Tender Mercies

Dear Adelai, These past 6 months have gone by like a whirlwind. We had a wonderful spring and summer and I loved watching you learn how to run, do somersaults, imitate us doing push-ups, doggie-paddle across the pool*, and most recently--how to go potty on the big girl potty.  There are times when I still want to baby you, but I quickly remember that you DO NOT like being babied. So I have done my best to incorporate daily life into your life too, and not saving all the "mom work" for when you're asleep.  You love to do what we do, be it vacuuming, dusting, washing the dishes, or eating whatever we are eating. When I was deciding when to potty train you, I knew 18 months was so young, but I also knew that you were tired of me pinning you down each time you needed a diaper change. I was tired of it too. That, and I knew you were capable of learning to potty on the toilet. It would just take time.  Pottying her monkey :-) The first 4 da

I woke up one day in January, feeling a sense of urgency to have another child. My baby was 10 months old. It took us 5 years to get her here, so a part of me thought we should start trying ASAP because of my unpredictable fertility. For a few weeks, I fought an internal battle about my choice to breastfeed for a year. Nursing isn't technically birth control, but in my case, it was a pretty good bet. I felt guilty for wanting to go to a year because what if I was preventing another baby to come sooner? Was it wrong for me to want to nurse my miracle baby for a year, thus making the possibility of baby #2 come later? But then if I stopped nursing her before I year, was I withholding some sort of bonding or nutrition opportunity from her? For weeks I tossed these thoughts around, seeking advice and wisdom from trusted friends and family. I soon came to the realization that I loved nursing. I didn't want to stop. I felt peace when I nursed my daughter and I had made

Bucket lists are funny because they often inspire you to do things you would have never thought to do otherwise. Drive 4.5 hours with a 12 month old to see a bunch of birds in the middle of nowhere America? 5 years ago I would have said, "ya right." But Sandhill Cranes bring a sense of nostalgia to us. It's as though we are connected to Fairbanks, Alaska in a very unique way.  When we lived in Fairbanks, our apartment complex was right in front of a migratory waterfowl refuge  and each year, thousands of Sandhill Cranes would come each summer. We learned during one of our trips to the crane festival that the birds stop on the Platte River in Nebraska on their journey north from Mexico/Texas. We thought, "hey, we should see them on the Platte in March if we ever live in the Midwest!"  And so this bird-watching trip was written on our bucket list and this year we headed north to see the migration. I think we were the youngest family among all the natu

Dearest Adelai, 365 days have now passed since your miraculous birth. It was a day that will forever be etched into my mind, with the memories of the painful exhaustion of childbirth becoming more and more fuzzy and somehow, being replaced by the beautiful memories of a newborn. The smell. The tiny body. The clean slate of a new life and endless possibilities. I kind of miss that.  But Grandpa Whipple says that "kids only get better." I would have to agree. You see, I made a collage of my top 8 favorite pictures of you from your first year and half of them are from the last two months. Yes. You only get better.  This first year has been the. most. exhausting. year. of. my. life. It has also been beautiful. When you were first born, I had no idea how to nurse or how to give a baby a bath, nor did I understand the magnitude of how fast a baby grows and develops in the first year of life. You started out as a baby who was completely de