Deja vu all over again

Sometimes the only way to start is just to start, however unartfully and inarticulately. So this is me, starting. Again. Surely I can do better than four blog posts in all of 2015.

So here's where things stand:

• My little people are awesome. They're 22 months apart, but if Charlie had the power he'd shrink that number right down to nothing. He watches her constantly. Smiles when she smiles, laughs when she laughs, looks on jealously when she's eating, watches her move and tries his hardest to keep up. It's hilarious and touching and a lot of fun. Oh: there will be birth stories!
• Remember this post? A few of you commented or wrote me that it seemed like I was writing about being pregnant before I could tell anyone I was pregnant. It's true that I was pregnant then, but I was actually writing about work. 2015 did not go according to plan professionally. So I took a longer-than-last-time maternity leave to sort it all out. And now I'm back - same place, but new clients. So we'll see.
• Oh, but the content of that post, the point? Well that's why I'm here, because it all still applies. Work just got crazier when it was supposed to settle down and I buried myself in it until I couldn't breathe. So I'm breathing again, and back to feeling normal, and therefore wanting to write again and have a little outlet here. So let's just pretend that was dated 2016, okay?
• What is "normal" for a working mom of two, by the way? Because I don't know. I feel messy and disorganized and overextended but bursting with love. Also: tired. I'm guessing that's all very normal, actually.
• T and I are trying our best to keep our babysitter booked. That was our resolution together for the year. We went to the movies last weekend, our first time in a theater since I was pregnant with Hazel. I'm determined to see at least three Best Picture nominations before the Oscars, which will be a heck of a lot better than the last few years. (And yes, this from the person who saw every film in every category, including all the Shorts, a couple of mere dependents ago!)
• So I'm trying with pop culture. That's something, right? [Obligatory shoutout to "Spotlight," which is incredible and makes me yearn for my "promising journalist" days in Boston. Oh, youth!]
• Politics and current events are happening. There is an election. I have a candidate! I finally figured it out for myself this week. (Better late than never - more soon.) In the meantime, there are idiots in the CDC publishing guidelines like this, but then there is this, thankfully. As usual, humor is the best remedy.
• On the homefront, we are still in our 1906 DC rowhome, bursting to the seams with OMGplastic and OMGonefullbathroom. We finally redid our backyard, which I know I never blogged about. We're talking with folks now about The Big Digout. Finished basement, here we come! Gulp. 
• Blogging seems so quaint now. Remember when it was cutting edge? Now it feels so old school and long form, which is maybe why I crave it. Keep me honest over on Twitter and Instagram if I don't blog again for three more months, okay? Because I really want to be back soon.
• Related: I never quite survived the Google Reader massacre. What do you all use to keep up with blogs now? 

He's here!

I'm popping up to say hello, and as a mama of TWO!

Charles Gardner Hanger, our very own Charlie boy, was born one week late on September 4. He was 9 lbs, 21.5 inches, and is all kinds of awesome. Hazel - and her parents - are smitten.

This crazy beautiful thing that happened

Flashback: the week of Christmas, 2014. Work drama per usual, running around like mad, getting ready for work while mentally compiling the list of gifts to finish wrapping and the final things to do before driving to NC for the holiday. A pregnancy test, just taken, was tallying its result. Not that the chances were great it'd be positive - after three years and seemingly endless interventions to get pregnant with Hazel, this was the very first month we were officially trying to have #2. So there I was again, temping and charting, even though we both admitted to each other that the sound of my basal body thermometer's beeps in the morning gave us PTSD reactions. I figured I'd rather know the result alone in our house than during the rest of the week's craziness, when we'd be spending two days in NC followed by two days in CT. By the time I started showering I'd actually sort of forgotten about the test, my mind was so full of things to do that day. I reached for the body wash and happened to look over. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Was that...? Surely that isn't...? 

But it was. Holy crap, it was positive.

Talk about surreal. So much effort the first time that we didn't dare wait a second longer than necessary to try for #2, in case we were in for another three-year journey of outrageously costly medical hell. So no, we didn't dare wait... but that didn't mean we really had hope, either.

We told our families right away, later that week, toasting to our Christmas miracle. We were cautiously optimistic that everything would be okay at that first ultrasound. Having had sad news at a previous ultrasound, we steeled ourselves for the worst. We told ourselves that even if this pregnancy wasn't viable, at least we knew we could get pregnant on our own - that simple knowledge felt absolutely revolutionary to us, after all we'd been through. Everything looked great, though. A tiny little bean with a great heartbeat. Each time we checked in, that bean grew bigger and was doing more tricks. Sucking a thumb, spinning around, kicking. A happy camper with a due date of August 28.

