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kenandbelly

~ A navelgazer telling her story.

kenandbelly

Category Archives: life

Life and changes

16 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in kenandbellyland, life

≈ 2 Comments

The clean and tidy of my previous post mocks me. Our living room now looks like this:

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Things have gone from two-working parents-with-an-infant-and-a-soccer-playing-ballerina hectic to two-working-parents-with-jobs-temporarily-in-different-cities-and-househunting/taking-on-a-mortgage-and-moving-back-to-the-Midwest-with-a-toddler-and-a-soccer-playing-ballerina nutso around here. One day, one day, I will rise to blog again. Perhaps with DIY/home improvement content. Or not, I don’t know. Lend me some well-rested brain cells and a 30 hour day and I’ll give you a better answer. Meantime, here are the girls plotting to take over the world:

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“Okay, sister. This is fun but let’s go find a new adventure!”

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Worst and best, 8 months

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in baby stuff, life

≈ 1 Comment

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The worst part is when I have to take stinky diapers to the trash.

And when she cries.

But, actually, that’s not so bad. Because I can make her happy again and that feels good.

–Jayne, on being a big sister

a very merry half birthday

04 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in baby stuff, kenandbellyland, life

≈ Leave a comment

Half a year, Miry, my dearie, equally distant from the sun as we were the day you were born (plus a few days, at this point).  One hundred eighty-even days of you in our lives, here with us.  No more waiting in the wings, but here with us finally, having decided for yourself that it was time for you to join our family.

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With you, our family is balanced, even.  Two and two.  I’m not surprised at all that you are a Libra.  All that balance.  You are mellow, round, sweet, even.

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You’re also a whole heap of fun!  You squawk.  But you also growl.  You smile easily, but then return to seriousness.  You bring your hands together in front of you, tap tap, and light up when we say, “clap, clap.”

My sweet baby cakes, sunshine, smiley buttons, sweetie pie, growly bear with the drool and the raspberries and the chub, I just want to zerbert you until you laugh.  To pump your legs so you “run” in place while giggling.  To cuddle you while you still fit on my lap.

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You think kicking the water and now splashing with your hands is fabulous, and have started to lean toward the bathtub as soon as you realize the water is running.  You love yourself a good bath–until you don’t, all of a sudden, and it’s time to whisk you out of the tub, struggle your diaper, onesie, pajamas, and zipper gown onto you, and nurse you.  Just you and I in the dark bedroom.  That’s our quiet time.

The moment I saw you outside my body, I knew you.  But I knew you–know you–as a mystery, too.  I still know so little of you.  More and more of you shines out as you have transitioned from not-yet-fully-of-this-world newborn to full-on baby, beginning to cling to me like a baby monkey when I put you on my hip.  You feel so familiar on your own, and look so familiar with your sister that I have flashbacks to six years ago with her.  Yet, I know we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg and there’s so much more of your personality to emerge.

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You, you are your own joy.  You are a joy to us.

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Times are changing around here. Your awesome, kind, loving grandparents have been watching you on workdays, commuting early and from Leesburg to do so.  They have other grandkids waiting for their turns, so you’ll start daycare next week.  The 6-month class should be fun for you– you love looking in the mirror at that one smiley baby.  Just imagine how fun it will be to have other babies to play with.

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Not that those other babies will ever be able to compare to your favorite playmate at home, that awesome sister of yours.  Your mutual adoration club fills our time together with lots of giggles, squawks, raspberries, songs, and belly laughs.  She thinks you get more fun every day, and is thrilled that you’ve started to share a room with her now that your sleep pattern’s pretty solid.  Before you, she often asked us why she had to sleep alone when your dad and I got to share a room.  Now, she has you.  You will never know life without a sister; she had six years as an only child and, in that time, did not realize what she was missing– until we told her she was going to be a big sister and she realized that she was missing, because she didn’t yet have you.
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And now she does.

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And you have her.

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And so do we.

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I’m so glad.

