Soundtrack: Not-quite rainy, but very damp and gray day

1. 'Round Here by Counting Crows

2. I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen

3. Fast Car by Tracy Chapman (preferably acoustic version)

4. 32 Flavors by Ani Difranco

5. Silent All These Years by Tori Amos

and finally . . .

6. Have You Forgotten by Red House Painters

The Making of a Big Sister

Yesterday morning, the whole family went to our midwife's office for my second appointment. Evelyn is going to be a big sister in mid-June. We had the thrill of hearing baby's heartbeat! It's always reassuring to hear that steady beat, especially early in pregnancy when there aren't really any physical signs of the coming attraction. Generally, I feel great. Much like my first trimester with Evelyn, I haven't been hungry at all and now that I have a restricted diet due to food allergies, I've actually gone down a clothing size in the past two months.

Evelyn doesn't quite understand that there is a baby coming because it is a pretty abstract concept for a sixteen month-old to wrap her head around. She'll be a little more than 23 months old when she becomes a big sister and I know she'll be a terrific one. All of my childhood memories are intertwined with shared experiences with my siblings. My younger sister Jess was my very first best friend and I cannot wait for Evelyn to experience that.

Push Reel Update: In case you were holding your breath. . .

It's been several months since we moved into our first house and I thought a "house update" was in order. I've written about our choice to purchase an environmentally-friendly, extremely economical push reel mower. Having spent many summer days riding a John Deere mower across acres and acres of grass, around a large pond and up and down small hills, I have experience with yard maintenance and landscaping. I know a good mower when I use one.

The push reel mower has surprised us in that it does actually cut wet grass (we're entering the rainy season here in the Seattle area, and the grass does continue to grow a bit). I wish I could report that we've been pleasantly surprised by many other aspects of the mower, but I cannot. We have a huge, about five stories?, pine tree in our front lawn. Therefore, we have no fewer than 456,798 pine cones in our front yard at any given moment. Every single time one of the mower blades bumps into a pine cone, the blades jam. Because the push reel mower requires actual physical strength to propel forward, the jam results in a shoulder jam of sorts. (If you are familiar with shoveling snow, imagine that you're pushing the shovel as hard as you can and then you hit some ice and you're thrust backward a bit. It hurts.)

So, aside from the constant jamming of the blades (and subsequent pine cone retrieval from said blades while Evelyn frolics about in the compost), the mower is just dandy! One solution we've tried to implement is the "Pine Cone Game." We get Evelyn excited about collecting pine cones and putting them into a box. She is awesome at this game and she likes it, but there are just too many pine cones. None of us really has the desire to collect pine cones for an hour and a half (before then spending an hour using the push reel mower). We have precious little time outside during the fall and winter months when it is not drizzling, is it so wrong to want to enjoy that time? Still, we don't have immediate plans to replace the mower. It works, but it definitely sucks the fun out of lawn care.

Gluten-free baking-- I'm ready!

After a lengthy trip to Whole Foods (because I just could not find everything I was looking for at the co-op where we usually get our groceries), I have a fully-stocked baking pantry. I've found a number of (hopefully) good recipes for gluten-free muffins, pot pies, breads, and cookies.

I've never loved spending hours in the kitchen. I would prefer to spend those hours engaged in discussions, or reading new books and articles, or hiking, or. . . anything! Nevertheless, I am going to at least try to learn to bake some gluten-free goods. Perhaps it is my competitive streak, but I look at other mothers who seem to cook from scratch regularly and keep a lovely home and I feel the need to step up my game!

The Ride of Her Life!

Today at Crossroads, I decided that Evelyn would probably be old enough to enjoy one of the little rides. She's finally finished with putting everything in her mouth, so I felt pretty confident that she wouldn't immediately catch some sort of virus upon sitting on the ride. Anyway, we found a little roadster and I fished some quarters out of my wallet. (Each ride is only one quarter!)

The car started to jostle about a bit and Evelyn's entire face lit up. She LOVED the car ride! She rode four times in a row and then we said "bye bye, car!"

Look at that smile!

"Boo!"

Our first Halloween in our new house was pretty tame. Our neighbors have told us tales of hundreds of trick-or-treaters traipsing through the neighborhood, but we only saw a dozen or so. We do live on a rather quiet street, as opposed to the center of the neighborhood, so the lack of heavy trick-or-treat traffic makes sense. It was fun though!

We also took Evelyn to about six nearby houses, mostly just to say hello (or in Evie's case, "boo") to our new neighbors. I'm not comfortable offering candy (most of which Evie wouldn't be able to chew) to a toddler whose age I am still counting in months, but Evelyn did not even notice its absence. We enjoyed getting to know our neighbors a little better. This afternoon, as I pruned some of our bushes and prepared our garden for colder weather, I was overcome with a sense of "home-sweet-home." We're definitely settling in.