For the past few days Sydney has been under the weather,  hardly wanting to get off the couch or greet us when we come through the door. Having her be sick made me realize how often she is right up in the mix with us, happily chewing on her bone or snuggling close. If we’re in the kitchen cooking, she is there sitting patiently next to her food dish, in hopes of having a snack dropped into her bowl. If we’re outside, she’s outside lounging in the sun, chasing birds or follwing Maggie around. If we’re getting ready to go in the car, she’s anxiously following us around to see if she’s going to get an invite.  Basically, wherever we are, Sydney is with us. She just doesn’t go far.

At the start of this week when it became apparent that Syd wasn’t feeling good, I quickly noticed that my trusty-sidekick wasn’t just being lazy. She felt really bad. After few nights of letting her go outside when nature called (which reminded me of how it is NOT awesome to get up frequently in the middle of the night) and feeding her simplified foods of rice & chicken, I can say that The Tubby Torpedo is on the mend!! Both today and yesterday she’s followed us around and as done her guard-dog duties when birds or squirrels come too close.

Both Barry and I commented about how hard it’s going to be to see Syd get old. Make fun of us all you want, but she’s like our first child and we both high-fived when Sydney came bounding into bed last night with her bone – a nightly ritual that she’d been too sick to do previous nights.

And yes, I did just write a blog post on my dog’s health. Oi.

Almost nothing has surprised me more about Maggie than seeing her with her baby doll. We have baskets and baskets of toys, puzzles, games and anything the poor girl could want, but time and time again she seeks her babies out and totes them around, loving on tehm to no end. Before she got “New Baby” for her birthday from my parents, she was smitten by a replica baby doll from my childhood, we named her Val.

Val has practically been cast-aside and New Baby has taken over. New baby is never, ever far from Maggie’s side, getting pushed, dragged, wrapped, rocked, hugged, traced, fed, and sometimes even washed. I am not surprised at how compassionate and loving Maggie is, but I am surprised at how careful and caring she is towards her baby. I’m not entirely sure, but I think New Baby has a bed time right around our usual dinner time. I say this because Maggie can often be found zig-zagging around the house with New Baby swaddled up, singing to her….if Barry and I notice this too much or ask about New Baby, we are looked at with the ‘can’t-you-see-my-baby-is-freaking-sleeping’ look. So we have to ignore them both and let Maggie put her baby to bed. It is beyond adorable.

Maggie also has a special voice that she uses when she talks to New Baby, I can’t quite figure out how to describe it, except to say that it is equally adorable. It is the same exact voice that she uses when she talks to Sydney. (Ummmm….it also might be the same voice that I use when I talk to Sydney…)

Slowly New Baby is becoming that toy that when it comes places with us – and you better believe it comes places with us – I worry what’ll happen if it gets left behind. As I kid, I would have freaked out if my Chicky Blanket (LOVE!) would have been lost, and Barry had his special dinosaur that now lives in our keepsake trunk. I don’t think Maggie is going to have any years-long attachment to New Baby, but ever since she came across New Baby in her stroller on her birthday, they’ve been the best of pals. (And I totally get it because I’ve got a baby of my own that I’m very attached to…)

We’ve become more watchful when New Baby is out in public with us and so far she has come home every time. Like Maggie, keeping clean clothes on New Baby is a challenge, especially since Maggie hasn’t quite figured out the dressing of New Baby. So, New Baby goes naked a bunch, we just have to ignore the dirt that she’s acquired from all the toting around.

Barry & me in Newcastle, Australia watching the sun come up on our favorite beach. 2005

For some reason this 1,000th post seemed significant to me and I haven’t really been able to pinpoint why I feel this way, but this morning as I started thinking about how I wanted to answer some of your questions, I realized that this 1,000th post for me is more about why I blog and what it means to me and our family. I still remember in 2005 before Barry and I were getting ready to leave on our January – June Australian adventure and he set this blog up as a way to keep our families up to date on our trip. We’d clock into an internet cafe and I always had to whisper-talk to Barry about what ‘code’ to use because he’d set up the writing portion of the site for a computer nerd – and computer nerd, I am not.

By the time we came home from Australia and got our jobs, we weren’t really sure what to write about and the blog fell off the grid for a bit. It makes me sad to think about that time because we had plenty going on  - camping trips, dinners with friends, bike rides, and plenty of fun. We’ve got pictures and some half-accurate memories, but I wish that we’d kept writing during that time. Shortly after we got Sydney, I discovered The Pioneer Woman and her pictures and ability to write about the everyday adventure inspired me beyond words. So, we launched the blog up again and during our wedding planning we started to post with more frequency, with horrible pictures and writing that wasn’t coherent. (Can’t say that we’ve improved that much in the past five years, but we’re more thoughtful than before!)

