Catching Up

It's been unusually hard for me to find time, or make time, to write these past few weeks.  I can't pinpoint a particular reason why, it's just life I suppose.  Ideas swim around in my head of all the things I want to write about... but sometimes I just get tired.  I have to tell myself it's just a blog... It can be whatever I want it to be and I shouldn't compare myself to other bloggers who have more, or make more, time to write than I do.  But I do get jealous sometimes, women who don't work outside the home, or whose babies take longer naps than mine, or whose dogs didn't just eat a book and leave ripped up pages all over the backyard....  I suppose it's just been a hard week.

Dan lost his job.  He and about a hundred others nationwide were working a contract that was scheduled to complete in March of next year, but alas the contract was terminated earlier than planned.  Maybe time will reveal this to be a blessing in disguise.  I am certainly optimistic and I certainly believe in my husband, but, this event came with a normal amount of disappointment.  I am thanking God that we have been following Dave Ramsey's steps to "financial peace" --  how timely that was!  We know we can live on a budget and have saved a little in case of emergency.   I am secretly hoping in the interim, however short it may be, that Dan will commission some paintings.  He's really very good. I am secretly hoping he will read this.  I am secretly hoping that one of you reading this wants him to paint something for you or your kids' rooms.

Penelope teeths. At least I think that's what's been causing her to boycott naps, wake up multiple times in the middle of the night, and burst into hopeless tears right in the middle of nursing.  I have to remind myself that everything is temporary with babies. But I am exhausted.  Did I really used to get up multiple times a night every night for months?  I can't even think of it now...

I had a little escape from the grind this weekend when I had the honor of playing the piano at two very good friends' wedding.  For me, this wedding was an Oasis in the middle of some dry and trying days.  Not only did I get to play music for the ceremony, but I got to play on stage with some stellar musicians, accompanying a soul singer in town from California to do the first dance song, playing with my own band and then another band who I sat in with for two sets because they don't have a keyboard player and were nice enough to let me jam.  The whole night was pure rockin jammin musical fun.  I haven't had that much fun without my husband in a long time. What a rush. 

It's getting hot.  Summer is here.  I will withhold my complaints but wanted to announce that I am in the market for a one-piece swimsuit.  I'm really a mom now.

Mothers Day

Thank you to all who made this a special day for me, especially my husband. Thank you, God, for the gift of motherhood.

Roadtrippin to Our Friends

This past weekend we traveled across the border into California for Penny's first long road trip and first time out of Arizona since she was born. She was last in California when I was 35 weeks pregnant.

Anyway, Friday at about 4:00am I packed the last minute items into the car, took a shower, packed the cooler and then put Penny in her car seat. Dan would then drive 8 hours to Bakersfield where we would attend our friends' beautiful wedding the next day.

Our friends' wedding. Our friends.

What a neat thing to call people.

Not long ago I would've referred to most of the folks in our lives as either my friend or Dan's friend based on which if us knew that person before Dan and I knew each other.

As I was recently telling of how we had survived our first long car ride with baby and traveled to the exotic and mysterious Bakersfield, I found myself saying not "One of Dan's best friends from college was getting married," but instead "our friends were getting married."

Our friends.

Dan has this incredible group of friends from college. This group is like no other group of guys I have ever met or read about. Most of them are scattered throughout California, but really they are all over the country now... and they still manage to be a part of each others' lives in a very significant way.

Their male bond formed long before they had us girls in their lives. Aside from a couple college sweethearts who married in, the girls are new.

When we all manage to get together, us girls sit in the 'wives and girlfriends' section behind the social dugout and make small talk while our men play their game. But as we have attended more and more events, the small-talk has turned to familiar talk as we too bud in friendship.

I'm excited that these other women might refer to me not as "my husbands's friend Dan's wife, Julie" but as my friend Julie.

Marriage is awesome.

My Friends the Experts: My Pops Gets Down to Business

Series 

The last two years have been pretty loaded with significant life events for my parents.  Their oldest daughter (yours truly) got married and finally gave them a grandchild. Their youngest daughter graduated from high school and gave them an empty nest.  And this month, Dad ended his 34-year professional career and entered into retirement.

