You Can Call Me Al.

Is there anything better than driving your car with the windows down on a beautiful day listening to a little Paul Simon and singing at the top of your lungs?

No, there's not. The past few days have been beautiful in Seattle. I'm sitting on my couch right now and I have an amazing view of beautiful Mt. Rainier in the distance and an adorable sleeping baby. Not a bad day. Rob is coming home early and I get to go to school.

One class is just the right amount of class. One class is almost a manageable amount of reading and there is only one project to stress about. That will change in the fall when I go back to school full time. I am excited and terrified by that. We have to figure out what to do with the boy. I am hoping to either join a nanny share or find a neighborhood daycare that takes infants. I also hope we qualify for UW's childcare assistance...that will definitely help out the cause.

I am so excited for summer. We are going to get a zoo membership because we are just four blocks from the zoo. I know that Reed is still really little, but I really like the animals. And since its so close, I can make it a part of our daily walks. I can just pop into the zoo for a minute, say hello to our animal friends, and then go take a nap.

I am excited to restart my running program. It is called "Couch to 5k". It's an eight week program designed for running novices. I got to week five before I found out I was pregnant and got too tired to move. But I think it is about time to get back on that. I have goals of 5k and 10k races.

I am excited about the project I am working on for school, increasing the graduation rates for kids in the foster care system. It's really interesting and a little depressing. We are really failing these kids. What can we do to support them? That's what we'll be looking into.

What else...I don't know. I am just feeling really good about a lot of stuff right now. I'm looking forward to visitors and to bringing Reed to California next month. 

So I have plenty of adventures in store, school, running, zoo trips, more writing, figuring out daycare, not to mention, cleaning, cooking, and finding time to go grocery shopping. Logistics become a bit more challenging when you add in a third person. Even a tiny one.

Two Months is a milestone, right? or Therapize this!

Wow. Two months. It really seems like every day is a victory. A victory over what? That I don't really know. But every day we manage to keep a baby alive or not fight with one another or actually fold that pile of laundry feels like a day of accomplishment.  Never mind that the sink is overflowing with dirty dishes, we'll get to that later.

Reed is starting to tease us with long stretches of sleep. Twice in the past week, he has slept from about 7:45 pm to 5 the next morning. If only we could get ourselves to bed before the sun sets we would be in a good place. Speaking of a good place, I have had just a bit of an issue with that dreaded pregnancy problem of the post-partum depression. There were definitely some signs that I was heading towards a bad place mentally, so we took some preemptive action before I could spiral too far into this place. I have started seeing a counselor and that along with a small dose of medication seems to really be helping. Who knows what causes ppd? Or why it strikes some people and not others. I think in my case it had a lot to do with the less than perfect labor coupled with some outside stresses that just happened to coincide with some crazy ass hormone fluctuations. Whatever the cause, the other day when Reed peed in my mouth, spit up in my hair, and then pooped on my hand, all I could think was "Thank goodness for the Zoloft."

"I'll pee in your mouth if you're not careful!"

The turtles are back out at Green Lake.

And since it has been awhile...here is a picture of downtown on a lovely spring day.