Yesterday we made a quick trip to a community carnival. It was pretty small and underwhelming… but Sadie rode a pony. Aaand that my friends, made all of our weeks.
I thought Sadie would be a little nervous about getting on a large animal. But no. She was actually eager to get as close as possible. And once she was on the saddle she leaned back and settled into relax mode. The cowgirl is strong in this one.
There are several events that have gone on recently that are blog worthy, and something I probably should at some point document alongside all of Sadie’s life experiences. But for some reason I haven’t blogged in over 2 weeks despite having some decent material. I wasn’t aware of why I hadn’t blogged, but perhaps I was saving myself for this one. Because yes, everyday adventures are great and invigorating – but nothing really compares to this.
My sister got married on May 18th, 2012 to her wonderful husband Jason Redwood.
Their wedding was in beautiful Santa Barbara and was everything and more that you would expect of a small 50 person intimate gathering.
From the moment I arrived at the bridal suite I was instantly calmed (because lord knows I was a stressed out nervous wreck all day) by my sister’s calm demeanor and total composure. I hurriedly checked into our hotel and called her to let her know I was on my way to her, apologizing for not being there since the break of dawn that morning. She said, “No rush – I really want a cheeseburger.” So, one short drive and a stop at McDonald’s for a burger and fries later, I was there. I walked in and was already floored by her beauty. Her hair was half way done and her makeup base had just been applied. She was wearing a strapless silk maxi dress and had bare feet. She welcomed me in with a deep hug. And I suddenly felt calm in her presence. We ate cheeseburgers and fries as friends, family and even Jason came in and out of the hotel bridal suite room to say hello and tell her how stunning she already looked. The best man even popped in and dropped off a bin full of champagne on ice for all of us ladies.
This style of wedding prep was totally unconventional to me, but for Jamie and Jason, this laid back approach seemed to fit them and the rest of the evening so well.
It seemed to only take minutes before we were all dressed and made up and ready to get on our way. My parents came to pick Jamie up and take her to the hotel where her and Jason would be spending their first night as husband and wife so she could change into her gown before heading to the ceremony. I rushed back to my hotel to get a certain little flower girl ready to go and give Devin some time to get ready and then we were off to the cliff side location in Wilcox State Park.
The site was breath-taking. They hadn’t acquired any sort of permit or even permission to hold the wedding ceremony, so it was done so minimally. My brother went out to the location 30 minutes before we all arrived and but up some paper flags and a large area rug for Jamie and Jason to stand on during the ceremony. The rest of the location was naturally decorated in cactus, wild bougainvillea and the crashing sandy beach below.
Friends and family scattered in and stood around chatting and waiting to see a bride emerge. And then there she came. Out of behind scattered trees, tall wild grass and purple and yellow wild flowers she seemed to almost float towards us. With my mother and father fastened to both of her sides she came walking towards us, towards Jason, holding a bouquet of the wild flowers she walked in amongst. I couldn’t take my teared up eyes off of her, but did steal a glance at Jason to see him choked up and holding back his own tears.
The ceremony itself was quick, to the point and very heart-felt. Jamie and Jason’s dear friend Karla, who has known them both for a very long time and was the one who actually set them up, was the one to perform the intimate ceremony. She spoke of both of them as separates and of them as a couple and about how strong their love was – and truer words have not been spoken. I stood huddled with my mom, dad and brother as we all cried watching our big sister/ first born child leave the Bresnan nest and become Jamie Redwood.
They were pronounced husband and wife and everyone present wiped away their happy tears and we clapped and hoorahed for the new couple. And then naturally, the paparazzi came out in full effect and the next 30 mins were spent clicking the shoot button and posing for photos. Along with many, many hugs and kisses and well wishes from the friends and family that felt honored to be there.
Soon after the crowd all made their way back to the hotel rooftop where dinner, dancing and drinks were to follow. Guests trickled in one by one and admired the view and the most spectacular wedding decorations I’ve ever seen. Each table was set with a thick slab of tree trunk and upon that were scattered hand painted antlers, arrows, candles and hand made paper mache bougainvillea. Our place settings were marked by a succulents placed in hand painted terracotta pots that also doubled as a gift to each individual guest.
