What're you lookin' at? | Ramblings from a self-proclaimed yada yada yada...ist

Brothers and sisters

It's funny how different an experience it is to take care of a baby when you're raising a toddler at the same time.

With Kara, every development was mind-blowing and new, every milestone carefully jotted down somewhere until I had a chance to record it in her baby book. And yet, there was also a lot of downtime, too, not because our girl wasn't interesting, but when she's sitting there flipping through picture books, there's not much to do on the sidelines, you know?

Add Nathan to the mix, and now we have spice. His accomplishments are also mind-blowing but not so much new, as we've done this part before, so I often drop the ball when it comes to remembering red-letter dates associated with his growth (thank you, Parents blog, for filling in the gaps). And now, while we still delight in every roll and giggle, the coolest thing is watching these two interact with each other. There's not a moment of filler, and I couldn't be happier about it. (Though I wouldn't complain about being more well-rested.)

  

When we first brought Nathan home, Kara got over him pretty quickly and didn't pay much attention to the wriggling, screaming creature who had turned our family upside down. In the last couple of months, though, she's come to view him as a partner in crime, bringing him toys, engaging him in play, and showering him with affection. An adorable mother hen, that one. And Nathan eats it right up.

  

That's not to say we don't appreciate them individually. Kara still amazes me every day with her ability to quietly take everything in and demonstrate understanding without making a big show of it (aka talking). She's becoming such a little girl now, and I love thinking about which activities she'll show interest in as she gets older, what her talents might be, how her relationship with us will grow.

 

Meanwhile, I have been taken hostage by my son's flirty personality, the way he makes eyes with us all, how he eagerly opens wide for the kisses I plant on his mouth. Aside from occasional bouts with crab-assery, he is such a happy little guy, his bright light shining whether he's center stage or on the sidelines, witnessing the action.

 

Mitten Girl...

 

...and Superman.

And they are taking their show on the road.

And Luke wonders why I can't stop thinking about the idea of a third.

Edited to add 7-1-09: Not sure why I can't embed the video within my post like I have in the past. Feel free to e-mail with offers of help.

Edited to add 7-2-09: Problem solved! Copying the html code into Notepad before pasting into TypePad did the trick.

Happy is as happy does

It's amazing that even though I'm now a wife, mother, and respectable working professional, I still have the overwhelming tendency to act like just like I did in high school. Putting off major projects until the last minute. Staying up ridiculously late. Pissing my time away because I don't have the wherewithal to focus. Or the ever-popular combo of staying up ridiculously late to finish a major project at the last minute only to piss my time away. Case in point: Last night I brought my laptop home to work on a draft of an article I've pledged to complete by Friday, only I've been so excited about scoring tickets to see Tori Amos in August that instead I fooled around on her Web site, searched for videos of favorite songs on YouTube, and searched for reviews of her latest album, a CD I'm desperately trying to make sense of. Two college degrees and I still don't know what she's singing about half the time. Some things never change.

But some things do. Things at home are still rocky on the maintainence front, and I often wonder if there will ever be a time where two baskets of laundry won't be sitting in our bedroom waiting to be folded, but I've worked on my priorities some to accommodate my new fitness regimen. After the kids are asleep, instead of picking up or working or freelancing or whatever, I've taken to shredding and showering right after (if from that statement you've concluded that before I was going to bed a hot, sweaty mess, you, my friend, would be right). Not only does this new plan have me exercising when I'm likely to have more energy, it's also a tangible way to prove to myself that personal health is more important to me than the state of my house. As of this morning I noted a loss of 8.4 pounds on the scale, and when packing for my overnight trip to Springfield, Missouri, I was able to include a pair of "transitional pants" I bought near the end of my maternity leave with Kara. I couldn't even button them a couple of months ago, so even though they still leave a faint trace of muffin top, I am immensely proud.

