little black journal

I’m putting the finishing touches on my list of 2014 resolutions, but before I jump into this year’s aspirations, I’m taking a minute to look back on how I did on my goals for 2013.  And…you win some, you lose some.

Sabbath more intentionally.  There were a handful of Sundays when I really made a point of resting, of putting away my to-do list and focusing on my relationship with God, with Shane, with family and friends.  There were also a handful of Sundays when I was downright lazy, but not in a Sabbath-y sort of way, more in a “can’t. get. off. the. couch.” sort of way.  And then I went on maternity leave and Juliette came along and all the days of the week sort of started to run together.  Now, rest is something I grab in 45-minute increments, whenever it’s available, during naps or Jules-and-Shane time.  So I’m trying to figure out what a set-apart day of Sabbath looks like with a baby – maybe it means that rather than flipping on the TV after bedtime, we keep the house quiet and read or talk or…gasp…just be still.  I’ll keep working on this one, because I still believe it’s important to mark a regular day (or evening, or hour) for deep restoration.

Be more involved in managing our money.  Fail.  I really dropped the ball on this one.  I don’t think we sat down once together to comb through our spending and investments.  I can’t blame Shane – that poor guy tries his darnedest to get me involved, but I hear words like “deferred compensation” and “diversification” and “buy less shoes” and I completely zone out.  I got a text message from him last week letting me know that he had logged into the website for my 401K account and rebalanced my asset allocation.  I responded with an icon of a goofy-faced girl giving a thumbs up.  And that is how our conversations about finances usually go down.  Despite my lack of interest in IRAs and 401Ks and 529s, I do believe I was more mindful of my spending last year, cutting back on both coffee and clothes. I just need to step it up, to answer two important questions: How much less? And was it enough? We also did made some good decisions together about our giving in 2013. But again, was it enough? Are we being good stewards of the money we’ve been blessed with? I…think so? These are questions I should know the answers to.

Make art.  Regularly.  I did alright on this one – I wasn’t as consistent in my art-making as I’d hoped, but there were some very fulfilling creative spurts.  Learning how to screenprint was huge in inspiring all kinds of new projects, and I logged some really, really fun hours in the print studio.  Looking forward to getting back in there sometime soon(ish).

Cook dinner at least four nights a week.  Success!  We rarely have cereal for dinner anymore.  In fact, since I’ve been on maternity leave, we’re eating home-cooked meals six or seven nights a week.  Big pots of soup, crock pot roasts, hearty salads – I’ve been on my A-game in the kitchen these days.  Since Juliette is essentially eating what I’m eating, I feel like it’s extra-important to feed myself well.  Those chubby, roly-poly thighs of hers weren’t grown with Raisin Bran!

As per usual, I didn’t ace my resolutions.  But onward and upward – I’m nothing if not a work in progress!

Rather than host our annual New Year’s Eve bash, we rang in 2014 with takeout pizza and our latest Netflix rental.  Ok, so technically I rang in 2014 with a bunch of Z’s, as I had already been in bed for an hour when the clock struck midnight.  I wished Juliette a slightly belated Happy New Year at 3 am when she awoke to eat, and then muttered the same to Shane when I slipped back into bed.  No champagne toasts, no fireworks, no Carson Daly…I missed the fanfare a little bit this year, but our quiet nights at home hold their own kind of charm.

We brunched with the gang yesterday to kick off the year, gathering at Jason and Nancy’s for buttermilk waffles and a walk around the park.  So I guess we party at 10 am now, instead of 10 pm.  No shame in that!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, playing with Juliette and then dozing during her afternoon nap.  Jules has teased us with a couple of brief giggles lately and seems to be on the verge of all-out laugher, so we’re constantly making fools of ourselves in front of her, trying to elicit a chuckle.  Despite all our dancing and blubbering and raspberry kisses, she held out yesterday, but her smiles were a pretty great consolation prize.  And Shane and I certainly do plenty of laughing at each other in the process, so there’s that.

The year is off to such a joyous, cozy start.  And yet, there’s a part of me that’s a little melancholy.  2013 was so, so spectacular – will it ever be topped?  I mean, there was this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this, New Years Day 2013, when we toasted to the good news I’d just received from the doctor’s office: lil’ Schnell was on her way!

