Tyger Tyger burning bright

Boo at the zoo

Tiny Winston Churchill

New favorite toys

Wissahicken

Gorgeous day along the wissahicken - beautiful fall color!

Sound Memories

Our immediate neighbors on both sides have been wonderful since we moved in last year, inviting us to shindigs, letting our dog out when we've been running late, and we routinely hang on to packages for each other that get delivered when someone's not home at the intended address. Our neighbors on the right just had a baby boy two weeks ago, and while I had heard him making those small cries through the walls on occasion since then, I hadn't met him. So it was with more than the usual excitement that I knocked on their door the other evening to pass along a package of theirs that had been delivered to us. As I handed over the box, his dad held him in the crook of one arm, wrapped untidily in a blanket, and I saw the little hands come up as if ready for boxing. His old man face squinched together and the mewling - the bleating - the soft but insistent infant cry that is somehow so recognizable and yet so indescribable - emerged from his crooked mouth and through his turned up nose. He shook his head from side to side. The lamps were lit but it was not quite dusk, that transitional time between day and dark, which has always to me held a sense of sadness and loss, just the briefest of heavy-hearted sighs, before we settle into the night. As the baby grunted for his mother I had an aural flashback to our own first two weeks with Eleanor: the confusion, the steady feedings, no matter the hour, day, night, dusk, dawn, one constant stream of sleeping, nursing, frantically consuming calories through straws, exhaustion, happiness, despair and wonder. We so quickly forget the impossibility of those first weeks - the impossibility of her smallness, of her presence; the impossibility of being able to sustain ourselves on 2 hours blocks of sleep; the impossibility of breastfeeding without pain; the impossibility of her ever growing up, ever changing, because she is so perfect right now.

Of course she is always perfect right now, and at the same time bigger than she used to be, a paradox I am coming to accept. And I am thankful - so thankful - that now, nearly six months in, I am at a place from which I can flash back to those early days. Over last weekend and the first few days this week her sleeping was atrocious, and mine followed accordingly, compounded by insomnia. The fury of lying awake at night. The unrelenting anxiety of 4am, knowing she is about to wake up, the way you cannot stop yourself from listening for any snuffle, cough or cry. The next day spent entirely in anger at the wasted hours. We've dug our way out of that hole, thanks to Josh, and earplugs, and going cold turkey on the pacifiers, and bringing back the white noise (I picture Eleanor's future first visit to the beach - a small child running on the sand, then slowing, then laying herself down and curling up with an overpowering urge to nap). And so it goes - exhaustion, depression, recovery, wonder and happiness, just trying to stay above water, keeping the sleep deficit to a manageable level. It is touch and go. But so much better than those first few weeks.

Sunday on the river

Plum clafoutis

We got these pretty plums in our farm share last week. They were a little too squishy for eating, so J wanted to make them into a cobbler. He wants everything to be made into a cobbler.

I'm sure I saw some fancy food blogger writing about clafoutis recently so it came to mind as a cobbler-alternative. In the end J made the batter in the blender while I facetimed with E and my folks. Dead easy recipe (google for Julia Child's version). Amazingly it has no butter, which unnerved me, until I checked it against our hard copy of The French Chef.

Delicious and easy. And a great way to run down our egg share, which ha a tendency to overwhelm us every weekend.

Humor me

E discovered the other day that if she sticks her tongue out at us, we stick our tongues out back! Many giggles ensued.

Bike Reduction Fail

So I started last week intending to get rid of the Italian bike and possibly the Peugeot, and ended by keeping both and ordering new alloy rims (well, wheels) for the Peugeot. After-the-fact rationalization is always easy, right? The Italian bike is fun to ride, it fits both Josh and me, finito. The Peugeot cannot stop in the rain with steel rims, so even if I were to sell it later on I would feel bad about it being dangerous on a wet day. And maybe we can get a kid's bike seat on it when Eleanor is 8 months or so. And it's my mom's frame.

So I still have four bikes and Josh has a more respectable two. Someday, someday, we'll figure this out!

Tumblr

More pictures here: oldhomeplace.tumblr.com.

Bike date on the river

I rode the Italian bike down the bike path to meet Josh at daycare. We parked, grabbed E and spent some time down by the Schuylkill in the evening's ending light. Then Josh rode the bike home and I drove the baby!

This might need to be the new Friday routine.

Too Many Bikes

A man is coming in about an hour to look at my Italian bike. I suspect he is interested in turning it into a fixie.

I've had this bike for 5 years and have ridden it once, seriously, and perhaps three other times, less seriously. It is beautiful. Bright shiny lugs, fork and rear stays - brilliant blue paint. It is light and responsive and well-geared and full of nice components. It is more an art object than a bike, since I never ride it. So isn't this the right time to sell it? When my next bike project has to be putting together a bike I can attach a child seat to?

There are no strong memories attached to this bike, no special rides with a special someone, no rainstorms ridden through, no countless hours spent rebuilding it from the frame up, sourcing obscure bottom brackets. I replaced the tires, the brake pads, the brake levers, the bar tape. Finito. So why is it so hard to let this one go?

We have no space for it in our upstairs porch-storage room; there are already three other bikes there, plus two strollers and an exercise ball. I can't fit a child seat on it, front or back. But...we have this wonderful bike path just a half mile away. I could ride it there...by myself, since Josh would need to watch Eleanor if I was gone.

I could ride it to daycare to pick up Eleanor and then return with her by bus, leaving Josh to pick it up on his way back from school or soccer games...

It's not a good rainy day or winter bike....

You can't carry anything on it except yourself...

And maybe that's the crux of it. It's my solo escape bike. No baby, no husband, no errands, no groceries. Just me and the promise of the open road, unfettered, unfendered, gleaming in the sunlight, and free.

High chair shenanigans