Dump Day

So I've been feeling a little bit blog-lonely on Wednesday's now that Bump Days and Forest's weekly birthday posts aren't a regular feature. I've decided to start a new weekly tradition where I 'dump' all of my phone photos that I've taken throughout the week onto the blog so that y'all can see a bit of what our daily lives are like. I'm calling it 'Dump Day'. Super clever, I know. Forest has recently really started to be interested in watching TV. I bring him in the room with me sometimes when I'm pumping and he just stares, entranced at the screen. His favorite shows are The Bachelor, Raising Hope, and Ellen.

Bailey and Forest have been becoming more curious about each other. Samson is still oblivious to the fact that he's not the baby anymore. 

All 'the books' say that a 3-4 month old baby should never be awake more than 2 hours straight or else they will have a complete meltdown. This is a picture I took of Forest after being awake 2 hours. Does he look tired to you?

When I finally put him down for a nap, he slept for 1.5 hours! In his crib! We were both pretty happy about it.

How do you entertain a baby while you clean the house? Pop him in a bumbo in front of a mirror. Hours of fun.

I found these fleecy Carter's pajamas at Costco last weekend. I call them his 'napasoraus' pjs. They are so soft and warm. I'm not gonna lie, I totally want a pair.  

  

I've been living here for nearly two years, and I never knew Hazlehead Park had a maze and a putt putt course until I took an alternate route last week. Forest and I started doing the maze but then I had visions of that scary scene from The Shining and decided not to venture into a maze by myself on a dreary winter day. Luckily, the next day was pretty nice so I met my friend Christa and her baby girl for a stroll and we explored the maze together. We got totally lost and I started to get more visions of The Shining, but Christa used her sense of direction to retrace our steps back out. 

 Forest usually uses his time in the Bumbo seat as a chance to poop. I think potty training will be a breeze with this guy.

 He continues to be a Houdini when it comes to breaking swaddles. Like a boss.

He is simply the cutest LSU fan there ever was.

Lately he's been trying to crawl out of the Bumbo seat. Baby boy is getting seriously frustrated with his lack of mobility. I have a feeling we will have our hands full when he finally learns to move.

Though weighing in around the 25th percentile, Forest has some seriously long legs, just like his daddy. His 3-6 month pants are already high waters.

 Forest is representing Louisiana with authentic mullet style.

Lately, baby boy has been falling asleep as soon as I put him in the stroller. Since 'the books' say to try to have motionless naps, I just usually leave him to nap it out before we start our walk. I've been parking him in the sunshine outside so I can be with the pups in the back garden while he naps.

Well, I think that's enough for today. Next week at this time we will be approaching San Francisco. Ahhhhh!!!!!

A Special Anniversary

Exactly a year ago today, I found out I was pregnant.

I still can't believe that in the past year, I GREW A HUMAN. Inside my body.

And now those two lines are a healthy, smiley, flirtatious, thriving, cat-napping, 3.5 month old baby boy. 

What a strangely wonderful year this has been. Happy Valentines Day!

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. 

1

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.