Katie knows how to flip her coat on all by herself, and is very proud; 6) my pregnancy is starting to show a little and I'm willing to take a picture of it (and our entryway mirror is really dirty); 7) we put up our tree, and Katie is very happy about it (also, she's experiencing a resurgence in her love of her tutu); 8) I cut several inches of Katie's hair off; 9) I cut a few inches of my hair off, too; 10) there's quite a bit of snow on the ground here in Chicago.  (I did put a little link over in the sidebar to my latest Flickr pictures, but I'll try to set up something better with thumbnail photos, since text is not the ideal way to link to a picture.  But at least there is a link there now.)

I am NOT going to do what I seem to have a never-ending need to do when I come back here after failing to post for a long time.  I'm not going to promise that I'm going to update more often, even if it's just little updates.  I'm not going to promise you that I'll post every day, or every week day, or every Wednesday.  I'm going to keep writing here, whether it's frequent or rare, for a long time, I will bet on that.  But beyond that, nope.  No promises here.  Just good intentions.  And we know what those pave.

So I'm here.  Work is kind of crazy.  One co-worker had a tumor in his spine this fall, had it removed, found it was benign, has been away for months and is now back part-time, going to physical therapy to learn how to use his left side fully again.  Another co-worker had a baby at the end of October and is on maternity leave until January.  Another co-worker's (this one is my friend Rebecca) father in law died last month, so she was gone awhile.  Another co-worker's mother passed away a few weeks ago.  We are all behind on work, and to top it off, although our company canceled its holiday party, it decided to give all of us in claims one "bonus day" for every week in the month of December.  This is in some ways nice, although as my friend Rebecca's husband pointed out, "Oh, that's just what your struggling department needs; mandatory time off!"  It's not actually mandatory, but I personally feel that since we're not getting bonuses or a holiday party or any other gifts from the company, that I will take these BONUS DAYS, by God. 

I took a bonus day yesterday, on Thursday, and Geoff and I did some Christmas shopping without having to deal with crowds.  We even braved and conquered Costco.  It was nice. 

I think of Stephanie often.  Probably every day.  My head still keeps trying to make plans to see her, and the other day when I told Geoff I thought something would be a nice Christmas gift for his sister, I had to stop and say, "I'm sorry you only have one sister." 

And then there's the pregnancy.  As far as I know, everything is ok.  In fact, the results we got back from the first trimester genetic screening were, in my OB's words, "excellent."  (The average risk of Downs when the mother is 37?  About 1/255.  My particular risk of this baby having Downs, as calculated by the screening?  About 1/3000.  I was especially impressed with this when I realized that the risk of Downs for a mother who is between the ages of 20 and 24 is about 1/1500.)  Every time I get a particular piece of good news, I get this feeling welling up inside me that I haven't really associated, so far, with this pregnancy.  I think it's something like joy.  A few days after the ultrasound or doctor's appointment (now with baby heartbeat), the joy leaves, and I'm back to this fatalistic sense that whatever is going to happen will happen, and there's nothing I can do about it.  My psyche's self-protection, I'm sure. 

Last night I thought, for a second, that I was feeling the baby move.  It's possible, though not likely, I guess.  I am 15 weeks pregnant now, which is early to feel movement, especially if you're carrying any extra weight around, which I am.  Still, I felt something, and I thought it might be the baby, and just the idea that it might be the baby gave me great joy, a huge uplifting of heart and spirit and mind, and a hope for the future of this pregnancy that I will feel more of this happiness as I feel more movement and begin to feel emotionally tied to this fetus in a way that I'm not so far. 

Every time the joy comes back, I think, ahhh.  This is what I felt, so much of the time, when I was pregnant with Katie.  I have missed it.  I miss it.  I want it back.

I remember how much I'd thought and written about the experience of being pregnant at this same point in my pregnancy with Katie, and I can't believe I've gotten this far this time with so little contemplation and expectation and planning.  But here I am.  And if there's a baby at the end of this road?  Well, then.  I will, I promise you, be filled with joy, as much joy (if not more) as I had with Katie. 

