Dear baby,

Please stop trying to exit my uterus through the right side (probably your left). There is no way out there. If you hang on for six more week I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find your way down and out. Thank you, baby.

Love and more love,
Mama

A Baby Skunk

Is there any reason I shouldn't buy this for the tiny human?

Baby Skunk outfit from The Gap

Reasons to buy it come more easily:
1. It's a skunk outfit. For a baby.
2. It's on sale.
3. Looks cozy for winter.
4. Babies probably smell bad sometimes. So do skunks.
5. It would be a baby dressed like an animal.
6. What else?

Update: Here's a good reason--it's out of stock in the bigger sizes. :(

Leaving My Heart On the Freeway

I woke up in the middle of the night sobbing. Full on sobs with tear streaming down my face.

We were driving in a city, on our way to a movie. Inexplicably, we were in the back seat with my sister and my parents were driving. The puppies were with us, sitting on our laps and walking around. As is always the case in dreams things were off. The car seemed large because the puppies were in the way, but there was still plenty of room for them to move about. At one point, the Husband let them outside of the car on their leashes so they could potty.

But then, at a stoplight, he couldn't handle it anymore. He kicked the pups out of the car just before the light turned green and my parents pulled forward, off the freeway with a left turn and across an overpass, then continuing on a busy street with many lanes.

I stared at the puppies through the back window of the car as we drove away. It was horrible. Those sad, confused faces. They tried to follow, but we left so fast. I cried and yelled. Somehow I got out of the car and was standing in the middle of the busy lanes, calling for my Loki.

That's where I woke up with my heart hurting and my eyes dripping. For a minute, the Husband patted my back and soothed me over and over. Finally I was able to sputter out, "you left the dogs in the middle of the freeway!" At which point he snorted, laughed, rolled over and went back to sleep.

I know. It's completely ridiculous. But it was horrible and sad and overwhelming.

Intellectually, I know that I will love the baby more than the puppies. But in my heart it's hard to imagine. I love them more fiercely than I've loved anything or anyone before. They need me. They rely on me. I'm their person. Like I will be for the baby. How terrifying to think that the thought of losing the rascals is enough to nearly cause me hysterics... what's going to happen when the tiny human isn't safe inside of me anymore? My heart may break every single day.

Summer Dreamin'

As a kid summer was always my favorite season. I enjoyed school, so it wasn't so much that--it was just that we could be outside all the time. We took vacations, we went camping, we swam for hours and hours in the pool at our apartment complex, we could go barefoot everywhere.

While this summer will be different from most, and the tiny human's arrival smack dab in the middle means I have no idea what to really expect, these are the things I wish I could stick on my summer to-do list:

• Go on my family's week-long waterski trip on Lake Shasta
• Plant and tend to our garden (will it warm up enough for that this year? doesn't appear to be the case)
• Take at least two backpacking trips in the Wallowas
• Go car camping
• Hike somewhere (Jubilee Lake? Southfork?) frequently
• Take Husband on a weekend golf trip at a resort (golf for him, spa for me--win win!)
• Finish painting bedroom and rest of upstairs
• Barbeque on the newly-improved patio
• Have a yard sale
• Take long evening bike rides
• Visit the Farmer's Market nearly every Saturday
• Spend time with my sister in Seattle--doing touristy things that we never do
• Clean and organize the entire garage
• Creating oodles of new jewelry to get a head start on the holiday selling season

Wonder how many of these I will be able to accomplish?

Outnumbered

We're soon to be outnumbered, the Husband and I. As I've been struggling to make space for my (larger) self on the couch between two sleeping mutts, or when I rush to feed the mutts while cooking for the Husband and me, or when I have to rouse two snuggly mutts off the bed so I can find room for the plethora of pillows now required for me to sleep... Well, I'm realizing that we're running out of space, out of hands, and out of the majority.

The giant dog children and the tiny human child will be three... and we are just two. 

The Olden Days

How does one go about teaching a kid all the things she needs to know? How did I learn the things I know? How do I pass those down to her?

I was thinking about this last week while sitting in a meeting where there was much singing. Mostly hymns. Older hymns for the most part. I came in late and did not end up with a song book, which was ok, because I knew the words to most of the songs. Well, at least the first and last verse--if we sang the ones in the middle it was more of a crap shoot.

We didn't sing religious songs at home that much, that I remember. Did I pick them up in church, or at camp, or in choir? I don't know. If you had asked, I never would have answered that I knew the words to those songs, but it seems some things sink in and stick with you.

These are the things I wonder how to teach my daughter. The things that make her a part of our family, of our religion, our culture. The things that she won't know she's learned, or that won't make a difference until she's grown and startled to discover it was inside her all along.

We Do Not Always Sleep With Dogs

When I was looking through photos of the puppies the other day I noticed 1) we have a ridiculous number of photos of our dogs, and 2) that Husband really likes taking photos of the puppies and I snuggling together. In case anyone else finds themselves with overly loving, snuggly dogs, I wanted to share so you felt less alone.

These are just a few that I found (what, this is my blog and I can withhold all the ones with weird drool and not enough clothing if I want to). It was fun to see all of the changes in the last three years--starting with my old house, to the Husband's house when I first moved in, to now.