hey mr. “i’m gonna be home in three weeks.” we miss ya over here.

the first thing i have to tell you is darla has gotten it into her head that the first conversation you and she will have when we greet you will go like this, in her words; “dad will say ‘who IS this big girl? what happened to my baby?’ and then i will say ‘i growed up, dad.” so if you could do your part to memorize your lines i think it would make her one happy, big girl. winkety wink. oh, she also then informed that if i have another baby then that one will just grow up, too.

she has been an extra good, sweet girl for me this week. there were moments of her being a little haywire during all the birthday goodness but, in all fairness, her blood probably resembled something close to a simple syrup by 11 am so i let her have a day pass.

we had a really wonderful weekend visit with your folks. they gave me lots of assistance and i feel a bit revived from their helping hands. i think i’m gonna make it through to the end of this tour without a major breakdown. for the first time in history! i’m very much looking forward to our thanksgiving trip to TN and darla was all but begging your parents to take her with them when they left. i think this is an indicator that she is ready for another slice of nashvegas or she is just as sick of being stuck alone with me as i am. or both.

there are only two comments darla made that i managed to chicken scratch down. i think this is our daughter’s explanation for tattoos. “mom, some people are colorful and some are not. some people are all painted (insert these rapid wild arm motions that shows paint all over arms and legs) with lots of colors.” she also gave me a guilt trip today. sighs loudly, “you and daddy go to concerts and i’m….i’m so lonely.” i think the girl is telling us she wants to tag along to rock out more often.

here’s our pics from the week. sorry there aren’t any of your parental units. we’ll have to be photo ninjas during our thanksgiving visit.

our girl’s first braid. love these milestones. you’ve missed some pretty good hair days this tour. of mine, not darla’s.

you can hardly see but she was making funny faces in the mirror

these next few are some mommy + daughter shots at clare bear’s birthday. we were having fun with bubbles.

it’s hard to see but she blew the bubbles and then caught one again on the wand.

also, see what i mean about the good hair days?

sending you off with some words of love. i know one little girl who is missing you somethin’ fierce and one big girl for whom the feeling is mutual. we’ll try to be extra boring these next three weeks so you don’t miss out on too much more.

love and misses and lots of kisses,

wifey

i ceremoniously present the ceremony

glad this moment was caught on film. i couldn’t see mike at the end of the aisle and thought that he hadn’t shown up. there’s some crazy panic eye going on in the above pic.

what did we even do this week? i can’t remember much. i think i blacked out the whole entire day on tuesday. i know i got to see your handsome face twice and that’s about all i remember. awwww. i miss you so much and seeing you two days in a row really helped.

other things that made the week radical – lovely biking weather. a day with the burkeybuns family at cosi where darla and adam controlled their wrath for a good 2 1/2 hours before unleashing. that is a big success in my book. running into josh and clare bear at cosi. sat in on new client interview with jenna. she was so very kind to extend the offer to me and i’ve learned a lot from observing. what else? darla and i tried Winans, the new chocolate shop on 3rd just north of the park. hot chocolate for her and caramel apple cider for me but we shared. ahhh. life has been really good. i’m really very happy. just tired. and missing my pardner.

funny hilariousness spewing from our child this week:

“i watched peewee this morning, mom. it’s not normal.”

one morn we saw a caterpillar on the ground. she grabbed a handful of grass and told me she couldn’t come inside yet b/c she had to “cover up this poor little creature.”