Love,

Mama

so full

16 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in kenandbellyland, life

≈ 2 Comments

Jayne turned six and cupcakes and Wizards games and concerts at the Kennedy Center and full time at the office and Jayne in ballet and nursing and pumping and nursing and the delicious chub on Myriam’s wrists and she’s closer to five months now than four and she laughs and Jayne laughs and dances for her and my role is changing at work and its a sideways move with more room to grow and Ben has a new job and he’s so excited to really give his MBA skills a run and its getting crowded here and should we buy a condo? a second car? and sequestration and a short furlough likely for me and oh, I could actually use the down time and we forgot to drink the sparkling wine I saved to celebrate the first anniversary of my dissertation defense since I was pregnant last year and wait, Ben can’t have wine right now because he’s on a strict elimination diet to see if his Menier’s can get under control (so far so good) and it’s so hard to find foods he can eat that have no salt nuts onions bananas avocados msg caffeine alcohol chocolate poor guy at least we’re saving by not eating out and its hard to cook every night rather than order pizza Indian Thai Chinese and I have a chocolate stash and I have a new knitting project because we have a new nephew and yay a new nephew! and our baby’s growing so fast she’s a delight and ugh I hate getting up at five and wish I could fit into my regular clothes again but almost there at least I don’t have very much further to go and its not like I have time to exercise it’s mostly just nursing and Myriam is 14 pounds already no wonder and it would feel good if I had time to exercise though at least I get to do some weightlifting between the baby and carrying around my work laptop and telecommuting and all the baby gear and photos and last year’s 365 book and the view from our balcony the sound of Myriam’s coos and Jayne making her own peanut butter sandwiches and she reads! she reads! and wow now I know where I got my irrational fear of panthers when I was a kid even though our house was not a Little House in the Woods and I think we’ll switch to Lucy Maud Montgomery now and it’s way too soon to introduce Jayne to Harry Potter she would get scared and she has such a tender heart and wow I haven’t thought about Molly Bloom in a while yes yes yes I said yes and it would also be nice to put something on my blog because life is so good and so full and so sweet and so crazy right now I want to capture it wrap my arms around it tape some words to it log it in my memory bookshelf for safekeeping all time because these are good good days busy days and ahhh I better go shower and dry my hair before the baby wakes up from her nap.

Sweet arrival

09 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in life, pregnancy and birth

≈ 2 Comments

I was almost pregnant forever.

With my due date five days in the rear view mirror, we went in for monitoring and another little peek at the little one who, we learned, was simply very cozy and happy to remain nestled in my belly.  On the drive home from our appointment, I began outlining a blog post designed to cast a lingual spell that would bring baby out into the world.  Look baby, this bassinet is ready to hold you while you dream, this swing will rock-a-bye you to your heart’s content, these arms right here are ready to hold you.  Trust us, baby, you think you’re cozy in there with your nose on my bladder, your forehead on my hipbone, and your knee in my kidney, but you have much to learn.  Come out, sweet pea.  It’s time. 

Words can do things like that, you know.  They can totally bring babies into the world.

Ordinary life and a set of cramps got in the way of writing out that post; I went to bed a little early that night.  The exercise of composing it in my head must have done the trick, though.  A few hours later, I woke up as my water broke.

So, yes.

She’s here.

And I think she’s learned that it’s much sweeter to be out in the world.

 

Interview with a Kindergartener

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in kenandbellyland, life

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Inquiring minds wanted to know.  So, we asked Jayne:
What’s your favorite color? pink

Favorite food? IKEA meatballs.  Also Princess Chicken Noodle soup

Favorite dessert? poppys (push-up pops)

Favorite show? Dinosaur Train

Who is the coolest person on Earth? you, Mom

Who is your teacher? Mr. McConnell

What’s your favorite thing about school? recess

What’s your favorite class? P.E.

Who are your best friends? Charlotte, Anna, Robbie, Elizabeth and Lori

What do you do most awesomely? play in the playground

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Disney

What’s your favorite toy? my princess dolls

What do you want to be when you grow up? a pilot of a plane

What’s your favorite song? the Na-Na-Na song (Ricky Gervais’ Celebrity Lullaby)

What’s your favorite book? George and Martha: the Complete Stories of Two Best Friends

What are three words that describe you? I really like to run, to play, and to sleep

What did you do when you were little? drooled when I was a baby

What is something Mommy always says to you? You are my sunshine

What is something that Daddy always says to you? You are my monkey mac.