Aside from the weight loss, I'm not really noticing any other changes in my body---my arms aren't buffer, and my abs continue to be held hostage by my massive waterbed of a gut--but it's making all the difference in my mental health, I think, encouraging me to look beyond my comfort zone and experiment with new things. I've talked before about my company's willingness to sponsor employees in races throughout the city, so Luke and I participated in a 5K for prostate cancer a few weeks ago. I mainly did it as a way to incorporate a new fitness activity and enjoy some time outdoors; it wasn't until after walking the first mile did I realize this would actually be work, traipsing over hills and around bends and through globs of people who were there to honor a loved one, or even honor themselves. It was a great night, and while I don't count walking 3.2 miles in an hour and thirty-one seconds anything extraordinary, I already have visions of maybe possibly trying to run the Indianapolis Marathon's 5K in October. Many of the shredheads just finished a couch-to-5K program that I might take up closer to the time of the race (at which point I hope to invest in my first pair of running shoes), and to keep the momentum going, I'll also be doing the BlogHer 5K next month. Luke, Kara, and Nathan will be joining me in Chicago while I attend BlogHer Business as well as the general conference, and Luke was initially worried about managing the kids by himself that morning, so I volunteered to take Nathan along in the baby carrier. Quality time with my baby boy while enjoying the Windy City's lakeshore? Count me IN.

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This afternoon, Nathan had his four-month appointment, and typically before he begins his examination of the baby, our pediatrician asks how Luke and I are doing. I talked about exercising and bouncing back at work a little more smoothly than last time, and then I proceeded to talk about everything Nathan's been doing, smiling and cooing and rolling over with a vengeance (so much so that he's waking himself up at night; what's up with that?), and I must have been pretty enthusiastic because he made a point to comment on it.

"You sound good," he said as I nuzzled Nathan's neck and kissed his cheek (my son's, not the doctor's). "You look happy."

And I am. I feel like for the first time in my experience as a parent, I'm making good on my promise to take better care of myself, and I'm no longer using my kids as an excuse to avoid fulfilling my potential. Sure, it'll be awhile before I carve out any significant time away from home, and it's not like I'm running out to accomplish world peace, but it's amazing how a twenty-minute workout video has inspired me to examine other areas of my life. I'm ready to start thinking about the big picture again, the goals I have for my personal life and for my family with Luke and my relationships with other people. I want to be more a part of things outside myself and see how I fit in the world. I want to stop getting angry about things I can't change and be proactive about the things I can. Luke and I have recently started going to our neighborhood Episcopal church on Sundays, which I've enjoyed immensely. We talk about finding baby-sitters closer to home and one day take up running together. Today I opened a book for the first time since January and actually started to read it. It's Eat, Pray, Love, and I can't think of a better way to embark on this new life journey than delve into somebody else's. I really love it so far.

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The first part of this entry was written last night at home, but I'm finishing it in Springfield, where I'm spending the night so I can ride along on some sales calls with one of our reps in the area tomorrow. Once again, it was a bitch to leave my family behind, but on the other hand, being able to read something other than a magazine in a place other than the bathroom for longer than ten minutes? Well, there are worse things in life, let me tell you.

(Still, though, I'd rather be at home.)

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Finally, because you all have been such good sports about my sporadic posting and complete negligence in sharing adorable pictures of my kids, I leave you with this:

  

My little tornado of fun currently clocks in at 14 lb 12 oz, putting him in roughly the fiftieth percentile for weight, and at twenty-six and a half inches, he's close to the seventy-fifth percentile for height. But when it comes to being joyful, he's off the charts.

(I'd upload a photo of Kara, too, but this is all I had in my e-mail. Luke, if you read this tonight, be a dear and send one to me, will you? We're all about fairness here.)

Edited to add: Thanks, honey.

 

Kara turned a year and a half last week. Where does the time go? I swear she was just in my belly.

The stars at night, are big and bright (clap clap clap clap)...