“boys and girls can both be humans.” she says this A LOT now and i don’t really know where it is stemming from.

last night while we cuddled on the couch – “mommy, you have to have me.” “what do you mean, love?” “you have to have me with you at all times.” oh my gosh just melts my heart like butter. mmm butter. yeah, irish breakfast butter. i think that would be my heart butter.

on wednesday we went to cosi. we started the trip on the bike but had a minor fiasco when 3/4 of the way there the scioto mile trail was closed down for some repaving and i had to turn all the way around and go back to front street. at that point i just said hells bells and biked back home b/c i am NOT in good enough shape to cycle 8 miles, yet. plus we were running extremely late. to top it all off, darla had a conniption fit when we turned around. i couldn’t seem to convince her that we were, in fact, still going to cosi. maybe she just couldn’t understand me through all the wheezing. once we made it there our world (w)righted itself. sarah and i chilled while the kids ran around the dora and diego exhibit. darla even photo bombed once! i’d have to say it was my proudest moment as a mother thus far. anywho-ha, we ran into josh and clare and then we wrangled all the kiddos to go see posiedon. while in the oceans exhibit we spent a few minutes looking at the water vortex display. then on thurs she was sitting in the back of the car on the way to gymnastics shaking her sippy cup so all the water swirled around. when we parked she looked up and said “it looks just like a tornado mom. it’s a vortex.”

we’ll pause for photos and then there will be pity party after the break.

anybody else wanna get in on this hot chocolate mouth gargle? this last photo is when darla took our pumpkin over to meet the neighbors pumpkins.

this week has been hard on me mentally. it seems like your return is still so far away. it seems like there is so much still left for me to weave into the fabric of life these next few weeks. so much needs to be planned and sorted and thought over and alllllll i want to do is DANCE, DANCE! and make romance. wink wink.

i want a staycation. what i really want for christmas from you is a one night stay at a hotel by myself! i want to check in and sit down and read for hours and then maybe get my nails done and go and have a girls dinner and maybe do a little dancing and then be still be in bed by midnight and not have to wake up until 10 am at which time i will return to you and darla refreshed and replenished! can you put that in a box with a bow on it? please?

i’m done complaining. i know all i really need is you. i know all i really need is cosmic cousin visit starting in just a few hours. i know that all i really need is… to DANCE, DANCE. and make romance.

that’s all i got for you. i hope it gets you through another week. sending you all our love. and darla sends a butt pinch.

xo, wifey

last week darla and i made new friends.

translation: darla and i ran into a father and his daughter several times last week in various locations. each time darla stalked the little girl and forced herself into their world until it was apparent that the father, chris, and i should meet and become friends. i’m ok with that. kids are good icebreakers. and so far darla’s judgement has been spot on. we got meg, cory and elsa out of the last deal.

each time we met chris was toting a sketchpad and various drawing implements. also whiteout. darla’s mind was scrambled by white out. he was kind enough to show her how the liquid correcting fluid works. in eventually unfurled that chris draws a daily comic based on his day with his daughter, mabel. he has a project on kickstarter to try and self-publish a book of all the comics he’s done for mabel and his deadline is almost up.

today i donated. i think his project is totally rad and i can just imagine how cool mabel will think it is someday when she sees her childhood recorded in such a creative fashion. she’s gonna be all like “my dad was so (insert some futuristic term for cool).” i wish i had the skillz to do something like that for darla. you can check out his stuff at chrismonday.com. it reminds me a little of crappy pictures but a little more advanced and on acid.

i hope all my graphic designer friends will put this idea in their back pocket and do something like this when they have kids. i say WHEN because if i have anything to do with it they’ll all be pushing them out in like 2-3 years.

i also hope we continue to run into chris in mabel. they were some cool peeps. a regular sized peep and one little small peep. i’m sure chris doesn’t really look forward to running into us again b/c darla has managed to incite mabel into her tornado fury both times but i hope the kisses and hugs that darla freely doled out to them made up for it a little bit.

also i just like to say mabel. darla, mabel, elsa….these kids have the best names!

just look at those baby blues.

it’s been raining all week here. all i can say is thanks be to jupiter for indoor playgrounds. thank drops of jupiter for grandparents who buy admission passes to said indoor playgrounds. (i know how much you love it when i reference Train.) i feel much more at ease this week, having gotten back to focusing on what’s important and giving little d the patience she needs from me. all is well, hubster, all is well. everything is in the pictures.

she is pretty much a constant stream of running commentary on life now and her saving grace is she’s hilarious or else i don’t know if my nerves could take it. seriously talking from the minute she’s up until the minute she goes to sleep. she talks herself to sleep. then she sometimes talks in her sleep. do you know why parents get their daughters their own lines and phones shaped like giant lips? so their daughters will talk to someone else besides them. geeesh.

quotes: “i’m daddy and i like big money”

as she and i are leaving kyli’s house: “mommy, are you going to a concert?” i’m actually slightly proud of that one.

