getting around

Baby Eliana is meeting so many people that love her.
Auntie Alison, Cousin Cameron and little bright eyes.
Baby Eliana enjoys her Auntie Wendy.





Here she is with her special friend, Hollace.

Eliana loves her cousin Daniella and Uncle Mark.




eliana and her mama are learning some new things about getting around the big city. you have to understand that while i love living in montana, i was not always a country bumpkin. i used to love life in the city. i love the diversity. i love the restaurants. i love the different neighborhoods. and i spent an awful lot of the first 28 years of my life navigating los angeles area freeways, moving from one adventure to the next. i wouldn't even want to know, even if it was somehow quantifiable, how much time i've logged sitting stuck in traffic. my city ways have quickly shifted since having a child. eliana doesn't spend a ton of time in her carseat at home, but when she does, it isn't usually a problem (unless it's dark an we are turning the corner of Lolo Ave and Wylie coming down from Jeff's folks place...she hates that corner). anyway. during the pats few days, eliana has experienced a new kind of traffic. she's also experienced lots of long traffic signals, or multiple turns waiting through the same light because too many cars are in front of us and we just simply can't get through. and i don't know if it's because she picks up on my negative energy, on my complete frustration and lack of cool in this traffic, but she's started to sort of loose it when we are in these situations. i honestly don't know how i handled it for so long. did i just not know any different? has it gotten that much worse since i've been here? when did i so clearly lose my edge? so there we were driving back from my sister's house about an hour away on the ever so hideous 5 freeway. it was sunday evening. and the freeway was packed. aren't people supposed to be at home with their families eating a roast or something? where was everyone going? the freeway was stop and go, inconsistent, unrelenting, crowded. eliana was over it. she was crying and fussy and i was back there trying to get her to cool it. then i remembered a road trip trick that some of my gal pals back in the country told me about. the sketchy "lean and nurse" where you sort of hoist your breast into the carseat and nurse your baby while your partner tries not to have an accident in which you would not be restrained at all. the lean and nurse is tricky. it's scary. but damnnit, homegirl went straight to sleep after about five minutes. so we were back in buisness. but i have noticed that eliana can sense when the car stops moving, or changes speed (hence the reason why traffic is such a trouble area for us). so then we slowed down because, wouldn't you believe it, southern california is in a declared "state of emergency" due to tremendous fires. and one of those fires just happened to be burning out the window on the freeway. so all of the sudden things get super futuristic and eerie and all the cars are staring at this greyish blackish, tremendous thick smoke coming at us from the mountains to the east. and the sky is still and brown and yet all the bright neon signs along the freeway still blink and glare and everything is really creeping me out and i can't imagine, for a few moments, how anyone can live here and i see the concrete walls around the houses that are right by the freeway and the chain link and the box stores but really they are all over this country and when did we get so overpopulated and so prone to natural disasters and why does it sometimes feel so horrifying to be bringing a child into this future..... but i digress. we made it through the smoke and finally exited about fifteen miles from my mom's house. that's when elie decided she had simply had enough. she really started to go for it. like wailing and crying real tears and showing her gummy little mouth and heaving in between sobs. we both picked up some little cold bug, so in the midst of these gut wrenching cries, her little chest was emitting this rattly, congested sound. everything felt terribly wrong. those last ten minutes of the drive were painful. i didn't know what to do. all i wanted to do was take her out of her carseat and hold her, but that would just make the drive longer, postponing the inevitable return of crying in her carseat. part of me was ready to drive to the e.r. and find out was was wrong with her, when really i know, she was just totally over being in her carseat. she was hungry and tired and had a cold. and she's a teeny, tiny, helpless baby. that was it. so my mom and i white knuckled it through the drive, me speeding like a maniac through all the stupid traffic lights, my mom in the back with her trying, bless her heart, to calm her down. eliana would not have it. but the minute i had her back in my arms in the garage of my mom's building, she started to settle. she breathed a few very deep, shaky, congested breaths, and settled in my arms. we then moved into a three hour (no joke) marathon nurse n' soothe. she nursed and soothed herself until finally i was able to put her in her little bucket and fall to sleep by her side.