thanksgiving was hard, and other things.

first. driving in a snowstorm with a crying baby makes me never want to leave the house again ever.

second. why do babies need a schedule, and why is it so hard to keep them on one? teddy is all over the place with his naps after a short visit to salmon for thanksgiving, and by the time we get him back on track, we'll be leaving again for christmas. sigh. i wish i was one of those mothers that is put together. or at least seems put together. i'd settle for that. to just look put together. because i don't think anyone actually really has themselves together.

gideon's brother is getting married this upcoming january, and i'm shamelessly in love with his fiance. sure, i'm happy for the groom to be, but really, i'm mostly happy for me. i get a gal pal during holiday visits which is really all i want when we're visiting gid's family.

when i was expecting, i promised myself i wouldn't react if i feel like people are judging my parenting style. fail. this weekend i felt like i was being judged for being too protective of my baby (hi. first time mom.), and i couldn't belieeeeeve how defensive it got me.
my baby. my rules. period. i can't keep writing about it because i'll just get annoyed again.

thanksgivings are hard for me since getting married. i miss my (crazy) family, and then always regret how antisocial i end up being with gideon's family. i wasn't super social before i had teddy (and always would promise myself i'd do better the next visit), but this year i spent a lot of time downstairs with a napping baby feeling exhausted, (but wired!) while everyone played games or hung out upstairs, because i was afraid i wouldn't hear teddy if he woke up. i haven't spent a thanksgiving in texas since my 5 year old nephew was born, and it bums me out that i've missed out on those memories. (to be fair though, gid has never spent christmas at his parents house since we've been married, and i've never once heard him complain. i can be such a selfish jerk sometimes.)

this thanksgiving was especially hard, i think because the past few weeks i've been restless, heartbroken and sickened at the terror attacks around the world. i pray for those affected in france, and think of other countries and individuals, particularly refugees who are struggling to survive in such difficult circumstances. (here i am, whining about baby sleep schedules...)

i try to imagine my life in that frame-- me with teddy, trying to find a warm, dry place to sleep. not being sure if my friends and family are okay. lost. homeless. hated. cast out. i think of these people and get caught up in a helpless sense of obscurity. praying doesn't feel like enough, so i look up other ways of being proactive. and just when i start to feel like maybe the world isn't so upside down, i find articles in the news about racism and hate and prejudice in my own country and i feel helpless again. i wish the world was different. i know i'm not alone.

and now we're back home, and my sunday evening anxiety is creeping into me like a suffocating cold beverage that i don't want to drink, but it's already going down my throat and i've got to swallow because if i don't i'll pass out and die, and i'd rather swallow something disgusting than lose consciousness.

holy debbie downer. 
i'll probably delete this post in the morning.

ps-i know this post is lame already and i should really just stop writing, but it's thanksgiving week and i don't want to be ungrateful for my circumstances. i'm so blessed. i normally feel like using that word is condescending, like me saying "i'm blessed" denotes that i've been selected for the things and people that i have, and other people haven't been, and it opens up a can of worms that i don't feel comfortable with, so i usually just resort to saying, "holy moses, i lucked out," but today i'm using the word blessed. i love my family. i love my boys. i'm so fortunate to have them. if they are all i have in the world, i'm still the luckiest person i know. that's all. 

giving up on blogging and other stuff.

he doesn't want to sleep lately, and i'm annoyed and jealous by it. if i could nap anytime i wanted and have someone change my clothes, feed me and wash me, i'd ride that wave all the way home. then again, he's not allowed to eat cake yet, and i am, so maybe my life isn't so bad. hashtag the grass is always greener.

it was gid's birthday yesterday, and i feel like he needs a do over. both of our birthdays and our sixth anniversary (plus a move) are within the first 3 months of teddy's little life. which means we don't really celebrate as much as wipe spit up off of ourselves and steal a smooch every now and then. i just pretend spit up is an expensive facial cream these days.

being a stay at home mother is more lonely than i thought it would be.

i've started following a bunch of fashion bloggers on instagram. i don't know why, since all i wear oversized t-shirts and socks these days. it's fun to live vicariously, i guess. hopefully by the time i start wearing real pants again, this flare jean trend will have passed. hashtag nope.

teddy on my lap right now.

