It snowed!! For the first time in Polly's life, which is just crazy to think. Every time I realize that she is experiencing something new for the first time it fills me with awe, it's a gift I don't take lightly and I try to cherish each moment of living life through her eyes.
we made homemade gluten free cinnamon rolls and they were the size of a dessert plate and delicious.
There are women out there that are good at hanging things. Pictures, shelves, etc…there are women out there with batteries for their stud finder, all the right tools, and the ability to meticulously figure out where the nails will line up with the hole or the hanger on the back of things. I am sure of this fact, those women exist.
I am not one of them.
I try, I really do. But all our tools go with Tripp, and I have a natural ability to mess up any home project that I try to do with my lack of experience and ability to hammer things too much.
Thank goodness for Tripp. He has saved me from so many failed projects….so many badly put together shelves, so many crooked things, so many holes in the walls. I have a compilation of photos now to prove it. I’m so thankful for his patience and his gentle understanding and lack of judgement when it comes to fixing my mistakes. At this point, I’m not sure I’m going to try to improve….I think I’ll just let him take over from now on.
It wasn’t what we wanted it to be. Tripp was off, and had many plans. It rained all week, we got bad sleep the first half of the week, a very wrongful comment from a relative caused us a lot of frustration, Polly was sick and going through a developmental leap, I was sick. There were no long productive days outside, there were no fun hikes, no adventures.
But you know what we did have? Long connective talks about our feelings, LOTS of good food, early bedtimes, time on the couch to watch movies while Polly napped, grass seeds planted in the backyard, a new years kiss at 9:30 and a ‘I’ll see you when we wake up next year’ before we fell asleep. Walks down the driveway and down the trail, Polly with pigtails and ponytails, watching her stand and clap and smile and experiencing her waking up from a nap looking older. This week may not have gone the way we hoped it would have, but we have love and each other and a fridge full of food and a cozy place to live and we are thankful. So maybe it wasn’t all that.
Tripp discovered the song John Jacobs Jingleheimer Schimdt thanks to Cocomelon and was baffled by it’s existence. Of it he said, ‘I’m gonna go back to work next week and people are gonna ask ‘how was your week?’ And I’m gonna say ‘John Jacobs Jingleheimer Schimdt’ and they’re gonna say ‘what?’ and I’m gonna say, ‘yeah.’
Polly and I both have something icky that we got the day of Christmas. I have a sore throat and she had her first fever, which scared me so badly. Thankfully it wasn’t high, and some Tylenol broke it and made her feel better. It’s so hard to watch your baby be sick, especially when you don’t feel great yourself. I’m writing this now because I woke up coughing and woke Polly up too. I needed some medicine and had to let Tripp hold her while I got it. She was crying and upset that I had left but after a minute the crying stopped and when I came back upstairs Tripp had her asleep, basically spooning her. It was so sweet it made me want to melt right into the floor. I love them so much.
The Christmas tree sits atop the refrigerator because Tripp and I agreed that Polly's curiosity would not mix well with glass ornaments. There was a discussion had about the difference between 'swag' and garland and how I had never ever heard it called swag until Tripp's family said it. Lights are strung up from the loft and garland ;) bedecks the tv stand along with Tripp and Polly's stockings already half filled with things. I finished all my Christmas shopping last week and I am really pleased with myself and not at all stressed about it like I was last year. There's a whole weekend's worth of Christmas parties to go to, and generally things are going well.
In this house, we are beginning to learn how to pick our battles. Polly is into EVERYTHING, which we don’t mind. She is curious, always fiddling with knobs and drawers and anything she can reach. We love her curiosity and we want her to be able to explore without us having to watch her every move. Though…tt’s hard when you live in a 700 square ft apartment. We knew she would be into the Christmas gifts and the Christmas tree, so when Tripp came home one day and announced his idea, I listened. We can have a tree, and put it on top of the refrigerator.
So ta-da. We don’t have to rearrange furniture, we don’t have to worry about keeping Polly out of the presents or the ornaments. We can have a pretty tree and a happy baby who gets to have her space and ability to roam around unobstructed.
Today I felt in love. I listened to songs from when Tripp and I were dating and it made me feel happy. So happy to have the privilege of having someone to love, to have such a good relationship, and to be loved by someone who loves me just as much as I love him.
When I got to his job to pick him up for our lunch date, he was working in the basement so I called him, teasingly telling him I had heard there was a cute basement dweller in this house nearby and I wanted to know if he would go on a date with me. We joked, we smiled and laughed and held hands while walking to lunch. I love him so much.
