birthday queen

The birthday recount wouldn't be complete with a few hallmark moments from the big day, pre taco party. I've always been a fool for birthdays and trying to make every moment count on a loved one's special day is of utmost importance to me. Now all of a sudden you are trying to play birthday fairy to someone who you love more than anyone, absolutely, ever, and the stakes are real high. Pressure's on. So of course she delighted in her favorite purple dinosaur, without even having to ask. While sweet Avi and up-in-his-stuff Elie zoned out to all Barney's best jams, Melissa and I got down and dirty in the kitchen, using those few precious child free moments to get stuff done.


When the Barney mystique wore off, we headed outside to open presents. Ms. Chris bought Eliana that gorgeous fairy cape and wand, which went perfectly with the bedazzled "pocketbook" (as Elie coined it) from her Gran, from the Neta's a rockin' art kit and from mama a wooden ABC magnet set for the fridge. Eliana kinda started to get the package ripping open concept and certainly delighted in every generous gift (with a few extra, "MY cape, MY ABC's...") thrown in for good measure. (She kinda started the day in birthday diva mode. We worked through it...)


We then met Casey and Moans at the swimming hole for more birthday love. Elie stripped down fast and worked out all sorts of fancy log climbing moves, which made her daddy all beamy with pride. She and her girl shared some special birthday hugs and kisses, especially after Eliana opened up the beauteous little picture purse with two little shots of the girls, one at two weeks old, the other at almost two. Oh how their love affair brings me nothing but the fullest, giggliest heart!


Tangent...the reason I have copious amounts of time to record this afternoon is because Eliana has been asleep now for almost five hours. And it's 100 degrees out. And I'm exhausted but not enough to completely close my eyes. So I'll continue to ramble on because I'm sure one day I'll appreciate all the silly details.

Oh, and further tangent, the reason she is so exhausted and subsequently taking this insane nap is because:

a) We went on our wacky Glacier getaway last weekend and she didn't really nap much for a few days, cuz she was too busy partying with her parents.

b) Our lovely friends Melissa and Leeor arrived after much heartfelt travel in the middle of the night on Tuesday and stayed through Friday, and so she's had extra excitement with house guests and all. Extra park/carousel/bike/play time with seventeen month old Avi added to the revelry.

c) There were like way too many of her posse members naked and eating carrot cake here on Thursday and she stayed up til almost midnight being goofy.

d -- and hugest of all --) She had her first slumber party last night with Moana! And they actually slept in the same room, Moans in her big girl bed, and Els in her crib and somehow they made it through the night.


Homegirl is recovering...


And somehow I've tangent-ed my way out of this post. It was a full, full day, riding on a full, full week, followed by a full, full Friday because last night was our real anniversary and we went out on a real date with our friends (while the chickens partied with the babysitter). And that has got to be a new post or I'll have completely lost all semblance of organization.


Life is full and lovely and silly and beautiful and we're certainly in full appreciation mode.

fiesta de tacos

photos by nici

So much to report over the past few days! We'll start with the taco party, especially because I have the gorgeous pics Nici took of my girl to share with the world (and, of course, the not-so-gorgeous but sweet nonetheless pics I managed to capture...). As requested, we threw Eliana a taco party. I made massive amounts of rice and "beanies", nectarine and fancy green salad and brie and cherry melty app. Jeff rocked some carne while lovely Melissa made a carrot cake, guac and mojitos. Together it was an easy and fairly stress free affair. Which was really my main goal, because I've noticed I am getting to this funny place in my adulthood where I can spot the seedlings of an entertainer with a propensity for potential stressout-dom. It seems to be something we ladies do as we age. Take shit way more seriously. And I really, really don't want to be that lady. But this was a two year old taco party, damnit. I had to just let it roll.

And roll it did. The little pack of chickens played beautifully in the yard until, next thing I knew, they had all stripped down and were going nutty with the sprinkler and hose. Beautiful, perfect bottoms squealed and danced in the yard, while the big people laughed over their drinks. The bums gathered together for cake and Eliana listened in wide eyed wonder while we sang her the birthday song.



Most folks rocked it on home, but Eliana and her BFF Moans kept the party real late into the night. They sang through their repertoire of songs and did some hokey pokeys. They splashed each other in the tub. They pulled all Eliana's clothes out of her drawers and put on multiple pairs of pants. Best of all, I didn't hear any shouts of, "Mine!" or, "No!" Just their playful, imaginative, blissed out love.


