The "Little Tyke" Moving Co.

In a few weeks, Pappa Starbucks and I will be moving again. We'll be packing up most of our possessions and putting them in storage for several months while I spend the summer with Little berry and some wonderful family, and he spends the summer working his butt off for Teach For America.
We've done this before. We've moved some four times since we've been together- first from college into an apartment together, then into a bigger apartment where we lived when Little berry was born, and then we stored all of our things for last summer and went to Europe. Then we moved into this apartment and have been here for not quite a year. Moving is hard, especially when you have a little one underfoot. I'm not sure it will ever be easy, but I've found that there are a few things that can make it not as rough.





















(little berry shows her displeasure with our new digs on moving day)

1) Plan ahead- with lists of things that need to be sold/given away, things that need special care or to be returned to friends who've loaned them to you.
2) Try to use up all of the food you can several weeks prior to your move. We make a point to only buy fresh produce for about two weeks before we're moving, so we can use up all the other food.
3) If you can afford it, hire a cleaning crew to come behind you. This can save your deposit and a lot of frustration and energy. Tell them you will tip well if they earn you your deposit back and it will be worth it for both you and them.
4) Check Craigslist and local stores for free boxes. We were out a few weeks ago and saw a local chain restaurant unpacking new chairs and throwing the boxes away- all perfectly sized and identical. No one wants to pack into 40 different sized boxes.
5) Keep boxes handy for items you want to freecycle or take to the thrift store. No one wants to have to dig through already packed boxes for that thing that was going to be given away, nor are you going to want to keep everything.
6) Stock up on tape and markers ahead of time. You're never going to have enough!
7) Leave some boxes empty for the kid to play with while you pack. Maybe throw in a roll of tape. That's what they are going to want most and you don't want to have to keep pulling them out of yours!
8) Enlist friends to help for a few hours or to bring over food and drinks on the day of the move, because you're going to have tossed all that food and moving makes you hungry!

What are your tips for moving with a little one (or more)? I'd love to hear what you do to make moving with kids easier.

My city garden

We live in the city. In a cramped two-bedroom apartment with no yard. I wish it were bigger, but it's not, and that's not stopping me. I have- garlic, two tomatoes, a yellow squash, a spearmint, four strawberry plants and a cantelope, rhubarb, a pot of wildflowers, ten basil plants started from seed) and a few soapnut sprouts. I don't have fancy pots and I may have *pilfered* my soil- but I've got what I can.
I also have a clothesline for my clothdiapers and a kiddie pool for little berry all in the same space. Because some things, I cannot compromise for. As a side note- if I'd planned better, I would have completely planted all of these in a deeper kiddie pool. They're $15 (the biggest ones, which is twice as deep as ours) and perfect for the plants I have.

Things I'd like to have but don't, and can make do without- cucumber, bell peppers, and watermelon.
What do you just have to have no matter what? What are you willing to be cramped to hold on to, or to give up other things for?

raising a wild child

We love the outdoors. We don't have a lot of wild place to explore, but I want my Little berry to see that the world is beautiful. She notices the littlest things, a tiny bug, a bee on a leaf, a golden flower smashed underfoot. This week we played under the blossoming trees and built tiny houses for imaginary fairies, butterflies, snails.
I know she doesn't understand the concept of "imaginary," but she concentrates so hard helping. She fetches grasses and sticks with precision, plucks tiny violets and pebbles out of the way, waits for an ant to cross before stepping.
Here is where we started:
And when we finished, we had this tiny teepee of twigs:

capped with a lovely golden flower and a million brilliant rays of sun
Waiting to spin a little mystery into the everyday of some unsuspecting soul.

What have you taken the time to build with your child lately? Next time you're in the park, I challenge you to pause, find a small space, and make a fairy home (take pictures and share them with me if you do!)

vintage ((spring)) giveaway

Today I have a giveaway of the finest sort.
I'm offering one reader an item of their choice from my etsy shop, shipping included. You can pick whatever suits your fancy, you can keep it for your own cherubs or give it away to be loved by another dearie.
There are dresses (lots of dresses!) perfect for Easter or summertime, a couple boy items and two sweet dolls handmade by me.

To enter, hop over to my etsy shop and peek around, come back here and tell me what you would pick if you win. I happen to love all the sweet items I have over there so I hope you do too.
If you are the winner and the item you've selected is sold by the time I close my giveaway I will ask you to select another item or give you store credit equivalent to the item's price.

