two (very) quicks

 {!}
All of a sudd...Julia has a serious (blonde and sort of wavy) tail growing way down her back. Do I cut? Braid and twirl into a little bun? Tuck it into her onesie? Wait a few weeks for it to reach the required 10 inches and donate to Locks of Love? Or let it fly free?

and

So long New Mexi!

 Thank you for letting us eat new and exciting dog food and sleep soundly without fearing for our lives.
We're braving the unfriendly skies this morn and heading back to our better third, Simone.

Have a superb rest of September.

recents

1. I watched Pan Am on Hulu the other day while I was not sweating to my fluid movements prenatal DVD...and I really liked it and will continue to watch. I scrolled down to read the viewer comments when it was over and haters were seriously hating on the show. Is my taste that bad? Probably.

2. Julia and I can't stop eating any sort of dark chocolate covered dried fruit. 

3. My mom's 8th and 9th children/Julia's uncles Rudy and Tucker. She hearts.
4. Four of my six siblings, one of my two parents, one of my two children, one of one me
5. One year and one week old...still uninterested in cake...only corn
(remedial little bear)
6. Uncle Paul, ominous sky, giddy Julio

7. Not scared by the crow

8. Is Julia's hairline receding?
9. The beautiful quilt that Sarah built
10. Costco with Grandma Bettina
11. Costco with a breast belt

Maybe a little tone down on the Julia photos, dear Grace.

{Pan Am pic}

transports

 Simon is (oh so unfortunately) working nights for the time being and because I am an XL-XXL coward I average one hour of sleep and seven hours of internet paddling/candy corn popping/fear for my lifing on these especially fun evenings. So, Julia and I made the joint and executive decision to trade in our St. Louis snowlady attire

 for extra deodorant applications and flew home to New Mexicoco to spend a few days under the safety of my parent's adobe roof

I'm happy to report I faced my very rational fear of flying with Julia and survived our 2.5 hour flight minimally scathed. I always give her a grade for her Mass behavior (last week: D) so I gave her a flight grade as well...B-...only because she repeatedly pointed at, and told the easily flustered elderly lady to our left that her (heavily perfumed) chestal region was, 'hot! hot! hot! hot! hot!' over and over and over and over.
I give all of the passengers on the very full flight an F for cowering at the sight of a baby on board, stampeding off the plane before I could unbuckle, gather my belly, my bags and my senses enough to deplane, slamming their seats back just hard enough to shoot my tray table down onto a sleeping J's head and looking at but not picking up the bottle and headphones I dropped while attempting to deplane and juggle all my gear. Fair is fair is fair.
F.

Back to our current sunny locashe. . .

where the blue sky is a little brighter, the brown ground a little drier and the rock/sagebrush/cacti landscaping a little more common

 anddddd the yard decor metal dogs riding actual tricycles um...exist, the copper coyotes howl a little louder, and the side of the house gazelles being hunted by stick figures roam free

you know you heart...home sweet home on the desert range

*and a little blogkeeping note...

I loved and very genuinely appreciated each and every one of your comments on yesterday's post...you are all truly the best.

I really wanted to write a few of you back but ran into the old nowaytocontactyouback conundrum

I will begrudgingly understand if you want me to leave you alone forever and ever...but if not...

you know what to do

pretty please?

**cutest little clip

Saturday

 In order of appearance
suckers for a Fall fun farm, apple picking, force feeding

fun farm again, very nearly killed her to smile in my arms

feigning maturity, emerging from a tunnel slide (fun)

date night sans J, kick bottom potatoes
wife housing small to medium elephant, vegetashe for mama 'phant
misery: cutting her canines, mischief: not miserable enough

brevity is not my strong suit but I tried.

sorry and you're welcome.

weekly familial blip: football in New Mexico
bravo Pauly!

Have a wonderful day!

 

overworked and underappreciated

Simon is heading back into another couple of rounds of grueling rotations at work this week. We did have a superb September complete with an entire week of vacation, 5:00 homecomings most evenings and not terribly crazy early exits most mornings. Julia started to cling a little less to me and a little more to him 

which I welcomed with weirdly and wonderfully empty arms.  I have a lot to learn from Simon including the arts of rarely complaining and always doing. He helps much more than his fair share around the house despite his long hours at work and tolerates an impressive amount of nonsense from his three lady roomies. I've compiled a sinfully incomplete list of thank yous I've been meaning to verbalize to Simone...because we all know that blog posts are the most genuine avenue to illustrating one's gratitude

thank you 

for doing all of the yard work every week without fail and without complaint

for always doing the dishes at night and cleaning Julia's disgusting high chair

for taking the princesses on long walks in the blistering heat after work all summer