Career in the Defense Industry
My pops joined his company as a manufacturing coordinator after earning his bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin and serving as an officer for four years in the U.S. Navy.  He soon became manufacturing project leader and later progressed into the field of program management.  During his career, he also was a director of quality assurance during the launch of Six Sigma.  He became a general manager in 2000 when he inherited a small and fresh communications group that is now a half-of-a-billion dollar business.  He had an exceptional 34-year career at the same company, the last 12 years as vice president and general manager of various businesses leading a diverse portfolio of radios, encryption products, key and identity management and all kinds of other cool government things that I don't even know about.

A Wise, Wise Man
Dad has given me a lot of good advice over the years. Personally, but especially professionally. This month for My Friends the Experts, I wanted to share with you some pearls of wisdom I've collected from him over the years.

I hope you will read my entire list of wise words from John Cole, but here are just a few of my favorites:

• Work is about people.  Smile in the hallways. Make a point to remember people's names, their spouses' names and kids' names.  Sit with different people in the lunch room and get to know them.
• Proofread your emails before you send them and always write in complete sentences. Compose every email as though it could be forwarded to the president of the company.
• Support your boss.  If you can't or won't, get a different job.
• Ethics and Integrity trump Outcome.  When deciding how to handle a situation, consider how your behavior would look as a headline in the local paper.  Otherwise known as the 'what would my mother say' litmus test.
• Before making major changes, always stop to ask the question: What problem are you solving?  

On the day of his retirement "party"
in the cafeteria at work.  Standing room only,
and lots of tears!

Being My Dad's Daughter At Work
My dad's retirement affects me greatly because I have had the unique experience of working for the same company as my pops for almost eight years (my whole post-college career).  Of course I never worked directly with him, but while most people live in two parallel universes of personal and professional lives, we shared both worlds.   And that was pretty cool.

We would grab lunch in the cafeteria sometimes on Fridays and I always knew I could pop into his office any time to say 'hi', or pick his brain, or cry in his private bathroom in the rare event I was having a personal crisis.

Of all the things that coworkers or strangers-who-knew-him would come up and tell me about working with my father, the recurring theme was that he cared about people.  Alongside intuition and integrity, something that made me proud to be my dad's daughter was when people told me that he had affected their life or their career in a positive way.  He took a chance on them, or invested in them, or simply listened.  He always believed in mentor-ship and developing people, not just managing them.

What an inspiration he is.

A Trivia Tribute:
Those who worked directly for my dad know that he always started his staff meetings with a trivia question to "break the ice" as he said.  It must have worked because he seemingly had a very candid relationship with his staff, relatively speaking.

I leave you with his favorite trivia question, feel free to use the next time you need to break the ice!

How many major metropolitan areas are home to a team for all four professional sports (NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB)?  And name them all...

c

Penny Jane: Nine Months Old

Nine months. Weighing in at 16 pounds 5 ounces and measuring 28 inches tall, our little monkey brings us lip-smacking, raspberry-blowing, hand-clapping fun.

She changed a lot this month as she went from "sort of crawling around" to GETTING INTO EVERYTHING.  Her Orangutan Crawl (she swung her butt and one leg around while only using the other leg) has become more of a Frog Crawl as she carefully steps with her feet and avoids her knees touching the ground.  She pulls herself up on furniture and can transfer from standing at one object to standing at another near by, but she's nowhere near standing up by herself or walking yet... or so I tell myself.  From a standing position she very gingerly bends her legs and lowers herself to sit back down -- we think this is super cute.  I attribute her strong core muscles to all the time she spent playing and scooting around on our memory-foam bed.

Penny and I both are captivated by the charming Fred Rogers as we watch archived episodes of his Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, brought to us by Amazon Prime Video.   I truly love viewing this gem from my childhood now through adult eyes.  Penny lights up when the theme song comes on or when the trolley music starts.  Did you know the first episodes were in black & white??