This contest will be open until March 30th and is open to residents of the US and Canada.
For additional entries, tweet about this giveaway (up to twice a day) and link to that tweet (in your RSS twitter feed) in your comments. Also for 3extra entries (each) you can follow my blog publicly and/or favorite my etsy shop.
Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

And...comments are open!

My birth story with little berry, part 1

On August 3rd 2008, I was a week past my due date with my little berry. I was finishing up my Junior year at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. At 30weeks, Pappa Starbucks and I toured the labor and delivery wing of the Womens Hospital there. As we walked through the doors, the staff member was telling us about ankle bracelets used to prevent babynappings, that would shut down the entire hospital wing if the infant cane within five feet if the doors with this device on. It is standard procedure. I was already having concerns about my desired birth being compromised, and felt very unsupported in my delivery wishes. Pappa Starbucks is very pro interventions (he says that doctors have been to medical school and therefore are better prepared to make decisions regarding our health care needs, from cesarean deliveries to vaccines) and while that is good and right for him, it isn't right for me.
My philosophy was that if a baby was left with their mother to be weighed, to room in, etc, at least in most cases, this would be unnecessary. I was also upset about the way birth was being presented. Instead of telling me about the support staff that would be available, the tour guide was pulling stirrups out and showing the women in my group the fold down panel of lights and medical equipment and television setups that were in the ceiling "just in case," and that "the OR was right around the corner in case they needed to do a c-section." I asked about waterbirthing, and they answered, candidly, that that was considered unsafe and I needed to consider the monitors.
At this point I told pappa starbucks I was ready to leave, and we went home.
I was hormonal and irrational and pretty mad because I thought I had no other choice; but I knew this was not the right place for me to give birth to my daughter.
We discussed our options (I wanted to have a home birth at this point) and as luck would have it, there was a birthing center within walking distance of our apartment at that time, the only one in North Carolina. I was so excited that it was that close.
I would like to say I was reading up on natural birthing and attending birthing classes, but I wasn't. I was busy with a work-study job, taking several summer courses, and crashing in the early evenings, exhausted and also a little depressed. Pappa Starbucks was also working and going to school, as well as nannying part-time. To say we were busy and trying to do too much is an understatement. I think this is partly why our relationship has been so strained since her birth.
Making the Switch:
We didn't get a first appointment at the birthing center until I was 37weeks along. But because I was healthy and didn't have diabetes or any other conditions, they took me on. Their policy is that all patients take a birthing class before delivery, something I think hosipitals don't often require, but in the end they actually waived this requirement for me since there was no way I could get into and finish a birthing class in time.
After I got into the birthing center I only had 3weeks until my due date. We saw the facilities, met the midwives, and I began to read a lot of their books on breastfeeding, which was my biggest concern. I was more fixated on being able to nurse than on my impending unmedicated childbirth! August 3rd rolled around and I was huge. I was hot, tired, beginning to feel aneimic, and a week "overdue." I was craving vegetarian summer rolls and peanut butter and peaches like no one's business- eating those three things almost constantly.
I felt ready to deliver and had been 50%effaced for days, dilated to a 2for a week. I was using EPO and feeling... ready. I had the "nursery" set up, a huge room devoted to our little babe, diapers all lined up, clothes sitting waiting to be worn. I would sit and fold and refold her things, excited, eager, I had her coming home outfit picked out and the camera batteries charged.
On August 3rd, I felt two big contractions somewhere around noon but then nothing after that. Pappa Starbucks and I took to the mall, walking and walking and walking, finally ending the evening with dinner of Vegetarian Summer Rolls, and at about ten o clock that night I knew I was about to go into labour. I wish I had taken that chance to sleep, but I was suddenly feeling bursting with things I needed to do. I stripped all the sheets off of our bed and replaced them with bright white ones (I get the biggest laugh out of this now) and removed all the bedding from Little Berry's crib, thinking it needed to be cleaned again. I scrubbed the stairs one by one because they just looked SO dirty all of a sudden!! and I woke up Pappa Starbucks to tell him I wanted him to install the carseat. I was scrubbing the refrigerator, folding towels. I was nesting.
We spent the rest of the night "resting," (not sleeping, unfortunately) though my contractions got very close together quickly. They were 5 minutes apart andstrong by 3am. We hung out, walked the dog, and at 5am we called the midwives and drove to Starbucks. I wanted to stay home but he was adamantly against this, and yet he had HAD to get his coffee fix, a true coffee lover. I was very nauseaus and just wanted to be MOVING. Walking. We went into Starbucks a few minutes after they opened (he has once worked at this starbucks and knew everyone) and while he got his free coffee I tried to eat a croissant. When Pappa Starbucks is nervous, he
makes lots of jokes, talks a lot. Getting coffee took forever. We left at about 6, even though I wanted nothing less than to get in the car again and would have been happy staying there for the rest of the day.
When we got to the birthing center, the midwives unlocked the doors and let us in. We were both excited but knew I would probably spend the rest of the day in labor.

