mom's 27th birthday
dad and reese at lake tahoe
i had more or less gotten into a groove with the two kids, but it continues to be EXHAUSTING. i just don't understand the people who are hardwired to be awesome full time moms, like our friend heather who lives a few floors down. she was watching the kids the other day, and when i went to pick them up, she answered the door with clean, styled hair, cute, matching clothes free of bodily fluids, reese asleep in a carrier on her chest, bean and heather's son ari quietly sharing toys in the corner...what's that wonderful smell, i wondered...she had just finished making and canning her own strawberry jam. i grabbed my kids and bolted before i developed a complex. whatever gene that is, i'm missing it.
dad and reese at lake tahoe
i felt more strongly every day that life would be better for everyone overall if i was able to work. i continued posting applications daily to different hospitals and finally got a few interviews, followed by a hire at rush oak park hospital. this is not the "big" rush where i went to school, but a small, community affiliate. it's a bit of a commute outside the city and i have to drive (my first day i took the el and the girl sitting next to me got mugged, so driving it is) among what i'm convinced is the country's worst traffic and most idiotic drivers (got rear ended in my first week), but that's just kind of life in the big city. once i actually arrive at work, it's pretty great.
mom and reese at lake tahoe
i just officially completed orientation on the telemetry unit. an icu it is not; however, beggars can't be choosers, and there are many pros to taking this as my first job out of school. this is a small hospital, and hires many new grads from my program into their float pool. you get trained on different units, and can choose where you want to stay when positions open. management is flexible, friendly, personal and honest, and they are very supportive of educating their nurses and creating opportunities for us. i began orientation on telemetry, and loved the people there so much i had no interest in going anywhere else. floor nursing in particular is really a team sport, so good chemistry with your coworkers is indispensible.
beanthoven
i took a part time position for the evening shift, which is not ideal in terms of the kids' sleep schedule, but will allow me to be home up to four days a week. if i want to pick up extra shifts, i get paid overtime. not a terrible deal. as i'm sure i've mentioned, at this stage in our lives, with the kids very dependent on us and our careers just taking off, work is our personal time. so, we better love our jobs. i'm so happy to say that i really do. i maintain that floor nursing is not for me, ultimately...it's backbreaking, taxing, crazy work. but i'm gaining great assessment and prioritization skills, absorbing more medical knowledge by osmosis, and even on the craziest days i do a lot of laughing with my coworkers. all in all, a great job.
working has done for me exactly what i anticipated. because i love nursing and am learning so much on the job, when i come home, i want nothing more than to hang out with the kids and play all day, without the constant, nagging sense of guilt that i should be studying or something. work is at work, home is at home, and i'm really enjoying this awesome dichotomy. suddenly i have time for fiction again (just finished "me talk pretty one day" by david sedaris, which had me giggling audibly), and some knitting, although i wish i had more time for cooking. bean has some sort of profound problem with anyone standing in the kitchen to do anything for more than 15 seconds. we think this has something to do with her not being able to see what's going on above the counter, since she used to have the same problem with the couch that has resolved now that she can climb on and off of it at her own discretion. anyhow, some time to exercise the other part of my brain outside the house has been very healthy and has made me a better mom.
reese's first swim in lake michigan
as for david, he is officially in his final year of residency! how time flies. he continues to love his work, although he's starting to feel the heat about being the head honcho in just a few short months. i continue to tell him a certain level of anxiety is necessary for optimal functioning, but i get the feeling his first little while as an attending will have him sleeping even less than he does now. he's actually starting to set up some job interviews, which is very exciting. chicago has been such a dramatic state of change for us since we arrived, we're both excited to slow things down a smidge and grow some roots...somewhere. he has a conference in october that doubles as a job fair, and hopefully around the holidays, we'll have a definite idea of our immediate next steps. can't believe that time is just around the corner...we look forward to planning the future.
bean plays peek-a-boo with reese
saving the best for last............the KIDS! the kids, in short, are awesome. our neighborhood, like the rest of chicago, really transforms when the snow finally melts and we can actually get outside. unfortunately this year, that did not occur until june. but we have been taking full advantage of our very abbreviated summer. i have had a change of heart about our neighborhood, actually...if you're going to live in the city, you actually have more access to parks and grass in our few blocks than a lot of other places. we have spent many sunny afternoons taking long strolls through the parks that cover michigan avenue...grant park (home of the summer dance series) to buckingham fountain where we get ice cream, millenium park with the huge water fountains, listening to orchestra rehearsals, and enjoying happy hour before heading back home. there is a ton of space for bean to crawl around and many activities all the time.
we have also spent a fair amount of time at a small beach behind museum campus that i stumbled upon while running several weeks ago. bean really loves the water. and we have made a couple of trips to jazzin at the shedd, a summer event where they have live jazz and food at the aquarium. we really have been trying to make the most of the city should we find ourselves leaving it in a year's time.
