updates! updates!

Well, I’m a horrible blogger. I’ve thought about trying to update the blog on everything that has happened in our lives since mid-June. But that would lead to more procrastination…

So in short:

Emmett started daycare. He didn’t want/take bottles. For the first two weeks I had to go back and forth from work to daycare to feed him. After this he started taking bottles, but then threw a nursing strike. Sigh. This has also resolved itself.

My parents came to visit. It was great to see them, and ultimately much easier than flying to the Midwest, renting a car, and driving 5 hours to Kansas. This coincided with Emmett starting daycare so it was nice to be able to cry to my mom about that. I was really excited to introduce them to Emmett.

I started work again. I thought this would be horrible. But, it wasn’t bad. I would still prefer to spend all day with my little boy, but ultimately for now daycare it is. I think being a mother has helped me put aside work stress. Ultimately, little work things that used to stress me out I have a new attitude about. The do not matter to me anymore. It’s only a very small part of my day. And not an important part at that.

Aaron has done a few stints of field work. I feel like I just recently became ok with his stints away from home and used the time to watch shows he would hate and enjoy food he would dislike (olives, popcorn, pickles). Having a child makes fieldwork just awful again. It is hard work being a single parent. Kudos to all of you out there, seriously. It takes a lot of energy and isn’t for the faint of heart.

Chris and Rachel our friends from our Seattle days came to visit us. It was so great to see them both. I can’t believe I haven’t seen them in 5 years. That’s downright silly. But, you know how it is with good friends, how you can just pick right back up where you left off? I love that. I wish I could move all of our Seattle group up here (or at least, have us all live in the same spot again). It’s hard work making friends when you are adults.

We went on our first camp trip with Emmett this weekend. We went to the Lake Louise area. We didn’t stay in the campground, for fear of annoying other campers with cries. But it was great to watch Emmett. He is so curious and wants to look at absolutely everything. He also gets a little attitude when you try to prevent him from getting the absolute best view. We all had a lot of fun, and I think Emmett loved it. It was really hard to put him down to sleep at his normal 6:30pm bedtime. It doesn’t get dark here until after 11 and he was, let’s say, very reluctant to go to sleep. After 2 hours he finally crashed. He had his own tent that was set up in the vestibule of our tent (trust me, he was safe and warm). The highlight of the trip, for me, was when he woke up in the middle of the night and I unzipped our tent to get him, he saw me and the look on his face was an incredible mixture of happiness and excitement almost as if to say, “Mom! You’re here?! Isn’t this awesome!!” It melted my heart and made my night.

Aaron was hired on permanently here at AVO. This is really great for us, because we can finally settle down in one spot at least for the foreseeable future. No more moving every 2-5 years. We are excited to stay, and I would say lucky. But Aaron is terrific at his job, so whereas there might be a bit of luck involved, a large majority of it is talent and hard work.

There, I think you are caught up. Hopefully, updating now won’t seem like such a major chore.