I was in back labor, so the midwife wrapped a sheet around my tummy to help Little Berry turn. This caused the contractions to feel extremely intense and she did turn later but not until I was enjoying a hot, hot shower.
.....to be continued!

Uh-oh...

And down she falls.

Yesterday Little Berry was playing on her toy car that my mom (hi mom!) bought her. She stood up in the seat as I was stirring some boiling spaghetti...and fell. She chipped her front top tooth and now it seems to be causing her some sensitivity issues. I'm more than a little scared about taking her to the dentist. I don't want my daughter to be sedated...or drilled on...or scared either. I feel pretty awful. Hopefully (and I've been told) it's not that big of a deal. They should just be able to put a little cap on it/or file it down a little bit. I hope it is that easy.
(when this photo was taken, I had my foot on the car. I feel pretty stupid now for letting her do it at all. yes. I'm stupid)

101

My last post was my 100th post. I didn't even notice it. I guess that goes to show how fast things are moving these days. It's been feeling almost balmy here and this is such a wonderful thing because I was feeling so blue to be cooped up indoors all day every day. I'm sure it will not last, though when we were further East it certainly felt Springlike much sooner in the winter and I can't tell you how much I loved the way the city would fill our apartment in the winter. It made being inside seem like being just behind the curtain on stage to hear the rattling of the trucks on the freeway echoiing into our little space, filling the walls with the humming noises of someone else's adventure.
Little Berry loves being out of doors with me, brings me her shoes and my own, her jacket, the keys, just to get my attention that she wants to go walk. When it's bitter cold though she doesn't want anything to do with it, and squalls to be picked up so she can tuck her face into my neck and poke the freckles on the side of my face. She calls them each a "ball" though, or somedays, "murse?" which is Little Berry for nurse and I have no idea why she thinks my freckles are going to yield milk.
I'm in desperate want of a bicycle, I want a lovely vintage style one that's on display at Target and a sweet baby carrier that goes behind the seat. I've been spying on them at the Thrift stores and have found a few contenders but they all need work and they're not that much less than a new one here. So I'm saving my dollars and waiting, and when Spring comes and I have a summer to look forward to on flat roads of rural Mississippi (or Arkansas, who knows?) I will buy my bike and buckle in my Little Berry who by then will be quite a BIG Little Berry, and we will ride.
We're having that language explosion age, I've been warned about it before but it just slipped away from me that this is what's happening, until this morning I was putting laundry on the clothesline and she was standing a few feet away pointing at the sky and saying skyyyyeeeee? followed by burrrrd? 'reeeee? (tree)and turtle? In the past week or so, she's learned mouse, and keys, and socks (shocksh?) and cow as well as that cow's go Mooooo?! and points to their udders and says "Murse?". She can say Pig (pigsh!), which sounds a lot like her enthusiastic "fish!" and snort when she sees their picture. She spots airplanes in the sky that look like mere pinpricks in the clouds and shrieks about them until they've again faded into the mystery that is a cloud. This morning I was telling her something and I said the word "one"- I think I said "oops! That's only one shoe." And she said: "Two?" but she usually gets pretty lost after four.
I have two pieces to her little kitchen set painted a pretty white, and am waiting to paint the last, the stove. It is somewhat tedious because my minutes to do it are spare but the reward is great. She loves it immensely and has been pilfering from my silverware drawer every few minutes to play whatever games it is that gets her so wrapped up and immersed in taking things out and putting things back in again. I've decided to try my hand at making toy food for her. I have plenty of felt wool but I don't like the feel of wool toys enough to do that, so I've decided to use pre-knitted fabrics, like organic cotton sweaters I picked up at the thrift stores in heavy weight yarns and cut them apart to make them from. I will post photos of this when I'm done as well as a tutorial if I succeed.
Here's something to think about until I post again:
Which is cutest?
Little Berry, last January