I'm typing this from a hotel business center in downtown Houston, where I'll be for the next couple of nights to engage with sales folks in the region to get a better feel for how they interact with clients and what my department can do to assist their efforts. When I first joined this company four years ago (officially celebrated this past Saturday, holla!), travel was something I rarely did, if ever, but in the last eighteen months or so we've been growing at an exponential rate, so now keeping tabs on activity "in the field" is going to be a regular part of my job. I've never considered myself to be a particularly savvy traveler, and in the spirit of my first solo round-trip extravaganza, I've tried to keep things as simple as possible, which for me means nonstop flights instead of connecting ones and cab rides instead of rental cars. Luckily, my bosses subscribe to the simple camp, as well.

Things have been OK so far. Saying good-bye to Luke and the kids this morning brought on my Angela Chase-inspired chin wobble and crocodile tears, but no major snags or snafus. I found my local Park, Ride and Fly with little trouble and passed quickly through security, giving me a two-hour window to check e-mail on my new fancy Blackberryjackphone thingamabob and shoot the breeze with my sister and Hoosier shredhead companion while waiting to board the plane. The plane itself was claustraphobically small, and my seat had an odd curve to it that prevented me from reclining in a completely comfortable position. Also contributing to my jumble of nerves was my tendency to relive the pilot episode of Lost, questioning my ability to properly attach the oxygen mask to my face and detach the bottom cushion so I could use it as a flotation device, just in case the plane crashed near a magical tropical island with the power to change time.

Once I landed in Houston, I hailed a cab to my hotel, and it wasn't until we were on the expressway that I thought about how vulnerable I was; this guy could have shot me in the face or driven me to some remote location to do God knows what. In case you couldn't tell, that didn't happen, so I booked him to take me back to the airport at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Why yes, I am paranoid, thank you for asking!

If I were a single person with zero baby weight to lose and loads of dispensable cash on my hands, I'd probably be having the time of my life. I'm just a couple of blocks away from the Galleria Mall, where I found a place to eat dinner, and it would be easy to kill a couple of hours shopping for clothes and pigging out on treats. But instead I steared clear of NY&C entirely and enjoyed a whole-wheat turkey sandwich with a side of fruit while digging into a back issue of Working Mother magazine, a publication I like far better than any of the other parenting bibles on the stands these days. The sandwich had the potential to be just as damaging as a Big Mac, what with the zillion layers of meat and cheese, until I removed more than half of the guts, much to my server's chagrin. Jillian Michaels would have been proud.

Oh, and I miss my family like crazy.

I'm totally boring myself with this entry, but I figured my temporary kid-free status owed the Internet an update. Maybe I'll be wittier tomorrow. *Crosses fingers*

Working on my fitness...again

At this point last year, I had just learned I was pregnant with Nathan. Kara wasn't even six months old, and I was beginning another round of Weight Watchers. I had finally reached a point in my post-partum existence where I felt motivated to put my health first. But once I learned of my "with child" status, that all went out the window. Suddenly, it was no longer necessary to avoid Oreos or chocolate chip cookie dough or three helpings of french fries. Those calories were essential for my baby's growth and development. And people, I am all about the children.

After I delivered this past January, I'll admit it: I was kind of disgusted with my body. Even throughout the pregnancy I was surprised to see that my basketball belly didn't mask my tire of a gut and smooth everything out like it did the first time around. Instead, the tire just camped out underneath, sagging like an eighty-year-old man's flabby double chin. Once Nathan was out and I was over the initial glee, I couldn't stop looking in the mirror and staring at the mess of skin my stomach had truly become, the fullness in my face, all that extra junk in my trunk. Even after the first few weeks, my weight plateaued around the mid-150s, a number I had never seen before in my life. And on my 5'2" frame, it's just too much. I lost a couple of pounds before I returned to work, but going back after only eight weeks was pretty hard for me, and it was difficult to focus on anything else but adjusting to being away from my family.