We knew from the start that we'd find out the sex. I'm too much of a planner to wait to know - I need the information yesterday. I didn't have an instinct one way or another this time, but found myself thinking more about a boy than a girl as time went on. At the end of February those boy thoughts panned out - our bean (whom we'd taken to calling "Dos") was a he! A little brother for Hazel - too, too good.

Two kids has been our number for a long time, and knowing that #2 is a boy helps cement that thought for us. We'll be a family of four, with a boy and a girl 21.5 months apart. Life is going to be crazy and wonderful and beautiful, and when I stop to catch my breath and consider that, I can't stop smiling.

This year.

I've been trying to write this post for a month. It's hard to find much time lately. But on the plus side, here I am, actually writing it, not letting it fall to the wayside like so many fun recipes, posts about life events, posts about silly things, posts like Hazel's birth story. (For the record, she is 14 months old now... oops.)

This is a resolution post. See, I have lots of goals for this year, lots of little things and lots of "that would be nice" things and some other biggies, too. But as 2014 turned to 2015, the one that stuck in my head the most was that this year more than anything, I need to recapture my creativity. I am lucky beyond belief to be a mom to little H, to be married to someone who still floors me and delights me more than I can possibly express, and to be a successful professional who, although more harried than not these days, is able to find some personal value in her career. I'm so lucky to have all of that and to be able to live comfortably. I know how many are struggling today to get by, which is to say, I don't want to sound like an entitled snob complaining without seeing her privilege. I am lucky and I know it.

But.

I desperately miss my creative outlets. I miss writing. I miss making things for fun - rooms, parties, dinners, moments. Like every other mom on the planet, my time is squeezed more than ever, and for the best of reasons. Every day is a balancing act and every week is an absolute juggle. I've always been happy with that pace - I'm the first to squirm if there's not enough to do. But to do the important things well - to be a good mom and a good partner and a good colleague who manages not to cave into work stress but instead to navigate my team around it - I've dropped this world here, which has always been my special place, just for me. It was a survival decision and it was the right one, given those other biggies being juggled, but that doesn't mean it isn't difficult.

Tonight I was (virtually) home alone - Hazel asleep early with a cold, T at a coffee shop studying for a certification exam, and I cooked, just for me. I made a simple soup - nothing to write home about, although isn't a fresh, simple soup one of the most underrated meals there is? - and the experience was glorious. Cooking slowly, just for me. No timetable, no hungry companions, no recipe. That's the same me who misses this space.

I feel like I'm arriving at a crossroads and an inherent conflict that may well come to pass this year. I carry a level of stress with my day job that is not sustainable for the long haul. There is an end in sight, thankfully, although things will get worse before they get better. But then what? Is that the moment I've been waiting for, when I can recalibrate and bring back some of my interior world? Or will that moment instead be a real break, when I know I've crossed the (long, long, long-awaited) finish line, and I decide to do something entirely different with my life, something that will always give me the ability to maintain a little more interior space?

I don't know. And I'm not there yet, so I don't need to know. But this is coming for me, for 2015. It will either be a turning point or a new agreement with myself. But somehow, some way, I need more words, more air, more light, more spark.

To be continued...

One.

One!

Oh how I love this kid.

Here, catching my breath

It's the way things are these days... months pass in the blink of an eye. I can only say I hope to do better, that things should settle down in a few months. Then I'll no doubt begin the looking-back process on this time of my life and I may well marvel at everything that seemed to happen all at once. The work that comprised most of the insanity (which won't be captured here, but could easily fill a suspense novel), the dinners that were cooked (or ordered, depending on that day's stress level), the home improvements, the weekend guests or weekend trips, the changes in the lives of family and friends. There's been so much activity and then through all of it, this growing, incredible girl who makes everything else unimportant when she laughs. My baby is a real kid now, almost a year old.

It'll be good for me to forget some of the day-to-day happenings of these last few months, but I don't want to forget one thing about her. She's so much fun, this kid - so happy, so inquisitive, so funny, and so active. She's in such a hurry - a mouth full of teeth, standing solo, walking now with just one hand asking for ours, making leaps like mad. Getting to know her and cheer her on has been among the biggest joys I've ever known. Maybe she gets this hurry-hurry-hurry thing from me. Maybe in 2015 we can both take it easy a little bit.

(Ha!)

