My little girl

Marija turns two months old in just a few hours, wow. There is a lot of time just changing diapers and such, but there is more and more time spent playing, and always new discoveries, like noticing the red spot on her tongue or realizing her eyes are lightening to look more like Joe's or my sisters'.

Her likes: milk, naps, being held upright, rattles, stroller rides, car rides, being sung to, dancing with Mamma or Tētis, anything interesting to watch

Dislikes: the dirty diaper coming off, the clean diaper coming on, needing to burp, pacifiers, when Joe blows his nose (she cries!)

Hobbies: making adorable coos and other sounds (favorites include "ah-gu," "hau" and "genng"), trying to fit her whole fist into her mouth, melting hearts with her smiles, napping with one eye open just to keep Mamma on her toes

It's really neat to watch her blossom, getting more interested in the world around her and participating in it more. She's also becoming more independent... of course she still loves to be held, and she gets held a lot, but sometimes she's happy now just to lie on a mat and watch me put laundry onto hangers -- as long as I do a silly song or dance every once in a while, hah!

She's been really sleepy today, and though it's let me be more productive than usual, I'm getting lonely without her to hang out with!

Some things

Things Joe and I are currently managing just fine: cooking/eating, taking care of Marija, laundry, dishes, taking things in from the garden (a handful of raspberries every other day!), occasional walks, even sleeping (well enough most days).

Things we often don't manage nowadays: keeping the house clean, watering the plants and most other things.

Times I have been able to sit through church since Marija was born: 3 out of like 12. Those are the times she slept through it; more often, I end up walking her back and forth outside the sanctuary or finding a place to feed her.

I guess this is all in about the range of what I expected, but it is a little different to live it in real life than in imaginings. It is hard to imagine it has been just eight weeks since she was born; life without her in my arms seems long ago. People said everything would change, and many things did -- but it feels surprisingly like part of the same life as before, and it is.

Times when I'm sitting with the baby in my lap are good for prayer, but not as good as the head-swirling opportunities in the middle of the night, when everyone is quiet and I can really think.

Have had two nights of quiet dreams after a string of bad ones - tornadoes, lightning, deep cold water. Am feeling peaceful after times of imagining all kinds of bad things that could happen but probably won't. Maybe stories used to soak up the excess imagination, but lately my thoughts turn mainly to daily life and the people I love instead of the stories I used to breathe by.

I am trying to rely on the Lord

but trying harder some days than others.

I am weak

but He is strong.

This is something I need to remember.

New skills

I've heard motherhood can bring on a new efficiency. I don't know whether this is true overall, but I am suddenly able to down a glass of water like Joe always could, "glug glug glug" and it's gone. And the other day, Joe was telling a story while on his second slice of homemade pizza when he realized I was cramming my fourth slice down my throat -- meaning I'd just eaten half a pizza in a minute or two -- cause I had to pick up the baby from where she was lying across the room so I could feed her, too.

In the last seven weeks, I've also learned to juggle a baby from one arm to the other and smell a wet diaper at a distance. My Latvian is improving, since I'm speaking it to her. But I've lost much of my ability to finish the thought I started at the beginning of a conversation.

Maybe it will come back?

Sister, sister, he's just a plaything...

Our home's soundtrack lately:

Having fun

With no money

Little smile

On his face

Don't you love

The little baby?

Don't you want to make it

Stay up late?

"Stay Up Late," by the Talking Heads

We actually don't want the baby to stay up late... at all... but it is fun to dance around to the song. If you want to hear it, it's here with some random unrelated video clips.

Marija Kristina

Marija Kristina, born September 7 at 4:34 a.m.

Asleep

The birth went well -- and very quickly. We have had many jokes about our Labor Day labor. And in the days since, people have shown her and us so much love... it's amazing.

I love her

Things are going really well. She and I have been learning a lot, I think. Joe, too. I knew he'd be a great dad, but I'm still awed as I watch him with his little girl.

A kiss from her Tētīts

She keeps us pretty busy... I'm able to post now only because Joe is changing her diaper and then starting dinner downstairs. And though she's brought me to tears once or twice when she wouldn't let us put her down to sleep, these first weeks have been pretty wonderful.

Praise God for His many blessings.

About harvest time

Some of our tomato crop

We've finally been harvesting our tomatoes... they make a really great sauce, but are best just fresh from the garden. I think they are better than candy.

I felt like stretching my legs today, so I tried mowing the lawn a bit, but I can't do it very well anymore, so I gave that chore back to Joe pretty quickly.

I look like I've swallowed a basketball.

Latvian sighting II

It has been more than a week now, but it is so strange I wanted to mention: I ran into a Latvian right here in La Plata!

It is a long story, but I was stopping by the American Legion building in town, which is under construction. He was one of a couple construction workers who gave me a word as I went by, and his accent sounded so familiar I asked where he might be from.

"America," he said, in a very Eastern European accent. I think maybe he is tired of the question?

"Ah, because I was wondering if you might be from Eastern Europe, like my family," I said.

"Actually, I am from Latvia," he said.

"Ah, my family too! Vai runājiet Latviski?"

"Jā! Un jūs?"

So we talked in Latvian then. He is working at the site in town for now and lives in a nearby county, and his sister lives even closer. Maybe soon I will get a chance to give her that awkward call: "Hello, I hear you're Latvian! ... I'm Latvian, too!" But probably not right away, between the baby being due soon and Joe's car still not working since it broke down a few days ago.

In other Latvian news, my favorite band, Iļģi, finally has its own Youtube channel! With music I haven't heard before, ooh! I hope they add more, because Youtube is still low on great Latvian music. (There is more music on their Myspace page.)

Very hungry caterpillar

About those caterpillars... I think they may not leave much dill for me and Joe after all.

They look as if they have doubled in size in the last two days. There are seven of them, and though they spend a lot of their time sitting still, a few were eating as I watched today. They can eat well over an inch of dill a minute! At that rate they have totally stripped one of the plants and have moved on to some others.

I think I'll leave them, though, because I like watching them hang from their fat feet almost as much as I like butterflies. Though I told Joe that if we did want to save the dill bed, we could attempt a middle-of-the-night caterpillar transplant to some Queen Anne's lace growing along a house down the street.

Did you know that if an ant crawls along the nose of a caterpillar (because the caterpillar ate the dill flower the ant had been enjoying), the caterpillar will start to shake?

Today I had something like "walk barefoot in the grass" on my to-do list, and I got to cross it off at the end of the day! It was a really nice day.

Parenting III

The inside of our church, Sacred Heart in La Plata

Sometimes when I'm in church, I think of the love I get from Joe, or from Rose, or from some other friend or family member. There are some people who love so well that their love is sweet to receive even when you don't deserve it, even when you wish you could love them back better than you know how. And when I think on that human love, it seems easier to make sense of the vast love and attention of a perfect and loving God.

I pray I am a mother who loves her child with this kind of love.

We have guests

This is not as important as babies, but...

I do believe our dillbed has become home to some black swallowtail caterpillars.

I think it's handsome

I counted about a half-dozen, as well as some skins they left from when they molted! They make beautiful butterflies, and we should still have plenty of dill left over for our cucumber salads.

In other garden news, I had to tear out the squash plant (blossom end rot, augh!), but our tomato and pepper plants are sagging under the weight of ripening fruit.

We also have a pretty flower.

That is our clematis!