Girlfriends...

Dear Marin,

In your life you will make many friends. I can tell this already as I watch you interact with people around you. You already share nicely. Last weekend you fed Elise your cheerios. You love people, and you love to play.

Girlfriends Marin, in a word, are priceless. Foster them, nurture them, cherish them. It is my hope for you that you have wonderfully rewarding and respectful relationships with your girlfriends. There is no substitute in the world for girlfriends.

I feel very fortunate to have what I consider the very best group of girlfriends anyone could ever ask for. I am reminded of that often. Sometimes Auntie Molly will send me a note at the very moment that I truly need her. Your Auntie Mika knows more about me than she probably ever wanted to know. I am not afraid to tell her anything. Auntie Erica and I often laugh until we cry and I know that I can always be truly myself around her. Auntie Emilie helps me at every turn, no matter how crazed I may be. Miss Sarah Kiep and Miss Katie McSherry are girlfriends mommy always can count on for absolute FUN.

Last night, I went with Auntie Joey to Miss Sarah Maxfield's house to meet Miss Sarah's new beautiful baby, Logan Michael. I am telling you, there are times in your life Marin, where you will just become overcome with joy for your friends. Last night was one of those nights. I love spending time with your Auntie Joey. It always feels like I just saw her five minutes ago. I loved spending even the little bit of time with her that I did last night. I relish, as I often have for my newlywed girlfriends, in the fact that she and Jeff are truly happy and meant for each other. And Miss Sarah's baby Logan is perfection, Marin. I can't wait for you to meet him. He's quite the looker, too! I don't think it is possible for one person to be happier for another, as I am for Sarah and Eric and beautiful baby Logan. And we're about to experience that joy all over again in a few weeks when Autie Mika's baby arrives!

You will make girlfriends at turns you didn't expect, too. That's how it happened with mommy when I met Aunt Lindsay and Aunt Katy. I hope you experience the same joy I have in seeing your brother so in love as Uncle Jake is with Aunt Katy, or your husband relate to his sister as only Daddy can with Aunt Lindsay.

Marin, I hope as you grow, that you will also find friends like this. Friends that understand you, and know you, and believe in you. Friends that think you are better than you sometimes believe you are. Friends to laugh with and celebrate with. Friends that you know you can count on no matter what. Friends that go out of their way to meet you for a quick drink in the middle of a busy week, like Miss Hannah does for me. Friends to swap mommy stories with, like Miss Megan and Miss Kelly. Friends that are consistently the first to wish you a happy birthday, like Auntie Joey. Friends that remind you of the standard that you hold yourself to, and expect nothing less, like Auntie Molly.

And I hope someday that you will think of me as a girlfriend too. I already know you will be mine. My mom is my girlfriend, too. Because no matter where life takes you, your girlfriends will always be there to remind you of who you are, and of who you want to be. I'll say it again, Marin: Girlfriends are priceless.

Odds and Ends

It seems like a lot has been happening around here lately. Here a few odds and ends:

We've come a long way:
Last weekend we were in the car on the way to our friends' engagement party when I said to Jason, "You know, we've really come a long way since we met." When he asked how, I pointed out that the first time we really hung out was on a Wednesday night, (in the middle of a work week!), at the Cubby Bear, where we stayed out until 2am yet each stumbled to work the next day. Now, a Saturday night, we were driving to an engagement party, drinking decaf tea with our baby in the back seat.

It's good to have someone to love in both situations.


Have Grandma will travel:
My mom and Marin and I spent the week together last week. Marin and I spent the night at my parent's house on Monday night, and my mom spent the night at our house on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had a fabulous time! We went shopping and to lunch and had cupcakes at a little shop in my parent's hometown; and Grandma and Marin had a lot of cuddle time. Marin did very well during her first ladies lunch! So naturally, we decided to do it the next day... and the next!

We wish we could spend this kind of time with you every day, Mom.


Present for Great Aunt Vee and Great Uncle Bob:
A few weekends ago Jason's Aunt Laveda and Uncle Bob came to visit us. We had such a nice time, and they just loved spending time with Marin. Marin gave Aunt Vee a lot of great big smiles, and Sunday right before they left, Marin gave Uncle Bob a much different kind of present. The kind that necessitated a bath for Marin and a wardrobe change for Uncle Bob.