This and that

Because I posted about cute office clothes last week, allow me to introduce some other occasional workwear:

So hot, right?

The past two weeks have been nuts at work. And then Friday came, and by day's end I was breathing fresh air again. Noisy, crazy construction-site air, but it was glorious.

We caught up on some much-needed sleep this weekend. My work stress has been coinciding with Miss H's refusal to sleep anywhere but our bed, but this weekend she decided that maaaaaaaaybe her crib was sort of cool after all. I mean, duh! Our little droolface (thanks top two teeth!) has been so tired that it was great to see her get the kind of rest I know she needs. And wow did we need it too. (PS this photo makes me want to hug her through the screen.)

We toured an open house this weekend that has our wheels turning in a major way regarding future renovations. These would be future future renovations, not even on the current horizon, but they'd be major, and I'm sort of excited thinking about them. I love conspiring about house projects with T - we're pretty good at conspiring together. In the meantime, we're finally tearing down our crazy backyard next month! More on that and some garden prettiness soon.

The most important element of the weekend though? Without a doubt, using the stroller to its fullest potential.

An Eastern Market weeknight

Yesterday I was having a day. When I left work, I was in a crappy mood and needed to buy ingredients for dinner. One of my friends from high school was in town and coming over to catch up, and there was barely any food in the house. I hit up Eastern Market on the way home without a plan but with a crashing headache, hoping to pull it all together.

Here's the thing about Eastern Market: when we were house-shopping, we literally drew a circle around it on a map to guide us on our hunt. We saw the market then as the heart of where we wanted to be in DC, and now that we're here, it really is the center of our neighborhood lives. We pop in after work regularly for dinner items and we visit at least once a weekend to stroll the flea market and buy food for the week. It's where we see neighbors and buy things we both need and don't need - from vegetables to handmade baby toys.

My first stop was the flower lady. Her flowers are overpriced, but they're also gorgeous and serve as an instant mood-check for me, always. Plus, the peonies on my table from our garden really needed to be replaced. I chatted with her about what she was selling - she had some fun fuzzy yellow ones I'd never seen before and already forgot the name of - and picked up some hydrangeas and irises. Next stop: the pasta counter. We adore buying fresh pasta there (perhaps a little too much, actually), and I was thinking of doing a couple of their delicious ravioli on a plate alongside a spring vegetable and grilled meat. I went with large, savory mushroom ravioli that could be dressed simply with a little brown butter. Yum. The cheese counter is across from the fresh pasta - brilliant placement, really. I needed more parm and wanted a snacking cheese to have out with olives while we cooked, so I sampled two manchegos and had them slice a hunk for me to take home. Now for meat. We ate so much fish on vacation that I've been in withdrawal ever since, but I couldn't remember if my friend Jen was a seafood fan. I skipped the seafood counter (which I always love visiting if only to ooh and aah at the pretty fish!), and went over to pork instead. Pork tenderloin is delicious and simple to throw on the grill - done. 

On Tuesdays the outdoor hall at Eastern Market is lined with Amish farmers who come down from Pennsylvania, and walking by them, arms full of flowers and bag bursting with food, my furrowed brow was definitely gone. The accents, the clothes, the politeness... hard not to smile. After chatting with the cutest little guy in his big black hat, I bought his family's asparagus, strawberries, and his grandmother's pound cake. Done.

Here's the magic of a shopping experience like that: I took my time, but it didn't take long. I had pleasant conversations with five different vendors. I smiled at local dogs and babies. I felt lighter with each new item I put in my bag. I got home and hugged an adorable baby of my own, welcomed an old friend to our home, cooked a simple dinner, and enjoyed it over great company, with the worries of the day behind me.

I'm not saying Eastern Market is magic, but it sure is a magical way of ending a harried workday. Living here, living out the romantic idea we had so many years ago of the urban family life we wanted... some days I can't believe my luck.

Vacation, I love you

I'm back from vacation and battling the whirlwind of a classically crazy workweek... sigh. At least I have my tan to remind me what I was doing this time last week, right?!

The major vacation takeaway (besides the fact that duh, we need to go on vacation more often) was this: we have a water baby! I'm so happy that my girl seems like splashing around the water as much as her mom does. We had a tented pool float, aka the best $30 I've ever spent, and it was perfect for her. We could actually use it in the ocean, too, as calm as the water was there. And blue! That blue... (cue another sigh).