OR: Little Berry this week

not one, but two

I forgot to share this yesterday. Sunday when we went out to do our regular grocery shopping, I had just given Little Berry a bath. Around here, that's quite an undertaking because she has such dry skin and hair. It's a constant battle to keep her healthily moisturized. She LOVES washing herself in the tub but letting her use soap is problematic. I have yet to find a soap that truly moisturizes her skin, let's not even talk about her hair. If you know of one that is great for biracial skin, especially babies, preferably one that has lots of olive oil in it, please let me know!
Lately I've just been giving her the tub with water in it and a little bit of Mr.Bubbles to play in and then after she's played for a while I get her hair wet and then I rub olive oil on her scalp. About a tablespoon but she doesn't have much hair so it doesn't take much.
Anyway, Sunday right before we left she was getting out of the tub and I decided to try a new hairdo. So far she has only had enough hair for a single little pony tail.

See it there? That tiny little wisp on top of her head?


And Sunday, just when I had given up hope forever,

I was able to wrangle her into TWO piggytails.It was a proud moment for me.

Old pics

I'm raiding Pappa Starbuck's hard drive this morning for photos I took in Europe. Most of these are from Dublin, specifically from Trinity College and the Trinity College area and are from May and June this year.

Sewing Table

Since we moved into this apartment we have lived in a seeming hodge podge of disorganization or non functional spaces. Finally I have created my own corner where I can actually point out as my own sewing space, (with my own sewing table!) or to write or just doodle. When we were students, I simply made my school desk work, even though it didn't. But when we moved here, and I became a full-time at home mamma, well, I begged for my own crafting space.
And I got it! I haven't included photos here of my fabric stash...or of my bookshelf loaded up with sweet vintage children's books, but I wanted to share my sewing table space and my sweet little wall behind it.

Strung up you see my vintage-style French children's "manners cards" we picked up in Paris. I wish I could remember the name of the shop...I can tell you we were accosted by a gentleman outside of the shop who was angry that A0 we didn't speak French and B) that Little Berry wasn't wearing socks and C) that the sun was shining. The sun! Shining on our daughter. How dare we let that happen!
You know, because we should have stayed in if the sun was shining, it makes perfect sense.
Anyway, back to my space.

I also put up some handmade mustache's. Because I can't seem to get enough of them lately and I can't decide what to do with these at the same time.
I have so many ideas though.

I have a little bit of room on the wall for things I don't want Little Berry to get her grimy paws sweet little baby hands all over- that's to say it isn't big enough to hold EVERYTHING I'd like to keep her from of course, but that would just be called a SEPARATE HOUSE.

The wrong way

Have you ever noticed that going through things together with your significant other either strengthens you as a couple or shows you a side you didn't know existed, or maybe ignored? Pappa Starbucks and I have been through a lot over the past year, good things and unforgettable experiences (like our trip to Europe for two months) and bad things (like graduating from college with no job prospects and coming back from Europe to not have a "home" anymore). Little Berry is a dream, but sometimes I get worn out being with her all day and let's face it, baby's don't measure out what they want from you in little request throughout the day. They want everything, they want it all the time, and they want it right away.
Sometimes I feel like I am failing to teach her patience, and just focusing on teaching her love, how to be happy, that I love her being sweet.
I know there is a balance. And from any outside view, we're doing a great job. But we disagree so intensely on the small issues that the big issues become pushed to the back of our minds. I know this is a recipe for disaster. I know that parenting is hard. Loving her is just the reward, the special reason that being a parent is worth it and the reason we all keep going daily. I have so much that I want for my life, and so much that I want for her life, and so much that I want for Pappa Starbucks' life that I don't know what to do first, where to put my passion. I want to do it all, and all well, but I'm not capable of that.
I take responsibility for other people's dreams and projects and desires, people not in my immediate three- and I do the best I can for them, but at the same time I am afraid I might be letting down the people who DO count on me. I can't be in charge of everyone's happiness and yet I want for us to all be happy. There is perhaps an easier way to say this, but it feels like I am being an underachiever because the only other option is to do everything, for everyone, so I please the people I know I can please, and I let the rest fall by.
I want to please, I have always been eager to make people happy. There are reasons for this, reasons I am just now beginning to understand but not willing to admit. There are consequences to treating myself and my partner and my daughter like we are last on our on list, but I don't know how to begin stripping away all of the problems and commitments that don't make me a better person, who I want to be, who I am, and focus on the ones that do. I am going the wrong way to get to my dreams but I am going to fast to notice it.

