life lately

i'm trying really hard to not COMPLETELY fall off of the blogging wagon. i haven't written in my journal for a month-ish (!) and i don't want to miss everything that's going on in our lives right now. not that we're doing anything that exciting, unless you count constantly trying to make dane smile and laugh exciting (which we do). but here are a few things that have gone on around these parts lately:

• a few days ago, i was driving down the highway near our house, talking to tommy on the phone and driving to the grocery store, and i glanced up and there was a GIANT SPIDER on the window--on the INSIDE of the window--about six inches away from my face. you can imagine the chaos that ensued--there was some screaming and hyperventilating. (we're lucky i didn't crash.) but i managed to pull over, grab a piece of paper, and kill that spider, saving my life and dane's. 
• one of our christmas presents tommy and i are giving to ourselves is a pair of sneakers for each of us. we ordered them off of zappos (on sale!) and i've now had to order FOUR DIFFERENT PAIRS because each time the shoes are STILL TOO SMALL. there are no words. if this most recent pair of shoes (mens 11.5) are still too small, i'm giving up and only wearing slippers for the rest of my life!
• we've been on a baking binge lately--three or four different recipes of cookies, the leininger traditional christmas almond poppyseed bread, cream puffs, and more. also, tommy made some awesome thai curry for dinner on wednesday. i think it's hilarious when people act all amazed when tommy's made something (which, since i'm nursing a lot of the time while dinner is being made, has happened really frequently lately) because um, he's just as good of a cook as i am. come on people.
• dane has decided to give up on napping unless it's in my arms or the swing, or sometimes in his carseat when we're on a walk or in the car. this is a fun game for both of us--but it may have been a contributing factor to the eleven hours he slept straight last night! although of course i didn't get to sleep until after midnight and then woke up at 5:30 wondering why i hadn't been woken up yet, and couldn't get back to sleep. he's also recently grown out of his 0-3 month clothes and is now snuggling up in the 3-6 month outfits . . . what a big guy!
• we leave for our three-week trip to utah and california in a week and a half! dane's first plane trip, which we are semi-nervous for. it's basically going to be a full day of flying (two stops in the middle) so we'll see how he handles it (and how we handle it). but oh, man, we are excited to see our families and for them to see dane.
• for the last three christmases we've been married, we've only had a few christmas decorations, namely two nativity sets we'd gotten as gifts and two cheap red stockings we'd gotten at the dollar store in provo. but this year i splurged and bought a four-foot tall pre-lit christmas tree where we could put our few ornaments we've collected and under which we could keep our few presents we've already gotten. i love the little christmas corner we have in our apartment now.

having a christmas tree (albeit a mini one) has prompted us to take lots of pictures like this:

if dane had his way (which he basically does) we'd just rock like this in our rocking chair all day long, him sucking on his hands and me smelling his hair (which really, we basically do).

he's got a good life. i've got a good life. we've all got a good life around these parts. 

ironic

like all self-respecting babies and comedians, dane has an impeccable sense of irony and timing.

for example:

he waits until after i shower and get dressed in the morning, and after he is snuggled up to me eating, and then has a giant diaper explosion that gets all over both of us.
he refuses to stay asleep when i am trying to put him down for a nap, and he refuses to wake up and finish eating when he falls asleep mid-feeding at 4 a.m.
he knows when we're doing laundry--WITHOUT FAIL, he poops all over his outfit about 15 minutes after i throw in a load.

and usually, he will only smile when i'm NOT pointing the camera at his face. but sometimes we are lucky and fool him so we get a quick picture like this:

okay, so really, he is the world's best baby. but he does like to play these silly tricks on me sometimes. we just laugh and laugh about how silly he is all day long.

thanksgiving in the OBX, round 2

after last year's successful thanksgiving trip, we were pretty much decided we were going to do it again if we could. but this year we had the chance to go with FAMILY instead of just by ourselves, which made it even better! we spent the week with my aunt, uncle, and cousins who came down all the way from new york in a beach house in corolla, NC, and had a REALLY fun time. the weather was rather rotten (it was really pretty windy and cold most of the time we were there) but it was a great getaway. here are some pictures for your enjoyment. 

the five sine kids loved, loved, l-o-v-e-d dane. there were lines to hold him whenever he was awake. lucia, the two year old, talked a lot about "baby dane" and kept asking to "hold it" and "help dane." she even made a pilgrimage to our room at 3 a.m. one night to come see dane. . . . it was adorable. 