It wasn’t until Little Miss Maggie Mae showed up on the scene that I realized how strongly I felt about documenting our lives. Time seemed to speed up and I could hardly remember one day from the next. I’d always found an outlet for my thoughts through writing – journals, notes, letters… – and the blog seemed to fuel that need that I felt to dump out my thoughts. Today when I think about our blog, I feel thankful that I’ve kept it up. I hardly ever go back and proof read  (sorry, folks!) and rarely do I regret my writing.

Personally, I think everyone should document their life – through pictures, words, drawings, songs – just document who you are. I know that I love reading my baby book and the notes that my mom wrote about me. It gives me snapshots of who I was as a young child, but more importantly, who she was as a young mother. I hope that someday Maggie will read this blog and she’ll get a feel for who we were, her parents, when she was young and even before.

Sure, so much of our lives isn’t on here, but the snapshots that are make me feel happy, proud, excited and extremely blessed. So, this 1,000th post is significant to me because it makes me realize that the words and pictures that have followed us on this blog from 2005 are truly the fabric of our lives. I blog to document that ever-changing fabric.

And now for some of your questions…if you’ve got more, feel free to ask. Seeing these come through has been really fun. We’re not using formspring in the traditional way, but we’re still getting some of your questions. 

How old was Maggie when it was evident that she’d have curly hair? 

Oh, the hair. I’d say that around 5 or 6 months we knew it’d be curly. We took a trip to Hawaii when she was almost 6 months old and that was the first place that I remember thinking that her hair was ‘having a party on top of her head’ for the first time. That said, I also remember very, very early on another parent of curly-haired children informing me that it looked like Mags was going to have curly hair, something that wasn’t obvious to us yet.

Where do you get majority of Maggie’s clothes? 

Most of Maggie’s clothes have come from local consignment/second hand shops. We’ve had some hand-me-downs from friends, but I really enjoy trying to find great deals in the local shops near our house. My mom has also made Maggie many dresses, skirts and pinafores. Occasionally I’ll find something on zulilly.com or a Groupon and buy it, but for the most part we’ve been able to buy used items. We almost always buy new shoes.

What kind of camera do you use to take your pictures?

I have a trusty-old Canon Rebel that I love and adore. Sometimes I daydream about upgrading my camera body from time to time, but I really am happy with my current set up. I have a number of lenses, with my two favorites being the 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.8. I try to only shoot with natural light and shoot in Manual mode as well.  I edit my photos using Lightroom. I poured over my owner’s manual and read many online tutorials when I first got my camera and still follow fellow photographers whose work I find inspiration.  I still have a lot to learn, but I love taking pictures.

Do you ever wonder things about people? I do. I find myself observing people and wondering the strangest things about them. For example, today Maggie and I were at the park and there was a woman there wearing rain boots, a sweater and a down vest. It was a cute outfit and all, but, lordy, the sun is shining and practically everyone else in the PNW has dug out their shorts and are flashing their bare-ass legs for the world to see, myself included. I found myself wondering and almost worrying about her closet. What if she doesn’t have other shoes? Or maybe she thinks rain boots are fashionable on hot, sunny days? Is she from out of town? You see, I let my mind go…and that was just the lady at the park wearing rain boots.

http://www.formspring.me/hbadventure

This is our 999th post over here at HB Adventure (not counting all the ones from our 2005 trip to Australia that are hidden…like a buried treasure) and we decided we wanted to do something a bit different. We’re going to try to answer your questions in the next post. Even though only 5 of you (and thank you for that!) are regular commenters, we do get a fair share of e-mails, texts and random messages about our blog (and thank you for that as well!), but we’d like to try and do a little FAQ for you. And since we know you like to remain anonymous, which we totally get, we opened up a formspring account. You can head over there and ask us your burning questions. We can’t promise that we’ll answer them if they’re awkward or inappropriate, but this is your chance to fire away.

http://www.formspring.me/hbadventure

I follow a few fellow bloggers/photographers that have their own formspring accounts and I really love being able to ask questions that sometimes feel lame to me and get answers from people whose work I admire or boots I wonder where they got. You know, the regular things that go through your mind.

http://www.formspring.me/hbadventure

And since this is the 999th post of our blog: here is the very first picture we uploaded. It seems fitting that it’s Sydney swaddled in her baby blanket. I think it was taken on the day that we brought her home. Don’t click on it because it’s huge, apparently we hadn’t learned to resize yet. We’ve learned a lot these past few years. Believe me. Go ASK.

http://www.formspring.me/hbadventure

1,000th post will be up in the next few days. Get excited.

