Two Weeks Notice.

Hey there! Long time no see. Sorry I haven’t been posting very frequently. Which excuse do you want? 3 month old baby or international move preparation? I’ve actually started a few posts in the past week but when I was editing them they just read so negatively that I opted not to publish them. Jonathan called me out on what a complainer I’ve become recently, and I’m feeling pretty convicted. And yet….I just can’t stop doing it. 

Every morning I say to myself, ‘Alright Laine, no complaining today.’ I can maybe make it 2 or 3 hours before the griping begins. In my defense, they say having a baby and moving are two of the most stressful things you’ll ever do. An international move with a new baby just adds an entirely different element to the stress factor.  

Baby boy watching me sort through all of our possessions.

So for now, my thoughts are kind of skewing negatively. I’m kind of overwhelmed. Kind of sad. Kind of ambivalent. Kind of not looking forward to jet-lagging babies and temporary housing and living without the bulk of our possessions for at least 6 weeks. But like it or not, in 2 weeks, we are getting on a plane with as many things as we can carry and moving to California. 

TWO WEEKS! I’ve never been so excited and heartbroken and terrified all at the same time. I got a tad emotional on Forest’s and my stroll yesterday as I thought ‘I only have 2 Tuesdays left’. I feel like every day I'm starting the process of saying my goodbyes. Who knows how many walks in Hazlehead Park that I have left? 

How many more times I will see the profile of Clachnaben on a clear winter day? 

It seems very quantifiable at this point, if that makes any sense. One more mahjong Friday. One more AWA meeting. How many more times will I see each of my friends? How many months/years after the move until I see them again? 

But then at the same time I think: Geeze I can’t wait to get to a place where I don’t have to pay for parking everywhere I go. Where I can take a sunny day for granted.  Where I can one-stop-shop at Target for all of my grocery/fashion/homegoods/childcare/pet/entertainment needs. 

It’s a balancing act, and I feel like part of my defense mechanism any time we move is to focus on the negative aspects of what I’m leaving behind and idealizing what I’m moving towards. But the thing is, we’ve played this game enough to know how hard it is to leave a place behind, especially one you really have no reason to return to. 

It’s not like we’re leaving our hometown and plan to visit for holidays. We are leaving Aberdeen in a very finite way. Not to say that we’ll never be back to visit or even to live one day, but there is such a transient community here that I’d doubt we’d recognize many faces if we did. Sort of like when you return to your old college campus after years away and realize you don’t know any of the students. Realize that your time has passed and life has marched on without you.   

We lived in Midland for 2.5 years, but once we packed up our house and drove away, we’ve never returned. I still have people living there that I consider dear friends, but when I’ll see them again, only time will tell. 

That’s a sad fact, but it’s true. Because of the nature of Jonathan’s work, it’s likely we’ll intersect with many of our Aberdonian friends back in Houston one day, and I look forward to that reunion. When you’re an expat, your friends quickly become family, and it hurts my heart so much to think of leaving them behind. 

But that’s how the story goes and I am excited to think about all the new friends I will meet in this new place and time. And it’s exciting to address Christmas cards to friends spread out all over the world and know that no matter what continent we visit, I don’t have to stretch too far to find a couch to crash on  (figuratively speaking. My couch crashing days are WAY over). 

Another one bites the dust.

It’s a great big world, but it seems significantly smaller after this experience. Each time we move we get a little stronger, a little braver, and a lot smarter. We re-establish the most important things in life which is mainly just getting through it together, leaning on God for strength and peace, and keeping in touch with those we left behind. 

Sorry if this post skewed a little negatively. I hope you can understand why.

Babysitters and Burns' Supper

Living so far from family can make getting a break from the baby pretty difficult. We've been taking turns staying in with Forest while the other has a chance to get out and socialize, but we have been missing getting out as a couple. Not that we need breaks from our little angel, but in our 8 childless years, we got quite accustomed to date nights and are determined to continue our romantic relationship despite becoming parents. This means we have to recruit friends and baby-sitters to watch the little man so that we can go out on the town. 

