4 weeks!

We did another photo shoot this morning to celebrate being 4 weeks and 1 day old.

swing

Clara isn't convinced that the swing is a great place to be, but she tolerates it for many minutes in a row at times.

community

We had a really lovely Halloween this year. Our neighbors invited us over to celebrate with them & their 4 year old. Nate & his parents also came. We ordered pizza, stayed up way too late, and generally had a great time. Zach & I watched through bleary eyes as our neighbors took turns holding Clara, entertaining Molly, and feeding all of us. Oscar taught Molly all about trick or treating by role playing trick or treat in the house about a million times, which was great because by the time they were ready to try it out for real on a few of our neighbors they were pros. Zach and I left that evening feeling the blessings of community. Molly left with a new appreciation for "treats" (one a night until the jar runs out - shh, don't tell her that we're raiding her candy while she naps!).

dad

self portrait

Adult-to-child ratios

On Monday I attempted to repeat Sunday's miraculous bedtime with little success. And this time I didn't have Zach as backup in the other room. But he was just a short phone call away. He was at a board meeting for just two short hours, and I managed to orchestrate a complete meltdown for all three of us, including yet another bloody lip for Molly (she triped, bumped her chin, and bit her lip). Fortunately that was nothing a little ice to chew on didn't cure. But we did end up with all three of us having a good cry together. And Molly got to take care of us - when she started crying about missing daddy I told her I missed daddy, too. And so she rolled over in bed and petted my head and told me that it's okay, he'll be home soon. Zach came home and promptly instituted a new rule: until further notice, there must be at least a 1:1 adult to child ratio in our house at all times. In a few weeks we'll likely be able to lift that rule, but until then, I actually appreciate it.

So, while he was in LA with Jimmy Carter (!) we carefully followed his rule. Between Nana & Flor (Paz's sister, since Paz has moved on to another family), we survived 2 days without daddy. And still, we were very very happy when daddy came home.

and now, in completely unrelated photos...

Portrait at 17 days:

diez deditos

now that Zach is back, we're going to try to get some more pictures up. In the mean time, here's some pictures from 10/25 - she was... 17 days old. (2.5 weeks?)