HERE

Krista  and her family are setting out on a new adventure this week – saying goodbye to their beloved Seattle and moving to Oregon. I’m not very good at saying goodbyes, they make me feel weepy and awkward, but I have an undying passion for new adventures and brave changes. So, I’m embracing Krista, Lance and Will’s new adventure and reminding myself that we’ll still get to be friends with them, just not as often as we’d like.

Way back in March, Will came and stayed with us while Krista and Lance hit the town for some dinner and smooth conversation. Maggie spent a better part of the evening rubbing Will’s silky hair and convincing him that jumping on the bed is the best thing to do when you’ve got your jammies on. They were a hilarious duo.

Before Krista and Lance left for the evening, they informed us that Will typically is in bed by 7 o’clock. Ummmm……what? We’ve hardly started Maggie’s bath by that time. So we did what any parent with somebody else’s child might do in the situation – we kept Will up past his bedtime.

And the kid rocked it out.

He and Mags took a long bath together, read books and basically reveled in having a counterpart to bounce energy off of. And then we set up Will’s pack and play  and he was done for. After plopping both him and Maggie down in there – he just stared at her (and us) as if we were encroaching on his space, which we most definitely were.

After  a few minutes of play time, we snagged Maggie out of the pen and said our night-nights. Maggie and I went to rock – starting our own marathon before bedtime, dang it – and Barry spied on Will around the corner because we could hardly believe that putting a kid to bed could be so easy. (Later Barry confirmed that, sure enough, Will sat and stared for a minute and then peacefully fell asleep. Amazing.)

While Maggie and I rocked she was fairly concerned about Will (“Wheeel? Night-night, Wheel?”) and I shushed her worries away telling her that Will was going night-night all alone (with Papa spying around the corner, so not really alone) like a Big Boy. I think she could hardly believe it herself.

Later that night Krista and Lance arrived on our doorstep with a fresh pie in hand, ready to retrieve their sleeping nugget.  I was still working to get Maggie asleep at that point, but hearing them come through the door, I instantly decided to let Mags join us in our pie-eating-conversation-filled evening. I wasn’t about to miss out on spending some time with Krista, Lance & Barry.

We sat around the living room talking, eating and watching Maggie play by herself and slowly making her way to taste pie from time to time. Eventually it became late and Krista, Lance and Will had a drive to get home, so we started to say our goodbyes. Maggie watched as Will and his gear was packed up and loaded into the car.

She cried, probably because she was overtired, when they all walked out the door.

And the next morning when she woke up she instantly wondered where “Wheel” went. We reminded her that “Wheel” was with his parents and at his house. She seemed fine with that, but everytime we get together with Thomas, Gavin, Mara & Caroline, she wonders, with hope in her voice, if “Wheel” might be there.

It makes me extremely sad that I’ll have to be the one to inform here that “Wheel” isn’t going to be at the various playdates because he’s off on adventure with his parents. But since goodbyes make me weepy and awkward, I’m looking to the future – and Will’s coming adventures.

And who’s to say a road trip isn’t in our future?

Krista’s blog here

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The following photos have nothing to do with Wheel and his parents, rather some oldies but goodies from a few months ago. Enjoy

I’m hoping that this is a phase, but we’ll see. 

I’ll hopefully be able to play catch up some day soon. 

Just not today. 

Tomorrow?

We shall see. 

H

A few months ago Krista sent out an e-mail to our A-Town crew of mamas wondering if we were interested in planning a weekend away in the coming weeks. We all compared our calendars and set, which seemed at the time, like a very far-away date for the last weekend in April and happily went about our business. We’d all committed to two nights away from our kids, leaving our dudes (or grandparents in KVD’s case) in charge of our babies. 

I had this 'idea' that we'd take pictures of our group as we kept adding people as they arrived or we picked them up...

I’m so glad that Krista sent the e-mail and at the time I felt like two nights seemed excessive and overly indulgent, but by the time Sunday rolled around, it seemed like we’d all just arrived and nobody was ready to rush away from our retreat. Plus, the sun started to shine those last few hours, so we shed a few layers, rolled up our pants and Circle Talked, our newly coined term, for another few hours. 

But really, that’s getting ahead of the whole weekend. Lara’s godmother, Marji, graciously allowed us to stay in her family’s cabin on Guemes Island for the weekend and nobody could have dreamed of a better location for our getaway. All of us have memories of Guemes from our younger years (we’re old enough to have younger years now? I guess so…) but none of all of us together, and certainly none of us in such similar places in our lives. 

If Sunday brought the need to toss aside our shoes and soak in the sun rays, Friday was all about excitement and anticipation. Nicole came onto the island a bit later that night and that meant that Krista, Erin and I crammed into Lara’s car with all our luggage and some food, after meeting up at the ferry dock on the Anacortes side. Even if we wanted to get out to enjoy the 7 minute ferry ride, we would have had to spend 6 of the 7 minutes packing and re-packing all our stuff. We were practically giddy with excitement for the coming days. 