the other day i decided i don't want to blog anymore. (i just hate that word: "blogger". blegh) i decided it's too hard to keep up with it, and it's time spent that i could be napping. or eating. no, exercising! (that's right alyssa, blame your blog on not losing the baby weight.) also, it's not like a ton of people read it. also people can be jerks. there's a lot of frienimies out there.

but i don't write for other people so much as i write for me. hashtag my blog is my therapist.

sometimes it feels like i don't know how i feel about anything anymore. gosh, i need a nap.

teddy has been sleeping (read: pretending to sleep) on my lap while i've written this post. i'm getting pretty good at typing one handed. i used to always attempt to put him in his crib when he dozed off. not anymore. hashtag i'll take what i can get.

it's gently raining right now, and since we have a skylight, there's a soft pitter patter in the background as i write these last few words. maybe the white noise will help him sleep longer. the view from where i'm sitting is pretty nice right now, after all...

he's here.

...and he's the best ever you guys.  

i can't believe he used to live in my tummy. he's got these crazy long legs that he's always kicking and i recognize them. i recognize his kicks from when he was inside of me!

what a weird world.

and he's got this dark hair. when i first saw him it was curly and my heart leapt with excitement.
i've always wanted a curly haired baby.

then i washed his hair. it was silky smooth.
i guess when babies get uterus gunk on their hair it sometimes gets a little curly...

now i wouldn't trade his sweet soft locks for all the curls in the world.

his eyes sometimes look brown to me, and then the next moment
i think they could be green like his father's.
i'd swoon at him either way. 

i think he looks like gid so much (minus his coloring which obvs comes from my side), 

and gid is so handsome. look out, little girls.
there's a storm heading your way and his name is teddy.

i'm so in love. so overwhelmed. so medicated.

i feel like i'm in a weird alternate reality where pumping milk out of my body is a thing, and watching decent television is not.

i also feel like these are my moments and they're slipping away so quickly already, so i sleep with him on my chest more often than i'm sure the books would suggest. 

he's just so cuddly.
are all babies this cuddly?

i'll take 10 more just like this one, please.

every day he looks a little different.
i love that and hate it at the same time.

he adores gideon. he adores me too, but there's something about his daddy that puts him at ease.
it's like they knew each other all along.

you guys, this is my baby.
his name is theodore michael tolman, but i call him teddy.

teddy tolman.
i'm sure he'd say it's nice to meet you.

taco bell & life being weird.

life is weird. i was thinking about that the other day. 

it's weird how the goofy boy who wrote me a love letter in elementary school (to which i never responded because "like, ewwww...") is now successful and good looking, and the popular boy that i had a weird crush on in high school is now kind of a... someone i wouldn't have a crush on. it's weird how time gives you perspective.

it's weird that i met gid the way that i did, and that we became friends and then better friends and then best best best friends. it's weird that the boy who was so dear to me as a friend, the boy who i'd go on double dates with (me with my date, and him with his), is now the boy that i love like i've never loved anyone else in the whole wide world. (move over then nerdy now handsome elementary boy- you could never hold a candle to my sweet gid.)

i found this picture in my phone from a lunch we had in dublin (when we were super jet lagged and worn out) and i love it so much. i want to blow it up poster sized, put it on my wall and kiss it goodnight.

i don't have to do that though, because i get to go to sleep with the real thing. sigh. so lucky.

it's weird how we're having a tiny baby. soon. it's weird how i feel him all the time inside of me; how he's literally a piece of who i am. it's weird how we're going to meet him soon.
ps- teddy is totally grounded when he gets out- he's bruising me from the inside out.

it's weird, the people i met in college that changed my life. it's weird that i started taking dance seriously in college and that wound me up in an MFA program in salt lake city.

it's weird how scary making choices were at the time; which undergrad/grad school to go to, who to date, who to marry, where to move, what position to take. because it all worked out so well. it's weird that the jobs i've had throughout my life have been exactly perfect for that season of my life. how did i get so lucky? how could everything have possibly worked out so well for me? not that it was perfect every moment of the way. goodness knows some days are better than others. still though.

so the fact that we have so many changes coming in the next few weeks shouldn't freak me out, right? having a baby coming is stressful enough, but there's more changes coming than a new member of our family. most days i'm okay, but sometimes i'm really just not.