bean, as we know well by now, does not like to do anything gradually. she recently took a giant leap in her stepwise progression of development. after a few months of stagnation, within a matter of two weeks or so, bean suddenly became a legitimate toddler. this is the most notable behavioral change for several months, and i'm a big fan. she is very independent and much less whiny, busying herself during waking hours with endless organizing (i.e. emptying every drawer and shelf), playing with her toys, dancing, talking, and rolling around. the other day i sat on the couch (which she would have never tolerated before) and skimmed through an entire 300 page cookbook. that would have been impossible a few weeks ago. most mornings, if we're being totally honest, after i get her out of bed, i lie on the couch not entirely conscious and she plays very happily by herself until my eyes can stay open approximately an hour later.
lake tahoe
all of a sudden, she started holding her own cup, feeding herself (which provides endless entertainment and allows us to get a lot more done at home, or leave the house for longer stretches), brushing her hair, saying a few recognizable words (HI!, daddy, mama, nani, and agua) and making respectable attempts at several others, blowing kisses, rocking reese in his chair and showering him in kisses (this morning during my personal couch time i opened my eyes to see she had rocked him so vigorous she tipped him, chair and all, onto his head), and eating everything on most days. she's still not terribly interested in walking, but has become quite an avid climber, getting on and off pieces of furniture gracefully on most attempts. there are some new developments that we have to scratch our heads about. she's sweeter every day, showing a lot more unsolicited affection, like kissing us and stroking our hair, and cuddling, even when she's upset. but she's also more expressive with her sassiness. a fast little jerk of her head when she doesn't like something has morphed into vigorous head shaking, with arms folded across her chest. seriously. where does she get that?
what's probably most impressive though, is the constantly evolving, full body interest in all things with a melody, or even just percussion. it can be as short as a music clip on a commercial...this child hears anything with a beat and she's bouncing, rocking, swaying, clapping, flapping her arms, patting her thighs or belly, bobbing her head, sometimes literally throwing her body rhythmically from side to side. she performs entire routines sometimes. we have no idea where she gets the actual dance moves...it's an innate talent. david trained her to tolerate diaper changes as long as the changer is singing "old mcdonald" (no idea how this arose or became so successful, but it really works), and even on her back on the ground she starts grooving throughout the diaper change. she has been attending music classes this summer, where a bunch of babies rock out with different props and instruments, which she has really enjoyed. while she likes listening to our music, the soundtrack from that class really gets her creative juices flowing. this class has also served as a modern day sandbox, with a bunch of kids slobbering all over shared plastic instruments. as a result, bean has had a new virus literally every week. this has made for more than a few nights of bad sleep for all of us, but it's good for her immunity, and she honestly doesn't seem to mind most of the time.
not only behavioral accomplishments occur in spurts for bean...somehow this also extends to areas that appear not to be under her control. after 14 months of gummy smiles, bean is suddenly spurting no fewer than five teeth, all at once, of course. top right front is in the lead now with its' partner and the bottom front two not far behind. she threw in a giant bottom molar for good measure. and after 14 months of mysterious crabbiness and sh*tty sleeping chalked up to "she must be teething," bean couldn't seem to care less about these simultaneous eruptions through her gums...she's even finally sleeping through the night (sometimes). go figure.
high camp, squaw valley ca
whether we like it or not, a personality as big as bean's necessitates that her little brother suffer from second child syndrome. proportionally, his development in the past few months has surely outshone his sister's. however, he has done it in his quiet, mellow little way. this precious christ potato never asks for a damn thing. first of all, the boy is huge. he was weighed three weeks ago at over 15 lbs. big boy. he was sleeping great at night...i actually had to wake him up to feed him before i went to work in the mornings, but this changed a few weeks ago, naturally, at the start of my vacation. now he's suddenly starving at 2am and ready to start his day at 6am. he has recently become very fascinated with his hands and feet, and we finally replaced the batteries in the activity center, so he has taken a real interest in dangling toys as well. he has been accompanying his sister to music class and taking mental notes on her sweet dance moves. mostly though, he just quietly entertains himself, and after bean goes to sleep or when she's napping, he spends some time vocalizing his feelings. that kid would be talking in full sentences and walking around were it up to him.
the stars aligned again this august for david and i to take what has become a much anticipated, annual summer vacation. our first trip two summers ago was around lake michigan, last year was to asheville and back, and this year we deviated from our usual roadtrip and actually boarded a plane. with a child. while we adore bean with every fiber of our beings, we recognize how we are limited in some ways by her presence. when she is around, everything really needs to be on her schedule. that is tough on airplanes, in hotels, anywhere far from home or the homes of friends/family. so, bean happily went off to camp michigan with nani and zuzu where she is showered in attention, has play dates with their friends' grandkids (pretty cool), roams free in sprawling yards, scales staircases, and has drawer after drawer after drawer to empty. she doesn't miss us at all.
with an even greater appreciation of the flexibility of infants than we had the first time around, the overshadowed little puffalump earned himself a week of only-childhood with both parents, embarking on many adventures that even bean hasn't experienced. reese has perfect behavior at all times, except in the car and the stroller. ironically, those were the two places bean always behaved the best. to add to the irony, reese lives in his carseat. literally. he sits in it all day, and we use it as his bed at night. he loves it. napping in it as i type. but put that same seat into the car or a stroller, and this kid screams bloody murder. like, continuously. it's a problem. it's times like these where i kind of wish he could use a pacifier, but generally, he ends up riding on the handlebars while i push around a double stroller with only one child sitting in it. then he's very content again. these kids have me totally trained.
