Taking Baby Steps, Both Baby and Momma

Alas, the bucolic seersucker family portrait was not so easy to capture. Squirming babies plus a lack of a capable photographers on hand put us at a disadvantage. I had this vision of the four of us under a dogwood tree, its pink petals raining down on us. Ha. Instead it was the four of us in the yard with an eleven-year-old photographer. In the picture of the four of us, I look taller than Nicole I’m not). And the girls aren’t quite cooperating. We tried.

The girls were amazing this weekend. They went to church (their first time) and made through half of the communion service before we bailed. The honest truth is they would have lasted longer but we didn’t want to risk it, and we were sitting near people who seemed less than assumed that we brought babies with us. (to a communion service…what the hell I mean heck?). So we packed the girls into the car and drove around and then met the family at the restaurant. And the girls were fantastic there. Avery sat in her high chair and ate for a good hour straight. Madeline sat on Nana’s lap (Nicole’s mom) and was a little well behaved princess. It gave Nicole and I both such confidence that we can take them on dining-out adventures now.

Madeline is starting to take steps without holding on to anything. So far it has only been a step or two. And she did all of these, of course, when I was in the other room or not looking. So while Nicole got to witness these tentative steps, I instead could to experience Nicole calling me “Jennifer! Jennifer! She’s walking. Oh, she’s down.” We both assumed Avery would be first because she was the first one to stand and all that, but it just goes to show you that you really can’t assume anything.

On Friday, I experienced a computer issue that normally would have brought me to tears but I think lexapro allows me to deal with these situations a little more calmly. For no reason at all, the “m” on my keyboard stopped working, as well as the up and down arrows. Just out of the blue. You don’t realize how important that m is until you remember it is at the end of every .com. I have that apple care package but I couldn’t log on because I couldn’t type mac.com. So I had to go to google and search “acintosh” to which it responds “Do you mean macintosh?” I guess I could cut and paste an M from a word document but really, who has time for that?

So I load the girls in the Bjorn and the stroller and go over to the Mac store and wait to meet with a specialist. After about 45 minutes of standing with two babies, I get called over to a specialist. He said it was weird that both the M key and the arrow keys stopped working because these keys are in different sections of a keyboard and usually the keys stop working in the same clusters. Did you understand that? I bet you did. I did as well, but there must have been a look of confusion on my face because the specialist then decided to explain it again in this way: “Say your keyboard is a zoo. This section is the bears and this sections is the lions. Usually one gate opens and all the animals escape from one section. But on your keyboard both the tigers and the bears escaped.” Am I two years old? It’s all good though because they replaced my keyboard and I can type again so I am over his pedantic explanation.

Recently I was around someone who, in the past, said that it was a good thing that I miscarried because it is selfish for us to raise a child without a father. As you can imagine, this makes it difficult for me to even see said person. It is one of those things I want to rant about and write about in detail, but the risk of certain people reading such rants now or someday hinders me (lets just say that the evil person deserves to be ignored but innocent people associated with said person don’t).

This loops back to who is this blog for? It is supposed to be my outlet, but censoring myself sometimes makes it less outlet-like. My purpose is not to drag people through the mud or anything but sometimes I think it is hard to get my point across when I am muzzling myself. The truth is, I have no idea who is reading this blog. And I do know that if you type all of our names into google this blog will come up. This space is for me to work things out and record things and keep track of my life.

Its funny how in my twenties I thought I had life all figured out. And now, in my thirties, it turns out I had really nothing figured out. Opening up now about some of the real issues that bother me (insecurities and bitterness and sensitivities and all that) seems to be mini steps in the right direction. At least i can do that on this blog. But let's say I needed to get that rant out, about the evil person who thinks it is appropriate to think that I deserved to have a miscarriage, where are those feeling going to go?

So who is going to come up with a secret blog so we can all rant and rave and have a safe and uncensored place to explore the deep, dark issues?

Pictured above, the partners in crime climbing the stairs. I love their dresses (a gift from their Auntie Jenni). Below that the four of us and below that, how cute is Avery there? She was smooshing her little face (her cheeks always smell like cookies, even when she hasn’t had any cookies) next to mine. So cute.