relations

They don't call this place the city of Brotherly Love for nothing.

On Saturday we took the train into the city. Chris's aunt had never been on a train, as I discovered on Friday, so we had to remedy that situation quickly! We took the regional rail into the city, hung out at the Borders, and then came home. It was fun and the just right amount of eventful.

The day went by so fast that here it is Friday when I can sit down and wish you all a happy thanksgiving! I've been gearing up for awhile. Planning menus and buying food. Watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and Mayflower specials with Ellis.

I went down to Lancaster on Wednesday afternoon after a fun Thanskgiving party at school with Ellis. My sister helped me a lot. We made the pumpkin pie, the stuffing, and our favorite cranberry dish in the world.
The kids got to bed kind of late. And Marlowe was fussy all night. I forgot the teething tablets. Around 5 am, I was trying to settle him, and Ellis stirred and wanted to snuggle. He wouldn't go back to sleep without me, but Marlowe was crying and crying. So eventually I just gave up, and we all got up. Ellis snuggled in front of some On Demand, and I went downstairs to put the turkey in the oven. It was happily cooking away by 6.30 am. I worked in the kitchen off and on all day, making garlic mashed potatoes, baked sweet potato fries with fresh herbs (scrumptious!), spaghetti squash with parmesan cheese, collard greens, all the while babysitting the turkey which I kept basting with butter and white wine per Martha. Marlowe wins the Happiest Baby Award, because he had so much fun bouncing around all day from person to person to exersaucer to person.

I had been frustrated that Ellis woke up so early, because I knew he'd be cranky, so when he fell asleep watching the parade, I was so happy (and a little shocked), he woke up later with a burning fever, whimpering on my lap. This sort of threw a wrench on the pre-dinner wrapup, but Daddy was able to help with Ellis snuggling and my mom got things all warmed up, and we got dinner on the table okay. My parents, sister, two brothers and brother's GF were there, in addition to my aunt and uncle and four cousins, and a friend of my parents. It was kind of a crazy afternoon with dinner and keeping Ellis comfy. We left in the evening. Ellis was still pretty miserable. But he slept all night, and woke up this morning with a normal temp and his normal happy self. So it must have been a one-day bug kind of thing. He's never sick, I mean, never, so I was so sad for him.

Anyway, Marlowe fussed all night. And I'm exhausted the morning. (I did make super-yummy pumpkin pancakes, though. A little crazy, but so yummy!!!!)

We're getting excited over here!! Well, at least I am. On Friday we went down to Lancaster to celebrate Nick's birthday. We got there so late, though, that we ended up spending the night. On Saturday morning I went to central market with my mom where I stocked up on items for Thanksgiving dinner. I was hoping to have a few friends over to our house, but that didn't work out, so we just decided to combine our dinners, and I'll cook over at my mom's house where my aunt, uncle, and cousins will be, too.

I finished shopping for the rest of my ingredients (except for shredded coconut and dry white wine) this morning. I also popped into Old Navy and got a couple of things for myself. They have so good prices on fleeces. I've always loved wool sweaters, but this year i can't stand the idea of wearing wool, for some reason. I just feel stifled and dry thinking about it. Hmm. Kind of weird. I'll blame the baby hormones. Add to that that many of my wool sweaters became snack material for moths while they were in storage. Grr. I will probably felt them and use the felt for some cool projects. I like the bright fleecies I got at Old Navy today. Now if only I could find a pair of jeans I like to fit right over my post-baby butt, I'd be happy. But I have started my yoga again, so maybe I'll fight the jeans warfare from the end. Boo.

So on my list for today, besides finishing shopping, is cooking the pumpkin(s?). Tomorrow I will make pumpkin pie and cheesecake and our favorite cranberry dishes. Wednesday I will make the potatoes and the stuffing. Thursday I will cook the turkey and while it sits before carving, finish the other vegetables. My goal this year, in addition to cooking a truly tasty dinner, is to be sure I cook enough for leftovers. Last year, Chris missed out on leftovers and was *very* sad, so what's a wifey to do?

