Celebratory

The middle of June is a time of celebrations for us. Last Friday was my birthday (33 years!) and then tomorrow is our anniversary (9 years!) so it feels like there is lots of fun and special meals and making merry. I did a much better job of having a fun birthday than last year when life was so crazy with having the house on the market and planning our move and Abbey being so sick and everything. Wow, it's almost hard to believe how much life has changed in the past year; I have visceral memories of the stress and anxiety and just how not fun it was to sell a house and plan a big move but it seems very distant now. Anyway, THIS year was much more enjoyable. I had a lovely massage and I bought a pear almond tart from a really good bakery here and we walked down the street to a Middle Eastern restaurant with outdoor seating where we sat in the shade of a tree, eating our pita and baba ganooj and listening to jazz played at the outdoor patio of the restaurant across the street. Basically, it could not have been better. I also had an OB appointment that day with my 1-hour glucose tolerance screen (all normal) which was less fun but I certainly won't complain too much. I have another appointment in a month and then I start going every 2 weeks-- yikes! It's like maybe I'm going to have a baby soon or something.

And then tomorrow is our anniversary, our ninth! What a transformative, joyous, liberating thing being married to Rob has proved to be... We have a babysitter coming over and are going on a date to a new-to-us fancy-ish Italian place downtown. I hope the weather stays nice because I made a reservation out on their patio. I tell you, living in Salt Lake is revolutionizing summer for me. It's like it's an actual pleasant season or something.

Hmmmm, what else is going on? I put Violet's hair in pigtails for the first time, with very adorable results:



Also, today was the first day of swim lessons for us. Grace is in a group class and Violet and I are doing a parent-tot class that runs at the same time. I signed up for these classes about a month ago and then was struck with some anxiety a few weeks later because it had still not really warmed up much. The classes are in an outdoor pool and oh, how I've been hoping it would be not be freezing cold. The pool itself is heated which obviously helps a lot, but on an overcast not-truly-warm day it is rather unpleasant and I end up with blue-lipped shivery children. It's only in the 70s today but fortunately it was sunny so we had a lovely first day. We ate lunch after their lessons and then stayed to play in the pool for a while. Being in the pool feels soooooooo wonderful to me, and I imagine that feeling will only intensity as the summer gets hotter and I get bigger. I had sort of forgotten what an undertaking going to the pool is, though. There's so much to pack to get there, and then the whole process afterward of bathing/showering everyone and rinsing swimsuits and doing laundry makes me feel like I can't accomplish much else that day. Oh well, it's the price to pay for floating about in the pool, I suppose.

For about a day, I thought that Grace had a loose tooth. She was eating an apple and all of the sudden got this startled look on her face, then declared her tooth wiggly. I was skeptical at first because I couldn't feel it wiggling, but she was so consistent about it for the better part of a day that I eventually believed her. She hasn't really mentioned it since that day so I don't think any tooth loss is imminent, but that evening I started a little tooth fairy pillow for her with a tiny pocket for her tooth to go in. Projects like this are so pleasurable, where I use only stuff I have on hand to put together something pretty and fun. I will admit that after looking at line drawings of teeth and then embroidering that tooth on the pocket, I feel totally unconvinced that the shape is recognizable; it just looks like an amorphous blob to me now. Also, Grace insists that she wanted me to put the pocket on the other side, but it's too late for that now and I think it's cute, so there.



I've been sewing quite a bit lately, come to think of it. Sewing mojo tends to come and go in waves, greatly affected by life circumstances such as first trimester exhaustion or moving or there being a lot of good stuff on TV or whatever. The stars have aligned and I have been sewing almost daily, churning out completed project after completed project. I sewed a handful of maternity skirts for me and summer things for Grace (Violet wears a lot of hand-me-downs so most of my little-kid sewing is for Grace) and I've even reached the bottom of piles of planned projects that I haven't gotten to for AGES, which feels lovely. Having energy and time to pursue fun hobby-type things is AWESOME. I'll enjoy it while I can.