It's not always so pretty around here.

I look back at the past several postings and think, my, what a happy family! What cute kids, what a perfect looking life! Which means that I am not doing my job very well because I had intended this blog to be a real-life snapshot of our life. And the real life at the moment is not as pretty as the pictures suggest.

I am currently on night five of 4 or less hours of sleep and night two of less than two solid hours due to sick children. I am in the midst of major negotiations at work and have been working weekends, early and late in between fussy children and a horrifically messy house. I myself have come down with the same bug as the children and feel terrible. And the icing on the cake is that Nick is gone.

I am not fishing for sympathy or looking for pity, but simply sharing the cold hard facts. I have had more than one friend accuse me of being superwoman lately and really, that couldn't be further from the truth. I shout at my children, I lock doors and cry, I have moments of resentment, I sometimes want to crawl to a quiet cave all by myself. More often than not over the past three weeks I am functioning on part adrenaline and part auto-drive and nine times out of ten you will find me operating from my head and not my heart. (Which is a terrible way to raise children, by the way, but with any hope this is temporary).

Tomorrow morning I was supposed to be on a plane to NYC to meet Nick and some dear friends from London for a long-planned 30th birthday trip. Instead I am going to spend my days in a boardroom (not the airlines kind) and on the phone, fretting about my babies and trying to get my work done before the nanny has to leave, getting home and doing more from there. This was to be the first major trip away from our children for Nick and I. A much-needed reconnection of the most valuable relationship (because without us, the children wouldn't be, Nick reminds me and he is right). But, as with many things (a clean house, a well cooked meal, meaningful connections with friends and family), it will have to be postponed.

And ultimately, we chose this life. A wise person defined adventure as including risk, the unknown, and potential. Both Nick and I signed up for an adventurous life together. Which means this is all part of the process.

Wish us luck.

xx

Uncles

Uncle Ben and Uncle Daniel met us at Alki and then took us to dinner at Stellars Pizza. Babies suit them, no?

It was supposed to snow

But instead we had a beautiful day and spent some time diggin' at Alki

Friday evening laughter, just what the doctor ordered

Poppie smiles all the time but her laughter is usually reserved for Finn:

Jump Suit

Just training for my next mission to Mars.

A Saturdayful

Hurray for babies!

Welcome to the world, Hanalei and Vincent!

You were born days apart by the calendar, but actually within hours of each other in real time. Looking at your sweet newborn pictures, makes me want to do it all over again as soon as possible (Nick is giving me a virtual kick under the table for this one).

Enjoy those sweet smells, tiny cries and the precious moments, they go so fast!

xoxo

Dressing up

This morning Finn, Nick and I all ended up in the bathroom together as I was getting ready for work. I have a meeting today and was looking for some jewelry to wear and Finn was being really helpful in finding all sorts of pretty things for me to wear. He also found some very pretty things for him to wear too-a (which is how Finn says 'too' and we all love it). Daddy took a picture of the two of us looking pretty. Or sort of pretty (me with exhuastion written all over my face and Finn with scratches all over his).

Inca getting pretty too-a

Last night as we were getting Finn ready for bed, Nick was on his way out of the room to let me get him to sleep and Finn started protesting and crying, saying 'Babe, don't leave, stay babe, stay please stay with me babe'. He had heard me calling Nick babe all night and seen the effectiveness of using that word and tried his little best to work the same magic. Adorable.

Once Finn's asleep...

...Poppie gets full attention from both of us! She especially loves the kisses and coos from Daddy though.

Her little face is losing that baby-look and you can see more and more what she is going to look like as a little girl.

Moving on, slowly

We have officially started looking for a new place to live. We are in no hurry and in fact don't want to leave Georgetown for at least another 6-12 months at the earliest. But are also willing to accept that it could take 2 or more years to find our dream home. Or our dream next step.

I figure at some point in the future, when our children are older and have tons of forest to build forts in, beaches to explore and garden to eat food from, we will look back at pictures like this with fondness. Remember when we lived in Georgetown? Nick and I will say to each other. Remember the sound of the airplanes? Remember that big beautiful brick building that I wanted to take family photos up against? Remember how we used to walk to the bar on a Friday night, before children?

Cool! 10-year old Finn will say, I used to live next to train tracks? My first word was airplane? Can we go back and explore?