Drinks were flowing generously and a few of the men gathered around the fireplace to celebrate the newlyweds and enjoy some cigars. All the little ones started the dance party off by jumping up and down and running in circles. Sadie thoroughly enjoyed this part of the evening.
As the sun set and the night sky slowly appeared, dinner was served and toasts to the happy couple were made.
After dinner, Devin and I snuck away into our room to get Sadie ready for bed and awaited the babysitter to arrive. Sadie was exhausted and fast asleep in a matter of minutes and we were able to get back up to the party to dance and celebrate the night away.
And it appears that we made it back just in time for the epic dance party to ensue. Photos became a bit blurry around this time of the night, which you know it means it was a good night.
And at that the night was at it’s close. What a wonderful night it was. And to Jamie and Jason, may you live happily ever after.
Late! Like 3 weeks late, oops! But, all the same, Sadie did turn 18 months last month. She is steadily approaching her terrible twos. She has been stretching those sea legs lately and giving those pesky tantrums a good college try. And let me tell ya, she’s pretty darn good at em. She’s conquered some of the great places, it’s like checking in on Foursquare for babies – instead of using a mobile device to do so, she checks in by screaming, kicking and rolling on the ground crying. So far she’s become the Mayor of Ikea, Target, Trader Joe’s, the hardware store and the neighborhood beauty salon.
But in all sincerity, she is a joy. She is the perfect little girl and more than I ever could have hoped for.
I often go back and think about life without her, and how much more she has filled my life with love and meaning since she arrived. I think about how far we both have come, but really I think about her journey. From a troubled pregnancy, to a 5 lb preemie, to this beautiful, energetic and courageous child. You would never ever guess by looking at her all of the things the doctors told me she would be. Because she isn’t anything less than perfect.
All of these beautiful photos were taken during a professional photo shoot by Bella Baby Photography, which was an amazing gift from my Mom & Dad. Thanks Mom and Dad, we will always treasure these photos.
If you’ve been reading my posts as of late, you’d know that we’ve had a decent and steady supply of house guests over the past couple of months. And this past weekend was the mother-load of all guests. When my friend Jolie called me up and said she’d be in the bay area and would love to get the kids together for an outing or dinner, I immediately asked her if she already had a place to stay and invited her to come crash at our place. She was hesitant, because she comes packin’ heat. Her, hubby + 3 kids is quite a posse. She even said, “are you really sure… we are a pretty big posse.” And I said yes, and totally meant it.
I was so stoked to have so many kids in the house. My name is Stacey, and I’m a kid-a-holic. I knew it would get loud and messy, and that it definitely did. With a 14 month old, 18 month old, 5 year old, 10 year old and 2 sets of parents – there was a heck of a lot of energy surging through the house and yard.
The funny thing that really happened that I hadn’t expected, was that it made our house feel so quiet and lonely once they all left to head back home. And not like the short-lived deflation you feel after a party you host ends, but a deep feeling that has continued to loom over me. After thinking about this for days, it was the feeling of family. Not that our little party of 3 isn’t a family, because surely it is. But the hustle and bustle of siblings playing together, the constant chatter and imagination – it’s something that I didn’t really know I was missing… until now.
Watching Jolie and her husband with their children was also so inspiring. I have so much admiration for them. They became parents at a young age, and have continued to slowly grow their family into such a strong, loving and beautiful unit. Each one of their children are wonderfully unique, but all are smart, interesting and kind. I have no doubt that they will all grow into wonderful adults and will make their parents extremely proud.