I’m sure 2014 will hold adventures of a different sort.  I don’t foresee any helicopter rides over Kauai, and camping might be tricky, but there will be excitement in watching our baby grow, there will be precious time with family and friends, maybe a mini-getaway or two.  And there will be laughter.  Lots and lots of silly, unbridled laughter.  Happy, happy new year!

We’re beginning to fall into a (loose) schedule with Juliette and are putting her to bed earlier these days, starting the go-to-sleep song and dance around 7:00.  This gives Shane and I more time to ourselves in the evening, which is great, but by the time we turn in around 10:30, I actually kind of start to miss that girl – I’m often tempted to lift her out of her crib for one last snuggle to top off my love bank.  I don’t, for fear of waking the sweetly snoozing beast, but I do creep into the nursery to gently stroke her hair and whisper good night.  This is also my time to pray for her, to lay my hand on her and lift up my hopes and dreams for our baby.  Some prayers are for the immediate future, for a good night’s sleep and a tomorrow full of smiles, and some prayers are for the longer-term, for Jules the little girl and Jules the teenager and grown-up woman.

Dear Juliette, this is some of what mama so desperately hopes for you…

I pray that home will always be a place of safety and comfort and joy for you.  That you’ll rest in the absolute assurance that your dad and I love you unconditionally, that we’ll hold you when you need to cry and take you out for pizza when you want to celebrate.  Sometimes we’ll mess up and lose our patience or raise our voices or get too busy to give you the attention you need, but in the midst of our shortcomings, I hope you know that you are safe and wanted here.

I pray that God will keep his hand of protection over you.  Gosh, this world feels scary sometimes, especially for a woman. But I don’t want you to live in fear; I just want you to be aware and be wise and let your dad and I interview any boy that wants to take you out on a date. (kidding.) (ok, not really kidding.)

I pray that you will find fulfillment in expressing your creativity, whatever form it takes.  Whether it’s music, or art, or, if your dad has his way, iPhone app development, I hope you’re able to experience the joy of making and sharing something beautiful or innovative.

I pray that you’ll love yourself, that you’ll look in the mirror and feel confident and beautiful.  I hope you won’t buy into the media-driven myth that beauty is about being thin and wearing designer clothes and having airbrushed skin.  Nobody looks like those girls in the magazines.  Even those girls in the magazines don’t really look like those girls in the magazines.  Decide for yourself wherein beauty lies; don’t let Victoria’s Secret ads do it for you.

I pray that kindness and compassion will be your guide, rather than popularity or ease.  Few things would make me prouder than to see you invite the lonely new kid to come sit with you and your friends at lunch.  I pray that you’ll care about justice and and mercy, that you’ll be bold in speaking out for those who have a hard time making their voices heard.

I look at you, so quietly sleeping in your crib, and this list hardly begins to capture the way my heart bursts with all that I want for you.  I ache with the hope that you’ll live a life brimming with joy and love and adventure.  I’ll help you along, cheer you on, smother you with kisses, but I must remember that ultimately, you’re in God’s hands.

So please, please, please Lord – take care of my baby.

The sentimental-ist in me is big on family traditions, and now that we’ve added a kid to the mix, I’m even more intent on maintaining certain annual rituals.  Our yearly trek out to North Bend to cut down our Christmas tree tops the list of favorite Schnell family traditions, so on Friday we donned our warmest winter clothing and headed east for our eighth (!) visit to Mountain Creek tree farm.  I still remember our first time there back in 2006, when we were newlyweds giddily buying our inaugural Christmas tree as a couple.  The woman behind the counter asked as we paid if we had any kids that would like a candy cane.  We both laughed and told her “No, thanks”, unable to imagine how a child would fit into the fancy-free life we lived in our small Capitol Hill apartment.  That same woman has asked us that same question every single year, as our nervous “No thank you’s” slowly morphed into anticipatory “Maybe next year’s” and then into pained “Still not yet’s”.  And now, here we are, in the midst of below-freezing weather with a child that often throws fits in the car, but dammit, I wanted a candy cane, so off we went!