for buying me candy and having the wise foresight to limit my consumption and hide the bags lest I eat my way into a rotten mood

for letting me drive in reclined (but safe) luxury while you deal with road weary tyrants in the back seat

for always being pleasant and patient with Julia even when she is being an obstinate little bumble bee

for always being pleasant and patient with Lucy even when she is being an obstinate little canine

for always being pleasant and patient with me even when I am being an obstinate big bumble bee

for watching Julia in the morning so that I can go the gym, burn 8 whole calories and drive alone in the car for 9 minutes

for logging and tolerating hours and hours of baby name hashing with me

for tolerating the now nine totally necessary during pregnancy pillows that have made their home in our bed

for agreeing to let the baby initially sleep in the portacrib on your side of the bed 

for dealing with my totally sane and normal 'we-need-a-changing-table-today-today-today!!!' Craigslist searches and driving to the literal Timbuktu, Missouri to retrieve said totally necessary changing table

 for always making me laugh, always

case in point...

I recently gifted Simon with an Oscar de la Renta (ooooo...aaaaaa) tags still on sweater from the Goodwill. It fit perfectly but of course came with a unique odor:

Simon: What is the thread count on this Oscar de la Rento?

Grace: 

Simon: I smell senile.

Grace:

Simon: I'm pretty sure someone died in this.

Grace: I can spray some perfume on it?

Simon: absolutely not. 

Grace: why?

Simon: people will think we've been necking! no.

ok.

but thank you alllll the same Simone Pattone.

{I believe he was saying something along the lines of, "I would be jealous of me right now"}

warmly,

 your papoose and papoosemama

for the grandparents (3rd edition)

Pebbles meets Adele and 'dances' briefly

spreading the photo printing wealth

If you're like me...you're horrible about printing pictures. We don't have a single framed photo of Julia and any printed photos that we do have are courtesy of family or friends.  She's surviving...obviously. 

Anyway...I wanted to print this photo of Julia and her great grandpa and a few other photos the other day so I navigated the most user unfriendly photo printing website...balked at my total for printing a few photos...Googled Walgreens coupon code and discovered that thru this Saturday the code, "FORTYOFF"...will do just that...take 40% off your print order. Maybe they run this spesh all the time and I'm an idiot or maybe there is a much cheaper route to picture printing and I'm an idiot. Just let me feel like I've been a good neighbor and helped you tremendously in your quest to tangibly document your life's most precious moments. 

Thanks.
(and I don't need to tell you that Walgreens totally sought out my mega blog and are compensating me for these words to the very wise)

That is all I have for now...Julia and I are in serious get bleep done mode which happens um...never...so we're seizing the spirit before it runs away forever. 

Baby clothes organizing, sorting and washing is the chore du jour.

well that and listening to some throwback beats including but not limited to Gangster's Paradise, Low and Everytime We Touch. 

Sheltered childhood.

1.2

I promise this is the last you will see and hear of Julia's inaugural and only first birthday. We were fortunate enough to celebrate with a fun slew of extended family here in Illinois. My grandma cooked a superb meal, made Julia the most delicious cake and hosted a lovely party for all in attendance. I'm hoping the in utero baby slept through the festivities because he/she will not be celebrating his/her first birthday in as much style next year. 

Sorry charlie/charlotte.

things you don't care to know:

I knew I shouldn't have but I did anyway...I woke the sleeping tyrant for her fiesta. This resulted in an embarrassingly grunty, whiney and fickle birthday lady. It's a good thing we are all family or else I might have put her outside with the other bad babies where she belonged.

Julia was very generously gifted with way too many nice things...fancy clothes, the perfect collection of books, a handmade tote for her books, a doll and stroller, a puzzle and more. Of course her favorite gift was a plastic Cheerios container and a leeeedle tiny piece of wrapping paper that she squirreled away in her chubby right cheek for the night.

She was thrilled with all of the birthday song attention but cared not to smash/eat/touch her cake despite my obnoxious encouraging cheers and eventual chides. 

If you tell a monkey to dance...

and I think our only family photo of the night will be just perfect for our Christmas card 2k11 photo...

I don't think a better picture of familial love, togetherness and contentment could've been purposely orchestrated.

34 weeks

Well 34 weeks and one day 

(which is important to note at this point in pregnancy of course)

You know when you just feel

hugehugehugehuge

and can't stop the

heartburnheartburnheartburnheart

or the chronic

burnbackachebackachebackachebackache

or the nagging

youshouldsleepnocleannosleepnocleannosleep

yes, a fancy mix of that this week

 and my spandex sleep/sweat/food shop uniform
paging a wannabe Melanie Chisholm
(you catch that bad pun? four points for you)

this little emerald dropped in my inbox yesterday:

gathering-nuts-for-the-winter look
oh goodie.