What makes Mommy happy?  When I give her love

What makes Daddy happy?  When I play with him

How does Mommy make you laugh? Do funny things

How does Daddy make you laugh?  Do funny things.  Like jokes.

What’s your best memory? memory games

If you had one wish, what would it be? if the whole world was made of candy

Definitely not smaller

18 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

35 weeks, Pregnancy

I’m pretty sure we’ll look at each other and say, “you got bigger!” when Jaynie arrives home tonight from her three weeks with my parents in South Dakota. She’ll be all gangly summer legs and longer hair, because thats what summer sunshine does to five-year-olds.

Me? This is what I look like at 35 weeks.

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Bigger. Definitely bigger.

Also very excited to show Jayne that someone else is getting bigger, too.

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Watch this baby hit 88 miles per hour–UPDATED

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in life

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Tags

maternity, photography

Now that I’ve laid out the plot turns that have happened since my old blog went on hiatus, I’m going to turn on the flux capacitor and get back to the future…er, present.

(Honestly, the effect’s pretty similar to the way things have felt around here lately; this pregnancy has sometimes felt like it’s sped by in a DeLorean, even as it feels like I’ve been through this time before.)

Anyway, besides restarting to blog, we decided to to capture some memories of this fleet-footed pregnancy by having some family portraits taken.  We met up with Abbie Rufener on Sunday at one of our favorite places: the Hirshorn Museum of Contemporary Art, which is just across the river from us, and also just down the street from both of our offices.  Jayne happens to love the place, too (with her current favorite installation being Jesus Rafael Soto‘s).

Abbie was great fun during the session and did a beautiful job with her camerawork.  We commiserated about how we each typically end up behind the camera, which makes me appreciate having this time in our lives recorded even more.

Abbie posted some images from our photo session here.  Go check them out!

UPDATED TO ADD: Here are some previews Abbie provided so I could upload them here.

B & J

family

 

silly

the biggest things that happened in January and February

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in academia, dissertation, life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

dissertation defense, pregnancy announcement

Probably the most exciting portions of my dissertation defense–at least to me–happened outside of the actual committee gathering.  For a while there back in January, it looked like my defense would need to be delayed, perhaps substantially, due to a technicality.  It turned out that the outside reader–the rare department faculty member at my grad school who was both outside my department and a specialist in my national field of study– wasn’t technically eligible to fulfill the required check-and-balance role, being not quite yet tenured.  Two years after I had assembled my full committee and less than two weeks before the scheduled defense, I was scrambling to find a whole new faculty member willing to take on my 300 pager.

I think the demonstration of academic-bureaucratic kung foo it took to keep that defense on schedule actually helped a bit when it came to the “snake fight” portion of my defense.  After eight years in the program, with five of them spent writing the diss, I had already pretty much done what I was capable of doing to ensure that my snake would be a small one.

It was also pretty crucial, I think, in terms of my ability to mount a full-strength defense.  Pushing back the date by even a couple of weeks would have moved me deep into first trimester territory, a terrain that, for me, consists of exhaustion down to my very marrow.  And far more head-on-the-pillow dreaming than clear thinking.

Because, have I mentioned?  This happened in late January, eleven whole days before my defense.

two lines!

Yep!

I’m back, with a fresh start

04 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by kenandbellymacaroni in blogging, life

≈ 1 Comment

After a hiatus, I’m back to blogging. Yay for resuming a creative hobby I’ve enjoyed since 2006.

I have lots to tell you about.  Here’s a sneak peek of what happened during my blog hiatus:

Much jubilation about the successful defense of my Ph.D.,

and resulting graduation,

and resulting graduation,

other celebrations (including J’s 5th birthday),

j's preschool graduation

and preschool graduation,

a massive work project that took me all around the country,

Ocean City

a vacation to Ocean City (meaning that I made it literally from sea to shining sea this June),

and sundry other adventures, too.

So, oh yes, there’s more.  Much more.  Subsequent posts coming soon. (I pinky swear!)

BTW, and how do you like the new digs? Thanks to the kindness of strangers, I’m now blogging at this spiffy new address. The original owners of the kenandbelly domain (wait, there are other people named K and B?  What?) stopped using it a while back and were kind enough to transfer it to me when I contacted them.  Gotta love random acts of kindness.  Thanks again, other K and B!

Ah, it feels good to be back online.

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