Phoebe the oral explorer

At eight months old, Phoebe enjoys sticking out her tongue. A lot. 

Rachel

This is just to say that I took this picture of Rachel when we went to the pool for the first time in about a month (July 8) and I think she looks so beautiful:

Phoebe had fallen asleep in the van on the way to the pool (yes, we put her in her carseat in nothing but her diaper—all the easier to get her ready for swimming) and Rachel got her out of her carseat and snuggled with her while I finished getting sunscreen and stuff on Zoë and Alexander.

Beautiful and helpful. 

What more could I ask for?

DC days 1 and 2

All of that and I didn't even post a picture of Diana!

Here she is chilling with Miriam (and likely everyone else) in the AirBnB:

I haven't heard a lot from my girls (which I can only assume means they're having a wonderful time and are saving all their stories for their "homework"), but I do know about how things went after they rendezvoused with Richard, Diana, and Michael. Grandpa took them all on a little monument tour and they got caught in the pouring rain, got to see a some phenomenal lightning by the Washington Monument, and spent the rest of the day looking rather bedraggled.

DC with Diana!

Diana is anxiously waiting to make her appearance on the blog—a high honour! She's the brains behind this trip to Washington, D.C. 

As far as I understand things, Michael had been planning on going to DC on a school trip but it was cancelled due to the pandemic and so Richard and Diana decided they'd just take Michael themselves. She wrote to us back in February to get the idea in our heads. 

Hey y’all. Richard, Michael and I are flying to WA DC July 12-16.

We were having a discussion like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if Reid came and was our history buff during the trip?” Which then led to, “and maybe he’d come and bring Rachel, which would be cool for Michael to get to know her better, too.” 

Reid was immediately on board. He likes history and it had been a few years since he'd been to DC. 

I think it was me who suggested that Reid take Miriam as well as Rachel, because those three (second) cousins are all pretty close in age. 

Here's Rachel, 7 months old, meeting Michael for the first time in February 2008:

Clever girl

Hearth seems like such an antiquated term, and yet our home has two hearths without me fully realizing it. I always call our hearths "the fireplace ledges," as in, "Oh, no! The baby is climbing on the fireplace ledge!" because that's what Phoebe did today. 

July 4 found her fussing at the base of the stairs because she couldn't follow Zoë and Alexander up.

Miriam v. Phoebe

 Here's a picture of Miriam wearing this sweet outfit from Egypt (at nearly six months old, while at a playdate at a friend's house):

An evening out

Since we're not off adventuring, I decided we could at least spend a little time at the park together this evening. I joined a "buy nothing" group on Facebook, mostly to get rid of our bassinet and bouncy chair and other things Phoebe has finished with but we don't want to store, but you know me and a good deal (free...is the only "good" deal)...

Last week I made Andrew go pick up a pair of rollerblades. 

Today it was a collection of books. 

And the park was so close to where the books were that we decided to all go. It's been ages since we've all been to the park together. And by "all" I guess I mean "with Daddy."

They talk about how grad school is hard. And we lived it. And it was hard. 

But we hadn't heard how hard starting out on the tenure track was. For the record, that's hard, too! There is always, always, always more work to be done. Papers to write, papers to grade, courses to revise, etc. etc. etc. It's not a job you can really clock out of. So learning how to achieve balance—especially in a pandemic (when he had to redesign his classes at the drop of a hat and so forth)—has been an uphill battle. 

Phoebe and sleep quality

For the past several days, perhaps even since she had COVID, Phoebe has slept for an average of 40 minutes at a time. It's been brutal and the only way we've been surviving is by alternating shifts of being on Phoebe duty and sneaking in a nap or sleep-in. Andrew took Phoebe duty last night while I slept (11 PM to 3 AM) and helped her back to sleep eighteen times. 

It's like the part in her brain that tells her to sleep just...broke...all of a sudden.

But tonight she's been...pretty good. 

She went down for the night while her siblings were enjoying a cool-ish (mid-80°s) summer evening outside and has only woken up once...so far. Let's all hope this holds because clearly I've been doing other things when I should have been taking advantage of this moment for sleeping purposes. 

It seems what she needed to do in order to sleep again was finally sample the cat food, something she's been trying to do for weeks and finally succeeded at doing today. She was pretty proud of herself. 

That's what's most perplexing about her/our lack of sleep—Phoebe can wake up every half hour or so all night long and still wake up in the morning ready to take on the day. She pokes her little tongue out of her mouth and makes all sorts of curious grunts as she squirms her way around the house getting into mischief. Andrew and I, on the other hand, are barely able to roll out of bed and are manually holding our eyelids open. 

It's bad. 

So bad that I have to admit that I just typed "it's bed" on the previous line, rather than "it's bad."

It's bad.

But, perhaps we've turned a corner and can get back to the regular pains of parenthood rather than the this-is-literal-torture pains of parenthood. One can hope.

So while Andrew and I have been drowning in sleep deficit, here are a few things Phoebe has been up to...

On Sunday evening we broke out this little-kid roller coaster thing. We used to have it up in the LEGO room but disassembled it a while back because...it just kept getting covered in LEGO. 

Celebrating stuff

On July 3rd, Phoebe "went to bed" early (this would end up being only a little evening nap, but that's okay). Rachel and Miriam were having a Stranger Things watching party at Grandpa's house, so we left Phoebe under the vigilant supervision of Daddy while the rest of us went on a "short" firefly walk (it would end up being quite a long walk, but that's okay).

Here is the condition we left Daddy in (reading his book by osmosis while he took a little evening nap himself):

We caught a few fireflies here and there as we made our way to the corner, where we found about a billion cars parked. Some teenagers were setting off little firecrackers, so we lingered at the corner while we watched them set them off. And then I told my crew it was about time to turn around and head to bed. That's when a neighbour that we sort of know/sort of don't know jogged up to us and told us that we should find a place along the curb and get cozy because another neighbour had purchased about $800 of fireworks and was getting ready to put on a big show, just as soon as it got dark enough.

So I thought to myself, "Self, you can drag your kids—who are now jumping up and down with excitement—home and put them to bed where they absolutely won't do any sleeping due to the noise that's about to go down in this neighbourhood...or...you can find a cozy spot on the curb to park yourself while you enjoy the show."

Obviously we chose the latter. 

Birthday balloons for me

On Sunday we had Grandpa over for dinner to celebrate (1) everyone finally testing negative, (2) my birthday, and (3) Grandpa's birthday. Rachel made a spice cake with browned-butter frosting, topped with homemade salted caramel for me and a peach crisp for Grandpa. We didn't use any candles because the idea of blowing on food that other people are about to consume feels anathema right now. 

The kids (and Andrew) made up some birthday balloons for me, which I'll record below...

From Alexander:

Muvr I LV U
OBDYT
AOSM

This is an acrostic for "MOM," which reads

Mother I love you
Obedient
Awesome

Why is there an A instead of a final M? Well, because all the best names have A in them and Alexander couldn't understand why we would have A (the best letter) in DAD but not in MOM. That doesn't even make sense. So MOA it is. Like the Museum of Art. Or Mom. Obviously.