16 months of joy

Today my Little Berry is 16 months old. She's so big, and such a baby all at once.
She is still not much of a morning person (see above photo for proof) but I'm in love with this age, this stage of development, with all of its words and even its frustrations. This morning she got angry ANGRY because she wanted so desperately to dress herself and isn't capable of doing it all at once, she just doesn't have nthe motor skills for it, but you should have seen her try. She was intense, desperate, breathing heavily, picking up her foot with both hands and trying to poke them into her pants. In the end she settled on letting me put the pants on her that she picked out because any other pair? Elicited shrieks.
And she tries to read, pointing at the words on the page, making up garble about them. Everything has a name whether she gets it right or not, but boy oh boy does she try! A few weeks ago she started saying "airplane!" and now everything in the sky- from the moon, sun, birds, clouds, to airplanes themselves are pointed and called out as such.
If we're in the kitchen, she drags over her high chair and waits to be fed, grinning, and making messes with it whenever it's placed in front of her. She's very sensory oriented and specifically, loves feeling, touching things to see what they do.
She rolls her eyes when she doesn't like what we're telling her. She's been doing this for about three weeks and it's simultaneously hysterical and absurd.
I bought a vintage quilt recently at the Goodwill and she has spent so much time while we nurse stroking it, pointing at different images, licking it and right this very moment she has her whole face plastered against my computer screen watching the letters be typed and saying NnnnnOSE!
My girl, she is a joy.

Another day older...

Whew. Another year gone in just a day it seems. I'm always relieved when birthdays pass and my day returns to being just another box on a calendar, marked by slow, forgettable minutes, hours, days of the same routine that is life. In some ways it is sad to know that I will not pinpoint this day in time, remembering the lively sparkle of sunshine on Little Berry's hair as we take our afternoon walk, the smile my daughter flashed at a stranger in a wheel chair, or the kisses she planted on my mouth after I gave her a sip of my cocoa this morning. It is not a memorable day, not a spectacular day, it is only another moment in time lasting as briefly as the last.
But as I watch Pappa Starbucks taking out the trash and little berry fuss over a toy wedged between the cushions, needing a nap for her and a hair-tie to tidy up myself, I do wish that I could steal these moments away and never lose them, never have to wish I could remember that faint dimple on her face or that I could reach out and take her teeny hands inside my own because I would be there, breathing them, living them, smelling over and over again the crest of her perfect tiny head and sweet baby ears, holding her in my lap trying or grabbing me and trying to nurse in the store will be faint memories, but I also know my love for her will stay just as all encompassing as it is today, just as intense, just as perfect, tangible, and frighteningly bright.
That much, I know for sure.

From the "archives"

Here are some pictures from this time last year. The first is of Inauguration night at the Governors party. We had just heard that Obama won.

It was so, so loud in that room. Perdue won as well and everyone was laughing, whooping, some crying. It was exciting for us as a family.
This second photo was taken at UNC as Pappa Starbucks picked me up on a friday afternoon. Have you been there in the fall before? It is so beautiful. Springtime, too.

Do you see this precious purple face?
We were struggling so hard with thrush and a cranky baby those days. Today she's well and instead of purple gentian violet stain...


Toothies.

Sunny day

Today it is a quiet day, Little Berry wanting much more attention from me than I have energy to give. We walked a while earlier and are both so tired that soon she will crawl up on my lap and pat me, wanting milk. I love the smell of her hair and her the way she grins at me while nursing like she knows how great she is. And she is, all the time. I know these tiny sweet moments will be sparce as she gets bigger, but seeing her become independent already has its rewards. She knows that when we are going to the car she needs to get into her seat, or that when I get my shoes she needs to get hers. When she needs a diaper change she will often bring me a diaper and when she's hungry she sees me cooking. She is already pretty able to content herself while other things are being done.
We had a lot of fun with my nieces and made a lot of noise, it was exciting, energetic. They took off this morning loaded down with new things and stories to tell at home about their stay in the city. We took them up and down the city hitting all their favorite types of places. I don't know or sure if they loved it but they kept forgetting they had parents, so I think that means yes.
I can see now how having multiple kids could make things both harder to manage and sweeter to enjoy. We've pretty much decided around here that we will be the house of three for a long time though, just because we enjoy one quite a bit and don't exactly want to have to juggle our attention around. This doesn't mean never though, and I have so many boxes of girl clothes stored away that she's already outgrown that I don't know what I will do if I don't end up with another girl someday.
The holidays are encroaching again and it seems like they are always sneaking up, perhaps not even sneaking but running in eagerly and announcing themselves "HI!! HELLO! IT'S ME! CHRISTMAS!" so I've decided that this year I'm not going to let them get the best of me. I will not get the holiday blues, greens, or reds this year. I will take it easy and be direct about my very minimum interest, and they will come...and they will go.
Today, however, I am going to continue kissing this sweet baby's head,
washing, drying and folding the mundane that is laundry,
baking bread,
and enjoying my new sewing space.

