farmer's market.

Today we ventured out to the DeKalb Farmer's Market with our friends John and Mandy. Lorelei slept for part of the time, and when she was awake, Mandy did a great job of shielding her from the sun.

John and Mandy are moving to Iowa City in a few weeks so John can pursue his doctorate and become a famous choral conductor. We'll miss them here in DeKalb!

out on the town.

Lorelei had her first big outing today -- I took her to church to see our minister on his last Sunday before his 4-month sabbatical. This of course meant that I got up hours early to get myself and her ready to leave. I will never ever roll my eyes at mothers and little kids arriving late to events ever again.

Miraculously, Lorelei woke at the perfect time to eat and get to church on time. And once we were there, she was a little doll! She slept through part of the service (wish it had been more) and was quiet through the rest, and then she was happy and alert for a while afterwards so everyone could ooh and aah over her at the potluck lunch. She got a little fussy at the end because she was missing her good nap time and was starting to get hungry -- but otherwise she was perfect.

Once we got home, I nursed her and then Jason took on the gargantuan task of putting her to sleep while I took a nap myself.

My only regret? Not bringing the camera to church. It was a gorgeous, sunny morning and it would have been so fun to have photos of her being held and loved by everyone. I tried to take some photos this afternoon of her darling little outfit, at least -- she wasn't super happy about it but we did our best!

(Finally happy while I was changing her diaper? Babies are crazy!)

best laid plans.

(2nd post for today...but too good not to share.)

Lorelei woke herself up from her nap with a gas bubble in her tummy. After a short nursing session, she went back to sleep, only to spit up again. I decided that she needed to be upright for a while, so I put a cloth on my shoulder and took her out to the living room so I could hold her and watch my new/old favorite show. I had a feeling she was going to spit up again, so I carefully laid down a burp cloth right behind me in case she spit past my shoulder.

30 seconds later:

Here's the little culprit.

selective memory.

It seems like some of the parents I go to for advice have a selective memory problem. "Oh, I guess so," they respond when you ask if it was hard dealing with the 5-6th week peak fussiness stage. "Maybe, I can't remember," they say when you try to find out if they, too, spent hours crying in the shower. "Yeah, but then it gets better," they always say when you ask if the first two months were as hard on them as it is on you.

I've always had a problem with selective memory of the other variety. When I was a little girl, my mom started a tradition of including "3 good things" in my nightly prayers so I would go to sleep remembering what was good that day rather than what was bad, which was what I tended to focus on.

So, here's how we want to remember you in your 6th week, Lorelei, playing in the afternoon sun with your dad, cooing and moving all around and being a very cute little baby.



We will try very hard not to remember that you decided to go through a growth spurt the day the power went out and your mom was diagnosed with mastitis and how, even though she needed to be sleeping to build strength and get rid of the impending infection, you insisted on eating every hour on the hour and refused to sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time. We will try to forget how you screamed at the top of your lungs when we picked you up, tried to feed you, didn't feed you, tried to hold you, tried to put you down, or did pretty much anything at all. We will try to forget how tired we were and how confused we were about what to do with you because, well, that's what good parents are supposed to do.

4th of July outing.

Lorelei went out for a walk this morning in her little bonnet, which fits her pretty well now. We then had a terrible time getting her settled back down for a nap...one step forward, two steps back. How do you take a baby out of a Moby without waking her up?

Anyway, here are the pics, both of which are rather blurry -- I think I'm going to need to start saving my pennies for a new, better camera!

happy anniversary to us.

6 years ago today, we got married on a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon. We celebrated with another brunch out (thanks, Sam and Sara) at the Hillside Restaurant in DeKalb. Lorelei surprised us by sleeping the whole time (well, not so much a surprise since it was during the daytime -- her current preferred time for sleeping, much to our chagrin).

a whale of a time.

Lorelei broke in her new bathtub last night -- she loved splashing around in it, despite her deer-in-headlights look in this picture: