the source of sanity, the Marathon Nap

Julia is taking one of those marathon naps that is lasting so long I have to get up periodically and make sure she's still breathing. I even risked waking her to take a picture. She's been a needy little girl lately. Pretty much ever since we got home, she's been very reluctant to play on her own, and instead she hangs on to my knee while I eat or type or read or cook. When I put her on my lap, she stiffens and squirms to get down. When I put her down she wails like I've pinched her. When I stand up and carry her around on my hip she is happy and content. Since our house is about 10 feet by 10 feet this gets old for me fast. She is content in the great outdoors too, so I've started adding a morning walk to our routine. Unfortunately this has also coincided with bad weather, so our walks have been confined to close to the house. The river has finally frozen solid, so we have new territory to explore. This clingyness could be a sign of the eminence of new teeth erupting, but she won't let me near her mouth to see. This could also be a sign that I've caused her significant emotional damage by taking her traveling for a month. Or this could be a sign that I've raised either an insecurely attached child or a child with avoidant attachment or ambivilant attachment or disorganized attachment (I'm learning lots in my psychology class)  Or maybe she's on drugs. I learned that phrase from Kaethe's excellent parenting blog http://dearthisbe.blogspot.com. Why wait until she's 16 to use that reasoning when it applies so well to her behavior now?
Most of this I doubt though. Maybe the teething excuse is valid, or maybe this is just a phase.
We finally had a date night. We sent Julia over to Taylor and Angela's house for an hour last night. Dave and I ate chocolate cake with strawberry sauce and talked, mostly about whether we thought Julia was crying, bawling or wailing at that very moment. When our hour was over, we ran over to collect our poor abandoned baby only to find that she barely noticed that we were gone, didn't cry at all and had a great time playing. So I guess date night was a success and will hopefully be repeated often now that we can release our fears of having a traumatized child.
I am typing away on my new laptop that my sweet husband purchased for me which is a small miracle considering that 48 hours ago Julia dumped about a cup of water straight onto the keyboard. The laptop promptly shut itself off with a decisive "zoop" and I went into a panic thinking of all the photos I'd probably lost forever, not to mention all my class assignments that I hadn't submitted yet and not to mention having to tell Dave that I'm responsible for another laptop's demise (ask me sometime about how I had Dave's laptop run over by a bus.)  Turns out all my fears were for naught. I propped it tent-like upside down above our heater and let two days go by before powering it back up and it's like nothing ever touched it. Praise Be!

Molten Chocolate Cake from Martha Stewart
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
8 oz really good bittersweet chocolate, melted

arrange a baby sitter.
preheat oven to 400.
butter 6 muffin tin cups or 6 ramkins. Dust with white sugar.
Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in flour and salt. Beat in melted chocolate. Pour into cups and bake 8-10 minutes, until still jiggly in the center. Let cool 10 minutes. Turn out onto serving plate.

Strawberry Rum sauce of my own invention
Thaw frozen strawberries or use fresh.
puree strawberries until you have about a cup of liquid. Add a splash of rum and a drop of vanilla or better yet, make your own vanilla rum by adding a vanilla bean to a small bottle of rum and letting it sit for a month, shaking occasionally. Add a splash of that. Add brown sugar to taste.
Pour over chocolate cakes and eat!

Julia woke up so fussy that I had to wrestle her down to check, and it's true, tooth number 5 is making an entrance! I guess she's not on drugs yet...

back to the north again

We are home again in Sleetmute, and Julia has the flu. This is the first time she's gotten anything like that, so we are getting another lesson in parenting. She's still so cheerful. I'm never that happy when I'm sick. We had a wonderful last couple days in Oregon. The weather turned lovely enough to open the back door and let Julia explore the yard. Our family friend Daniel came by and Julia liked that. We had a pretty uneventful train ride up to Seattle and stayed two nights with Dave's folks. My sister Caroline came up too, so we got to have a little more time together as well. Grandpa Dave drove us to the airport on monday, and Julia did quite well on the flight to Anchorage. Two naps and no long crying jags! We got a hotel room for that night, and took taxis to the grocery store to fill a plastic tub full of dairy and produce. The following morning, we got onto a flight to Sleetmute, changing planes in Aniak. It was a longer flight since Aniak is farther west than Sleetmute, but I had a flight to use up with ERA (we booked our initial flight with ERA, then switched to a bush pilot so we could take more stuff.) But Julia did wonderfully, sleeping both flights. We arrived in one piece, and I was pretty happy to be done traveling for awhile. I've been busy re-organizing the house and washing all our clothes, and I've been working on getting my Etsy shop set up. Etsy is a website that lets small time artists and crafters sell items online. It's a great way to shop for local and handmade art. Here's the link to my storefront if you are curious

http://www.etsy.com/shop/marystar

Julia and Daniel Lund

Julia and Daniel Lund and Loki

Julia loved the beautiful Oregon weather that let her play in the grass

Julia and Grandpoppa Jack, right before we said goodbye and got on the train to Seattle

Olaf and Loki, Grandpoppa Jack, Grandmomma Dawn and Julia

Grandma Gini and Julia giggling on the couch

Auntie Caroline giving Julia a bath in the sink

Me and my baby

Julia and Grandpa Dave

Home again, playing with her christmas blocks

Helping Dad make pancakes

To the ocean and back

After a brief few days in Oregon, Julia and I hopped back on the train to the uncharted territory of Santa Barbra, California. I was hopeful that the train ride would result in glorious ocean views, but unfortunately night came upon us before we reached the ocean. We did see some lovely views in northern California though, and it was fun to see things like palm trees and cacti popping up along the way.  We had the pleasure of a sleeping car on the way down again, so it was a very pleasant ride. I met a woman with a 10 month old baby and we got seated at the same table for dinner. We talked each other's ears off all the way until our destination, swapping baby and birth and life stories. I'm not a naturally gregarious person, so when I have a random interaction like that, I really find it amazing. Our purpose in heading this far south was to visit our Holden friends, the Meitzkes. They showed Julia and I a wonderful side of California. Apparently three months of bad weather decided to lift just in time for us to arrive. We walked on beaches, saw starfish the size of a cocker spaniel and saw dolphins swimming in the ocean. We walked through parks full of green and sunshine, and walked through art, the booths stretching for blocks upon blocks. We drove through picturesque mountains and incredibly wealthy neighborhoods, dreaming about what we would do with a house that big and lovely. (Invite everyone we know to live in yurts scattered along the property, open the world's biggest cat sanctuary, ect.) We ate in restaurants! (A big deal when you live in a village of 100 in Alaska.) Julia ate sand and crawled on grass. She lurched from side to side in her backpack, trying to see everything.  We took Jasper, the dog everywhere (he barks when left at home) and took the cats and baby on walks in strollers and slings. And we conversed, about so many things.

And all too soon it was time to go north again, coach class. It was with great reluctance that I left the sunshine and beaches of southern California. I did get my incredible ocean vistas on the train ride north though. Miles and miles of beaches with hardly a soul to be seen on them. My secret to traveling on the train with a baby is to request the lower level seating. It has way less traffic than the upper level seating area, so Julia can crawl around and explore in a safer, more enclosed setting. And we got the seat against the wall of the car, so we were able to make a little nest of blankets and curl up on the floor for the night. It wasn't luxury, but it was ok. Now we are back in Oregon again, enjoying the last days of my extended vacation. In a few days I begin the final leg of this journey, back to the far north. 

Uncle Joe

Uncle Olaf

Lunch with Grandpoppa Jack and Great Granny Helen

Discovering the basket of dominos

Discovering a bulldozer

And she finally let me get a picture of the new top teeth!