Three Girls

Yesterday my two nieces arrived, bringing with them suitcases of clothes and bags and books, smiles and giggles and silly jokes abound and there hasn't been a five minute stretch yet that wasn't punctuated by some sort of chuckle. We started out this morning with a breakfast of choices, wherein my older niece turned down everything yummy in the favor of toaster waffles. This in my house is the breakfast of "there's nothing else left in the house to eat" and yet it was her first choice. We're knee-high in schoolwork this morning as I spend two days being a homeschooling aunt, and I must say it is pretty great.
To my benefit, they are wonderful children and aim to please. Last night, we sat down and made some sweet felt trees for their mother, a project we didn't get very far on for the dropping of needles and the tangling of thread. I've promised them I would help them make things for all their littlest friends, and I also thought I would share them here.
Here are the trees in minutiae

Here is Mollie Mouse, made my myself. She is seen here in her natural habitat with a wagon of acorns:
And who we call bitty baby and bitty mamma going for a stroll:


and I will leave you with this poem the sweet oldest wrote this morning about Little Berry and Myself:
family
by CBP

[Little Berry]
little, funny
yelling,squealing,laughing
baby,cousin, woman, aunt
sewing,creating,playing
fun, smart
[MammaPie]

I changed our names here in her poem for my own anonymity.

Sweet berry pie

Little berry today upon whopping her head on the wall instead of the pillow:
*hands over face* "OH! beBABY!!" *blows kisses to herself*

Loving this.

New rooms

We struggled very hard for a long time this past year. Though we were both intelligent college grads, the market was inundated by people who were intelligent college grads AND who had years of experience. Our hopes for TFA were deflated after Pappa Starbucks spent months, literally almost 6 of them, on a wait list. We moved on finally and took our scholarship money and explored Europe. I had never been in an airplane, my reality was skewed highly by the idyllic American mantras I had been fed for years and years. It was very, very good for me. I fell in love with London and felt my pulse finally beat as though announcing my existence to the stars as we stood for an afternoon on the side of the world in beautiful, breathtaking Howth: a coastal fisher-man's town tucked into a seemingly eternal embrace with the sea, the waves curl around and whisper sweet songs, Ireland laughs at them ever heartily and lends her beautiful birds to keep company, harmony even, with those waves. That day I saw myself actually falling in love with the culture, the people, the history of that side of the Earth, and I hope to spend a more extensive amount of time there some day.
I am so, so glad we went.

Logging in

I just spent way too much time trying to log into this blog from my iPhone during
an hour that was a rare gem called the afternoon nap
and which is nearing it's end-
I am betting there's an app for that.
Maybe.
These days have changed and our plans, too: we were figuratively
"homeless" and literally jobless but under the gracious hand of some good people
and they "kept" us until we found a new path.
We are now unpacking boxes and watching the ink dry on a new apt
lease, holding our breath as the babe dashes at the stairs
her first birthday is tomorrow.
Am I terrible for only remembering her birth
right now?
This time last year we were walking the mall, over and over, running errands and wondering when the wee one would come. This time tomorrow I was holding my brand new daughter as her face shone against the newness of a big, big world. We've come so far since then, and she is so much more my little girl but my love
for her has only multiplied.
She's beautiful, perfect, and she's my daughter. Motherhood agrees well with me, Little Berry.

One lucky girl...

A conversation with Pappa Starbucks last night-
Me: Hey could you come in here for a minute?
PS: Mrmhmm
Me: *waiting....*
PS: Whatcha want?
Me: Can you sit with her (the baby) so's I can brush my teeth tonight? I've been too busy to brush them most nights this week....
PS: Sure. *sits down with her*
You know, I've been trying to do more things for you. It's like making foreplay part of everyday life.
Me: *Blink* What?
PS: You know, like letting you brush your teeth!