Juliette fell asleep within minutes of hitting the road and opened her sleepy eyes just as we rolled into the parking lot.  Shane and I bundled her up, crossed our fingers, and set out in search of the perfect tree.  Usually this search takes a good 30-45 minutes, as I insist that we wander the entire farm to get a complete sense of our options.  I’ll narrow it down to three or four contenders, circling each tree several times to evaluate symmetry and fullness before making a final decision.  But once we stepped out of the car on Friday, felt the cold, and heard Juliette’s little whimpers, we were on a mission.  Fifteen seconds into our search, I pointed to a tree that I said I liked, and as I was turning to find the best angle from which to snap a photo, Shane was already hacking away at it’s trunk and slinging it over his shoulder.  I didn’t even have time to yell “timmmmmber!”.  Jules and I hung out by the wood stove in the front shop while Shane tied the tree to our car; he joined us for a quick cup of cider and then we were back on the road in record time (candy cane in hand!).

Thankfully, despite our impulsiveness, this tree is a beaut and looks great in our living room.  I unwrapped my ornaments yesterday while Juliette sat in my lap and I told her about the plastic snowflake I’ve been hanging on Christmas trees for over 25 years, about my collection of angel ornaments, about the beaded green bird I bought in Portland with my mom a few years ago.  I’ll be carrying on the tradition my parents started by giving my own daughter an ornament every year, and as I hung her pretty glass owl on the tree, I pictured Christmas next year, when we’ll have to hang these breakable ornaments high and out of reach of toddler hands, and Christmas a few years from now, when Jules will start to look forward to opening up her box of familiar ornaments to hang on the tree, and Christmas a couple of decades down the road, when I’ll hand over Juliette’s collection to hang on her own tree.  I guess that’s what I love about traditions – the way they bring forth good memories of years prior and anticipation of years future.  Happy holidays, indeed.

We had a joy-filled Thanksgiving, complete with a quiet morning at home, an afternoon walk in the perfect fall weather, and a belly-bursting evening  meal at Jack and La Verne’s.  My plate literally overflowed with blessings.  We have so much to be thankful for, in our home, our friendships, our family, and our sweet little babe.  Juliette somehow got wind of my previous blog rant and has been making amends the past couple of days, with smiles and long naps and a generally sunny disposition; she was a trooper as we made the meet-the-baby rounds at my office and Shane’s office on Tuesday and was great company when I lugged her to Costco and Trader Joe’s for pie fixin’s on Wednesday.  Today we laid on the floor together and chatted for over an hour, Juliette responding to my nonsense rambling with sweet oohs and ahhs and mmms until our eyelids began to grow heavy and we both fell asleep, her serene little face just inches from mine.  Best nap ever.  I’m so indescribably thankful for this girl, for the ways she’s taught me to give and love and hang tight through the tough stuff.  I’m thankful for Shane, who fills in the gaps when I’m short on patience or sleep, who is unabashedly silly for the sake of making Jules (and me) smile.  I’m thankful for this blessed up and down and up, up, up life we live.

I’ve had lots of quality time with my Kindle during Juliette’s middle-of-the-night feeding frenzies, and I just finished reading Glennon Doyle Melton’s Carry On, Warrior.  In her book (and her blog) she chronicles the ups and downs of being a wife and mother.  One of her most famous essays is “Don’t Carpe Diem“, in which she describes the pressure placed on parents to enjoy every single moment of their children’s lives, as it all goes by so quickly.  But the reality is that parenthood is often wrought with trials and tantrums and tears, and it’s unfair to expect moms and dads to spend all day, every day in a state of parental bliss.  Some days, the best you can hope for are just a couple of precious, fleeting moments with your kids.

Spot on, sister.

We had some bumps in the road today, with bouts of fussiness, stubborn resistance to naps, and hoped-for outings left undone.  I wanted to take Juliette to a Halloween party at my office, but the cute mo-hawked rockstar outfit I had planned for her fell to shambles, as she ended up looking more geeky grease monkey than punk rocker.  And I could tell she was tired and on the brink of a meltdown as I gathered our things to go.  I knew I was pushing it, pushing her, and it wouldn’t end well.  So I sighed, washed the coconut oil from her hair, and settled in for another marathon bounce session to get her down to sleep. And man, she fought that nap somethin’ fierce, with wailing and writhing and then the notorious naptime fake-out, acting all snoozy and limp-limbed only to pop open her eyes the second I put her in her crib. We were both at our wit’s end by the time she fell asleep (and four hours later, she’s still sleeping! that girl must have been zonked).

But let’s not forget the good stuff.  Like, hey!  Jules rolled over today!  She was in the midst of her morning tummy time session, lifting her head like a champ, when she leaned a little to the right.  And then she leaned a little farther, and a little more, and whoop!  She was on her back!  You’d think she’d just received her first college acceptance letter for all the hootin’ and hollerin’ Shane and I did.