today is my last day of work until further notice. i worked up into week 39, but it feels like i'm leaving much too early. i'm totally bummed about it, but i also think i'm just scared of what leaving my job represents.

i've been compensating nerves and stress with snow cones and taco bell. poor teddy. his first word is going to be "cha-lu-pa".

that's who i am this week. that's what i've resorted to: fast food, and sugar. 

and i really really shouldn't. because it's all going to be okay. just like it's always been. in hindsight i'll look back and chuckle at how scared i was; how many crunchwrap supremes i consumed at the end of my first pregnancy.

it's all going to be okay. just like it's always been.

it's all going to be okay.
it's all going to be okay.
it's all going to be okay.

telling him.

i know that we're a lot closer to mother's day than father's day 

(what i was originally saving this clip for), but i just couldn't help myself.

every so often when gid has a bum day, or if he's nervous/stressed about work or life, i sit him down and give him a pep talk where i insist he repeat everything i say to him. i mostly do it to make him laugh and feel better about himself, because he's the best ever, and the thought of him not believing that for a second is unacceptable.

as you can imagine, this pep talk had a bonus surprise in it.

enjoy sweet friends.

i love how when i have him say "someday i'm gonna be the best dad" the first and second time, he really has no idea what's coming. i'd always make him say that in my pep talks, even when we weren't trying to get pregnant. 

           

can you believe this sweet face?
i'm so in love.

teddy

we don't have a name picked out for him yet. why does everyone seem to think that i know what his name is going to be? i imagine he'll come out, and introduce himself to me. just to be safe  i'm planning on having a list of five names to take with me to the hospital. i should get started on that.

you want in on a secret? i call him teddy. that doesn't mean that's his name forever. i just like thinking of the baby boy in my tummy as teddy tolman.

teddy has been doing this thing lately where he does jumping jacks on my bladder when i'm trying to fall asleep, and first thing in the morning when i'm trying to stay asleep. i twitch, hoping to coax him to get into a new position, but he politely declines every time.

these days he almost always wakes me up with sweet little thumps ("how about a little breakfast, mamma? no hurry- whenever you're ready... i''ll just keep entertaining myself by practicing flutter kicks till you get up, take your time...")

i'm not digging the whole lactation thing. no one warned me about this. the first morning it happened i thought i just kept dripping cereal milk on my chest. and then i was like, "that's weird, why do i keep spilling exactly where both of my nipples are?" then i flipped out a little.

don't you love how she's half puckering half smiling?

my sister is having a baby any minute. i hate that i'm not there right now, but i'm visiting soon. then mimi and i can resume our traditions of baking cakes, sharing milkshakes and playing with homemade shadow puppets first thing in the morning and last thing end of the day. she calls me her best friend (obvs i trained her to do that...) and it melts my heart every time.

i know some day, sooner than later, i'll just be her (super cool and trendy) aunt alyssa.

but for now i'm lala, her best fweind. we have a secret handshake and everything.

i have a feeling after teddy comes everything will change. like i won't be able to just jump on a plane and visit mel and mimi just because i haven't seen them for 4 months.

maybe i can. maybe teddy will be an awesome traveler. i've heard most babies don't really like planes. if he's a good traveler, than i'm planning on going on a trip to amsterdam, prague and vienna with him and gid.

sigh. do lots of mammas to be stay up late at night wondering all the ways their life is never going to be the same again? that's what i'm doing right now...

happy birthday, eiffel tower.

thanks for letting us visit you last summer. 

hopefully we'll see you again sometime soon.

that time some flowers made me laugh and cry...

I came home the other night from my little boutique job, my feet sore, and my tummy empty. It hadn't been a bad day, just a tired day. After I put my bag down I saw a gorgeous, big bouquet of flowers on the table with an envelope.

I have a sweet husband. He buys flowers every now and then to celebrate our anniversary, or to tell me that he loves me. I don't know how I got so lucky. But this bouquet seemed bigger than usual; the kind that you don't want to put in a vase because it looks so good wrapped up. And nothing too huge has been going on in our lives in the last few days. In fact, I've been down about it- feeling like I used to accomplish things without it being a big deal, and now taking a shower and making the bed are about as ambitious as I want to be.

When I opened the envelope it said, "One year ago today, you graduated from Integrated Movement Studies! You did it!!!"