And seeing my girl at her best was all I could have asked for from her.

two today

This time, two years ago. I had probably moved from pacing and swaying that baby down to the tub and the blaring pulse of the jets. During a contraction my sister and husband and doula would grab another part of my body and dig their fists in. And then I'd relax again.

A few hours from now, my little girl would fly from my body like the wild child she is. Adventurous, determined. She would take my little world, the universe that as I knew it, and shake it up. Hard.

She was so fragile then. Helpless. Teeny. Pink.

Unknown.

Two years have flown by and there she is, and I know her so, so well.
And every part of her is all I could have ever, ever asked for.

celebration getaway

My new recipe for love and health and happy marriage and happy mama: get the heck outta town. We've been in a wacky, whiny little loop around these parts lately. Nothing terrible, but nothing stellar. Jef'f's dubbed me, "Captain Van Buren" and rightfully soon. I've been a little extra bossy, a little extra uptight about stuff that usually doesn't bug me. Like how he never closes the kitchen cabinets. But don't get me started.

So this weekend when our friend Bri invited us on her sailboat on Flathead Lake, it was a sign from above that we needed to get the heck out. Without much of a plan and a shoddily packed vehicle, we hit the highway. There was a funky, disheveled, disorganization about the whole thing. We had a tent, but no toothbrush, sleeping bags but no headlamps. But the plan beyond the boat seemed irrelevant. There was talk of wanting to go up to Glacier, maybe hang in Bigfork where we got married. We celebrate our five year wedding and ten year love affair this coming Friday. That combined with Eliana's bday should be cause for any haphazard road trip.

The boat was perfect. Eliana loved it and wore her captain pants just so, I might add. She didn't get antsy and kept her vest on without complaint. She even went digging in the cabin and found some kickin' topsiders to match her sailor dress. Funny, funny stuff.



We left the boat relaxed and giddy and decided to head north. Els hadn't slept yet, so she promptly passed out, giving us the red light to high tail it up to the park. Which, of course by then, had no campsites. And that, mis amigos, is where the joy of credit cards comes in! Because this was a celebration trip. And god knows we had to have a place to sleep. And greasy spoon diner breakfasts. And smoothies for dinner. The motel outside of the park was overpriced and little and perfect. We all slept together in the king size bed like it was just us against the world.


Our Sunday in Glacier was everything a day in that heavenly park is supposed to be. Crystal, opalescent waters. Private little beaches for throwing rocks and swimming. A gorgeous hike in the snow. Eliana happily finding every single mountain goat within any absurdly huge radius. The day had a sort of halo of perfection around it. Jeff and I treated each other kindly. We didn't snap. I didn't boss. Elie didn't complain. Even when she blew out a ridiculous amount of huckleberry poop on Going-to-the-Sun Road and we had to pull over and wipe out the car seat with wipes (which, thank the good lord, we had remembered to bring) and Jeff almost hit the blow out panic button and the port a potty was locked and we had to bag up all that horrific shit, well, we just sorta handled it. With much more grace than we seem to handle most seemingly mundane things on any normal old day around the house.


Which brings me back to the vacation halo. Maybe it's that whole living in the moment thing. Or remembering to take everything as it comes because you have to. Or maybe it's because Jeff and I had a pretty major talk the night before we left about how much we take each other for granted and how often we forget to be appreciative. About how Captain Van Buren needs to chill and let her beautiful husband just be the man she fell in love with ten years ago.



We decided to celebrate our anniversary early by staying at the hotel where we stayed the night before we got married. It's this funky little place on Flathead Lake called the Islander, each room (all seven or so of them) named after some remote island locale and decorated accordingly. The owner remembered us and gave us the rockin' Zanzibar jacuzzi sweet for almost half price. Eliana had her own, enormous pull out bed in almost another room. And it felt right, on our second night away, to let her sleep on her own, and us together.



We ate dinner on the lake at the Raven where we had our rehearsal dinner. It was perfect. We sipped our drinks and watched Eliana examine rocks, working on her overhand pebble pitch. We told her the story of how we canoed to the dinner from the other side of the bay and made a grand entrance at the party. We told her how her Nana and PopPop threw a big bash at that very restaurant to celebrate the love between her parents. Jeff's never looked as handsome as he did sitting across from me on Sunday evening. Eliana, again, was so present in every move, more complacent and compliant than expected, rolling with each moment, just being there in true vacation mode.