I have my own personal set of fears on how scary it would be to grow our family. I often wonder how I could ever love another baby as much as I love Sadie. And how would there be enough time to love them both enough and give them both enough encouragement and attention. Not to even mention where would the time to clean up after them and cook come from? But, I know it’s done. My mother did it for me and my two siblings. And I watch Jolie do it for her children. And it makes me think, not only can I do this. I know I want it. I want the challenge that an extra pitter-patter of baby feet brings. I want the messes, and the arguments, the giggle fits, the double bath time duty. So, who knows, maybe there could be a new Foley coming to town in the near future. And clearly, my child was loving every stinkin second of being part of the wild kid pack.
I’ve been so spoiled. Spending almost my entire life between San Diego and LA I rarely felt a cold day. And on the occasional seasonal gloomy day you could always be rest assured that the warm sun would peek out and calm your goosebumps in a day or two.
It’s been gloomy, or raining or just plain chilly since November here. As bad as some other Northern or Eastern states? No, obviously not. The cool weather here has it’s charm and I like dressing in coats on occasion, but I’ve begun yearning for days of bare baby feet running in grass. I wanted to feel warm sun on my shoulders, be able to wear sandals, or even just let my baby nap in a diaper.
I’ve almost forgotten how the hot sun feels on my skin – but my longing has been met. San Francisco… meet Summer. You two play nicely, I’d like you to become great friends and stick around with each other for a while… m’kay?
Dear Grandma & Pop-pop,
You spoil me rotten. You buy me clothes, books and toys. Bring Easter baskets full of goodies for me. Give me cool balloon heart wands. Feed me ice cream. Make cool forts out of umbrellas on the couch. And you bought me the coolest bubble machine of all time.
It’s really pretty boring without you here. Plus, Mom and Dad don’t usually give me as many treats as you guys do. I love you guys. Come back soon, ok?
Love,
Sadie
One of the biggest things I’ve learned since becoming a parent is that you should never judge a parent before you yourself has children and have gone through the same issue. I think back about how silly I was, so innocently naive it was for me as a woman in my early twenties never having had a child of my own, barely ever really having held a baby before – silently judging parents around me. I’d see a mom walking her toddler on one of those backpack-harnesses and shudder and think how terrible she was. I mean, I wouldn’t personally use one, but I definitely see the practicality in one now!
I had friends who co-slept with their babies and young children, and I would think – how horrific, don’t they know how dangerous that is!?
Then one day, on October 19th, 2010 to be exact… I became a mom. And all of those preconceived notions of what is right and what is wrong and the ideal of these rigid rules about how it should be done just flew out the window. And I became a co-sleeper. From day one.
I brought this tiny little 5lb baby home with me and couldn’t for the life of me separate her from my arms. I needed to feel her breathe and hear her movements. I was sucked in by that child and it has been a long road of some crazy sleep habits since then.
I’ll spare you the agonizing details but for the first 10 months of life, Sadie had never once slept alone. Not for naps and not at night. I spent many hours lying staring at the ceiling – and we’ll just leave it at that. By 1 year, Sadie had never slept in a crib. But something just naturally changed at a year. One day out of the blue, she fell asleep in her playpen. This never happened. It was our very own personal miracle that had taken place. We took her cues, and went with it. We started attempting to put her down for naps and bedtime in her playpen. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. We decided maybe it would work best if we moved her real big unused crib into the bedroom and tried that instead. The crib is more comfy and not as squeeky and creaky as the playpen gets with the slightest of movement.
The crib was working almost always! She’s still wake up a time or two in the night, and eventually around 3am would want into bed with us. And I would oblige, because it was a quarter past I’m too tired to care 0′clock. But the point is that we had some of our own space finally. Granted, there was about 10 inches between my side of the bed and where Sadie was sleeping in her crib – so not that much of our own space. But even this was a huge improvement.
And with a baby, it’s never exact science. Some nights are real bad, some nights are better. Some couples have wonder babies that sleep through the night in there cribs in their own rooms starting at 4 months old. That’s awesome for them, and I hope they know how lucky they are. Maybe we could have been closer to that kind of a life, but I have decided to refuse the “cry it out” method. So many people do it, and it seems to work well for all of them. But, for me personally, I can’t take it. I’m not strong enough to hear her cries and not comfort her. On our worst nights (usually when teething is involved) Sadie will scream and cry and punch and kick and nothing helps – for hours on end. There are even some of those sporadic nights when all she wants to do is party. She’s up at 2am jumping on the bed and having a full on conversation with us while we sleep. This happened a few days ago. Devin woke up in the morning to find me like this… I was willing to try anything to get her back to sleep.