Last Friday was Jonathan’s company’s annual Burns’ Supper festivities and we were determined to go. We got a great babysitter referral from some trusted friends and decided to bite the bullet. I wrote out a novel of directions for how to care for our 3 month baby, which I’m sure was quite patronizing to her with her wealth of experience, but she was a very good sport about it. So we left her to put our love child to sleep while we dressed in our finest and headed out to enjoy a Scottish cultural experience. 

Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns is a well-known and quite worshipped poet from these parts and every year, all around Scotland, people gather to celebrate his work with traditional Scottish cuisine and Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-Lee) dancing. 

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Yummy Haggis!

The sticky toffee pudding stole the show.

I was super excited to see my man dressed up in the traditional Scottish garb. 

I just think men look so handsome in kilts and wish he could pull this look off in the States.  I thought of custom ordering him a kilt in his family’s tartan but they are crazy expensive and I just can’t see him wearing one to a formal occasion stateside. He did say that the outfit was surprisingly warm and during the dancing part of the evening he got quite overheated. 

I was most excited about the Ceilidh dancing which is like the Scottish version of square dancing. It was super complicated and fast-paced and my baby brain in addition to the two glasses of champagne I had made it almost impossible to follow. 

Luckily my friend Diane was super sharp and would whisper directions to me as we went along. It brought me back to my 4-year old tap dancing days where I would just look at the girl next to me and copy whatever she did rather than learning the steps. (Yea, I was way better at soccer and softball than dancing!) It was also quite a work out for this out-of-shape momma. Here is some footage of Ceilidh from YouTube to give you an idea.

We had a great time, but we’ve definitely lost some stamina. At about 10:30 PM when everyone else was gearing up for a long night of partying, Jonathan and I were trying to stifle yawns. 

We knew little man was likely to wake up pretty early, so we ducked out around 11 pm in order to capitalize on sleep. The sitter swears Forest was an angel, and I believe her because we didn’t hear a peep out of him until 7:45 AM! He had mercy on his poor partying parents. I’d call it a successful outing, and it also got us over our fear of leaving Forest with a sitter which I think is important when you don’t have family nearby to recruit for these occasions.   

 

Look Who's Talking: 3 months old!

It’s time for our monthly visit from guest blogger, Forest Alexander. Today Forest is 3 months old and weighing in at an impressive 13.2 pounds, which means he’s bigger than 26% of his peers. He’s been playing catch-up since his birth and is leap-frogging those other babies left and right.  In addition to eating and gaining weight like a boss, here is Forest to tell you a little bit more about his developing interests (and dis-interests). 

Hiya folks. It’s really great to be back here as a guest blogger. This Scottish weather is the pits and lately mom and I have been going stir crazy in the house. There is only so much tummy time that will keep a man’s mind occupied, you know? I’m glad I have this blog as an outlet for all this mental energy I have stored up. 

I guess y’all have heard that I’ll be moving to California soon. I hear there is a thing called sunshine there. After spending my first 3 months living in Scotland, I’m not sure what this ‘sunshine’ is exactly, but it sounds glorious.  I’m sure it will be on my ‘likes’ list soon, but for now, here are the things that I’ve actually experienced in my 3 months of life that have made the cut.

Likes:

Rolling over.  I love tummy time and all, but sometimes I want to give back-time some love too. When that happens I just flip right on over. I’ve technically been doing this since I was 7 weeks old, which is pretty advanced. According to my mom, this makes me the smartest baby in the universe. When she told the doctor about this little skill at my 8 week check-up, he totally thought she was crazy. But me and my mom, we knew the truth. But it’s like I always say: Haters gonna hate.

And even though 'the books' say I shouldn't roll from my back onto my side until about 4.5 months, watch this: 

Boo yah!  

My bedroom door. I don’t know what it is, but this door cracks me up. Maybe it’s all the time we spend together since my mom is constantly shoving naptime down my throat. This door is to me what Wilson, the volleyball, is to Tom Hanks in that movie Castaway. (I have seen way too many Tom Hanks movies in my short life. Another thing my mom shoves down my throat. I also know every word to every Taylor Swift song ever written). Anyhoo, I love when my mom burps me over her shoulder and me and door are close enough to share our ‘inside’ jokes (Haha…'inside' jokes…get it?). Mom always gives me a confused look as I just grin and cackle away at my door. Parents just don’t understand. J’adore door. (That’s right, in addition to knowing all the words to every Taylor Swift song, I also speak a little French. I told y’all, I’m a genius.)