While we waited for Cole’s ferry to dock, Krista, Lara, Erin and I found ourselves standing in a circle just jabbering away, almost talking over one another, but not really. I believe this is when we coined the term Circle Talk. 

We Circle Talked at the cabin, which happened to fit our every need, until 2 o’clock in the morning. 2 o’clock, people!!! Do you know when the last time that some of us saw 2 o’clock was?  It was glorious to have uninterrupted conversation with other women, other mothers, other friends. We probably could have Circle Talked until much later, but we knew we had Saturday night and there was no need to Circle Talk ourselves into oblivion. Right? 

So, Sunday brought calmness and Friday brought excitement, then Saturday most certainly was the day in which balance seemed to fall in. Everybody woke on their own schedule and some sipped tea, coffee or simply water.  As I stepped outside, directly onto the beach from our front door practically (!), I looked one way and could see my girlfriends down the beach and looked the other way and saw an empty beach. 

I chose to walk on the empty beach by myself, a choice that I don’t usually get to make.  At first I almost wanted to strain my ears to hear what my friends were saying and I called Barry to check in and even sent a few texts. Then I put my phone away and sipped my tea while I listened to the crunch of the rocks below my feet. It felt SO strange to be utterly alone. 

I walked and walked and snapped a few pictures here and there, trying to ‘relax’ and take it all in, but after a while I just wanted to be with my friends and see if they were Circle Talking again. So I headed back and arrived to find everybody sitting around the table eating breakfast and…..Circle Talking. Happiness for us = talking it up. We Circle Talked about our plans for the day, our kid, husbands, lunch, babies, pregnancy, and finally got our butts in gear and headed out the door to hike to the top of Guemes Mountain….if Nicole could just remember where the trail head was. 

Nicole did remember and we made our way to the ‘top,’ which was a glorified lookout to Anacortes.  (Side note: I have never loved getting lost so much….getting ‘lost’ with a group of friends vs. a pissed off toddler is way better.  We were able to back up, turn around and all hold a conversation without worry of tears or puke. If that isn’t incredible, what is? Plus, Erin told us, in her Mama’s Weekend Away Manifesto, that there’d be NO TEARS and NO COMPLAINTS!)

At the top of the mountain, after we realized that we were freakin’ Circle Talking AGAIN, we spread out and roamed around a bit. Erin started trying to do a handstand, which she did, and I tried to capture it with my camera. You should know a few things about this:

1. Erin doing a handstand spread like a wild fire through our group and we all wanted to try it.

2. I should not have tried because I’ve never been one to….well, do hand stands. Or cartwheels.

3. The pictures (some of them) are too good not to share and I’ve included them below. If you wonder why there isn’t a Mama’s Weekend Away blog post next year, those pictures are probably why.

After we rolled around, some of us literally, laughing at our attempts to do handstands we headed to Anderson’s for lunch and back to the cabin where we all proceeded to read or take naps. By the time the house started to stir with noise again, we were ready to boogie down the beach while sipping on warm drinks to fight the wind. (And this, my friends, is where some of us (who shall remain nameless) may or may not have had a mug wash out to sea…)

In all the Circle Talking that went on, I realized how much listening we were all doing as well. We were all asking great questions and truly listening to whomever was talking. As great as being away was, it really was the flow of the conversation that we all needed so dearly. Yes, we see each other at play dates, send e-mails and write letters, but that really doesn’t compare to sitting down and talking uninterrupted. To me, it speaks volumes that both nights we stayed up until 2 a.m. just talking, telling stories, laughing, and conversing about our lives. We all wanted to be heard and Circle Talking gave us that outlet. 

I can’t elaborate much more on The First Annual Mama’s Weekend Away, except to say that I could not have asked for a better weekend away with other mothers. Before  I left home,  Barry and I were talking about me being gone for the weekend, and I realized that even a year ago this wouldn’t have been an option. I was still breastfeeding and Maggie was a bit snooty-pants about sleep, our house was a very exhausted place. Now, a whole year later, I’m no longer breastfeeding and Maggie isn’t as particular about sleep.  

So, when Krista sent out that e-mail a few months ago, I answered that of course I’d like to go on a weekend away. I had no idea it’d revitalize a part of my soul – you know, the part that can only be repaired with Circle Talking x a Million, staying up until 2 o’clock in the morning eating discounted Easter candy, long beach walks, and attempts to do handstands on top of a mountain with your girlfriends from A-Town. 

AND NOW FOR THE PICTURES THAT WE’LL PROBABLY BE THE ONLY ONES TO LAUGH AT….CIRCLE UP, LADIES!!!