health check

If this smiling kid does not make your heart just melt (those cheeks! that dimple! that fuzzy cow-licked hair!), you'll want to check your pulse. You may be dead.

in which i become a mommy blogger

You might have heard: I had a baby.

That day was one of the best of my life. Words are useless in trying to tell about it. How could I describe the feelings that made me cry when Shay and I finally got to see and hold our little boy? We named him Malcolm. We love him to the moon and back and clear out to the moon again.

Day 1. I love the suspicious look he is giving us -
"Are you sure about this?"
As a bonus, check out my monstrous swollen hand.

It has been an adventure, figuring out how to be his parents. There have been moments of sweet perfection where parenting made more sense than anything else on the planet.

Day 3. Beautiful eyes and wrinkled forehead.

But there was also the minor issue where our cute son cried - or rather, screamed - most of the day and night for a couple of months. We read books about how babies sleep 16-20 hours a day and we laughed heartily. Shouldn't those books go back on the shelf of the "fantasy" section where they belong? We were occasionally driven to the brink of sanity. We latched on to the "sweet perfection" moments for all they were worth.

2 months. He may have cried loudly all through his baby blessing,
but he was all smiles when it was over!
Well, he offered smiles, and also his "I am way too cool for this picture" look.

Now as Malcolm gets older, there are more of those sweet moments and fewer "brink of sanity" moments.

"Who's the new guy?"
(I don't know why I love this picture so stinking much. I do though.)

At three-months-and-some-change, it seems like we're turning a corner. It is a relief to have longer periods where he is happy and interactive. Have you noticed that he is also, um, huge? His cheeks get more comments from strangers than any of his other fine characteristics. At his 2 month check-up he was just shy of 25 inches long. That is big, folks.

3 months. Unlike the better mommy bloggers, I have no photography skills to speak of,
no fancy camera, not even decent photo editing software.
But I do have a really, really cute kid. So, I've got that going for me.

We're free and clear this summer - no school for Shay, no work for me, and no commitments for Malcolm (he's convinced us to wait a few months before we send him out to the factory to earn his keep.) We are enjoying all this hanging out as a family; I love that both Shay and I get to watch in amazement as Malcolm figures out cool new things every single day. We've got just a few more weeks of lazy togetherness ahead of us. And I'm looking forward to it.

two lists

In 2009 I:

-took touristy pictures in Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and a handful of other "new to me" cities

-soaked up the goodness of living in our quirky college town

-celebrated five years of marital awesomeness

-cooked a complete Thanksgiving dinner for the first time (it was stellar, thanks for asking)

-turned a year older and spent my birthday riding rollercoasters

-built up guitar calluses on my fingertips again

-remembered how much I like the place where I grew up

-drove 1000+ miles along old Route 66 and stopped for many a random attraction

-finally hosted one of those dress-up-to-all-get-out murder mystery dinners

-visited cool local sites I've been meaning to visit, like the Brown vs. Board of Education Museum

-read a whole lot of non-fiction

-spent midsummer eating lingonberries and picking wildflowers in Sweden

Holy sweetness. 2009 was fantastic. But wait. It gets better.

Coming up in 2010 I will:

-finish incubating a human life

-give birth (April-ish)

-parent an infant

-I figure any feat I accomplish beyond these will just be overachieving

-so it looks like I'm pretty much set