Katie, by the way, is a great kid (if I do say so myself).  I wrote this about her in my beloved PSV forum in a thread about our children's personalities:

Katie is super sensitive, like me. If she thinks you're actually mad at her? She'll burst into tears, and I can see the look on her face, and it's weird how I recognize it and KNOW that it is the exact way I used to feel when I was a kid and I was trying not to cry but ended up crying anyway.

She's also a talk talk talker, also from me, at least from me more than Geoff. She is more single-minded than I am, which I think she gets from Geoff. She and Geoff can be doing something and you can be YELLING their name, but if they're engaged enough in what they're doing? They won't even hear you.

I am just head over heels with her, really, so I'm another mother who is full of sap when I think about her and talk about her. Other than some brief sleep issues, she has been really easy from the time she was a newborn....  She was never a serious crier, never needed to be held all the time, was happy just to sit in a bouncy chair or swing or high chair and look around and watch us and "talk" with us. She is incredibly eager to please, which I think she also gets from me, and which I hope I can help her learn to deal with a little better than I've done. I see how desperate she is for approval sometimes, and it just kills me, how vulnerable that could make her when she's older (how vulnerable it occasionally makes her now). She is a total snuggler/ toucher/hugger. When we pick her up at daycare, she has to give hugs to all of her friends before she leaves, and she has a whole routine with us when she says goodbye or goes to bed (it's basically: hug, kiss, eskimo kiss, bump foreheads, hug, kiss).

She is also STUBBORN and clever (she is so good at figuring things out and remembering things and calling us on slip-ups) and interested in almost everything. Lately she is asking for the moon and everything else, literally, but she almost never makes these demands immediate - instead, she says, "Someday I could like to do..." or "I would like to have that sometime." The other day she said, "Someday I would like to go to the moon and eat it up. I think it tastes like chocolate chips."

Yesterday evening we changed the sheet on her mattress, and she insisted on coming over to help lift up the mattress (it's a toddler bed, so it's a crib mattress, not a full-sized twin) so that I could put the new sheet on.  She lifted one end up, all by herself, and looked at me.  "I'm strong," she said.  "I know you are," I said.  "I'm too strong," she said.  "I'm too strong for comfort."

She makes me laugh, and she amazes me, and she is everything I wanted to have when I wanted to have kids, and lots of things I didn't know I wanted.  I'm sure I don't have to justify this, but I'm going to say it anyway - I didn't want another baby because of any shortcoming in Katie; she made me want another baby, because of all of the blessings she's brought to my life.  Being her mom is hard, and the truth is that I'm a little freaked out about dealing with two kids, the stress that's going to create, the exhaustion that will be entailed.  But.  Being her mom is mostly good (mostly awesome, even), and even in my most tired and frustrated moments, it is not something I regret.

from the "thank God for Katie" file

Last night Katie was grumpy and sad and sort of pitiful. Finally, after a lot of whining and negotiating and delaying, when she was in bed and I was rubbing her back, she calmed down and said to me, "Mommy, do you know why I'm sad? It's because the little baby is gone."

(Oh.  Hear that? That's the sound of my breaking heart.)

So I told her that I was sad, too. And she said, "And daddy is sad, too." I agreed.

"And Molly dog is sad," she said. "And the kitties are sad. The dog goes," in a very sad voice, "woooof. And the kitties go," in a very quiet voice, "meow meow." (This part made me laugh a little.)

I said that maybe someday, the little baby would come back, and she said, "But I'm sad now." I said I was, too.

And Katie said, "When I was a little baby, I didn't go away."

And WOW. I just looked at her, and hugged her, and said, "Yes, thank God!  Thank God you didn't go away."

Sunshine

Lately we've been listening to Elizabeth Mitchell's CD, "You Are My Sunshine."  My favorite song on the CD is the first one, "So Glad I'm Here," which makes me feel better every time I hear it.  But of course it also has "You Are My Sunshine," as well as a bunch of other kids'-songs-that-aren't-really-kids'-songs, like "Here Comes My Baby," "Goin Down the Road," and "Goodnight Irene."  It's the first kids' CD we've had that I really love all on its own. 

This is only relevant because Katie is learning the songs, too.  Although her favorite is "alphabet dub" (which consists of the alphabet song repeated, over and over - and over...and over), she really likes "So Glad I'm Here," and "Car Car." 