She loves to eat.  She's still getting all her nutrition from breastmilk, but we've given her all kinds of things to try.  So far the only thing she has rejected was a plain green bean.  She even seems to love an experiment I made with peas, pears and blueberries -- which I thought was completely disgusting. She especially loves guacamole from Chipotle and mashed up spaghetti with marinara.  We also started her on a few dairy items and she loves cottage cheese, pieces of Baby Bell cheese, and greek yogurt.  We tried the sippy cup for water a month or so ago, it took several weeks of patient attempts for her to figure it out, but now she drinks water without assistance.

Her pincer grasp developed this month and quickly graduated from clumsily grabbing piles of cheerios and spilling most of them on the floor, to elegantly picking them up one at a time with thumb-and-finger as she walks around the coffee table.  She is extremely proud of herself for this feat and we spend about 30 minutes a day on this activity.  The dogs wait patiently for the casualties.

Little busy bee hates sitting still or stopping what she's doing to have her diaper changed or to get dressed.  She has gotten quite vocal and squirmy about this, and we've had to get really creative [and FAST] with those mid-play diaper changes.

She laughs hysterically when I dance or march around the house, or if Dan makes faces.  New nicknames for our little one include "Odagootie" and "Oodaboodie" and "The Wriggly Giggly Thing" [from a favorite bedtime book I Kissed the Baby].  "Monkey" still rolls off my tongue often, especially as she chows on bananas.

It is getting more and more challenging to keep baby toys and dog toys separate in the eyes of their possessors.  The dogs do much better at leaving baby toys alone than they used to, but Penny is extra-interested in putting dog toys in her mouth.  She's going to have one heck of an immune system.

She got the highest fever she's ever had, 102 degrees, for almost two days and with no other symptoms.  To this day it the fever is unexplained, but I can only assume she has a few teeth descending. 

We celebrated a major holiday (Easter) at OUR house for the very first time, opening our doors to both sides of the family.  Our headcount was 42 including kids.  Translation -- PJ was so excited to visit with everyone that she didn't nap.  At all.  No nap.  The next afternoon she slept for 4 hours.

Dan took Penny for her very first swimming pool experience.  She loved all 8 minutes of it, probably because she was completely naked.

We also went backpacking in the mountains for Penny's first camping trip, which you can read about here if you missed it last week.

Our little friend 8-month-old baby Ainsley stayed with us for two days while her mommy and daddy had a nice weekend away.  Penny's first sleepover party!  Dan and I got a glimpse of what it would be like to have twins.  We expected the weekend to deter us from discussing potentially thinking about maybe talking about potentially maybe having another baby... but it went surprisingly smoothly...

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Mean Girls

Flashback to middle school, 6th grade. 

Party at my house, perhaps it was my 12th birthday? A handful of girls, my friends, were going to spend the night. I can't remember much else besides what it felt like to look for them as they hid from me. Confused. I had just gone to get something from another room, where were they?

I don't think at the time I really understood the conniving domination tactics that were going on as two ringleaders corralled the others into a small storage closet, so as to remind the clueless new girl [me] that she was socially powerless. I didn't see it for what it was... but my mom did.

Also powerless, Mom was boiling. I assume she ended up having one of those embarrassingly irrational heated conversations with the other girls' moms, probably one at a time.  Those discourses all mothers get into when someone picks on their kid and the animal instinct to protect one's young overturns any ability to speak rationally or stay calm.  I remember wishing she wouldn't, even defending the girls in my mind... it wasn't that big of a deal.  In my 12-year-old brain, Mom getting involved could only make it worse.

I so wanted them to like me. Cool hip kids are magnetic to non-cool non-hip kids.  All in the class are at the mercy of the cool kids' kindness or stealthy meanness.  It's about power.

Not everyone was awful to me, but it only takes a few instances to forever impact a twelve-year-old girl.  Both these ringleader girls attended a nondenominational church that taught that Catholics aren't Christian.  I was Catholic.  This is funny to me now.

New city, new school.  That's a tough circumstance for any pre-adolescence, but especially one without siblings close in age who also has a aptness for dorkiness and bad fashion sense and is taller than everyone else.  I didn't have a clue.  Thus began a tendency to shy away from female friendships that it took years and some really special women to help me grow out of.

Cut to high school.  