“darla what are you doing?” “i just stole a pig”  huh???? i didn’t ask.

she pings the pong

these eyes are just getting me this week. so stinking scrumptious.

circus freak

look at what i got over here for you

mid-sandwich life contemplation

sending you some radar love,

fwifey, now wifey.

this pretty much sums up life around here as of late. our suitcases packed and ready to head off again. a third weekend in a row away is starting to wear on me. when i look at the just visiting sticker on darla’s suitcase i think it refers to home rather than visiting far off places. is this how you feel all the time? like a permanent visitor? is this why you don’t wanna be a rubbertramp with me? can you also not spell grandma correctly?

i feel that the stress incurred from traveling caught up with me and i definitely was not the best mom, or even a good mom this week. i’m trying to work on meditating for more patience and remind myself that it’s not darla’s fault i’ve created a whirlwind life for us these past 3 weeks. have i ever told you this is really hard while you’re away?

our week consisted of getting our house back in order and saying good bye to the buzzkers no less than three times. i remarked to them on our final sendoff that the girls probably no longer believe our “you won’t see each other for a while” speeches since we then reunited them within 12 hours three days in a row. i have been trying to picture what our life will be like in columbus without that wonderful family and i can’t. we will just have to see. i shan’t type on this subject any more because any other feelings i have to state will start an outpouring of emotions that i don’t think the internet can handle. on the upside we scored some great free stuff from them. that’s what moving friends are for. the illuminated burrito below is for under our christmas tree to remind us of both christ’s humble beginnings AND the hilarious yet slightly odd sense of humor of our dear friends. i think it will compliment our sombrero tree topper nicely, too.

here’s some of the funnies darla said this week: i asked her to help me put her dishes away and she replied with “right on.” maybe it was actually a “wright on” but you know i can’t tell her syntactical cues yet.  she climbed in bed with me one morning, snuggled under the covers then asked “mommy, can we stay in bed forever?” i told her yes. she asked me for some candy and i told her no because we hadn’t had lunch yet. she got a cross look on her face and replied “well, if i had some candy i wouldn’t give you a piece either.” this next one wasn’t actually said by our kid but it was said TO our kid so i’m gonna include it. elsa’s parting words to darla were “try not to poop in your hair.” how does one sum up a year and a half of sisterly friendship?

the last one i wanted to recount is especially relevant given my activities this weekend. Darla told me that she used to live in my womb which was a special little room inside me just for her. i was really touched by this pared down explanation. i felt triumph of having gotten a magical, motherly vision of her time in utero instilled in her little mind. i felt our child was a super genius. i was on top of a mountain looking down at all the other “lesser parents” that don’t explain anatomy and physiology to their two year olds. i was mother of the friggin’ year. then she proceeded to tell me that she had a crib in there and a swing set and even a babydoll with which she used to play. that’s when my big head deflated and i came back to reality.

well here are just a few more pics. darla’s in a growth spurt and i think i officially see a big kid poking through and the last traces of baby are melting away. it’s like watching the sun set.

nachos.nachos.bean.burrito          indiana campfire                   grandpa’s girl

i want to save a summary of my classes for a separate post so i’ll just end with these pictures and a grand AYE-LUUhhhUUhhhVvvvv-YEEEwwwww!

wifey, former fwifey

Now taking clients for discounted doula services while i complete my certification.

Please pass along my information to any expecting couples in the columbus ohio or central indiana areas.

thank you!!!

excitedly yours,

elaine

ps. that fish is how i carried darla around pretty much the first year of her life.