My Igloo. Speaking of French, probably the best thing I own is this cozy 7 AM Enfant “igloo” that fits in my car seat and stroller. It is super toasty; perfect for snuggling with my sleep sheep while I run errands with my mom.  

My North Face Fleece. Dad has me ‘prepping’ for my LSU fraternity days already (haha..get it, ‘prep’ping? I am on fire with the puns today!) by dressing me in appropriate ‘frat-tastic’ clothes. This means I can’t ever wear cargo shorts, my polo’s gotsta be the ones with horsies on them, and I need to rock a North Face fleece when it’s colder than 70 degrees outside. Done and done. 

The Name Song. You know the one. It goes ‘Forest, forest, bo borest, banana fanna fo forest..’, etc. There is something about rhyming words that just tickles me. Especially words that rhyme with my most favorite word: Forest. I also like words that rhyme with my second favorite word: Poop.

My Mom’s singing voice. It’s like the voice of an angel. She should totally try out for American Idol. (Okay, okay, she paid me to say that. American Idol season starts and she thinks she the next Carrie Underwood or something, and I’m the lucky guy who has to listen to her potential ‘audition’ songs all day long.) But seriously, she has a nice voice and it always brings a smile to my face. 

Mirrors. Can you blame me?

Long naps. (Gasp!) I know, I know, I’m usually a nap hater, but occasionally I’ll accidentally stumble upon a long nap and wake up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated (Don’t tell my mom. I’ve got a rep to protect.) 

The best part of long naps is when my mom comes into my room after I wake up and she says, ‘Hey there, Nap-a-soraus!'. It is hilarious, though I think it’s one of those ‘had to be there’ type of things. Just trust me. I LOL every. single. time .

Dislikes: 

The usual. I still hate naptime but I’m coming around to its charms. My mom uses my lullaby seahorse to lure me into a false sense of security and the next thing I know, BANG! I wake up 45 minutes later in my cradle. 

It’s like an episode of ‘The Hangover’ over here.  

Scottish weather. This relentless wind and rain is keeping me from enjoying one of my favorite hobbies: napping in my stroller. The other day, my mom totally faked me out by simply putting me in my stationary stroller so I could catch some shut eye (she's sly as a fox, my momma), but I much prefer napping on the go.

Teething. Yep, that’s right. Apparently an early sign of genius is cutting teeth early. Well, call me Einstein because at 3 months I am a drooling, hand chewing, cranky mess. It stinks because momma got me all these state of the art teething toys that I am not quite coordinated enough to use just yet. Oh well, for the time being, my hands will have to fill in for Sophie the Giraffe.

Surprises. If I were you, I wouldn’t make any sudden movements or unexpected loud noises in my presence unless you want to get an earful of screaming for 5 minutes or so.  For instance, if you are feeding me and your husband asks you a question from downstairs, do not yell the answer. That is what texting is for.  Also, If you’re holding me, do not suddenly move your hand to reach for your coke as the sudden motion terrifies me to my very core. Speaking of which, peek-a-boo is a nightmare. Please stop, mom. And also, enough with the sneezes already. Sheesh.  

Breast-feeding. Ever since my mom and dad started giving me bottles of milk because of my medicine, I’ve found them much more preferable to the old school way of eating. While I eat a bottle, I can sit up, I can look around, I can get a full meal in 15 minutes. It’s the best. But for some reason, a few times a day, my mom still tries to get me to go back to primitive eating and I am not too happy about it. Usually I will just throw a fit until she relents and gives me what I want, but I feel a tad guilty about this because I can tell it makes her sad. 

She keeps threatening me with formula.  I mean, I get the whole ‘Farm fresh. Eat local.’ argument, but I am an American afterall. I’ve got no fear of processed foods. My dad gave me a serious talk about how I should really appreciate breasts being shoved in my face while I can. Whatever that means… 

Well, I think that’s about enough for today. See you in a month!

***A note from Forest’s mom: I have a reader poll type of question. Since Forest was born on the 30^th of October, and February only has 28 days, should his 4 month birthday be the 28^th of February or the 2^nd of March? What do you think?