We are now a year and half into sleeping with a baby in our room. It took me a long time to get here, and I know Devin has been here for a long time now (thanks for being so patient with me Devin). But I am so ready to have our room back. I want privacy. I want to be able to walk into my bedroom at night without tip toeing like a mouse trying to navigate myself into bed without disturbing a sleeping baby. I want to fall asleep with the light on while reading a book, I want to take a shower in our bedroom bathroom, I wanna have a little bow chikka bow wow with my man in our bedroom anytime I feel like it!!! Dammit I’m ready!!
So, yesterday, we did it. We disassembled her crib and reassembled it in the nursery. I thought it would be really hard for her to deal with this big change. I reserved the night for being a terrible night of sleep, but to our surprise. She took her nap in there right after we finished putting the bedding back in. And she slept in there like a pro at night too. Until 4:45am when she wanted into our bed with us – and you know, that’s cool. Baby steps.
And now, right at this moment, she is asleep in her crib, in her room and I am awake lying in my bed in my room alone – blogging. Oooh, and it feels so good.
I guess the moral of the story is A) everybody has the reasons for doing what they do. Don’t knock it til you’ve been there yourself. And B) next time around I think we’ll try to not co-sleep. I loved it, but it’s a lot of work breaking it. We’ll see if I can actually go through with it next time.
Hectic is a good word to sum up the past month and a half. Hence, the lack of updates on the blog. Instead of taking my time and thoughtfully creating an entry for every separate event, I’m going to lump them all together in a giant photo bomb. Because you know what… we’ve had new visitors every weekend for the past 5 weekends in a row. On a few occasions we’ve had 3 different guests in one week. I only have about half of the people even pictured in these photos and I don’t have much time to write because guess what? I have to clean up the house from Devin’s birthday, Easter and my brother’s visit all before my parents get here in a few hours for their week-long stay.
I don’t even mind it though. In fact, I just added another house guest(s) onto the calendar for after my parents’ visit.
Party on Wayne.
at the Natural History Museum in Golden Gate Park during the in-laws visit.
at the Kids Discovery Bay Museum during Auntie Jam-Jam’s visit
celebrating Devin’s birthday with some German beers during Uncle Jared’s visit
Easter is being postponed a day this year to wait for Grandma and Pop-pop’s visit. But we tried to get into the spirit and dyed some eggs.
Devin was still feeling the spirit of his birthday from the night before.
Hoppy Easter to all of you. 
This past weekend was something that I had been preparing for and anticipating a long time now. I was throwing my sister her bridal shower. It took a few months of researching, negotiating, planning and organizing. Which, for me, is a walk in the park. I love throwing a party and enjoy every aspect of it. But, it was also very emotionally draining because as joyous as the occasion is, it also marked the first time I would be leaving Sadie at home with Dad, not only for the day – but for an overnight trip.
The over-prepared planner in me, I wanted to create lists and schedules and prepare meals in ready to go plates stored safely in the fridge for Devin. I wanted to go over all of my secrets to get her to nap, on what to do if she gets super cranky… but somewhere deeper than my control freak core lies a sense of relief that Sadie was being left with her father. Not just a babysitter, or a distant relative. It was her daddy, and at the end of the day he might do things a little bit different than I do, but he has the same basic instincts that I have on parenting this sweet child and he will answer to her cries and hunger with the same love and compassion that I will. All will be good.
Other than the rainy storm that was making my plane trip to LA a little bumpy, things were going smoothly. Sadie was in a happy mood that morning as they dropped me off at the Oakland Airport. And surprisingly, I wasn’t feeling sad about leaving her, I was feeling excited for her and her dad to have some special time together and I was excited to see my family and friends in LA. Plus my flight was totally empty. Seriously, there were only 20 people on the flight!