Luckily, though, despite a few crying jags here and there, my return to the office wasn't as soul-crushing as it was with Kara, so I finally decided Enough Is Enough and began a new fitness regimen last Wednesday, a few days before Nathan's four-month birthday. Everything I said in regards to wellness after Kara was born is still true; I want to be a fit person. I want to show my kids that being active is fun and natural and easy, even when it doesn't come naturally or easily to me. And I want them to see that I make my personal health a top priority because it's THAT important.

Of course, they will only see these things if I actually do them. Therein lies the challenge.

Because I've gotten on and off this particular bandwagon more times than I care to count (hello, Weight Loss Wednesday), I gave a lot of thought as to how I was going to realistically change my outlook on getting into shape. As far as food goes, I don't have the energy to join Weight Watchers again and track every single thing I put in my mouth, but Luke and I are slowly ridding our kitchen of high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, nitrates, and other ingredients that get in our way, and I'm being more selective about what I eat and how much. I've also decided to stop eating after eight o'clock, simply because that's when I'm most suspectible to overeating. In regards to exercise, my primary complaint has always been not having enough time, so I'm starting small. As those of you who follow me on Parents know, I've been doing Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred, not because I enjoy the workouts but because it's fast. Twenty minutes and I'm done. So when my muscles are burning and I'm huffing and puffing heavier than an extra in a porno, I look at the clock and think, "Only ten minutes left? I can do ten minutes," and keep on keeping on. I'm still modifying push-ups, I'm still constantly reminding myself to keep good form, but I'm pushing through it just the same, and I'm actually seeing results. According to my scale, I've lost 4.6 pounds so far.

I was pretty reluctant to try the Shred because so many other bloggers were doing it and giving up, and I don't even watch The Biggest Loser, so references to Jillian's tough-as-nails personality were lost on me; I also wasn't sure if I could commit to doing a video that took so much hard work when I was barely moving to begin with. At first, I just planned to get walking more with the kids, but I found when I did that, I suddenly stopped going on walks because they weren't fun anymore. That's when I realized I personally need to separate activity intended for weight loss and strength building from that which enables me to spend time with my family. When I keep the two compartmentalized, each one becomes a lot more manageable. Plus, in my experience, it's more feasible to say I'm going to shred every night after the kids go to bed than it is to count on taking a walk every day after dinner. So much of our evening routine is still up in the air; I come home anywhere between four and five, and sometimes dinner is close to being ready, but usually it's not, and sometimes the lawn needs to be mowed and kids need to be bathed and sometimes the weather is bad, and you see where this is going? Not to mention my body is so out of shape that a few walks a week aren't going to give me the results I need to get back to a reasonable weight as soon as possible. I'm not looking to score a size 8 by the end of the month, but as Jillian likes to say, "You've got to push yourself."

So I'm pushing. I've not been able to shred every day--a nasty cold/cough combo I've been fighting (plus pink eye! In both eyes!) left me out of commission for two of the eight days I've been doing this, so even though today is my ninth day on the Shred, tonight will only be my seventh actual Shred. Still, I'm doing it, and I'm proud of what I've done.

My quick bout of success thus far has come from taking it one day at a time so I don't get discouraged and re-evaluating my priorities so exercise doesn't once again get pushed to the back burner. That last one has been the most eye-opening, because the clutter build-up in my house is a direct result of the new time I've carved out for the Shred. So while I'm losing weight and getting fit, my carpets are getting dirtier, my shower stalls are getting scummier, and my CD rack continues to multitask as a clothing rack. But in the end, I ask myself, would I rather be a fit person living in a messy home or an unfit person living in a moderately clean home (because even when I can spend more time cleaning, there's still a lot I have to miss)? And right now, the answer is A. Because really, A should have been the answer all along.

I've also been trying to find other ways to work fun exercise into my day-to-day; lucky for me, my employer is hugely into wellness, so they pay the registration fees for a number of races that take place in the city. Luke and I will participate in a non-competitive 5K this Saturday night and just signed up for a family fun walk in downtown Indy in mid-July. And once I'm done with the Shred, I hope to move on to videos that have a little more zip in their step. I'm dying to resurrect my Richard Simmons videos and start sweating to the oldies again.

