good bye to you..

good bye $17 american eagle outfitter jeans.. first pair i bought post baby jeans with a functional zipper (anyone else still forgetting about that 'real' zipper 9+ months later? i keep leaving the house without that, ahem, done up.. can we learn nothing from maternity pants? faux fly bring it on).

strange.. i feel a bit sad to see them go.. and although mom smartly suggested i save them in case i need them again in the future, they're pretty beaten up, even too much for me to leave on the stoop for someone needing an extra pair of skinnies on the go..

thank you for everything, in-between jeans.

*side note: emma had suggested purchasing a pair of AE jeans when they were on mega-sale right after i had M. i thought it was slightly ridiculous considering their target market is half my age and the rise's require brazilians, but for the weeks months after a baby when you can't stand the sight of the skin-toned commerbund of your maternity pants, they can't be beat.

mama's day..

i wasn't expecting much for mothers day (but secretly hoped it would be a little better then this last, recent, birthday which was celebrated by myself and a vicious 24 hour stomach virus). i'm not sure what my thoughts are about the day, but it being my first, i washed my hair, put on my bright green pants and stuffed M in a 'mom' onesie i found in his drawer that is a full size too small, and let L take our picture.. i slept in - until a blissful 8:30 - made myself pancakes doused in maple syrup, took M to the park where he practiced standing and kissed him as many times as i could in one day. it wasn't perfect, and i felt both elated and, well, odd, when neighbors would say "happy mother's day!"as we walked by.. but it was good.. its good to be a mama to this guy..

happy belated mother's day to all you mama's out there.. moms of babes, of pups, of plants and of other things..

(notice that weeks later our shelves are still filled with boxes.. my one saving grace is that the only shelf lined with books is indeed color coordinated)

sleepy monday

so apparently, according to one my my favorite parenting blogs Ask Moxie, we are in the midst of one of the toughest sleep regressions. there's the 4 month, which i think we really didn't get until 5 months, and there is this.. i'm confident that nobody is really interested in this information, but for sanity's sake i'm putting it out there - last nights wake-ups were as follows: 10:11, 12:05, 2:15-3ish, 4 something, up at 5:42. i nursed M throughout because trying to soothe him was doing nothing but keeping all of us up, and because i understand in some hazy way that crawling, teething, pulling-up and babbling will keep a new little up all night.. perhaps at 3am my sympathy wanes, but somewhere in the afternoon while i watch his determined face, i weaken and understand, these are huge times for the peanut..
i really loved this quote, because it was exactly how i was (am) feeling this morning:

It seems like 9 months is just about when parents start to feel confident about things, and women start to feel like they may have some semblance of their bodies back (if by "back" you mean that you've noticed that you still have toes and that your limbs mostly work), and the babies are kind of happy and interactive and starting to move around. And then--bam!--your kid's suddenly not sleeping and it seems like it must be something you did and you feel incompetent and defeated. (Source: AskMoxie.org)

i remember an old colleague of mine telling me, as we passed by some seedy hotel, that his big fantasy was one day to book a hotel room, not tell his wife or anyone, and just sleep in it all day. at the time i found that rather depressing, but now i completely get it..

    (dream bed by Rough Linen)

for the home

some things i have been swooning over for hours.. days.. weeks and years..

etsy linen cover

land of nod table lamp

rough linen duvet cover

BDDW captains mirror

this pillow from thief and bandit

Being Nice

Ben and I haven't really slept in the last eight weeks. I recognize we may not really sleep for the next eighteen years. Sleep deprivation is a funny thing; after a while your brain acclimates to running on a half-empty tank, your friends and family learn to decode your slurred speech, and you begin to accept that nights (like most other things in your life) are no longer your own. But something else happens when you and your partner are not getting the rest you really need... You get a little mean. It took me a while to recognize that the snippy tones, the defensive replies, the way we both started taking just about everything extremely personally were all the result of our extreme exhaustion. Adding a baby to the mix is a hard transition. We're asked to sacrifice in ways that I have started to doubt any of us are truly prepared for, and in our (personal) parental evolution Ben and I seem to be struggling to make the time to care for ourselves, and maybe even cut each other the necessary slack. I don't think this issue will be resolved when Charlie learns to sleep through the night. I imagine this will become a constant in our lives; we're going to have to keep doing our best to remember that we're on each others side. Until we get the hang of this practice, I'm trying to remember an piece of advice I read a while back: when you're feeling frustrated with your partner try (before you say anything unkind) to remember something truly wonderful they did in the past. It's a really simple exercise, but I sort of think it does wonders. I like to remember when Ben drove through a snowstorm to spend Christmas day with all of us.

permanent camping

i've never been camping but L always wants go to, and sometimes i am tempted by the thought of sleeping out in the open, hearing the sounds of birds and frogs.. but, then i think about crazy people in the woods and a solid structure sounds much more appealing.. this 'permanent camping' house is my idea of a proper camping trip.. how cozy does that fire look?

have you ever been camping?

                                                             (via  iGNANT)

weekend!

the weekends seem to be coming a bit earlier these days.. since L is taking FMLA on fridays until the end of July, thursday has become friday.. and its glorious. the extra day means that i can do something on my own for a few hours but also get things done around the house without having it take up our entire time together. what are your plans for this weekend?

here are some 'goals' because if i say plans they're just not going to happen..

                                                   (from 101 Cookbooks)
i've been on a pancake binge even though m doesn't seem to like them (yet) sunday means im at the stove making myself some gluten free pancakes.. this week i plan on making some gluten-full ones, using this recipe. i justify this obsession over the fact that now i have a child and having the ability to make perfect pancakes is a good trick to have up my sleeve.

i just bought these ugly yet oh so comfy sneakers as a birthday gift to myself in hopes that i use them to.. gulp.. jog (one day, one day).. even if its just for skipping through the park, i need to put the little frog shoes on and attempt a break-in.

(this is the dream but not the reality) L moved his computer out of the nursery (the nursery that nobody sleeps in.. mm hmm..) so i'm on the hunt for a cheap wooden chest of drawers that will double as a changing station.. i love this dwell one, but $1080.00 is about $1000 out of our budget. i'm hoping to score a cheap but well-made wooden dresser and paint it white and add some fun knobs..

speaking of home improvement.. we just installed elfa shelves in our living room.. not the aesthetic i had dreamed of, but practical now that we have a crawler living with us. the stuff on here is just to test out the weight, the first night after L installed it we both slept with an eye open, waiting to hear a loud crash.. now that its been up for almost a week, i think its time we start unpacking and color-coordinating some books.. (top, our mess.. bottom via apartment therapy)

i just bought this book and am looking forward to reading it in bed on my ancient and ridiculously heavy iPad (can i-anythings be ancient?).. after all the hubbub about books like 'lean in' mama needs to read something positive..