A different crowd, no one from my middle school attended.  I knew a lot of really nice cool kids in high school (and a few not so nice), but I still never felt like I fit in.

 There was one girl who I sat with in a science class at a lab table. She was hilarious, and in my eyes very cool. Aside from the time I got caught passing a note in third grade, this was the most I ever got in trouble in school my whole life.

 Hanging out with her in chemistry class was a daily glimpse of what it was to be awesome. One time I even solidified our friendship by forging an excuse note from her mother to enable her to leave campus for the afternoon. I thought maybe that's what cool girls with stellar handwriting do for their friends.  I even felt cool that she asked me to do it.

But she only sat next to me because our last names required her to. We weren't friends. Whenever there was free time, she would migrate to another table where her actual friends sat, leaving me to do homework from another class by myself.   Soooo many hours doing homework at school. Maybe this is why I was such a good student. I digress.

Now, this ain't no pity party. 

I'm a grown woman now with enough self-assurance to navigate the social climate of my current life.  And to be clear, I was not friendless.  Though my guards were up, I had friends, some really neat girls, some of whom may even be reading this post today.  And in all my years of being a girl trying to survive in the social amazon, I did some mean things too.  For those things I hope I have been forgiven.

As I reflect, I try to prepare myself for the day that someone picks on my kid.  To feel how a mother feels when her kid is hurting and lonely and there's nothing she can do about it.  

Or perhaps worse, the day I get the phone call from a different kid's shaky-voiced mother telling me that MY kid was mean.   Please no, not my kid.

I thought about it this morning as Penny and I attended our Friday morning mom/baby group.  This week, Penny was one of the oldest babies there.  I watched my baby interact with others, all of them so innocent and unaware of how their actions affect others.  And us mothers so forgiving, "oh don't even worry about it" when one steals another's toy.  Calm, cool and collected.

I thought about my beautiful girl and what lies ahead for her and how much of it I can [not] control.

I thought about the friendships I am cultivating with these other mothers, and how we have each trudged through our own social hardships, gathered scars, and come out on the other side.   How cool hip moms can be friends with non-cool moms because of the things that makes us all the same.

A new chapter for this woman.  I'm trying to enter it with guards down.

Backpacking!

We've always said that if we want to be an 'active family' we need to start doing active things with our kid(s) when they are real little.  That we did.  Dan and his cousin Justin took us up the Peralta Trail in the Superstition Mountains this weekend for what would prove to be be quite the adventure.

Our first overnight backpacking trip!

The group: Dan, our nephew Hunter (10), Justin, Me, and Penny in the Osprey pack.

As you can see, Luna and Apollo packed in their own food and water.

See me smiling big before we started the hike.

When we were three miles up with no end in site... let's just say I wasn't taking any self portraits...

Each of our five nephews will get to come on a "manhood" backpacking trip with Uncle Daniel, 

the summer after they turn ten.  Hunter here was the pioneer, and he was a champion!

Dan's pack weighed about 50 pounds.  

What a guy carrying extra stuff so his wife could carry the baby and not break her back.

Penny was delighted to wake up from a snooze to find everyone setting up camp!

Resting.  We made it.

Making delicious MRE's for dinner.

Sunset from our campsite.

Dan taught Hunter how to use a flint.

Penelope's first campfire.

My sleeping bag buddy woke up early with the birds this morning.

The dogs were so wonderful.  They stayed with us like true companions 

wagging their tails most of the way.  Here's Luna keeping watch while I breastfeed.

Penny loved playing in the tent.  So many zippers, so little time!

The group, in all our glory, at "the saddle" at the top on our way home today.

We had hiked three miles up to the top and then almost a mile down the other side to camp.

My body was, in a word, done.  But the intensely strenuous exercise was followed by peaceful beauty and solitude.  A weekend I will never forget.

Years ago when I was single and would go hiking and see parents with their kids and dogs trekking up a trail, I always hoped that someday that would be me with my family.  I am so thankful that I married a man who not only has the gear, but also the patience and strength to take his amateur wife and their baby and pups on a weekend like this.  And thank you so much to Uncle Justin... we could not have done it (and I wouldn't be nearly as sore) without you!