Usually when I get involved in projects concerning my health, in the back of my mind, I'm always wondering when I'll fail, since that's what usually happens. But this time, I'm like the tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race. And this time, I will win.

It's our anniversary

In honor of our three-year wedding anniversary, Luke and I drove to Merrillville last weekend to drop off the kids with his parents and enjoy some one-on-one time together. Even though things are getting easier at home (Nathan has four weeks of sleeping through the night under his belt, holla!), life is still crazy busy for us, and most of our energies are funneled into changing diapers, washing dishes, folding laundry, or some other maintenance-related activity. We weren't gone twenty-four hours, but oh, my gosh, we SO needed this.

Our destination: New Buffalo, Michigan, and the surrounding wine trail. Since we didn't want to spend the whole day parked in front of a bar, we decided to hang out at the Round Barn Winery, where for five dollars you can sample five traditional wines, one dessert wine, and one house vodka. Luke and I have never been regular drinkers, but we do enjoy wine and also hella-cheap activities for the older-than-two crowd, so this was a perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. We bought a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon to take back to our hotel room that night. Neither one of us tried the vodka--I sampled a second dessert wine (note to self: not a fan of dessert wines), while Luke traded his vodka and his dessert wine for beer.

 

I'm not an idiot who fake drinks out of paper bags but I play one on the Internet!

Afterwards, we drove into town and spent some time at the New Buffalo City Beach, just talking as we strolled along the lakeshore.

 

It's only been through my relationship with Luke that I've grown to love the beach, and since a lot of our vacations have been beach-centered, it makes sense that I think of it as "our" place, no matter where we are.

 

After making a quick pitstop at our hotel to change clothes, we went to dinner at Timothy's Restaurant at Gordon Beach Inn. It was a pricier meal than we originally planned on, but there was a fireplace in the dining room and no high chairs to be found. Worth every penny.

 

Part of the reason we felt comfortable having such a fancy dinner was that our hotel room was free. Luke had leftover reward points saved from his last job, so he used them to snag a reservation at a Fairfield Inn that had only been open eight weeks. I really loved the decor and took silly pictures of the carpet in the hallway to adequately capture the memory.

 

After dinner we grabbed some ice cream and headed back to the hotel, where we watched The Suze Orman Show and the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and then turned off the TV to drink our wine and talk and talk and talk. We were up by 6:30 a.m. the next morning, so eager were we to get back to our babies, even though they were in perfectly wonderful hands and probably wouldn't have minded a little more play time with Grandma and Grandpa Dunscombe.

 

This trip will live in my memory as one of my favorites. It was the perfect amount of time to be away--long enough to recharge the marital battery, but not so long that missing the kids affected our ability to have a good time. It was so nice to just hang out with each other like we used to. We won't be doing it every weekend, but we have talked about making it a point to get out, just the two of us, every month or so. We're even trying to institute a weekly date night at home, though we have yet to actually follow through on that one. To be fair, Tuesday was the Billy Joel/Elton John concert, and while we had to miss the finale in order to relieve our baby-sitter, we did spend a good portion of Elton's "Levon" performance looking at pictures of the kids on Luke's cell phone. That counts as quality time when you're parents, right?

 

Happy (belated) anniversary, honey.

Minus the cup of Joe

Are Luke and I the only people who dig listening to music on their TV?

Last fall when we moved into our new house, we finally bit the bullet and signed up for satellite service after three years without any cable whatsoever. Which was all very well and good for us, but we still weren't into formally introducing Kara to television. It wasn't that hard at the apartment when we only had a few choice channels at our disposal, but suddenly there was TLC and Lifetime Television for Women and TBS and TNT and SOAPNet oh my God, SOAPNet, I missed you most of all. It's hard to completely abstain from watching those types of shows during daylight hours, and I'm definitely guilty of watching All My Children while she's running around playing with her toys, but overall we're careful to limit her overall exposure. However, when nothing's on it can feel oddly creepy throughout the house, and we're often too lazy to go upstairs and sort through CDs to bring downstairs, and there's no good place to stash the CDs downstairs, and there's only so much Baby Einstein and Fischer-Price you can take before you want to cut out your own eardrums.

