getting ready

tomorrow eliana and her mom fly to los angeles. again. elie's accompanying me and two of my colleagues to a work conference in my hometown. my mama, bless her heart, will stay down at the hotel with us and watch elie while i learn about international education and how to be the best darn teacher i can be. and i'll tell you what. while traveling is great, getting ready is tough. i've had an insanely busy week trying to juggle all my work obligations with my little one. and i couldn't have done it without the help of eliana's other grandma, nana roseann. take today for example. i had to be at work an hour earlier than normal and stayed almost two hours later than normal. she was so adaptable with our changing schedule, arrived with a smile, and somehow managed to clean the kitchen, wash and fold our laundry, organize jeff's closet and swift the floors all while playing with her six month old grandchild. my house, at this point in the week, would be a disaster if it weren't for mi suegra. i'm thrilled for her that she too will get a break from our hectic routine and be able to have some fun city time in portland with her daughter, kelli.

how blessed are we to have two such willing grandmothers for our beautiful girl? while one vacations, the other one is waiting to take over for a week or so. and the cycle of love continues...

working women today

my sister and i used to have a little inside joke about "working women today" when we would walk around new york city in our running shoes, but still try and pull off some sort of fashion friendly, new york savvy, outfit on top. the image of the nine to five worker, getting off work and changing into her walking shoes, is very much an image of growing up in the early eighties. now this nannied for many wagons and the kids schedule and say, "see ya in eight hours." i remember feeding a four month old solid food for the first time when i was a mere college student, his mama off doing her job while i tried to working woman today isn't too concerned about shoes, but instead, how to keep the whole gig in balance. i feel like last week it really hit me. i am officially BACK at work. back with the meetings and report cards and lesson plans. back with nights spent awake in bed trying to figure out how to reach one child, how to inspire another out of lethargy. how to challenge A without leaving B in the dust. my work life has finally moved back into the forefront of my muddled, scattered, alert mommy brain and i'm not sure how to feel about it. i know all of my thoughts and concerns and plans are an important part of my job. i just don't like how eliana takes the backseat. like last week when i was writing report cards. i would just put her in her jumper and let her jump away and pretend to be talking to her, when really i was reading over my narrative reports aloud to be sure they was clear and accurate. thank god she is so easy going. one night i swear i spent six solid hours on reports - again, thank god she takes good, long naps in her crib and enjoys her exersaucer, or i don't know what i would have done. i'm wondering how other women have done it. i know so many women who go back to work full time when their babies are six weeks old, and return to much more challenging, intense careers than my own. i'vefamiles over the years and watched women leave me the keys to their volvofinagle the plastic padded spoon into this little guys toothless mouth. i remember wondering how i had the privilege of feeding him first, how i ended up in that position and when i would be doing the same thing with my own child. how much life i would lead between "playing mommy" and "being mommy."

well, i'm happy to report that there was a great deal of "life" between the two. lots of travel, lots of fun, lots of adventure and, thankfully, lots of years logged into this teaching gig. i've been at this eleven years! i don't know how i would have returned to this job if it were earlier in my career. i didn't have space in my brain or my heart to think about a whole lot else. now the challenge is trying to figure out how to share the space of my brain and my heart, how to not get so caught up "talking" to eliana (we do this new grunting thing back and forth - she goes "eh" and then i look back at her and reply "eh" and then she stares back and says "eh" and we go back and forth about ten times until she just busts up laughing and i do too because we really are communicating and we are so madly in love and it's just so damn fun and how could i have room in my heart for anything else?) that i don't make it out the door in time for a meeting or recess duty. lots of yoga helps. so does walking in the mountains. and writing this all down.

so now that i've had my coffee and processing time, it's time to get dressed and put myself together before sleeping beauty gets up. that way i can give her my full self for that precious time before i have to leave her again and step back into my other world.

winter in montana

so i realized upon looking over my bloggy this morning, that i've really been fixated on this whole crib/sleep thing. yet there is so much more happening! we are in the middle of winter in montana. winter here is intense, to say the least. and about this time of year, you start to get a bit sick of the whole thing (or you do if you're me and you don't downhill ski...). but instead of ranting about gray days and cold winds, i'd like to focus on all the growth i've made through these winters. i believe this is my sixth montana winter! who woulda thunk that this so cal girl could survive so many frigid seasons! but i've found a beauty in winter. winter has come to mean slowing down. i've spent may, may winter saturdays over the years, holed up sola in the house with a good book, watching the snow fall out the window, wrapped up in a blanket, and at udder peace with doing just that. the sun, god bless her, is an energy button. when it's sunny, especially in montana, you feel like you have to be outside enjoying every single second of it because it's so hard earned. we didn't have these sorts of "rest" days growing up in l.a. at least not with the furious consistency of winters in the great rockies.

so winter with baby. right now i'm drinking a cup of coffee, a candle is burning, eliana is beside me playing with her alligator on the floor, and our daily forecast looks pretty simple. penelope and aluna will come play for a while. we'll take lucy out for a walk. dad will come home from snowbowl and we'll all snuggle. and i'll make deerchiladas for the grillo-shannons for dinner. at that's it. simple. lovely. slowing way down.

more shots of the big girl

eliana loves to sit up and can "walk around" with assistance. she is such a tough little mama!

crib girl

eliana first goes on top of the blanket auntie hilary knit, then puts her green softie under her head, her yellow and pink softies at either cheek, her little body goes in her grobag, and finally, we place her personalized, navajo, pendelton on top to keep her warm through these long, winter nights.

she is tremendous, this little girl of mine. in just a few days, she trained herself into digging on her crib. now she loves it. she can lie in there, awake, and just sort of trip out on her fishies, or rub her little soft blankets, or space out on the pattern on her bumper pads, until she falls asleep. and now she takes these amazing, long, luxurious naps during the day. when she slept on me, when i walked, like a fool, for miles and miles to get my daughter to sleep, the minute the walk was over, she'd wake up. but now, in the stillness and white noise splendor of her own bed, she sleeps until she's done, calls the shots, does it all on her time. i am so impressed with her. she just wants to be the very best baby she can be. and she's surpassing expectation.

360 Crawl

love songs

i'm not sure if i've ever been in love like this before. actually. on second thought, i'm most certain i never have been. and i've been in love. i've fallen. hard. but some things i just haven't done in a long, long time. like i just had this compulsion to make a mix of all the love songs that remind me of elie. there are love songs that remind me of when she was in my belly last spring. there are songs for lazy summer days when i was so huge and so ready to meet her. and then there are fall tunes, the songs i'd listen to on my headphones while i walked these montana hills carrying my girl. the other day i was cross country skiing by myself while jeff stayed home with elie. songs would come on my shuffle that reminded me of her and my heart would flutter, literally skip a beat, as i pictured her little face in my mind. as i skied back towards the car, i got that excited, anticipatory feeling of going home to see someone who you are just beside yourself in love with. so as i type this i'm listening to eliana's mix. she's sleeping again, and i don't want to keep pestering her, so i'll just listen to our songs, gaze at her photos on this silly computer, and continue to feel as blissfully smitten as i do right now.