around here lately

oh hi. it's been a few weeks, hasn't it?  i'm sure it goes without saying what's been keeping me busy.

baby girl is just about ten weeks old. ten weeks. ten. the time has gone by so quickly but sometimes i catch myself tripping out that she's only been here that long.

finding time to catch my breath has been a challenge. the days go by so much faster than they used to and things pile up faster than they're taken care of.

but there's a whole lot of cuteness piling up, that's for sure.


it's so nice that we don't need to take a vacation to get away and take in sights like these. nothing makes me feel better than breathing in the salty sea air and i'm so thankful that we can pop the stroller in the car and just zip down to the waterfront for a walk. we're so lucky to live in such a beautiful place – and it's too easy to let the days go by without stopping to take it in. so it feels good to do just that.

baby sister loves a swaddle. bonz did, too – for about two weeks. we rushed right out and stocked up on these little swaddlers and then he promptly decided he didn't want to be swaddled. now those suckers are being put to good use! i love snuggling up to this cozy little burrito baby every night. it's as yummy as it gets.

a baby girl

she deserves a post of her very own, this little one. she's so scrumptious it's not even funny.

walking and talking

our morning walk. i missed it so. the last few weeks of my pregnancy weren't prime walking days. nor were the first couple weeks after ours baby was born. but slowly, i worked back up to it and i'm happy to say we're back in our groove and taking our morning walks – on new wheels to-boot.

i realized that little bonzo probably missed our morning strolls as much as i did. it was what we did. and then that changed on top of a million other things. so we're both feeling better to be back in the swing of things, i know.

it's a ripple-effect of radness to be sure. first, i'm exercising. hoo-ray. second, we're back in our routine. third, and most important, it's seriously special time for me and bonz. see, baby sister gets tucked in snug as a bug in a rug in the stroller's bassinet attachment and gets to gaze up at the trees then drift off to sleep (sounds pretty heavenly to me) and bonzo, with a little something in his snack-pack, and i have time to chat and watch the world go by as we walk our loop. we throw a leaf in the creek from the bridge as we leave and then return into our neighborhood and then visit and remark on the same landmarks each day – the fountain in a front yard, the jeep parked at that house, the stone tortoise in the garden, the tractor mower that we saw mow the field a year ago. some mornings he's happy to quietly sit back and see what he sees and other mornings he'll talk from the second we're walking down the driveway until the second we return but most mornings are a mix of the two. well, mostly talking with a smidge of silence if we're going for accuracy.

what i love about it is that it's a nice little stretch of time that we both have each other's undivided attention and we can just talk about whatever. on top of all the things i can count on us talking about, i love hearing what he comes up with totally out of the blue and what's on his mind. we get to talk about all the stuff he's most interested in and i love it because i'm not trying to do six things at once while trying to pay attention to what he's saying about the gardener with the backpack leaf blower that looks different than our gardener's backpack leaf blower. its just so nice not to have to ask him to wait a minute or to – sigh – half-listen while i'm distracted changing a diaper, nursing the baby or one of the other zillion tasks that eat up our days.

we can't make it every single day though i try. and sometimes baby sister's fussed and made our otherwise peaceful walk anything but. but for the most part, it's my favorite part of the day. our favorite part of the day.