Thankfully, it wasn't long before we discovered the beauty that is satellite radio via dish service, giving us the music variety we need without having to shuffle through our DVD player all day long. There are a few stations we listen to more than others--where was Love Songs when I needed it the most?--but by far the winner in our house is the Coffee House, where singer/songwriter tunes reign supreme. It's a slightly biased station, as in any given hour you can bet you'll hear at least one song from Tracy Chapman, Ryan Adams, Ray LaMontagne, or the the Indigo Girls, but it's great background music to have on while going through the motions of your day-to-day.

Listening to the Coffee House has expanded our iTunes playlist considerably, so I thought it might be fun to share some of the newer stuff I'm listening to these days.

"Sweet Pea" - Amos Lee
I first heard this in a recent commercial for a cell phone provider--the one where the dad takes his daughter's stuffed animal on a business trip and photographs it in different places. That little girl looks a lot like I imagine Kara will in a few years, so the song stuck with me; when I heard it on the Coffee House, I recognized it immediately and knew I had to have it.

"Love is All Around" - Toby Lightman
This was played constantly during the first couple of months I was home with Nathan, so whenever I hear it, I think about my adorable little family. I like to sing it to Kara (the parts I can recite from memory, anyway), and when I get to the "love, love, love, love" part, she always smiles.

"Amie" - Counting Crows
When Luke and I lived in Rensselaer, we once attended a coffee house set by a local band who played this song, so now whenever I hear it, I think of that time in our lives when we were dating and holding down two apartments even though we shared a bed at least five days a week. This version isn't that different from the original, but I like the Counting Crows, and I don't know, it felt more age-appropriate to download this one.

"Brand New Day" - Joshua Radin
I first became a fan of this one on an episode of House where Foreman and 13 are in bed together and Wilson finally washes out his dead fiancee's coffee cup. Apparently the Coffee House liked it, too, because now it's in constant rotation. While filming a home video of Kara last week, this song happened to be playing in the background, making me love it even more. I'll try to post the video sometime soon.

"Beautiful Wreck (Live)" - Shawn Mullins
I've always liked Shawn Mullins, starting when he released his "Lullaby" single in the late nineties, so this was an easy sell.

"Hello" - Schuyler Fisk
This song strikes me as one teenaged Frema would have taken to, setting it to repeat on her CD player for hours while reminiscing about former loves and missed opportunities. As an adult, I listen to it and reminisce about teenaged Frema's (many) (many many many) mistakes. Hello, hindsight, my old friend.

"Wonder" - Natalie Merchant
When I was in high school, I thought Natalie Merchant was boring. Now as a 29-year-old wife and mother, I think she's brilliant. This song has Girl Power written all over it.

"Least Complicated" - Indigo Girls
Seriously, ALL THE TIME. Only switch out " Least Complicated" with "What Are You Like?" which I'm not so much a fan of. This one's cool, though.

"Come On, Get Higher" - Matt Nathanson
I knew about this one before the Coffee House, but I couldn't bring myself to sing along because of the "swing of your hips" line. It gives me the tinglies. I'm over it now that I hear it multiple times all the livelong day.

And two non-Coffee House staples:

"Saturday in the Park" - Chicago
The opening chords to this song always transport me into a state of J.D.-like reflection. I heard it in a movie or TV show around the time I was pregnant with Kara and included it on a CD of baby-rocking tunes for myself, so now I assoicate it with those early months with her.