annie helped us figure out how to use the baby bjorn carrier because we could NOT understand the ridiculous picture instructions on the straps. dane got to spend a bit of time every day in there after that. he loved it--his dream come true! he's sleeping snuggled up to someone all day long!

caroline and claira were entertainers the whole time.

 seriously--lulu just wanted to hold him all day long.

choke hold! dane didn't even seem to mind. 

dane also loved alec and sarah!

oh yeah, we did take some pictures that didn't involve dane . . . we were all eagerly anticipating the thanksgiving PIE! it was so hard for these girls to wait.

everybody loves tommy. he was trying to distract them from the pie at this point by taking pictures in the freezing cold wind. 

lucia also wanted dane to just sit next to her sometimes as well as holding him. 

the thanksgiving table! don't mind me nursing in the background. and tommy was taking the picture. 

we stayed in a great beachfront house, which luckily had a jacuzzi because it was FREEZING most of the time.

the sine's traditional thanksgiving family fun run on the beach! 

 we also took dane to see santa at the little shopping center in corolla (for free, i might add...). he was dressed in the cutest little elf/santa outfit and yeah, everyone loved him. we had crowds around us and people taking pictures of him in his cute little hat. 

MORE PICTURES OF DANE!

me and lulu on the way to the beach. 

and then we took family pictures on the beach in the evening. i'll share some of the outtakes--but since we got some good ones i think we'll actually send out a christmas card this year, so i won't share any of the really good ones until after we do that. dane was a champ.

it's so weird that thanksgiving is over . . . but now we're getting ready for christmas! we are so excited.

dane's crazy awesome life

dane is so lucky. he has so many adventures. 

he lays outside on the grass with his mom, enjoying the beautiful fall weather and changing leaves.

he takes naps on the couch with his dad.

he's super thug with his mom.

he PLAYS WITH HIS TOYS! THEY ARE THE BEST! MY LIFE IS THE BEST! (at least, that's what he's thinking right now.)

he chillaxes in his diaper.

he votes.

he hangs out in his pajamas all day, with his mom (who's doing the same thing), and practices his poses for the camera.

he wears outfits that his dad wore 28 years ago, and goes on walks like the great connoisseur of the outdoors that he is.

and, oh my goodness, he's just got the cutest face in the world.

AND tomorrow we head to the outer banks, for his first out-of-town adventure! we're so excited to see the some family for thanksgiving break.

when he's crying...

sometimes, we'll sing this song to dane:

and he'll sing this back to us:

where does he come up with this stuff? crazy kid.

motherhood

dane at 3:21 pm: happy

dane at 3:22 pm: sad

dane at 3:27 pm: asleep

two of the things i was most afraid of before dane was born was that a) i would get bored staying at home with a baby all day and b) i wouldn't like it. i think these fears stemmed from reading The Feminine Mystique in college and (more recently) from reading too many mommy blogs. there are so, so many representations of frustrated stay-at-home moms out there. and despite the fact that i personally know many happy and fulfilled moms to counterbalance that image, i never knew which side of the fence i would fall on. this might sound blasphemous to say, but you can't deny that it's a bit of a leap into the unknown! and it's impossible to predict how you will feel or how your baby will act or how wonderful/difficult it's going to be for you.

but i have had the beautiful surprise of loving everything about being a new mom. and i don't know why it should be such a surprise--i mean, i've always loved babies and loved taking care of them; of course i'm going to love taking care of my OWN baby. but every day i think, "wow, i love this." and whenever i'm rocking dane or singing and talking to him or even bouncing him to sleep while he cries, i always tell tommy, "i could do this all day long"--forgetting that, yes, that's what i do all day long. the empty gap in my life that i felt while i was still in school--the feeling that what i was doing was abstract, pointless, and not exactly useful to anyone--has gone away. i feel a billion times more useful and, yes, fulfilled, than i ever did writing a research paper on a book for a class. (to be fair, i did feel useful and fulfilled while teaching. just not while taking classes.)

now, i know that cuddling with one very easygoing newborn is not all that motherhood entails. and i know that he's only seven weeks old, and that things change very rapidly, and that i'm very, very lucky in how everything has gone so far.

but i hope that when i look back on this short time in my life i remember how happy i am right now.