I broke down laughing and crying. Last year, I spent three weeks in Berkeley finishing a somatic certification intensive. It was hard. It was a little horrible. Any other year it might've been exciting and fun, but I was in the middle of a huge pile of work for my MFA, and the last thing I needed was an extra thesis to write and defend. 10 hour days in the classroom/studio. Talking to Gid on FaceTime every night and asking if he would still respect me if I just got in my car and came home. Now it seems so melodramatic. So silly and whiney. But I remember how intensely I wished it to be over. I had an app on my phone counting down the seconds.

And now it is. In fact, it's been over for a while. And as tired as my days can get now, they don't hold a candle to the stress that came with those three weeks. No more research paper writing. No more presentation preparing. My life is so beautiful. It's not as busy, but that's precisely what I wished for when I was elbow deep in work. It might seem boring by comparison, but it's actually quite lovely.

And I have flowers everywhere.



Thanks gidden. I lovelovelova you.
I think I'll go take a shower and make the bed now….

resolutions are hard.

20 days ago, I was like,

 "Bring on the new year. Bring. It. On."

"I'm going to catch up reading all of those classics I've made it 3/4 of the way through!"

"I'll finish editing all of those projects I've been working on!"

"I'll do awesome at exercising!"

"I'll totally do laundry!" 

"AND dishes!"

I was going to kill 2015 with my bare hands.
2015 was going to be MY year.

2014? It had some lovely moments, but I was ready to move on to 2015.

And then January 1st came by.

I thought, "Okay, lets finish up Les Miserables!
You've only got 100 pages left!!!"

"Lets get editing those projects!!"


"...okay, okay- let's exercise then! I won't even be too ambitious!
Let's just go on a walk every day!"



"...laundry?? ...dishes??"


The moral of the story is that resolutions are hard.
And I've been sleeping alot.

Writing this post was exhausting, and took me more time than I care to admit.


That's all.

dear october.

What a lovely first day you've given us. I've been feeling a bit blue lately, and today was such a warm and welcome surprise. Thank you for the briskness in the air, for the soft slow glow to wake up to. Thank you for the drizzles, and for the opportunity to wear (and actually need) a scarf. Thank you for warm socks, hot cocoa, and for family being in town.

My cousin's kids falling in love with gid.

Thank you especially for the dancing you've given me on cool fall evenings. Improvisation and passive sequencing in lovely studios with lovely artists, accompanied by lovely music. I can't think of a better way to get ready for bed. I'd forgotten what dance rehearsals without thesis stress felt like. It's quite nice.

Thanks October.
You're a pal.

five years ago today...

Five years ago today he and I decided we would never ever say good bye.

Sure, we get on each others nerves every now and then.

Sometimes we even go to bed grouchy.

But every morning I wake up in his tight embrace,
(whether we've had a disagreement or not)
 and we start a new day together.

Goodness I love him.

Happy five years sweetheart.
I'm so glad you had a weird crush on me.

Say Goodbye to the Roaring Twenties, Gid!

We threw my sweet Gideon a party for his thirtieth.

Thirty years is kind of a big deal, so we made sure to go all out.
(Translation: I bought fancy cheese and Harry and David meatballs and cheesecake...)

 

I can't even tell you how much fun it was. We chose to do a 20s theme ("Say Goodbye to the Roaring Twenties," get it?) I've had a few friends do this style of party and it looked too fun for us to pass up.

We had dear friends of ours come to celebrate with us,
and had the most lovely evening together.

We even managed to make a little photobooth spot.

Dressing up is the such fun, don't you think?

When it was time for (cheese) cake, I gave all of our guests sparklers to match Gid's birthday candles.

I like to think it made it more fun for everyone.

From then until after 9 pm, we just enjoyed hanging out
and taking pictures in front of the gold foil backdrop.

(I like how it looks like I've just said something really shocking in this picture...)

It was the most fun we've had in a long time.

Such huge thanks go to my sweet friend Anne, who photographed for me during the party. I'm never taking pictures at a party that I throw again, it was soooo nice having her there (both as company and as a photographer). I can't believe how talented my friends are.

It was a night we'll never forget.

Happy 30th, my sweetheart of all sweethearts. I love you so much it hurts.

I can't wait to throw another party!