New Blog Address

Hey, all! We've moved the blog over to Wordpress! The new blog address is;

http://abravenewgarden.wordpress.com/

Please join us over there!

We will not be updating this space any longer. Blogger has been very cranky, and I've enjoyed using Wordpress so far. All of our archived posts and pictures from this space transferred to the new Wordpress space, so essentially this is just a nice change of venue!

Love,
Rhianna, Nick & Arlo

Lest Ye Have Any Doubt...

I submit the following pieces of evidence that Arlo does bear some resemblance to his mama, contrary to the abundant assertions that he is Mini Nick.

Christmas 1979
(Thanks for the picture, Mom!)

The back of this picture notes that I am 2 years old here.

And, further, let this quiet any question as to where Arlo got his moppy tresses.

All-Nighter

When we drove to Virginia several weeks ago to meet Arlo's new cuz, Atticus, and to shore up plans for our old abode there, we drove straight through the night while Arlo was sacked out in his carseat. Arlo would stir whenever we stopped for gas or for a bathroom break, and I would nurse him in the backseat or change his dipe, and then deposit his drowsy rump back into his warm lil' throne of safety. He would be soundly snoozing again by the time our car was at full speed on the highway. It all worked out kind of perfectly, you know, save for the whole missing an entire night's worth of precious sleep. (Sleep is still very precious 'round these parts, as no, my half-pint heir still does not sleep through the night.)

I think the last all-nighter that Nick and I pulled together was the night Arlo was born. Unlike the all-nighter during which Arlo's stubbornly posterior body made its debut after two grueling, med-free, back-grinding hours of pushing, this more recent all-nighter was filled with  laughs and fueled by coffee and the occasional gas station donut. Mmm.

We were in the mountains of West Virginia when the sun rose, and it was as if Mother Nature had rolled out the red carpet for us, ushering us so poshly back into the east coast. Gauzy clouds were draped across the mountains like a well-worn blanket over an old woman's shoulders. It was beautiful. Homey.

A short while later, Arlo woke and demanded to be unleashed from the cow-printed confines of his carseat. We made an unplanned, but perfectly timed stop in Charlottesville, a favorite destination of many of our past day trips, where we ate pancakes and drank more coffee and watched a very well-rested Arlo buzz all over the pedestrian mall. This picture was taken shortly after breakfast that morning.

The morning felt kind of perfect, sleep deprivation and all, much like that other all-nighter when we finally held our long-awaited son in our arms.  

See Ya Later, Woodford

Our home on Woodford Street is now filled only with echoes. We made a trip back to Virginia a couple of weeks ago to button the house up and explore the possibility of selling it. The real estate market, we learned, is still wedged tightly in the crapper, and now we're flushing out the details of becoming landlords and renting our home out.

I was surprised that I didn't really feel any surge of sentimentality as we ushered the last evidence of ourselves out of our old house. It was our home for ten years, but it no longer feels like home to me.  I did feel momentarily wistful when Arlo scooped up a plastic spoon (a holdover of last season's plant markers) and started digging in one of the raised beds, which was filled with pert, healthy strawberry plants. This would have been a summer where Arlo might have better understood the garden, might have really loved picking fruits and vegetables from their earthy vines as much as his mama. It may still happen, but it won't happen in that backyard. 

The strawberry plants there were green and full and dotted with blooms. They seemed to be doing just fine without any sort of assistance from me whatsoever, and that brought me a certain sense of security, of resolve. Life goes on, you know? There will be new life in that garden. There will be new life in that house. It's all good.

We just signed a new lease on a flat in St. Louis. We've never actually lived in "the city" before. Yes, Fredericksburg was technically a city, but it was really more of a small town, where you know the first name of the barista at your fave coffee joint; where you're always bumping into a co-worker or former co-worker, or a co-worker's kid; where the waitresses in your fave restaurants unknowingly tuck a surprise dessert into your take-out bag. Our new place is decidedly in the most urban setting we've ever lived. I'm excited.

And maybe that's why leaving Woodford doesn't feel especially sad. We're too excited about what comes next. It's difficult to feel downhearted about the past when the future looks so fun.

Two Falls ago when I was pregnant we planted a dogwood tree for the baby. And now, I will exercise a small amount of nostalgia here...





25 weeks, 4 days pregnant. September 2010

4 months old, April 2011.

15 months old. April 2012.

Easter 2012

Easter Eve, after a long day of house hunting in St. Louis, we're getting our egg dyin' on!
Arlo dispenses with all egg-wrangling implements and dives right in, bare-handed.

Look at that concentration! Balancing his Tiffany blue egg, complete with tres artistique scribbles!

Our dyed eggs? Pretty speggtacular, we know.

Early the Next Morning....

We hunt eggs in our pajamas!
 (Eggspertly hidden by enthusiastic grandparents.)

Grandpa Elbe is my Egg Caddy.

Score!

Found another one! Woot!

Surveying my eggy loot!

Later that Afternoon at Aunt Karen and Uncle Paul's...

Grandma Susan steals some baby bunny cuddles!

Playing b-ball before lunch with Daddy, who won the Watkins' fam's Bracketology bragging rights this year.
VCU, you let Mama down, yo.

He got game. Serious game.

Tossing the tennis ball with Cousin Kevin.

Um, Aunt Karen? Uncle Paul? There's a monstrous earthworm in your garden!

Family pic to commemorate Easter 2012.
We tried to get a photo with the Easter Bunny a couple of weeks ago, but Arlo had a masterfully blood-curdling
 meltdown as soon as he laid eyes on that tail-coated rabbit.
 It was like Santa Redux.

Hey, those are MY bunny ears, Daddy!

And a little live action egg hunting, for optimal adorableness:

Untitled from RM on Vimeo.

Barin' It: Kitchen Edition

What? You mean the first thing you do after your morning bath isn't run to your daddy and demand to help unload the dishwasher while you're still dripping wet and completely naked? But nude dishwasher emptying is the very definition of fun!

A Belated Happy Fat Tuesday

Last Saturday the Petco in Cape hosted a Mardi Gras costume parade for local pets, and because Arlo harbors wild affection for all things dog-related, I couldn't let him miss this little canine fete. The Humane Society of Southeast Missouri was also there fundraising and boasting a trio of tempting, adorable black lab mix puppies, with whom, of course, Arlo promptly fell in puppy love. At home it's a one giant doggie diss-fest of a day for Arlo; Jordan, our Westie, has never warmed to him. Jordan has never been hostile, but he has nipped in Arlo's direction when Arlo's affection has been a little too potent for his tastes. On a good day he tolerates Arlo; other days he mostly naps safely under our table, out of Arlo's loving grasp. I wonder if Arlo's infatuation with dogs would be less so if his love for Jordan weren't so unrequited.

Anyway, the Mardi Gras parade brought out an interesting mix of people. Let's just say that I'm not sure who is weirder--the people who dress their pets up for public display, or the people who pointedly visit Petco with the express purpose of watching said parade.

There were also two mini horses (or were they ponies? I don't know!) in Petco. Yes, IN Petco. It looked like a local young equestrian group was fundraising as well. I tried to introduce Arlo to the mini horses/ponies, since he's enjoyed his visits with the neighboring horses at Grandma and Grandpa Watkins' house before, but he was frightened by the ponies this time. They were perfectly docile, batting their gorgeously dark, long lashes at us, but Arlo didn't buy it. Maybe next time!

One of the humane society's volunteers snapped this picture and posted to their Facebook page. I took a peek at some of the pups for adoption through the humane society, which was such a heart-string-tugger. I am certain there is another dog in our family's future, when the time is right for us.