And we will. But as we learned in all of our moves from country to country, city to city, it will never be the same as actually living there, in the moment of it all. So, here is evidence. Can you smell the diesel? Hear that squeaky groan of a slow-moving train? The orders from a small boy to his dog to come, sit? Like the places we have lived before, this place will become a memory, a snapshot of a certain time in our life. And we will love it forever.

Happy fifth month, sweet Poppie!

Poppie turned 5 months old yesterday! She continues to be an absolute joy and certainly one of the easiest babies I have ever encountered. That smile of hers is nearly permanent.

Some fun milestones:

• Poppie can sit up on her own, barely.
• She is drooling like crazy but no teeth yet.
• She is interested in watching us eat, but has no desire to put food in her mouth
• She thinks Finn is the coolest, most amazing human to walk the planet. Her adoration is contagious.
• She is a pro at the Johnny Jump up and absolutely LOVES it.
• The other day we were in bed and she was having tummy time and inched her way over to Finn who was watching a movie. Not quite crawling, but getting the idea.
• Poppie fits 9-12 months in length and 3 months in size so we have an awfully tough time dressing her appropriately. Pink is still her best color.
• She is starting to babble and 'talks' and 'sings' when you do either. She answers with a similar sound when you get in her face and say 'Hi!'
• I can put her hair in a ponytail, but the front and sides are still a lot shorter so it looks kind of funny.

Breakfast Time I

Dancing on the back of the chair in a sunny window

Maybe Nana will ride by on her bike. Maybe Pookie will come to play with Inca. Maybe a little bird will land in the wisteria. Maybe a leaf will blow across the porch. Maybe Daddy will drive up soon. Maybe the mailman will come to deliver us mail. Maybe I will just wait and watch and see what happens out there...

Sooo... Finn starts all his sentences like this these days. I caught him out of bed yesterday during naptime and asked him what was wrong. Soo, the dinosaur is bad and he gonna bite me hard in my bed, he tells me. You mean the dinosaur print on the new duvet we just changed? He's a good guy and going to protect you from the bad guys, don't worry. Soo, don't worry, he repeats after me, getting back into bed and putting his head next to the nice guy, who has no teeth. You not bad... soo... you not gonna bite me dinosaur, he says to the toothsome one. And he falls asleep

Alternatives to preschool, part I

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Wednesdays are my work-from-home days when I balance the children with work. Which means that when Lil' Diggers opens at 10am, we are there.

Finn has been there many times before, but always with our nanny. Today was the first day I actually took him (and Poppie). It is amazing. You could not have created a better playtime for Finn than an indoor beach two blocks away. He was in heaven. And I was too. I watched the same little boy that was having difficulties in preschool getting along with the other kids actually share his toys with other little guys. In fact, he would bring toys to other kids and was especially sweet with the one-year-olds, making sure they had the right toy for the digging job. Looking at him from a bird's-eye perspective, I saw a sweet, considerate two-year-old who was every mother's dream. And he is.

Even Poppie joined in the fun when she wasn't sleeping.

She sits!

Poppie has been slowly trying to sit up on her own and tonight she had 10 minutes of success (and she is days shy of 5 months). She is growing so fast this mama can hardly keep up!

Lil' Diggers

Somewhere in this photo is our son. Digging, of course. How lucky are we to live two blocks away from Seattle's only indoor beach volleyball court that has Lil' Digger hours for kids to dig?

Each time he goes, Finn brings a different digger. Which means that no one digger has been twice because we are up to our eyeballs (literally) in diggers at our house. I stand corrected, we are up to our eyeballs in digg-as, front load-as, grad-as, back hoes, 'doz-as, tract-as, trail-as, dump trucks and lorries (Finn does not pronounce -er's, exactly like someone else in our family not counting Poppie). My living room is starting to look worse than the Alaska Way Viaduct construction project.

What it means to be a family

I was looking at the pictures of the four of us on the beach on Saturday and it hit me really hard: we are a family. A real family. With a boy and a girl and two happy parents and a full life. Up until this moment, I knew we are all of those things, but it was separated in my head. We have a boy. We have a girl. We are parents. We have a good life. We are happy. That photo mixed them all together for me for the first time: we are a real family now.

Which must be what my parents felt like 30 years ago. And bam! fast forward 30 years and those children that made up your happy family have multiplied and grown (and likes to have brunch together on Sunday mornings in Georgetown).

Families multiplying is too much to think of now, but every once in a while I get a glimpse of Poppie and think one day you too will feel like this towards your beautiful daughter. Or I see Finn watch his Daddy with adoration and think one day you too will be a man that your son will admire and look up to.

Life is so precious.