"The Book of Love" - The Magnetic Fields
Peter Gabriel's version of this song was featured in the Scrubs season finale last week, during the J.D.'s futuristic home-video montage, and I bawled like a baby, partly because Scrubs has been a pastime of Luke's and mine since almost the beginning of our relationship, and I was so sad about Zach Braff leaving the show, and also because the lyrics are simple but also really beautiful.

What are you jamming to these days? Really, I want to know.

Also, all this music talk totally has me jonesing for another CD swap. I can't believe it's been almost three years since the last one! As far as themes go, I was thinking something along the lines of either a summertime mix or a life soundtrack sort of thing. Anyone game?

Send me on my way

Yesterday, for the first time in over a year, Luke and I went to church.

Our hiatus wasn't intentional. We went once with Kara last Easter and fully intended to start going regularly until BAM!, knocked up again, and the morning sickness came with a vengeance, and it was all I could do to make it to work on time, let alone pursue "optional" activities like praising Jesus beyond the confines of my home. When we moved into our house last fall, we discovered a darling little Episcopalian church not ten minutes from our subdivision, and after reading more about the parish online we talked a good game about going, but we were overwhelmed with settling in and I was ginormously pregnant and then soon I had Nathan and excuses excuses excuses. I finally decided that if we waited to go until we were ready, we would never be ready. So after breakfast, I told Luke enough is enough. We quickly showered, wrangled the kids into the car, and arrived a few minutes into the first reading (a freaking miracle for us these days).

Sitting in the pew, Nathan strapped to my chest in the baby carrier (now that I've conquered my fear of all the straps and buckles, I am in love love LOVE with the baby carrier and use it all the time for walks, shopping trips, etc.) while Luke held Kara on his lap, I couldn't help but think about how far I've come in my spiritual journey. As a child, I hated going to church--the low lighting put me to sleep and I spent the majority of the time checking out neighborhood boys--and even as a young adult it often felt like a chore, going through the motions to pay tribute to my faith and/or trying to fit into the mold of the customized tradition I grew up in. It's taken me twenty-nine years, but I'm now in a place where I gravitate to God not out of fear or obligation but from a place of gratitude and an eagerness to learn more about my place in this world. The pastor gave a wonderful sermon about trimming the fat from your life, and she said something that deeply rang true for me. "There are two ways to get enough," she said. "You can gather more, or you can desire less." That's what I want to strive for, embracing the whole "less is more" concept; to live a life mostly devoid of clutter and outside noise and focused more inward. I want friendship and outreach and plenty of time for rest and reflection. (Clearly there is room to grow in this area.)

Can I do all this and still subscribe to regular date nights with my DVR? Only time will tell.

But I digress.

After the service, Luke and I were approached by several members of the congregation and given a brief tour of the facility. We saw the nursery where Kara can hang out during Mass if we so desire, and we learned about various ministries and received pamphlets spelling out the church's kid-friendly programs, and by the time we made it back to the car, we were hooked. I've already requested christening information because Nathan will be four months old soon and the former Catholic in me can't help but think we should have closed the deal on him a long time ago. But God gets it. At least, that's what Luke said when I commented on his opting out of the kneeling parts of the service to keep Kara at bay. "He has lots of kids. He knows what it's like," he said.

Now that Nathan has cleared the newborn stage and Kara is continuing to blow our minds with her quirky little-girlisms, I'm nervous but excited to venture beyond our comfort zones to become more community-oriented. On Friday night we had one of my new coworkers over for dinner so she could meet the kids, as she'll be watching them when Luke and I see Billy Joel and Elton John next week, and on Saturday we test-drove a Gymboree class for Kara, and amidst all the activity I started feeling a little sad because for the longest time it's just been Luke, me, and the kids, perfectly content to hole up and remain separate from the outside world, quietly enjoying our family. Now as we welcome more people and activities into our lives, we'll have to lose a little bit of the intimacy that goes along with doing everything on your own. Luckily, we'll lose the loneliness, too.

Also, maybe some pregnancy weight.

(OK, so that one's all me. But I can't complain too much when the end results are so damned cute.)