The Little Hazelnut – twoOregonians

Half a Year with our little Hazelnut

September 2, 2016

Little Marion’s been out here breathing air for half a year. I wrote a post when Lucie turned six months old, and so many of the same things could be said this time around…but it’s also an entirely different experience.

Mom of two.

Me.

A jump of a different sort into a new world. Not like the original: going from half of a footloose married duo to partnered first time parent. This time, the family rhythm thing was already ticking along in the background of our life story, but the change felt a bit like adding a second jump rope to the routine.

Quick.

On your toes.

Faster.

Watch out.

Here it comes again, sooner than you think. Continue Reading…

BabyOregonian, Photography

Little Traveler: Across the River and Back Again

June 14, 2016

You have to start those grand adventures with little baby steps, right?

With both girls, we traveled across state lines from Oregon into Washington during their first week or so out in the world. Our newborn photographer Erin Tole shoots just outside Portland, across the Columbia River, and she’s well worth the foray into that mysterious land of Vancouver… (WA, not B.C.)

These newborn photos are for posterity, and also (let’s be real) for my personal enjoyment, and since I’m feeling particularly sappy today, I’m finally posting them here to share with you. Continue Reading…

BabyOregonian, Musings, Tidbits About Us

And Then There Were Two

May 19, 2016

two(miniOregonians)

Lucie bumped, cuddled, elbowed, and queried my rounding belly for the better part of last summer, fall, and winter. She grew herself through tiny tot stages, adjusting and growing and trying to understand. We started reading I’m a Big Sister* shortly after her second birthday in September, watched “circle tub” water birth videos in the new year, and practicing giving her own little baby a bath during the weeks before my due date.

I credit her with so much.

Trying at two to comprehend the foreign notion of big sister and what such a life change entails.

Since I’d never had a baby sister of my own, I wished so much to watch the two of them meet and see her heart expand.

How special for Ted and me to welcome little Marion on a Friday afternoon and then have my parents bring Lucie to the birth center just a few hours later to meet her little sister for the very first time. There’s never any telling how something like that might go, but I had my hopes…and a camera lined up just in case…
Continue Reading…

BabyOregonian, Musings, Tidbits About Us

Dead Woman’s Pass: The Long and the Short of Labor

April 1, 2016

Today: I’m choosing between a shower and a blog post. (Not what you wanted to know, probably.)

In my defense, many of my previous adventures in life necessitated the foregoing of showers, and I was always glad for the stories I lived to tell afterward.

Backpacking in the Cascade Range, for example. Or trekking along a certain busy South American route* where showers were available but, uh, less than desirable. (Give me changing diapers any day over dealing with those latrines.)

But anyway. The nitty gritty of unpolished living is something that we’re all familiar with, yeah? So, I invoke you to recall your own unshowered, perhaps sleep deprived days (and nights), and you’ll have a pretty good guess about how I’m getting on right about now.

I haven’t introduced you to my sweet new girl because, well, I’ve been living with my sweet new girl, and life often gets entirely in the way of writing about life.

But here I am today, trying.

Flashback to where we were on February 3rd (my birthday): waiting. The day before a due date.