anyhow, i had concerns about him flying, but they were totally unfounded. he was a perfect passenger on both flights getting out to lake tahoe (david was attending a wilderness medicine conference there), either sleeping or playing by himself on an empty seat the whole time. even though i was reading, just being in that close proximity to me for so long is really a treat compared to home, and he was very happy. not a peep the entire day. we had a direct flight home and he never opened his eyes for 5 hours. obviously, this is his preferred way to travel. i didn't mind much either. if your baby is crying on a flight, everyone hates you, but if your baby is quiet, everyone loves you and is fast to offer help, space, cuts in line, open seats, etc.
bean and the michigan shoreline
during our time there, reese's main form of transit was the baby bjorn, which is ideal for him. he's totally upright and can see the world, which is what seems to irk him in the car and stroller. we took two long afternoon hikes, one around lake tahoe itself, and the other up a canyon, ascending 1300' in 2 miles. we decided not to heed the numerous warnings against doing this hike with a baby, promising to turn back when it got too dicey. that point never came in our opinion, and we managed to climb through rocks, roots and ravines all the way to the top of a large, granite mountain for some impressive vistas, meeting lots of fellow outdoorsmen on the way. slathered in an opaque layer of sunscreen and donning a wide-brimmed hat, the big boy (and his parents) had a blast. of course, hiking with a 16 pound bowling ball strapped to your ribcage is a little different in terms of body mechanics, and i actually had to slide on my butt down some of the steeper sections, but we arrived safely back home relatively unscathed, with nothing more than some rubbery quads, a few more red blood cells, and a couple great photos.
the top of granite chief trail
it's always so grounding for me to be back out in nature that way, and i find myself yearning pretty heavily for the day when i can disappear with my kids, my dog, and david into the mountains every weekend if the mood strikes. there is a lot to be gained from growing up in a city...culture, diversity, food/museums/concerts/festivals that are unparalleled. and chicago is very beautiful, full of parks, and running along the lakeshore behind the museums you get a view of the skyline that literally takes my breath away every time i turn my head to gape. but get me deep into any woods with the smell of trees and the sound of water, the wind in my face and not a person in sight, and somehow it just seems so much more enriching and valuable to me than any outing i've ever had in a city, as much as i've enjoyed them.
after the back to back hikes, we took it easy our final day in tahoe and took a gondola up to high camp, the sounding board of the 1960 winter olympics. it was a whole community up there! tons of people, dogs, kids, restaurants, and beautiful panoramic views. we finished off tahoe with a great evening in the squaw valley resort with a bluegrass band providing live entertainment for the paws of squaw festival. you can imagine with all the people, dogs, music and beer we were pretty sad to leave.
fortunately, our next stop was berkeley! only for an afternoon, but it was a nice quick fix. we were confronted with the same dilemma as always...how many meals can we pack in before we're actually physically ill? in berkeley, northern california farming meets student budgets, i.e., delicious, wholesome food for next to nothing. we began our outing with a pitcher at the patio of raliegh's, a bar that we always visit for its' good beer and great salads. we then popped in to intermezzo right next door, where $7 will buy you a colorful salad and hunk of bread more than generous enough for two to share. we walked through the weekly street fair to campus for a picnic, where we witnessed many games of ultimate frisbee and one standout, dynamic tai chi performance we won't soon forget. we polished off our 5 hour visit with burritos at cancun, where the owners change the menu daily based on what's available at their own farm, and they sell their fresh eggs at the cash register. this is the first time i've visited berkeley with a baby, and the town also receives my personal endorsement for breast feeding tolerance. i'm pretty sure i could strip naked and run around blowing a kazoo and nobody would think twice, so naturally, nobody seemed to mind reese's various picnics. a welcome change of pace.
picnic at berkeley
bean and mom at lake michigan
enjoying our beverages at millenium park
from berkeley we moved on to sacramento, where david had some business, which might be the only reason anyone ever goes to sacramento. i read before we went that it is up and coming, and i think if you're there long enough or know the right people, you can have a great time. but after a decent walking tour of downtown and the capitol, the big boy and i were happy to retire to our hotel room and wait out the high temperatures rather than do anymore exploring. we finished off our stay with a sushi dinner and, more notably, peach pie with fresh corn ice cream, which was delicious enough to make me seriously consider purchasing an ice cream maker.
bean and mom at lake michigan
we returned to chicago late night and collapsed, followed by three consecutive 12 hour shifts...highly not recommended, as it makes you feel like you never took a vacation! plus, i was pissed that i was within 10 feet of bean for 72 hours and never laid eyes on her. this weekend has been a welcome break for us to unpack, relax at home, and enjoy the last stretch of chicago summer. we are happy to have cousins ted and heidi visiting this week as well, although their proximity to the kids had ted running to the store to buy earplugs on day two of his stay...
enjoying our beverages at millenium park
it will be a tough september with david making up for all this vacation time and me starting as a "real" nurse, but we will check back next time we can come up for air.
love from chicago.