I'm sure Marin will kill me for posting this some day, but we all got a good laugh!


Moving Out:
Since Marin is sleeping through the night these days (occasionally), she has moved from her bassinet in our room to her crib in her room. I have mixed feelings about it, but I know that she can't sleep next to me forever. Mark it down as the first time I've had to learn to let go. :)

Here are some pictures from her last time in the bassinet:


She really is an angel:
Yesterday was Marin's first Mass. It was Palm Sunday and Jason and I had our escape route all mapped out should she start to cry (read: scream so loudly that everyone turns to stare). But right at home at church, perhaps Marin really is an angel; she didn't make a peep the entire time.

Work out with a freak out:
So I worked out yesterday afternoon for the first time since Marin was born. Who am I kidding; it was the first time since two months before Marin was born. It's amazing what can change at the gym in four months. They had all these great new weight machines, and fancy new ellipticals. So, I grabbed one of the ellipticals and got going. (I am ridiculously weak, btw. I won't even tell you what happened on the ab cruncher. It was down right embarrassing.) So the elliptical has one of those tvs built right in, and although I prefer my ipod to the tv while I am on the machine, the tv was on- presumably from the person who worked out on the machine before I did. About ten minutes into my workout, I start to kinda watch the show on the screen and although I didn't hear a word, I could not look away. It was a show called Lost Tapes on Animal Planet-- have you heard of this show?! It was terribly wonderful! This episode featured a girl out at sea, and it was her gorgeous boat that first caught my eye. It was her inability to contact that coast guard after she saw blood all over a neighboring boat that made me watch, and after she decided to get out of there and fell overboard, I couldn't turn away. So here I am watching this show to the tune of "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me" and the boat gets farther and farther away from her, despite her swimming faster and struggling all the way. By the time "I like the way you move it, move it" came on, I fully expected the closed captioning guy to have told me that she was rescued. But instead it just said, "[crying]" and "[screaming]". I found out during the "Thong song" that although the coast guard was eventually reached, and search and rescue scanned the area for days, she was never found! Although her camera was found. And these are her Lost Tapes! I warned you that it was terribly wonderful. What a mystery!!

I will be back for this show.

Lucky Lindsay:
If you are a parent, I don't have to tell you how much easier it is to run errands without an infant in tow. There is the whole stroller factor, and the feeding factor, and the possible baby break down factor, and then there is the extra time I spend in the aisles saying, "Well Hello!!!" as Marin looks back at me with her bright eyes.

Saturday afternoon Jason and I had a bunch of errands to run, so we asked Lindsay to babysit. Marin was happy to have a little alone time with her Aunt Lindsay, and loved her first visit to her apartment. I don't think Lindsay minded either.


Kitchen river:
Have you ever heard of Kitchen River? Oh me either- until I flooded my kitchen this morning. Woops. I was filling the kitchen sink with water to wash Marin's bottles when the phone rang.... you can see where this is going. I plead sleep deprivation. Not to worry, it's all cleaned up now. No harm no foul. Ahh.... it's good to laugh at ourselves.

.... and that's about it. What can you take away from this post? Well, you have a new tv show to try out; if you hadn't suspected before, you've learned that your abs are totally shot after childbirth; you now know that Jason and I are officially boring, and that I've officially lost my mind. But that Marin is still a little Angel.

So loved...

I absolutely adore this picture that my friends Mika and Joey took when we were all in Sonoma together last month. It was pretty much spontaneous and I think is just so sweet.

Mika and Joey were my roommates in college. We met freshman year in the first week when we were all on the same dorm floor. They thought I was much cooler then, but let me stick around even when they learned better. We became thick as thieves and decided to move in together sophomore year and remained roommates through our senior year. We've been through a lot together. Almost what seems like a lifetimes worth of ups and downs. Mika is even the one responsible for introducing me to Jason! I owe so much to both of them.

I really feel like our friends are gifts in our lives. They teach us so much about who we are and about the kind of people we'd like to be. I feel especially lucky to have so many that I love so dearly. Mika and Joey are getting featured because they are in this darling picture that has become my new favorite; if I could write a whole post about all of my friends, you would be sick of reading it way before my emotional, pregnancy self was done. :)

I ordered my favorite new picture and a frame to put it in for the baby's nursery. This way the baby will always be reminded of how much he/she was loved by so many people, before it was even born.