And dang, this girl is flashing us some good smiles these days.  These aren’t “I just made a big poop” smiles.  These are “Hey!  Mama, Papa, you’re funny!” smiles.  As she laid on the floor after her morning snack, kicking her feet and waving her arms, she gave us a little smirk, which was all it took to throw Shane and I into a complete tizzy of silly songs and dance moves and smothering kisses, all the while coaxing bigger and bigger grins from our girl.  This feeling that she finally sees us, knows us, that we’re no longer just a bouncing robot and a milk machine – it turns us into a couple of giddy idiots. Joy runs deep when your screechy monkey sounds elicit a smile from your most favorite little person.

It wasn’t a perfect day. In fact, there were times when this day made me want to pull my hair out and hand Juliette off to the first trick or treater that came to our door. But those smiles. Sweet Jesus, those smiles! Best, brightest silver lining ever.

We’re in the midst of Autumn’s finest hour here in Seattle – brightly colored leaves, pumpkins on porches, and cool, crisp afternoons. We pulled our sweaters and scarves out of the back of our closet on Saturday and got our Fall on with a visit to Carpinito Brothers pumpkin patch in Kent. I have been getting together with a number of new moms from our church each week and had fun sharing the day with them and their families. Juliette is the newest little tot in the group – I asked her to stand on a pumpkin and smile for the camera, but she wasn’t havin’ it…

Photo by Jon Brenner

Clearly, pumpkins aren’t her favorite.

It wasn’t quite the carefree family outing we’d imagined, as Shane spent much of our time there doing the shush-bounce-walk among the pumpkins while Juliette wondered where on earth we had taken her. Turns out missy was super-tired – she dropped off to sleep within minutes of being tucked into her stroller.

Once our hands were free, I picked out a couple of perfect pumpkins and handed them to Shane to take to the pay station. He later told me that as he was standing in line, he caught himself absent-mindedly bouncing and shushing the pumpkins in his arms – oh, the things sleep deprivation will do to you! I giggled the rest of the day, imagining my husband soothing a squash.

On Sunday we gathered with friends at Emily and Daniel’s to carve pumpkins and eat dumplings and admire the kiddos in their sweet little costumes. I didn’t snap a single picture. Or carve a pumpkin. Or eat my usual fill of a dozen dumplings. Different priorities this year, I guess. But dang, that was some good cuddle time Jules and I shared on their couch…

We took advantage of yesterday’s sunshine and got out in the afternoon for a walk through the arboretum. The trees were donning their very best October outfits, in gold and orange and bright red.  I still maintain that Summer in Seattle can’t be beat, but days like today make Fall a very close second (I might be singing a different tune in November, after we’ve had 27 straight days of rain, but I digress…).

Juliette dozed off and on in her stroller, waking every so often to look up at the leaves with her wide, curious eyes. We’ve had a couple of challenging outings this past week, so we were thrilled to see her hang tight on an hour-long walk.  We even coaxed a smile out of her near the end!  We thought she was being all sweet, saying “Thanks for the walk in the park, Mom and Dad!”.  Now I know there was actually quite a bit of mischief behind that grin – turns out she was saying “Get ready, folks – I’m going to scream like hell on the car ride home!”  Oh, child…

Car seat tantrums aside, it’s been a pretty glorious October with this little pumpkin.  Whether we leave the house or not, every day is an adventure!

I know, my last couple of posts have been syrupy sweet with new mama bliss, so allow me to present…the flip side.