Geoff and Katie came to pick me up at the el station today.  The CD was playing. 

As I came around the front of the car, I could see Katie, mouthing "Mommy!" and wearing a huge smile.  I got in the car, smiled at Geoff, smiled at her, and Geoff started to drive us home. 

As we drove, I reached one hand back to Katie.  She grabbed my hand, leaned over it, and pressed it to her cheek while she rocked back and forth.  It was a sweet, unexpected gesture, one of those moments that you never want to forget.  It brought tears to my eyes. 

And then two seconds later, something even better.  She smiled at me.  "Mommy, you are my sunshine," she said. 

That, combined with the most excellent, incredibly delicious Tuscan bread soup that Geoff made for dinner (which I ate while wearing only my soft comfy Mother's Day robe), has turned this long discouraging day around.  Score one more for simple pleasures.

Katie's First Year

Katie's First Year on Vimeo

Another little movie, this one much higher on the sap factor than the last one was.  This one is a compilation of short clips taken through Katie's first year, so you'd think I might have put something like it together, say, around the time Katie turned one.  But I think in this case, at least for me, better late than never is really true. 

(I posted this one on both Vimeo & Youtube - and I also went back and posted the ball-yations video on Vimeo.  To see this one on Youtube, go here.)

Katie talks about the ball-yations

This video is too dark, and the fan we use to make white noise in her room overnight is going the whole time, but still. She makes me laugh. (And this is my first attempt at editing video, adding audio and text. I'll get better!)

(Ok, I tried to follow your advice to embed the video directly into my post, Joanne, and in doing so, typepad decided to erase my original post!  So here's a replacement.  I know I'm leaving stuff out that was in the first post, but oh, well.)

Grateful (November 21st)

mischief maker
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

Linda posted an entry today and asked us to tell her what we were grateful for.  I posted this:

I’m grateful for my daughter, and so many of her attributes, especially the way she gives hugs & kisses (like this: hug, kiss, grab the hair on top of your head to pull you in for an Eskimo kiss, “noggin” (which is bumping the tops of your heads together), another hug, another kiss - and sometimes if you’re really lucky, she sort of forgets what she’s doing and she grabs your hair again and starts over), and also the way she puts words together. I’m grateful for my husband, who is my very favorite person, tied with Katie. I’m grateful for having enough money this year that we can buy some Christmas gifts without freaking about it. I’m grateful you mentioned Aimee Mann’s holiday album, because I will have to check it out, and also that you linked to the pumpkin cheesecake recipe, because I am SO going to make it! I’m grateful, still, on a near daily basis, that we didn’t die in our car crash in July. I’m grateful for my parents, and Geoff’s parents, and our siblings. I’m grateful for my camera and my computer and for all of the internets, and for all of my beloved friends, and for Cosi’s signature salad with grapes and apples and pistachio nuts, because it is delicious. 

And then I thought, you know, those are some gratefuls worth remembering. So I posted them here, too.

And hey, I'd love to hear what you're grateful for, too, if you're willing to share.  Tell me.

Snow Princess (October 31st)

Snow Princess (October 31st)
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

Katie was more excited about ringing people's doorbells than about getting candy. At the first house, the man told her to take some candy. She took a package of sweet tarts or something else small, and he smiled. "Take another one," he said. She looked at him, paused, put the sweet tarts back, and started to reach for something else. "No, you can have both, we told her. "You can have more than one!"

She got pretty good at saying "trick or treat" loud enough so that people could hear her, and some of her "thank you's" were even spontaneous. Person after person complimented her beautiful costume.

By the end of our trick or treating, she was reaching for candy without having to be prompted, and taking more than one piece. It was near the end of the night - everyone was urging her to take more.

She was pleased about the candy, but what she really loved were the doorbells. Whenever someone came to the door before we'd rung the bell, she headed for the bell, anyway. "She'd really love to ring your doorbell," we told them, and they always told her to go ahead. A second or two after putting her candy in her Elmo basket, she was grabbing one of our hands, urging us on toward "another doorbell."

Tonight brings Geoff and I to another rite of passage: first time to filch candy from our child's Halloween loot. And mighty tasty, too.