Happy Birthday, Mom

Lyra likes to dance.


A serious enough wind is ripping through my neighborhood at the moment and enough sirens are whizzing by that it inspired instant storm preparation instincts in me. I had the sudden urge to hoard food, fill containers with water, and locate all the flashlights and matches. It was oddly strong, this instinct, and it took me a few minutes to realize that I'd just watched a show about the incredible flood of the Connecticut River in 1936, and I was in disaster mode. Instead, I calmly closed the windows and shutters and collected the garbage can from the sidewalk while Lyra slept peacefully on a pillow on the living room floor.

Lyra slept for seven hours last night. Because she is, of course, the best baby Ever. I attended another New Parents' Coffee today at the local toy store. I met some nice people at this one. Sadly, the couple that seemed like people I might know said that they were moving to the west coast after I started talking with them awhile.

The new parent groups I have attended so far have been impressively well-educated groups of people. Last week I was having lunch with a bunch of women in Boston listening to anecdotes about how they have no idea what they are doing and were fretting over the tiniest details of parenting and I suddenly realized every one of us there had at least two college degrees. The woman talking about launching her kid out of the car seat in a supermarket was a director level industrial designer, the woman who couldn't stop nervously talking was an attorney. The young woman who worried about her baby's loud farts was an architect, and so on.

Today there were references to post doc work and medical residencies peppering the discussions of sleep and neck strength. I don't know if it's the area I live in or if there is a particular demographic to who attends such things. Anyway, I will keep trying to get out and meet people. If only they would serve caffeinated coffee!

The most interesting baby name I heard today was Zabelle, which was her great grandmother's name. Her dad calls her Zed. Last week I met a baby named Ripley, which I also liked -- and she'll be too young to have Ripley's Believe-it-or-Not or Aliens (the movie) jokes.

Speaking of too young, today was my late mother's birthday. I don't really feel like she *is* her ashes particularly, but they do symbolize her to me on some level and somehow it seems wrong of me to have not figured out what to do with them yet. It's been a few years now, and I feel bad about it when I think of it. I am struck occasionally by incredibly powerful sad moments when I wish she could meet Lyra and wish that Lyra got to meet all of her grandparents. Sometimes I wish I was younger with Lyra. After all, I knew my great grandmother on my mom's side until I was 13.

A friend visiting from Colorado stopped by today and Lyra smiled and gurgled at him even though she'd then used up her 7 hours of sleep by being awake for 7 hours. Because she is, of course, the Best Baby Ever.

This week's milestones are Lyra appreciating sleeping at night, the swing she previously hated, and all the funny sounds her mouth can make. She'll also be attending her second wedding in two months tomorrow. Oh, and her parents have begun cooking more again, which feels great. We made steak frites for the 4th after a weather-shortened picnic by the ocean, lots of great salads (it's farm share time again!) and last night we had a successful experiment with salmon fillets encrusted with crushed wasabi beans.

The wind has passed and I'm suddenly exhausted. Maybe I'll try that reading thing I seem to remember doing once upon a time. What are those things called? Books?