Some days, this gig is rough. Yesterday was one of those days.  It was Juliette’s one-month birthday, and I had high hopes for the day – a photo shoot of our sweet little babe, a walk in the park, maybe a long nap…  Things got off to a rocky start with a bout of morning fussiness.  She wanted to be held constantly, which I don’t mind if it involves a cuddle session on the couch, but she wanted to be held and bounced.  Lord help me, the incessant bouncing…  We (meaning primarily Shane) have logged hours upon hours on that dang exercise ball, soothing the baby into a full-on, knocked-out, limp-limbed sleep, only to have her wake the second we stop to give our aching backs a rest.  We played this bounce/sleep/fuss game for a couple of hours yesterday morning before she finally conked out for a late morning nap.  Success!  She woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed around noon and I rushed her up to the nursery to snap a few pictures while she was alert and content, but she was less than photogenic, just staring at me blankly while I cooed and babbled.  My little song and dance eventually resulted in frustrated tears, for both of us.  I know, she’s a newborn, not a trick pony, but throw me a bone, girl!  I put away the camera and we spent a relatively quiet afternoon at home before deciding to get out and enjoy the sunshine.  I bundled her up and strapped her into her carseat for a ride to Jefferson Park.  She whined a little in the car, then cried a little as we walked the park’s loop, and began to wail as I took a detour to enjoy the fall foliage.  Back to the car it was, then.  The ride home was the longest five minutes ever – you’d think her car seat was lined with shards of broken glass, to hear her screaming.  Shane went for a quick run to decompress after I assured him I could handle her madness, but by the time he got home 30 minutes later, I was on the brink of a meltdown.  I was tired, and discouraged, and having a hard time finding the little girl I love inside our moody, red-faced monster.  Shane urged me to get out for awhile, so I grabbed my coat and flew out the door before he could utter the words “retail therapy”.  I found refuge in the mall, overwhelmed with my options now that I can shop outside of the maternity section.  I’ve still got some pregnancy pounds to shed, so finding the right fit has its challenges, but the break did me good.  By 8:00, I was ready to go home and make amends with my baby.  I headed out to the parking lot after making a quick stop at the Clinique counter to snag my bonus bag, but didn’t see the car outside of Macy’s.  Wait – had I parked outside of Macy’s?  I thought so…  I walked up and down the aisles of the lot three times before going back inside the store, to see if I could retrace my steps.  I completely drew a blank – I had absolutely no memory of walking into the mall.  I went back outside and walked the lot, again.  I started to panic.  I called Shane and really began to panic as I wondered aloud if our car had been stolen.  He was obviously helpless, at home and car-less with a sleeping baby, but he did his best to talk me off the ledge and then asked me to call a friend for a ride home while he looked into the protocol for reporting a stolen vehicle.  I called La Verne, doing my best to put on my calm and collected voice as I asked if she was busy, but she saw right through my guise and left her dinner guests immediately to come pick me up.  Is this who I’d become?  A lost, crazy lady wandering a mall parking lot in the dark, crying into her Jamba Juice?  As I was waiting for La Verne, I walked over to the adjacent Nordstrom parking lot, just to check, and…voila!  I have never been so happy to see our beat-up Civic.  I’ve also never been so embarrassed to call a friend and say, “Uh…nevermind.”  (Thanks, anyway, La V!)  I called Amanda on the way home, wanting to share my brush with insanity with a fellow mother, and as I told her that I felt like a total basket case, she kindly assured me, “You’re not crazy, Kel.  You’re just a sleep-deprived, hormonal new mom.”  True that.

Thankfully, the tides have turned today.  Juliette has flashed us dozens of smiles, as if she’s trying to make up for yesterday’s grump-fest, so we’re on speaking terms again.  I guess we both just needed a day to flush the crazy out.

I turned 32 years old yesterday.  In my card from my parents, my mom asked, “best birthday ever?!”  Hmmm…  There’s some stiff competition for the title of best birthday, as October is typically a pretty stellar month for the Schnell clan.  Last year at this time, Shane and I were frolicking around New England, pairing platters of fresh oysters with crisp glasses of white wine.  Two years ago, we were in Amsterdam, ringing in my 30th year with cheese fondue and a canal-side stroll.  Yesterday, I ventured only as far as the neighborhood diner for a late breakfast with girlfriends, and the neighborhood pizza joint for a casual lunch with Shane and Juliette. How times have changed…

Shane arranged for me to go out with Nance and La Verne yesterday morning, so that I could have some “time off” from the baby. Feels ironic, that his gift to me was time away from Juliette, when I think about the longing for a child that hung like a cloud over those previous two birthdays.  I remember being terribly disappointed when my monthly cramps set in two years ago as we arrived in Lyon after visiting Amsterdam and Bruges; I sat on the bed in our tiny little hotel room and shed a few tears as I relinquished the fantasy that we’d be celebrating a positive pregnancy test on our European tour.  I remember the fragility of my emotions this time last year, as we began talking about fertility treatments, wrestling with the idea that a baby might require more physical/emotional/financial investment than we’d imagined.  Those trips also held dozens of beautiful memories, but they took place during a time in my life when I so fervently hoped for more.