I vacillate hourly between wanting the baby to come earlyish (but safely obvioulsy) so that I can resume sleeping comfortably and wanting the baby to come late so that I can continue sleeping at all. {oh...God's perfect design...making these last few (several?) weeks of pregnancy just unbearable enough that a wrinkly little sleepvacuum sounds light years better than blimpville...but three nights into no sleep...blimpville sounds heavenly. 

win/win I suppose.}

Also...I would like Julia to start walking and communicating more than her machine gun exclamatory LOUD whispers of, 

"hat hat hat hat hat!!!"
 (translashe: hot! even if it's an ice cube...still hat)

(this 8 second clip has it all: mullet and shy di)

also
...things to not say to a pregnant lady (or to me when I am pregnant)

"you've grown!!!"

what do you mean? my face is fat? I know. go away now please.

"how much weight have you gained?"

um. how much money is in your bank account?

yes. equally personal.

"well...I think you are even larger than when I saw you earlier today."

oh. yes. and I know you were way skinner in high school but would never actually say that to your face...or maybe I just did. 

don't worry. I have susie and her sunshine scheduled to make an appearance next week and I promise to be a more pleasant preg.

really.

{1}

Happy First Birthday Julia Grace!

I know you're reading this!

70 photos for 52 weeks. Perfect.

Love, 

Mom, Dad and the pack of wolves that is raising you

{read her birth story}

and some of my favorite look back/Julia-esque posts
reunion with madre
danger
third wheel
dad said
adorable geriatrics
dad read
my mom is a triceratops
pictures pictures pictures

bad photos, bad parents

 I just typed out an entire paragraph narrating the above photos but my eyes glazed over rereading and I know there isn't a chance in limbo or purgatory that you would've made it through...

so...

bullets...

or numbers

1. obviously the zoo and a ferocious Grizzly

2. Julia deflates my spare tire and reveals to the world that the pregnancy was just a fat farce, Julia and Simon

3. tail end of the balloon glow we were especially tardy for

4. Grace feigning motherhood perfection with a late night lemon+sugar+a splash of water

5. Julia capital F...Freaking over the balloon glow fireworks and Simon and Grace capital L Laughing over the little scene

6. Directly before Simon declared he wanted to 'purge' after devouring a funnel cake

7. In an effort to go 'fishing for friends' ... we took ourselves and Julia to a bar to meet some ND alum for the Michigan State game. It was a bit of a bust as we made up 1/2 the game watching occupancy, Julia and I made up the only female portion of the population and we were those people that had a baby in the bar and eventually those people with a baby in the bar that needed a serious diaper change.

and now we are off on a little family vaca to visit our grandparentals who happen to live in the same town. Did you know that my mom and Simon's mom went to high school together? Do you care?

Something else you need to know: one year ago around this time I believe I was being sent home from the hospital for falsy false/slow labor even though I was enduring the most painful contractions and swearing that Julia would be an only child if I happened to live through her labor and delivery.

Look at us now. 

Talk soon I hope, 

Grace Marie

Lucy

fell victim to a horrible haircut yesterday

Julia's reaction:

"we have a new daw! daw! daw! daw!!!!"

Grace's thoughts:

     indifferent. always indifferent.

Simon's thoughts out loud:

"appalling!"

"did they have to highlight the eye situation?!"

"I ran into a coworker as I was walking out from picking her up and couldn't even bring myself to introduce her."

"she is now unlovable."

mind reader

If Simace's sleep habits could be likened to the birdie/2nd grade science world...I would be a morning bird and Simon would definitely be a night owl. I would be a morning bird that loves an embarrassingly early bedtime and gets up early to beak feed little J and Simon would be a night owl that loves to rapidfiresnooze his way out of a prudent wake up time but can still shower and dress and skedaddle out the door in 26 seconds or less or something craycray like that.

 {photos unrelated}

So you can imagine my shock and surprise when he popped out of bed the other morning at the first sound of his alarm and marched down to the basement for several minutes. 

I assumed he was showering but when he returned unshowered and still donning his nightgown and cap I questioned...

Grace: what were you doing?

Simon: sit ups and push ups

Grace: oh wow. I'm impressed.

Simon: Yeah, I've seen the way you look at me lately...like I'm a two ton barge.

Grace:

caught!

so astute, that Simone.

{photos still unrelated}
~~

Have a wonderful weekend, please.

Post Post:
My two current favorite blogs:here and here
the best muffins
remember this song? ha. Julia hearts.