Borrows Trouble.

That would be my Native American name. Or maybe "Mountain out of Molehill."

I positively worked myself into a lather about taking the baby to day care. By Sunday night, tossing and turning all night, I had convinced myself that Av would be in a situation little better than an Eastern Bloc orphanage. No interaction. No touching. Crying all day. Miserable without her mother.

So this was what I was expecting on Monday. And now three days in, it's nowhere near what we got. Av has lovely teachers who genuinely love kids and want to teach them about the world. She goes outside in the 9-man buggy every day. She naps--for longer than 20 minutes--in a crib. (She's yet to set foot in her crib at home.) And she's so nonchalant about it all; like, "See ya, mom." It's really a lesson for me. This is what she's like pretty much all the time:

Even I have managed to get organized and keep myself from breaking down when I drop her off. We are both in a good place. It's nice to be back at work and feel like myself again. I am a new self, mostly, but I am recognizing old pieces of me. Which is good.

Pumping at work: not even that big of a deal. Though I positively live in fear of someone opening the door on me. Won't that make a good story. Har har.

Working mom.

So you're telling me that I'm supposed to leave this three-month old child--nay, baby--with strangers for six hours a day? That's I'm supposed to hope that she will get a modicum of attention in a room of nine other babies, some sitting, some crawling, some that can't hold their own heads up yet?

I know, I know. This is a first-world problem. I had 10 out of 12 weeks of my maternity leave paid for by my company, and my boss is beyond supportive of work/life balance. She's agreed to let me go down to 30 hours a week, work from home when possible, and take advantage of flexible scheduling. I can pick up Av at day care at 2:00 and still have the afternoon to play and go on walks. We can financially afford for me to go down to 30 hours. In all these things I am luckier than most.

I want to keep working. I don't want to walk away from my career because I am not convinced that I will get it back. But how I want to spend my time has radically changed. I, like every other working mom, surely, want it all. (Except for pumping. I don't want to have to pump twice a day at work. Oy vey.)

When I really want to punish myself, I think about how this is likely the only time in her life that I will have months to spend with her without day care or school.

I just wish I had three more months with her. Three months seems so young, so little. I have been dreading this transition. But I'm sure that after a couple weeks we'll have settled into a routine that works for all of us.

Special blankie.

Please feast your eyes on what my dear friend Erin can do.

One, two, three.

How did this happen?

Newbie

1 month

2 months

3 months

How bewildering becoming a parent is. And I choose the word "becoming" rather than "being" here because it was and is absolutely a process. The first two weeks of A's life were the hardest of mine. I could not see joy, I could not see reward, I could not see a time when I wouldn't be nursing every hour. All I could see were the trees--there was no way there was a forest in there.

And then, gradually, things started to change. The mantle of "parent" went from being several sizes too large to starting to fit. I started to understand what all the fuss was about.

Helps that this baby could not be more of an angel or be any cuter.

I'm pretty blessed.

Nursery.

Let's take a tour, shall we?

The tower used to be in our bathroom, repurposed here as a feeding-supply station. New drawer pull from Hobby Lobby on sale. The canvas with the quote from Anne of Green Gables is from my college besties. I've had the lamp forever, but added green flowered trim to the top and bottom of the shade. The wrought iron used to hang in the open loft window, but now I'm using it to display what I wore to meet my paternal grandparents. (It was the 70s, so I suppose "dresses" that short were de rigour.) It won't surprise you to know that there's a cat embroidered on there.

My mom made these curtains from the Amy Butler fabric I picked out. Sorry about the picture quality; we're still operating on a busted old camera. The chair was Chris's reading chair, whose orange 60s/70s fabric was thankfully covered by a neutral chair cover. I "sewed" the trim onto the blue pillows, and used a scrap of leftover fabric as a background for the shadow box. I've had the shadow box for ages, a PB Outlet find.

The long wall next to the chair is the loft wall, where a 7' x 4' opening makes the wall next to useless. So I re-repurposed the door I salvaged from my neighbor in Memphis, which used to be our desk, into a partial wall, and then made it into a bookshelf. The front-facing shelves are $4 Ikea spice racks. I hung a shower curtain to close off the rest of the loft opening, but there's going to need to be a longer-term solution eventually.

Here's the changing table, lined with more Amy Butler fabric. The diaper with Avonlea's name on it is Erin's handiwork. And, uh, don't worry--that's a stuffed cat on the changing table. Certainly not a real one grooming himself.

One of my favorite things is this butterfly wall. Yes, it's a bit Mariah Carey, but I still love it.

Take a look at this bedding (but ignore the plastic-wrapped mattress): my mom made this! It's hard to tell in this picture, but the fabric is actually really bright and vibrant.

