(no subject)

[rivka]

Yes, I am going to spam you with pictures for a while. Sorry.

Michael is back to work this week, and my mother is here. As many of you know, our relationship has been rather strained in the last couple of years - but she's good at this, and it's working well. She cooks and cleans, and keeps me company through the extreme tedium that is life with a newborn, and reassures me when I get neurotic, and does puzzles on the floor with Alex, and reminds me to drink water, and says things like, "I'm done eating, so why don't I take him while you have a second helping of dinner? After all, it's your job to make good milk."

Apparently, her sister-in-law just came back from a four-day visit with a new grandchild in which she was only permitted to hold the baby twice. So I get to feel like, when I hand Colin off in the morning so that I can shower and eat breakfast, I'm doing her a favor.

On the "second helping of dinner" front, today I am back in my prepregnancy jeans. Holy cow. I guess all this cluster nursing is having an effect.

I'm starting to feel like crawling out of my den. We went to church on Sunday, which was really enjoyable - a young man in our congregation who is a composer did a special service in which several of his pieces were performed, with solos by an opera singer friend of his who has an amazing voice. He also gave a compelling sermon about how he has come to terms with Christianity after growing up as a gay man in the rural South. I haven't really been enjoying the sermons of our interim minister, so it was great to have such an interesting service to come back to.

In the next few days, I am hoping to continue this crazy exciting series of outings with a shopping trip, a whole-family visit to Dorian's art opening, and perhaps even a walk or two. It's 36 degrees here, which seems too cold to take a Maryland baby outside in the stroller, but I know that Minnesota babies must leave the house when it's much, much colder than this. Fortunately it's planning to warm up over the next few days, into the upper 40s and lower 50s. But it sure would be nice to get out of the house today. We'll see.

Oh, and I should say: I am hopelessly not keeping up with LJ, so if there's anything you want me to know, you should probably drop me a note or leave a pointer in comments. Sorry.