We stayed at the Beachcomber condos in Grand Cayman, and I can't say enough about the property. Perfect location, great amenities, completely relaxed and easy. If you're looking for a tropical condo vacation instead of a hotel (especially if you have a little one in tow), the Beachcomber is definitely worth looking into! This vacation wasn't our usual speed at all. We tend to be active vacationers, checking things out and seeing sights. This time we really just wanted to relax, enjoy, and do absolutely nothing, and we nailed it.

I have well over 100 vacation photos - Hazel swimming in each of her little suits, dozens of shots of each of us holding her on different days, various sunsets and ocean shots, etc. Excessive photo-taking, as can be expected with a six-month-old on her first beach trip. (And oh yeah: we celebrated our five-year anniversary down there. Yay us!) Here are just a few of my favorite shots:

 

 

 

 
 
 

 
 

Little things lately

I chopped my hair! I now feel about a thousand times lighter. As I captioned on Instagram, "I just went from 'Game of Thrones' extra to "quirky best friend" in a rom-com." Adios to eight dead inches. I was admittedly hesitant to cut it given my super-sexy postpartum hair loss (I'm sorry, even if you know what's happening, seeing handfuls of your own hair in the shower is horrifying), but I also knew what was left wasn't worth saving. Short and sassy for summer it is! Thanks for pressing the issue, hormones. I'm glad I bit the bullet.

Speaking of bullets... (okay no, that segue is never going to work). Life has been a little challenging lately on the baby front. I'm in a low milk rut again, and Miss H officially has two teeth all the way through the skin. We were hoping that would mean our former star sleeper would get back to her old ways. Instead, we're still coaxing her back to sleep every hour she's in her crib, then giving up and bringing her into our bed. As long as she's on me, she'll sleep. Sigh. But so hard to complain, you know?

The fitful sleeping scene was in full swing Saturday night when we had some of our favorites over for dinner. Kudos to B and L for rolling with the host running upstairs every 45 minutes, and for welcoming the little one when I finally gave in and just let her join the fun waaaaay after her bedtime. At least she's cute, right?

Our first Mother's Day together was pretty awesome. Love this girl, and really love the guy she's resembling more and more, too.

Vacation begins on Saturday! Somebody better start packing...

PS: Over the weekend I stumbled upon Bobbi Brown's Tinted Lip Balm, in hopes of replacing my discontinued fave. While she's missing the sheer red that is my perennial fave color, I scooped a Pink Raspberry and will report back!

Bluegrass girl?

We took Miss H to the local bluegrass festival on Saturday to hear our friend's band play and bask in some sunshine (that's Hazel's pal Josie in the Facebook header!). At first she wasn't so sure...

Then she fell asleep for a long spell. (Hi Eleanor!)

But when she woke up, she realized bluegrass was pretty cool.

We agree, baby girl... we agree. I see more music festivals in our future!

Cherry Blossoms, and goodness

It's High Cotton over here these days. I have a fridge full of milk and am working on a freezer stash. Hazel's dealing with teething but still being the snugliest, funniest, happiest babe she can be. Vacation is inching ever closer. I'm fitting into my old clothes almost consistently. We spent a happy family Easter in NC. Work is rewarding. And finally, it's that time of year again... our cherry blossoms are blooming.

I can't even express how happy these puffy blooms make me every day. Cut to mornings when I'm taking Eleanor out or afternoons when I get home from work. That's me out in the yard with my camera, goofily snapping away at the flowers. Just. Gorgeous.

Semi-serious semi-philosophical question: Are cherry blossoms more gorgeous than they might otherwise be, just because they're so fleeting? (Cue dreamy wonder-sigh...)

  

 

 

Ready to take on the world.

Much love to everyone who commiserated with me after my milk mantra this week - you really helped me ride out a dry spell. My luck changed today: 27 minutes just got me 8.3 ounces - huge improvement. Patience and perseverance is the name of the game over here!

This morning we had our cherry blossom photo shoot at the Tidal Basin, and I can't wait for the results. Naturally, our eternally smiling baby decided she wasn't interested in smiling for our awesome photographer Amanda. Isn't that always the way?! I'm hoping we got at least one happy expression in there, because we sure did work for it! After the outdoor shoot we went back to our house for some nursery photos. I've only taken casual Instagram shots of H's nursery, so I can't wait to show the details here in full! Her room makes me so happy.

Speaking of fun, it really doesn't get more fun than this, does it? I think it's the cutest thing in the world. The world that H can now conquer.

The best.