The flight from SF to LA is a quick one and before I knew it, we were making our bumpy decent into Burbank. Until… we seemed to be heading back up toward the sky rather than the airport. No biggie, probably another plane coming in and we have to do a little loopy-loo around the sky and try again. That happens often. 10 mins later I’m thinking, hope we land soon – my brother is probably already there waiting for me. 20 mins later I’m thinking, holy shit we’ve been hijacked! Soon after that, the captain makes an announcement… “Ok, folks, looks like the storm in Burbank was too low, so we had to redirect to Vegas. We’ll be refueling there, and then we’ll see what we can do about getting you folks to your destination. We’ll be landing in Vegas in about 10 minutes.”
WHAT!!!???!!! SERIOUSLY!!??? IS THIS A JOKE??!! Nope, it wasn’t. Picture me in the skies high about the Nevada desert turning on my iPhone trying to desperately get a signal so I can A) call my brother and tell him to stop going in circles around the airport cuz I ain’t arriving anytime soon. B) Call my Mom and tell her she’s going to have to figure out how to throw Jamie’s bridal shower without me because I’m in Vegas and the shower starts in an hour. C) Call my husband and child to let them know Mommy is in Vegas!
I honestly felt like I was going to barf. I was so stressed out, and felt like I was letting so many people down. And I felt powerless to fix it. I began imagining scenarios where I dash out of the airport and rent a convertible and drive like a bat out of hell from Las Vegas and show up at my sister’s bridal shower that I’m throwing just as they are sweeping the remnants of cake off the floor.
Thankfully, there was another flight leaving there in an hour and it would take one hour to get to LA. That, was my best bet and I took it, and I made it to the shower. An hour and a half late. I fluffed my hair in the car on the way over, put some lipstick on and shook it off. Came in, set up all the decorations I had while all the guests were already there, but whatever. I made it. Thank god. And HUGE thanks to my mom, Stephi and Jolie who really came through in my time of despair and made the place look and sound great. I think I would’ve had a nervous breakdown if it hadn’t been for their help.
The shower was thrown at El Tres Inn in Silverlake & the amazing ombre cake and cupcakes were done by my super talented friend Jolie who throws amazing parties. Check out her son’s birthday party featured on Apartment Therapy.
So despite the stress of the morning, the party was a success and a blast. And my sister, Jamie felt very special and loved which is all I could have ever hoped for. And I guess the silver lining of the fiasco was that I was so preoccupied with the stress of the day, that I didn’t have time to be sad about missing Sadie.
After we cleaned up after the party I found myself with my 4 original family members: my mom, dad, brother and sister. I don’t think it’s been just the 5 of us since before I was married. We went out to eat a beautiful dinner together, and it was wonderful. I do have to admit though, it was very weird going out to eat and not requesting a high chair or having to feed someone else before I even get to touch my meal. I felt so strange and almost clumsy having my hands all to myself. I’m so used to holding a baby or pushing a stroller. My poor hands didn’t know what to do with themselves. I tried to shove them in my pockets or grip onto my purse straps to give them some sort of purpose.
That evening my brother, sister and I got in our pj’s and got some beer and sat up watching a movie together until it was bedtime for this mama. I gleefully cozied up in my brother’s futon for the night knowing not only would I be reunited with hubby and baby in the morning, but also knowing that I had no crying baby to wake up to 14 times a night. Ironically enough, I still woke up naturally at her usual waking times. Apparently, after a year and half of not sleeping even one complete night through, it’s hard to bounce back to non-parent sleep habits, i.e. sleeping good.
I also wanted to throw in a HUGE congrats to my dear friend Stephi who ran the LA Marathon this weekend! Get it gurl!
In the midst of a painful week long rain storm, we were struggling on finding things to do to not go stir-crazy. Thankfully, we came across an amazing wonderland of safe indoor toddler exploration. This special place is called Habitot.