ETA: yours for free: my pumpkin pie tutorial from a few years back. Though the pictures were accidently deleted by the server awhile ago.

The snow is still coming down. It's been off and on all night. Right now it's very on in big fluffiness! I'm very excited!! If we didn't have an IEP meeting later at school, I would've kept Ellis home. They're pretty die-hard outside players at school, though, so I think he'll get some fun outside. He has a good pair of mittens, but last time he wore them, he decided to make sculptures in the dirt, so into the wash they went. And, in the way of socks and mittens, only one came out, so we're on the lookout for the other. But it's snowing today!! So, awesome mom that I am, I whipped him up a new pair of fleecy mittens while he watched Sesame Street, before the bus came. This is a great mitten tutorial, by the way. So his little fingers will stay warm.

We're off to Lancaster today to celebrate Ellis's favorite Uncle Nick's birthday! Happy Birthday!!!

It's been a busy week.

First, my good buddy who moved away came back for a visit. Yay!

Then, it seems that I must traverse all over the city and its environs this week.
On Wednesday I had a quick visit with the midwife (follow up on some birth control options, if you must know). I bother to even mention this little visit, because I met a new midwife at the birth center and she was so awesome that it made me want to have another baby just so I could see her again. In the afternoon, I went to my friend's house for playgroup. I've felt weird about going without Ellis who is in school. But Marlowe deserves to play with other babies, too. On Wednesday evening I went to CHOP for a presentation about bilateral cochlear implants (two implants--one for each ear). We're not interested in getting a second one, but the CI team had just been through a time of study, and i wanted to hear what they had to say. (So I've gone from Bryn Mawr to NW Philly to home to University City.)

On Thursday I went to a signing class at the school. The teacher was our first deaf mentor and is a really terrific ASL teacher. The material itself I already knew, but it is so helpful to actually practice conversation, because that is where I have trouble. I struggle with my ASL receptive skills. After class I tromped through the rain to the fabric store. Then there was speech therapy in the afternoon. After which my brother met us and we went to Target. (So I've gone from Germantown to University City to Jenkintown to home.)

Then on Friday, I kept Ellis home, so that we could go to Lancaster. We made a stop off to visit my grandma who is feeling very blah. The kids cheered her up a little, but it was kind of a difficult visit. I had a hard time thinking of what to say. We spent the rest of the day at my parents' house. My brother came over for a little bit and took Ellis to his house for a couple of hours. Ellis was over the moon with joy about driving away with Uncle Nick.

Today we had deep clean day. I wanted to have a huge deep clean, declutter day before the holidays. It's still not where I want it, but significant progress was made. I even got the kids clothing situation squared away, which is big when you have a baby who grows out of his clothes every few months. I really wanted to get ahold of the toy situation before Christmas and to reorganize stuff now that Marlowe is mobile.

Oh yea, did I mention Marlowe will be crawling any day now. He scooches very deftly and quickly wherever he wants to go, and then gets up on his hands and knees and rocks, with a determined look on his face that says "I WILL crawl!" Very comical on his tiny 5 mo face. Thankfully, he's still easy to pick up and redirect, because he can pretty much get into anything in his reach that he wants.

Speaking of Marlowe, the magical baby who can get by with very short increments of sleep is saying "mommy! mommy!" in that special baby kind of way, "waaah!". Sorry this is kind of a boring post. My blog mojo is kind of off these days.

Sooo, busy weekend.

Due to the fact that my children don't seem to get that whole thing called sleeping, I am very tired. But life goes on. So when Ellis came home from school on Friday, we were off to Lancaster. Again! It's about an hour and a half drive, and it felt overwhelming to me at the time. But it was my grandma's birthday, and I had to be there! It was a brilliantly sunny afternoon. The countryside spoke harvest with crinkly cornfields and pumpkins lined up beside the road. Tractors (or horse teams, depending on the farmer's religious affiliation) were out cutting hay, harvesting corn, bringing tobacco to dry in barns with vented walls.