Adorable alphabet cards above the crib from, of all places, Anthropologie. And I swear they are more centered aboved the crib than they appear here. I really need a new camera.

And my greatest bargain: this Pottery Barn Teen rug that matches the fabric exactly...and was only $35 at the outlet.

Just missing a baby.

Beach.

I remember the old days when going to the beach meant a 32-oz soda in a styrofoam cup, a towel, and a 2-minute car ride. Now it means packing chairs, an umbrella, spf 80 sunscreen (80--you read that right), and a cooler, and it's 4 hours by car. Worth it, though.

A word about the umbrella: I have officially fallen into the demographic that would not dream of going to the beach for longer than 5 minutes without some sort of shade. In fact, I pity people without umbrellas at the beach. Ten-Year's-Ago Me would have laughed in Today Me's face...and then thanked me for trying to keep our skin from looking like fruit leather.

On Friday morning, it looked ominous. 50% chance of rain.

 We tried to keep a positive attitude.

 And then we saw this.

Which I interpreted as God promising not to flood the beach that day. Or that I would find a whole sand dollar. (Broken sand dollars are all over the place in Port Aransas, but never any whole ones.)

Despite some early morning rain, we had two days more or less full of sun. But the rain brought something else that maybe you don't expect at the beach: mosquitoes. Mosquitoes the size of horseflies. They congregated here, at the boardwalk path between our house and the beach. Pretty, eh? Pretty dangerous.

I expect West Nile and/or hepatitis at any time now.

And look--I bought a faux cowboy hat! Am I a cute poseur or what?

Never did find that whole sand dollar.

Still fun anyway. And tan.

Vision.

My mom has more Halloween decorations that Christmas ones. She (and Emily) begin their Halloween-decor shopping around the end of August. So it's probably no surprise that that haunted apple has not fallen far from the tree. Only storage space prevents me from going overboard with Halloween and fall tchotchskies. (Aside: the spell-checker for that word suggested that "crotchless" was what I was trying to spell. That would, indeed, be a different post.)

I bought this at TJ Maxx last week. Stay with me now.

I have nowhere to store this guy, so my plan is to spray paint him bright orange or blue, or even white, so that it can sit out the rest of the year. Owls are very in right now. I just cant' decide if I am making a mistake by painting it--therefore ruining it for subsequent Halloweens--or if I am making it better. Guess there'll be only one way to find that one out.

A few of my favorite things.

Fall-minded these days. Maybe because of my new lovelies.

Fall clothes and shoes are the best colors: orange, brown, turquoise, plum, and emerald. I need some tights--not leggings. Or jeggings, God forbid. I need some tweed. I am in love with this herringbone jacket by Tucker for Target. I need to learn how to wear scarves.

For all this, however, I need to live in a place where it's not still 95 degrees.

But I've already made one pumpkin-spice recipe and the pumpkin-spice latte is back at Starbucks (though I never get those; too many points), so I've mentally made the transition. I sigh with the realization that it'll be another couple months before a true fall wardrobe can be put into effect.

Localvore.

Apparently, George Michael knows of my desire to try to eat more locally grown things, so he's been a real help this week. He's brought in a bird, a couple lizards, a few cicadas, and a mouse. (Well, two mice, I think. The first one looked so scrumptious that he ate it--how do I know? There was a pile of barf under the table, another pile of barf by the door which had, shall we say, remains in it, and then there were the entrails in a separate pile by the chair. So maybe it was not to his taste, but he tried to bring in another one that afternoon for me to sample on my own. I declined. And then subsequently played cat-and-mouse in the backyard, trying to distract GM long enough for the mouse to shimmy away.)

That cat's a real space invader.

There's also a frog that has taken up residence in my succulent pot. Or as GM probably puts it, there's a succulent frog in my pot. I see it in the morning, as we're returning from our 6 A.M. walks, just nestled in the cool soil. (Yes, I keep my succulents so watered that their soil is cool and damp. They are growing like gangbusters.) So far the frog has not been in the house yet, but I have every expectation that it will make that journey (inside GM's mouth).

And you wonder why I often have night terrors related to things crawling on the bed.

Cabin fever: the road from Manteca to Sonora.

I've always been attracted to the tawny golden hills in California. I'm sure I'm not the first person to compare them to the color of a lion's fur, but that's what I think of every time.

The route to the cabin leads from the Bay Area, through the northern end of the Central Valley, and into the Sierra foothills, just about an hour north of Yosemite. We drove through at sunset, and it couldn't have been more picturesque. The light was absolutely golden.

All these pictures were taken out of the car window at 70 mph. Just think of what you could do with a tripod and a more sophisticated camera.

This last one is my favorite. It makes a great desktop background.