And now here I am, celebrating my first birthday as a mother.  Even in the midst of my brokenness, my bitterness, my envy, and my impatience, even though we already lived a life rich with so many blessings, God gave me more.  Because God is such a generous gift-giver.  His timing is mysterious, his presents often wrapped in unlikely packaging and delivered via circuitous routes, but I have been reminded this season that he doesn’t just give us what we earn or deserve (too often I deserve a lump of coal or a bag of sour grapes). Instead, in his infinite grace, he lavishes us with joy, peace, love, hope…

I enjoyed getting out with ladies yesterday morning for a bite at Geraldine’s.  I was due for a break from the baby, particularly as the little gremlin in Juliette has been making an appearance between the hours of 7 and 11 am.  But dang, it also felt good to spend a quiet afternoon at home, to scoop Jules up in my arms and feel her eagerly nuzzle against me (even if that nuzzling is usually out of hunger more than love…).  There were no big sights to be seen, no extravagant meals to be had, but still, the day exceeded anything I could have dreamed of a year ago.

So yes, Mom, without a doubt.  Best birthday ever.

We have proudly bore the title of parents for 2 weeks now and are slowly but surely finding our way through the topsy-turvy terrain of caring for a newborn. It’s been better, sweeter, and at times (usually in the wee hours of the morning), much harder than we imagined.  It feels like any given day, any given hour, can hold the highest highs and the lowest lows.

I stood with Juliette in my arms in the nursery the other night, bouncing and shushing until I was short of breath, watching the clock tick its way past midnight, crying tears of frustration as she wailed in my ear.  How could she possibly be hungry again?  I fed her thirty minutes ago.  Couldn’t she give my sore breasts a break? Was I producing enough milk? Or was she just an over-eater? Why did I let her take that long evening nap, right before bedtime? My mind ran amuck, all sense of reason lost in the mix of too little sleep and too many hormones. But once I worked up the will to feed her again and laid her quiet, milk-drunk little body across my chest, I was reminded that she’s not trying to be difficult – she’s just trying to figure out life on the outside, and the learning curve is steep, for her and for us. This mutual vulnerability sometimes results in tears, but it also results in a kind of closeness I’ve never known before. There is no match for the feeling of her collapsing against me after a big meal, her serene, satisfied face saying “thank you”.

As I’m feeling stronger and Jules is more alert, we’re embarking on mini family outings to break up our long, quiet days at home. We took her out to the Columbia City farmers market on Wednesday night, eager for fresh air and a short walk. Shane and I tucked her into her car seat and then playfully argued over who would get to push the stroller and enjoy the best view of her curious, wide-open eyes. It was fun to join the ranks of other neighborhood families, to see cider for sale and sense the onset of Fall. But then Jules started to fuss as I lingered by the freshly picked apples. We headed back to the car, wanting to keep her happy and squeeze in a quick run to the grocery store before going home. Halfway to PCC, the girl totally lost it – we called it quits on our fun family outing and turned the car around just as her crying morphed into full-on purple-faced shrieking. Shane became frantic as we waited at a stop light, begging me to do something as her periods of suspended breath between wails grew longer and longer – he thought she was literally crying herself to death. I assured him that she’d be fine, but by the time we made it home and pulled her out of her (apparently tortuous) car seat, my nerves were shot. Hearing her cry like that and feeling powerless to stop it had left me tired and anxious – I cradled her in my arms and sighed as I wondered how many more years of on-the-road meltdowns we had in front of us.

Every day holds one or two (or 15) moments of doubt or fatigue; thankfully, every day is also full of precious nuggets that outshine the tough stuff. A smile, a goofy cross-eyed gaze, a quiet minute to stop and stroke her soft brown-and-blond hair – these are the joys that get us through the day. When she drapes her arms across my body after a good feeding or nuzzles against Shane to watch the Giants game, all is suddenly right in our little world.

And, by popular demand, the latest photos…

I’d like to think she was smiling at me, but the sounds coming from her derriere suggest there was something else going on:

Best natural highlights I’ve ever seen:

Blue steel:

Passed out.  One of these days I’ll learn that I should be napping while she’s napping, rather than obsessively taking photos of her:

Feelin’ fresh after her first shower:

Sleeping the day away on her 2-week birthday: