The Minihan

Two Months: A Note to Rose

/ Claire / 1 Comment

Dear Rose,

Rose Two Months Old

Two months of your life have now flown by! Can it really be that you and I have played, slept, and nursed together each and every one of those sixty-one days? Yes, it really is true. You are your father’s and my delight. 

You are sleeping right now, but you just needed me to tuck you in tighter to help you nod off again. It’s funny how so many times I desperately hope you’ll just sleep, but when you do I cannot wait for you to wake up again. I miss you when you rest. In the mornings when we are both waking up, I watch you out of the corner of my eye as you every so slowly wake. I doze and listen to your legs kicking away your blankets, your fists beginning to pump the air, and then your coos turn into outright squeals as you open your eyes wide and catch the ceiling fan turning above, casting shadows on morning’s light across our bedroom. 

There are so many things I cannot wait to show you. I think of how wonderful life will be when you are older and you can enjoy the experience with your daddy and me. But today and every time you wake, I pick you up and hold your little head close to mine, breathing in your scent and kissing your little cheeks. I keep trying to remind myself just how fleeting these moments are. You are still so little, and I need to just treasure those moments as they occur. The experiences will come, since this is an experience in itself that I never want to forget. 

Oh, what a darling baby you are. I really cannot get enough of just you. Even your little humanly imperfections are perfect to me–your adorable hang nails, your stinky breath, even those small waxy ears. What might be gross to some only reminds me that you are in fact a little person, and you’re here. I still have to pinch myself sometimes that this is life–you are alive–and there is no going back. All those months of waiting for your arrival were so different, so naive. 

At this age, you smile wide and you smile often. You coo at symmetry and movement, and soon I know you’ll be giggling and grabbing at everything with those tiny little fists, like how you clasp onto my hair every time I wear it down. 

Keep smiling, baby. I cannot wait to spend this month with you, but don’t wake up just yet.

Love,

Mom

Tackling Baby’s Naptime (or Lack Thereof)

/ Claire / 2 Comments

I had a post written last week about our traffic debacle trying to get home in a thunderstorm, but I must have signed out at some point or closed down the laptop and lost the post. Womp, womp. To summarize, Rose and I dodged it all by stopping at Jamey’s office. After saying hello to a few people, Rose did what any employee at work wishes they could do on a daily basis: she took a nap.

Rose at Benefitfocus

Office work is overrated.

Onward and upward.

Much of what I do these days revolves around what I can get done while Rose is napping. (For example: this post has taken me about four (update: five) hours to write, with one midsized nap that started it all to where we are now two hours later. (We’re here now another two hours later, with her passed out in my lap.)

It’s an interesting struggle to have, since Rose’s naps and naptimes are unpredictable. She is also not a baby who takes big, multi hour-long naps. Will she lie down an hour after a morning feed? Is it going to take a car ride or stroller walk to wear her out first? Is this door shutting going to startle her awake? (Yes.) Will she ever so slightly open her eyes and get distracted by the ceiling fan enough to wake herself up? (75% of the time, yes, but at least it results in baby giggles for 15 or so minutes before she realizes she is awake and I’m not holding her. Listening to her laughter and coos through the baby monitor make up for the lost naptime minutes.) There are so many scenarios that impact just how much time she will go down, so I always have to be prepared for the long and short of it, so I’ve put together a system to tackle naptimes.

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Here we are again.

/ Claire / 1 Comment

I think it’s fitting that I return to this blog at this time of year, two years after I last posted. (Has it really been two years??) There’s something about the summer that always makes me sentimentally productive. Perhaps because it’s the only time of year growing up when I could do things on my own terms without the structure of school, so it’s when I often feel the most ease of mind to put fresh words to print.

To summarize the past two years isn’t necessary; I think if you scroll through mine or Jamey’s Instagram accounts, you’ll get a quick visualization of what’s happened in our lives. (Quick overview: house decorating, fresh foods, house puttering, travels to DC, Maryland, Seattle, Ireland…) Really, I think a click on mine will give you the biggest life altering update, and the most important: we had a baby, and her name is Rose.

Clara Rose Monahan

 

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