In the middle of the rolling hills of farms is the little town with my grandma's retirement home. We knocked on the door, and entered saying "Happy Birthday!" She said, "Oh wonderful!"

We went over to my parents' for supper. And mom and i made a movie tour of their new house to show grandma. And then I drove home late.

On Saturday, I went to a baby shower and then hung out at my ILs a bit, while Chris was cramming work for a deadline. We cleaned house later. I'm feeling antsy, like I need to declutter scary corners that have hithertofore been ignored. Maybe it's reverse nesting. Or fall cleaning. Or the desire to decorate, but I have to dust first. At any rate, right now, I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against Clutter of all sorts: house clutter, mind clutter, time clutter. My head is all in a fog.

I was heartily cheered by a long phone chat with my old college buddy and realized that it had been an extremely long time (over a year?) since we've talked. When we were both newlyweds at the same time, we used to talk on the phone while making dinner. This time, I was making dinner, and she was cleaning cobwebs.

Since routines have changed somewhat around here, I'm trying to make new habits that involve good, quality connecting time in the family. When Ellis gets home from school, I have a picnic snack ready for him, and we sit for hours playing together, talking, looking for airplanes in the sky. And Chris and I try to have "adult dinner" once a week or so. That would be dinner without kids, adults only. It's sort of in lieu of a date. Or an at-home date. If we buy a bottle of wine, it's just as good as a date (even better, in some respects), and much less complicated, because no babysitters, waiters, too much money spent, etc. It suits us just right. So we had "adult dinner" last night. We watched a whole disc of Gilmore Girls and had pork chops and spaghetti squash. I prepared the squash a little differently this time, with parmesan cheese and bits of crumbled bacon in addition to a little salt, pepper, and butter. So yummy. We ate the whole squash.

Our little Christmas concert choir at church has begun rehearsals. It's going to be a great program, and it's so fun to be a part of. But she asked me to sing soprano. Eeek! My voice is so out of shape.

And here we are at Sunday night again, eating leftover pizza, thinking about the week. In some ways I feel excited to jump in there; in others, I feel like I'm losing already.

Yesterday my mom turned 50! Yay! Happy Birthday!!!

We celebrated with mom and dad and a pile of cousins at my parents' house last night. Mom made a bunch of soup. I brought bread; Mary made three yummy pies. Mom had arranged the whole thing herself, and we said, "Mom, you could've told us to do it!" But she wanted to do it just how she wanted to, and in the end, it was just perfect. Last time I was down there, she said that maybe Mary and I could come early to decorate. I wasn't sure when I could get there early because of Chris's work, so I didn't want to commit. But I did have a good idea in the end, and we did get there a little early.

What better way to decorate for an October birthday!

After we ate, we chatted and played games. I realized that it had been several months since I'd seen most people, and some were meeting Marlowe for the first time.

When I got my camera to download the pics, though, I think Ellis had the best perspective of the evening. I took a few token pictures, and then, of course, Ellis commandeered the camera. He does pretty well with it, and LOVES taking pictures. So I don't mind letting him and then go back and delete some. There's usually a few I love and keep. I was cracking up at what people would do for the camera with Ellis behind it.

Yesterday Marlowe was baptized into the family of faith. A moment of great rejoicing in our family.

Do you acknowledge that, although our children are conceived and born in sin and therefore are subject to condemnation, they are holy in Christ, and as members of his church ought to be baptized?

Do you promise to instruct your child in the principles of our holy religion as revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and as summarized in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of this Church; and do you promise to pray with and for your child, to set an example of piety and godliness before him, and to endeavor by all the means of God's appointment to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?