I woke up before sunrise with this profound sense of peace. I couldn't fall back asleep but didn't care. I just wanted to take in all in. Hold on to it all. My almost two year old girl in her huge sofa bed surrounded by cushions, lying horizontally, splayed out like a long, little nut. My husband sleeping soundly, so relaxed, so soft. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.


A huge summer storm blew our way that morning pushing us to move on. The power was out, the wind whipping, just the race to the car left us soaked and giddy. We decided to take the long way home and Jeff found the mountain along the Swan range that we were married beneath. What a reminder to really celebrate. To really remember. These precious memories can get so hazy and befuddled in the ridiculousness of the day to day.

So I hear by declare a new celebration in our family. The birthday/anniversary getaway. The few days devoted to being together, being present, throwing caution to the wind and holding on fast and furious to each other. Because at the end of the day, that's all there is.

jumpin' jumpin'

A week from today my girl will turn two. This week the enormity of her birthday really hit me. It started with Moana's bday on Tuesday. I always remember Casey being right ahead of me during pregnancy. We would run into one another at the Birth Center, me always surprised that her little one had still not come. Moana was late and Eliana was early. Somehow they ended up just a week apart and BFF to boot. On Tuesday, the morning of Moana's second, I happened upon the cd that my sister made me when Eliana was born. I nursed her to sleep to it every night for the first six or so months. It's full of emotional, dramatic songs that I haven't heard in quite some time. It got me in the gut. I got all weepy and tried to rock and hold Eliana who just said, "Wild, Wild Moanie?, "Happy and You Know It?" wondering why in the world we were listening to something that would make me cry.

Those days feel so far away. I'm so thankful for writing it all down or I would barely believe it even happened. She is such a big girl now. Her latest thing that she does that she (and I) find just hysterical is she climbs into her old exersaucer that lives, dusty, in our basement. She crawls in and says, "Elie a baby!" and laughs and asks to be read to. She then squeezes herself out of it, steps over the side, and repeats the whole routine.


She's a little nut. She loves to laugh and sing and be silly. She loves "popsicle parties" in the yard and will shout a, "Cheers, Mama!" to me as we click our popsicles together.


She climbs up all the big equipment at the park on her own and fearlessly races down slides, screaming with delight in the dark tunnels while her mama anxiously awaits her arrival at the bottom.


She takes her clothes off by the creek and tries to, "Swim like a dolphin." She's so full of radiance and life. So full of all the good things.

I am honored to be her mama, to be able to celebrate her triumphant, graceful first two years.

"two in july..."

Eliana likes to tell us that she'll be, "Two in July." Today is July 1st. And I thought up until now that I was all cool and mellow about her turning two. Especially after last year and all the internal upheaval I experienced with her turning one. I thought this mellowness relating to all things two was just an indicator of how much I've matured as a mother. How I just roll with it all. How it's all just a journey, man.

Until she woke up from her nap today. And it was like in a movie when the scene cuts and in the next scene the main character is all grown up. Except instead of a movie, it was my life and the main character was my girl. She looked so long. She was hot and grumpy and her curls were all sweaty and stuck to her head. She was rattling on about her wants and needs, all specific and articulate. Her leg and shoulder muscles looked defined and developed. And I just could barely stand it.

So here I am, savoring every minute of her, hanging out with her hard like she's some special visitor. She's changing so fast, the moments turning so quickly.

Today we sat side by side on the chairs under the apple tree and ate popsicles. Hers was coconut, mine lime. And we traded licks and bites.

"Mommy and Elie sharing! Bite? Switch?"

I mean, come on! Does it get much sweeter than that. Her sentence production is out of hand and we really can just sit and converse, albeit in fragments, albeit in the third person much of the time. She talks about her birthday.

"Elie two in Jeulie. Jeulie sixteen. Ice cream party? Taco party? Rice and beanies? Cake? Ice cream? Elie two! Moanie come? Baby Hayley come? JoJo? Bob? Jiah? Solan?"

And it goes on from there.
No joke.

Sixteen days 'til the big day.

A lifetime of savoring.