Busy Busy

Elsa and I have been keeping extremely busy lately! Here are some of the things we've been up to:

1. Last Friday, we drove down to Evanston to have lunch with some of my former co-workers, and after that we swung over to Old Orchard Mall in Skokie to meet my friend Carrie for coffee. None of my friends at HND had ever seen Elsa, and Carrie had never seen Elsa awake (she came up to Milwaukee to visit us while Elsa was still in her extremely sleepy/boring newborn stage). Elsa was her usual happy, charming self throughout the visits, despite not getting much of an afternoon nap. However, one of my former co-workers (who's getting married in a few months) did ask how my labor went, so hopefully my story didn't convince her to never have children. I tried to leave out the worst details. : )

2. We started a music class. It's called Music Together, and it's for babies through age 4. Several of Bob's co-workers take the class with their kids, so we already knew most of the people in the class, which makes it a little more fun. Elsa is the youngest there—most of the other kids are around 18 months to 2 years—but there is also a 10-month-old (who is newly adopted from China). The class involves a lot of singing and dancing (mostly on the parents' part), playing various noisemakers and other instruments, walking around in circles, etc. Supposedly the "curriculum" is based on research on how babies and children learn music, and Elsa does seem to like listening to our CD of the songs we sing in class—she quiets down in the car whenever I put it on. I even think I've noticed her bouncing along to the beat a few times. And one of Elsa's classmates might be her first little boyfriend—2-year-old Jack seems a bit obsessed with Elsa and always tries to give her his maracas, tamborine, etc. It's very cute.


3. This week, we've been doing a full-scale tour of Milwaukee-area garden centers, in search of the plants that are called for in our landscaping plans. Bob's uncle Bill has been nice enough to help us with our planting (he's been amazingly helpful, and we can't thank him enough). But actually buying all of these plants and getting them into the car and home is no small task in itself—especially when you've got a little person with you who can't walk and who doesn't understand why you need to drive to yet another nursery in search of six more Japanese Painted Ferns. Fortunately, in my case, that little person is Elsa, and she happens to be a total trooper. At each nursery, she sat happily in the cart, flashing her big gummy smile at nearly every stranger who glanced her way. She's been incredibly patient and flexible, and I have never felt so lucky to have her. Of course, she did have a few fussy moments, especially at Hawk's. They don't have carts with baby seats, so she was stuck in the $20 umbrella stroller we bought a few weeks ago, and she clearly hates it (she slouches down in it and just looks very uncomfortable). She also doesn't particularly enjoy the process of being buckled into her carseat, and I feel like she's been in and out of that thing 50 times this week. But overall, we did fine, and by the beginning of next week, we should have three major planting beds done!