Marlowe didn't cry at all. He didn't make a peep the whole time except for a tiny coo once while I was still holding him. He did, however, poop right before we were supposed to go up, so no chance to change him. (Sorry, Mark) Ellis also did really well. He kept waving to the grandparents (my ILs go to the same church and my parents came up from Lancaster--about an hour and a half--for church and dinner. and one of my sisters and one my brothers were there, too). I was glad he was well-behaved and didn't do something crazy like try to knock the cup of water over. He seemed really interested. He signed "eat". I think he thought it was the Lord's Supper (though nothing was set out for it). Signing is fun, because we could talk to Ellis the whole time and explain as best we could what was happening.

My family stayed for lunch. And some friends joined us.

In the afternoon, we had cake and invited church friends to celebrate with us. It was warm with a coolish breeze. Perfect late summer afternoon.

* * *

From the Book of Church Order
Baptism is a sacrament ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a sign and seal of the inclusion of the person who is baptized in the covenant of grace. Teaching that we and our children are conceived and born in sin, it witnesses and seals unto us the remission of sins and the bestowal of all the gifts of salvation through union with Christ. Baptism with water signifies and seals cleansing from sin by the blood and the Spirit of Christ, together with our death unto sin and our resurrection unto newness of life by virtue of the death and resurrection of Christ. Since these gifts of salvation are the gracious provision of the triune God, who is pleased to claim us as his very own, we are baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. And since baptized persons are called upon to assume the obligations of the covenant, baptism summons us to renounce the devil, the world and the flesh and to walk humbly with our God in devotion to his commandments.

Although our young children do not yet understand these things, they are nevertheless to be baptized. For the promise of the covenant is made to believers and to their seed, as God declared unto Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." In the new dispensation no less than in the old, the seed of the faithful, born within the church, have, by virtue of their birth, interest in the covenant and right to the seal of it and to the outward privileges of the church. For the covenant of grace is the same in substance under both dispensations, and the grace of God for the consolation of believers is even more fully manifested in the new dispensation. Moreover, our Saviour admitted little children into his presence, embracing and blessing them, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of God." So the children of the covenant are by baptism distinguished from the world and solemnly received into the visible church.

A few minutes of quiet. E has just left for school. M catnaps. Blueberry pancakes sizzle. Our friends got me hooked on Trader Joe's buttermilk pancake mix. Third time this week I've made pancakes...with lots of blueberries. Mmmm.

My aunt and four cousins and my mom (who was hanging out with them) stopped by yesterday to say hello to the baby. It was such a fun impromptu visit! And E had a blast playing with my cousins.

And on these HOT days in late July, we eat lots popsicles and crank up the AC. T minus 8 days 'til vacation in Maine.

I loaded up Ellis and Marlowe on Monday and went to spend a few days in Lancaster at my mom's. E's summer session at school starts tomorrow, so I wanted to get a visit in before that. I wanted my great-aunt and uncle to meet Marlowe, and we had lunch and a great visit with them. Aunt Lee loves babies, and it's so fun to see her love on mine.

Then we went down to visit my grandma. Ellis was such a buddy! He knew where we were when we got there, and brought in his puzzle book to show her. He plopped up on her bed and patted next to him for her to sit, but she is confined to a motorized wheelchair, so she couldn't, but she had fun looking at his book with him. And he performed his colors admirably. Much to the delight of her former schoolteacher's heart. She gave him a ride on the wheelchair holding him in her lap. I think she has more fun with this age.

And mommy and grandma were not too proud to sit outside in the baby pool with Ellis later. It was a hot day and the water felt great. Esp when E sprayed us in the face. haha!

E didn't sleep very well while we were gone, so I'm kind of tired. But it was nice to have an extra pair of hands to hold the baby, to have someone feed me when I was SO hungry (which I am ALL THE TIME--and I have a fat baby to prove it!), and to have a park to walk to a few blocks away.

We came home this evening. Ellis did not follow the plan and fall asleep in teh car, so he had a rather late bedtime. Hope it doesn't mess us up for school tomorrow, especially since he'll get to ride the bus for the first time.