Archive for February, 2018

We’ve been doing the elementary school circuit and checking out kindergartens with Juliette these past few weeks, which has thrown me into a complete tizzy of mama-feels.  MY GIRL IS GROWING UP SO FAST.

And yet, even as she spreads her wings and prepares to take new flights without Daddy and me right by her side, I still feel our lives becoming more intricately entwined.  With each day that passes, with each morning commute and each pre-bedtime chat, I get to know her a little better, to understand and cherish all that this girl is becoming.  She’s not just my needy little baby anymore.

She’s my buddy, my little helper, my partner in the mundanities of grocery shopping and baking and towel-folding.  She helps me pick the best bunch of bananas from the bin at Trader Joe’s and makes sure I don’t forget the granola at Costco and chooses which songs we should listen to on the car ride home.  And when our to-do’s are done, she’s my numero uno cafe date.  Juliette’s grandma sent her a few dollars for Valentines Day and when I asked her how she wanted to spend it, she said she wanted to buy me a latte at the coffee shop!  (For the record, when she saw the loot up for grabs at Target’s dollar bin, her tune changed.)

She’s my my focus-maker, my constant re-orienter, my reminder that love matters most and life is good.  The stress of a tough work day subsides in an instant when I walk in the door and Juliette comes at me in a full-on sprint, wrapping her arms around me as she exclaims, “Mommy, I missed-ed you so, SO much today!”  Her arms are so strong now, her hugs so tight that she literally takes my breath away.  And gosh, the way this girl delights over the simplest of pleasures!  Turns out joy is ripe for the picking around every corner.

And though she’s a girl-on-the-go, often asking “Mommy, do we get to go to anyone’s house for dinner tonight?”, she occasionally requests that we slow down.  Turns out that a long pillows-on-the-floor coloring session can be therapy for both our weary souls.

It’s been fun to witness the full unleashing of the imagination as Juliette plays more and more in worlds of her own making.  Somewhere along the path to adulthood I got sucked into full-time reality and forgot about the transportational powers of the mind.  A couple of months ago I found Juliette sitting at the side table in her room, her hands around her clock as if it were a steering wheel and a line drawing propped in front of her as if it were a map.  She turned back to the stuffed animals spread out on her bed and told them to buckle up – this bus was headed to the pumpkin patch!  Rainy weather be damned – there’s just no excuse for boredom.

She dug these goggles out of a friend’s closet during a dinner party and sported them all night, claiming that they gave her the power to find bad guys.  And candy.

She got a cape and mask at a superhero-themed birthday party a few months back and disappears into her room every so often only to emerge in full get-up, shouting “Super-Girl to the RESCUE!!!”

Lately this outfit comes with a bit of sass and what sounds like a poor (though effusive) attempt at a British accent.

And can we give a quick nod to her love of accessories?

When she’s not bus-driving or fighting crime, she’s thoughtful and curious and challenges me with tough, tough questions, like “why did Jesus die?” and “how does the moon follow us around if it doesn’t have any feet?”  She barely fits in her stroller anymore, but I still squeeze her in there whenever the sun comes out, as some of our best talks happen while we’re walking around Seward Park or over the hill to our boba cafe.

Above all, she’s simply…the light of my life.  I’ve often been lost in the tedium of doing the dinner dishes or sorting the mail when I hear Juliette talking to her stuffed animals or see her dancing in the middle of the living room, and I can’t help but drop everything and just watch her, usually out of the corner of my eye so that I don’t interrupt her total self-unawareness.  I’ll quietly revel in her creativity and beauty and sweetness for a moment, feeling that goofy mama-joy well up within me until it bubbles over and I can’t help but pull her close to me and tell her just how amazing she is.  THIS GIRL.

Cheers to my big, bright, grown-up daughter (who kindly assured me the other day, “I can still be your baby until I’m nine, okay, Mommy?”).

February.  I’m so glad it’s FEBRUARY!  Because, January.  January.  It’s my least-favorite month of the year.  The post-Christmas let-down and the dark, cold days and our damned virtuous ritual of frugality, where we don’t shop or eat out or “indulge” during the month…it’s the worst.  I want to welcome the fresh year with wide-eyed optimism and excitement, but the reality is that I am always exceedingly eager to turn this first page of the calendar.  And January 2018 felt particularly hard.  Work was more intense for me than it has been in a long time – too many nights my job was the last thing on my mind before I fell asleep and too many mornings I woke up with a ball of stress in my chest.  Shane and I spent our free time trying to make good on our decision-making resolution, visiting open houses and elementary schools in an effort to gain some clarity in our family’s crystal ball, but all our research left me feeling overwhelmed and discouraged.  And since Shane goes “dry” in January and doesn’t drink any alcohol for a month, we couldn’t even unwind together over a bottle of wine.  I had to drink alone!  The despair of it all!

<<end rant>>

In the midst of the darkness and the latte-deprivation and the long hours at the office, though, there were glimmers of light.  (C’mon, you knew this was all leading up to a photo-dump of Juliette pictures, didn’t you?)

The sun came out twice last month and when it did, we were OUT, biking or walking or jogging.  We spent one bright Saturday afternoon at Seward Park, brushing the dust off Juliette’s pink bike.

It had been two or three months since Juliette was last on two wheels, so it took a mile for her to find her groove.  Once she did, though, she was jammin’.

On rainy days, we were IN, watching movies or tea partying with friends.  This girl’s got some mad hosting skills.

She’d hold an apple slice up to panda’s mouth and then turn her head and secretly devour it herself, desperately wanting me to believe that her stuffed animals were really eating their snacks.

Cheers, kiddo.  Way to be my sunshine when skies are gray.

I broke our no-spend rule for a Boba date with Juliette one Friday afternoon.  It had been a long, lazy morning and we were both itching for a little something special.  The look on her face when she sucked that first tapioca ball into her mouth was priceless.

I mean, how can you resist?

The Seattle Women’s March on January 20th was another ray of sunshine on an otherwise dreary day.  Shane, La Verne, Jules, and I made the trek from Capitol Hill to Westlake Plaza to take a stand for kindness and inclusion and respect.  Though this year’s march felt smaller and quieter than 2017’s event, the streets were still a sea of friendly faces, reminding me that unity and empathy do still exist in the midst of these divided, distrusting times.  Hope is not lost.

And finally, the slough.  Gosh, how I love a January stroll through the Mercer Slough.  We drove over there last Sunday after a particularly dreadful open house tour in Bellevue, and this boardwalk was the perfect place to shake the scent of mildew and cat pee.

I don’t know that we’ve ever actually visited this place in the summer, but I can say that winter suits it well.

And then, as if the skies knew I needed a little extra pick-me-up, SUN.

And now, it’s February.  I have a big deadline in a couple of days that will significantly lighten my work load once it passes.  The 10-day forecast shows only a couple of days of rain.  Juliette and I have been to the bakery and the coffee shop, and Jack cracked open and shared one of the finest wines I’ve ever tasted a couple of days ago.  January had its small handful of good days, but February is looking predominantly good.