I have strange urges.

This won't make you uncomfortable; don't worry.  Yesterday morning I want to do biochemistry problem sets.  The day before that I wanted to make a writer of myself without delay so we veered our walk into the Seattle University campus store and I bought a book called How to Be a Writer.  That should do it, right?  And for the last few days I've been hovering near desperate to be in the woods with light dappling my winter-pale but ruddily-sweating skin and hot cocoa waiting to be made in the chilly morning after we crawl out of a tent, our first successful wilderness co-sleeping adventure under our belts.

I've been reading Wild, a memoir by a young woman who, fueled by her mother's rapid death from cancer and the dissolution of her own marriage, decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail without training, experience, or much research save the advice offered by REI salespeople.  Oprah endorsed it so I knew it would both make me cry and resent the emotional success of her endorsement.  I've been reading while nursing (unless we are too distracted by flatulent distress (usually hers) in which case I'm too busy defending my contralateral nipple from increasingly powerful kicking) and I don't want the book to end, though it will today.  Maybe I'll move on to discovering How to Be a Writer :)

New topic: I think we are living in the state of "present nostalgia" that my friend Kerry described to me.  We've recovered from the adventure of birth and settling into parenting enough to take a (so slightly) longer view of things.  We're simultaneously basking in the life that is here right now with us (no fart during waking hours has gone uncelebrated in the last 5 weeks) and aware of time's constant movement (when did she get so much bigger?!  Her Moro has already dulled?!  She doesn't do the baby bird frantic head shake at the nipple anymore?!  Oh my god, she's really looking at you!).  I was finally editing some birth day videos yesterday and pulling out some stills from them to save as photos and I notice that's exactly what I'd like to do but can't with life itself.  We take photos and videos to "save a moment" and we'll keep doing and valuing that, but (brace yourself) moments aren't savable.

Enough sap; let's celebrate:

She weighs SEVEN POINT FOUR POUNDS!  That's according to our home scale (Liz-with-Fiona minus Liz-holding-diaper-and-sleep-sack).  That's 150% of her birth weight, you may notice.  And she's really long, too.

I decided to get up after our last feed and Elliott and Fiona went back to sleep (this is a really rare decision on my part but it's pretty precious to drink two cups of coffee, eat a bagel, and type more than a few sentences without bouncing on an exercise ball to keep a baby happy).  I crawled into bed behind Elliott to hug him before getting up and we were both gazing at Fiona before she fell asleep.  My head was poking up beside Elliott's and she ABSOLUTELY looked at my eyes for a few seconds then moved directly to looking at his eyes.  And our snuggles calm her down more than they used to (which was hardly at all).  We've been feeling pretty darn good about fulfilling her needs to be fed, comfortable, and well-slept but this is about to get rewarding in a whole new way...

OK, I'm going to take the next HOUR to get myself and Fiona ready for an adventure outing to our first breast feeding circle with my friend Megan-the-Midwife.  Having a baby in Seattle?  She's awesome.

Here are a few short videos of our very mature and genius daughter.

xoxo, Liz