Milk mantra

Right now it's past midnight and I'm sitting alone downstairs pumping because I'm in a dry spell. I hate these. Everything's going fine and dandy for weeks and then omgwillibeabletofeedmybaby happens. H is a beast of an eater - 25 ounces just while I'm at work?! - and I so want to be able to keep up with her. So I'm working in late-night pumps and dawn pumps until my body sorts itself out. In the meantime I smell like maple syrup due to all the fenugreek, which makes me even hungrier than I already (always!) am.

Hazel's such a big eater that I find myself only barely staying ahead of her. It's a delicate balance to be sure, sometimes veering dangerously close to the edge. Some days I have one extra bottle in the fridge when I get home from work. Often there's nothing left over, and we have only what I pumped that day. There is no freezer stash. And no Plan B. And so when my body decides it's temporarily only going to work for the baby and not her mechanical equivalent, I have to go into overdrive. I can't not do everything I can to get her what she needs, even though her needs appear to be a tad on the extreme side. The pleasure she gets from eating probably comes from me anyway. So here I am, filling a quiet house with the loudest machine ever as the clock ticks.

I wonder if she'll ever know what this is like. The crazy balance of moving my computer and papers two or three times a day at work to set up in a different room, muting conference calls over my incessant whirring, having all of my colleagues know my pumping schedule? It's weird. But it also just feels like life, like the realities of women in the workplace, and there's a part of making people get over their weirdness about it that I really enjoy.

H is so awesome, though. She's my girl. Her grin just melts me. She's teething already, and having a tough time the last few days as a result. She's also rolling like mad and moving so much at night that she'll wake herself up, stuck in a crazy position. So between the extra pumping and middle-of-the-night wakeups to rescue an upside down baby, it's a tired house. That grin, though! Worth it.

This week we're attempting our first real family photos. I meant to do newborn photos, but I got cheap and time just sort of flew by. She's so much more fun now anyway, so I'm excited that we'll be capturing her at this age. My Wednesday morning work calendar proudly says "PTO - Cherry Blossom Photos." Part of me thinks my colleagues assume this is a euphemism for a strange pumping ritual and don't want to ask questions. I'm excited, though. And since I'm always calculating events as being good or bad for the supply, Cherry Blossom Photos are a WIN. Bonus hours of feeding her myself. Birthday dinner date on Friday with a babysitter at home: bad for the supply. And so it goes. One day at a time, though, that's the milk mantra around here.

Speaking of that most precious liquid, I'm now 30 minutes into this pump with 4.5 ounces on the books. Not great. But every bit counts. And tomorrow is another day.

1-2-3

I knew it would happen this way, that I'd look up and have a three and half month old and be back at work for so long it's like I never left. That's a good thing, in my mind. Time is flying, but it's great. It's more of a balancing act than ever, but I've always been pretty decent on the tightrope. I think the years leading up to now were so full of angst at times, that actually being a parent, after all it took to get here? Not stressing me out. Still grateful.

I mean, this kid!

She's sort of a tank, and she's a grinning fool, and she's ridiculously adorable. Pastimes include hanging out watching us cook dinner, talking to herself, wanting us to "stand" her up, smiling, and eating. That's H in a nutshell these days.

On the eating: this girl of ours can eat. She's downing 18-25 ounces of milk just while I'm at work. Our nanny says she's never seen anything like it. Somehow, someway, I'm keeping up with her with the pumping. Today I realized my allergy meds have recently decreased my supply a bit, so I think I can get back on top of her appetite a little now that I've stopped the Zyrtec. I hope so, because the freezer stash is gone, so I'm on the hook. Never fear: I'm already all over the fenugreek, oats, and special tea.

She's becoming a good little sleeper, thankfully. Lately we've been moving her bassinet ever so slowly away from our bed, down the hall, and into her room. This will be her third night in the bassinet in her bedroom. We can usually depend on her to sleep from 10ish to 5ish, which works pretty well since that's when T wakes up, too. Of course, last night she randomly woke up to eat at 2:30, so we're far from 100%. But I feel good about where we are and how she's doing.

I was talking to a favorite friend tonight and saying that I wish I'd taken time to blog about more of this transition - about H being breech for a while, about our birth story, about all the moments leading up to now. This is why Instagram exists, I suppose - helping harried folks like myself snap moments to remember when there's just no time or brain power for paragraphs.

I'm getting back into the swing of things, though - I can feel it. (Hell, I'm wearing workout clothes as I type and just marked an X on a brand new Calendar of Shame - remember that?) More to come. I really want my little corner of the world here to stay alive, even if just a little bit.