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At some point over last summer, Mel let me borrow a book called “The Physick of Deliverance Dane.” Uncharacteristcally for me these days, I actually started reading it. AND I finished it. (I used to be a great reader…now I can’t really say that, and I’m lucky to finish something I start. Yeah, sometimes I wonder where my old self went, and someday I’ll find her again.)

I digress.

Anyhow, this book is about the Salem witch trials. I wasn’t more than ten pages into it when I thought, “I have to go there.” Now THAT part of me is alive and well. Once I get an idea like that into my head, it takes a lot to derail me from my goal. Jesse gets a very limited amount of time off of work, and I get a ridiculous amount, so I knew he probably couldn’t go. But I needed someone to scheme with me. Someone who loved adventure as much as I do. Someone whose soul feeds off of wandering and experiencing and seeing things you’ve only read about or learned about in history class.

Yeah, I’m digressing again.

Anyhow, I got Kate on board (and I tempted her with Salem and old school Boston in October – our favorite time of year!). Then we recruited Melissa. And luckily, Jesse let us do it (I say that because if I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted him to go without me). And Addie got well from about two weeks of illness just in time to head to Boston at the end of October.

It was a fantastic trip. It was the kind of trip that makes me feel alive. Or really awake to the world around me. (Like that quote from Joe Vs. the Volcano, “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.” Traveling somewhere new, or even somewhere I love and can’t get enough of, makes me feel awake and in constant total amazement.)   

The first full day we were there, we went to Lexington & Concord and saw where the Revolutionary War started. It felt humbling to stand where so many events happened that we just take for granted. We visited the Paul Revere sites, the town of Concord, then the North Bridge sites (the “shot heard around the world” bridge – that park had the creepiest bathroom I’ve ever seen…random, I know). Then we visited all the literary sites in the area like Louisa May Alcott’s home and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s home. Kate and I had a memorable moment of running through the Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord, searching for the famous writers’ graves. We found them, but not before it started to get a little dark, and we started to (delightfully) freak ourselves out. As usual (for my pace of running around and cramming things in), we got to our last site of Walden Pond close to dark so had to do some hurrying to see anything, but it was a beautiful day. We ended it at Dunkin Donuts, of course.

At the Paul Revere monument. Addie was such a fun little traveler.

Burial Hill in Concord. Cemeteries are one of Kate’s fascinations, so we made a point of going to a lot of them!  

Another one of Kate’s fav’s: the Double D.

We spent a day in Boston, following the Freedom Trail. It was a bit rainy, but beautiful and historic all the same. Then we visited Beacon Hill and visited the fanciest 7-11 (of course!) I’ve ever seen.

The obligatory “Burial Hill” – one of our first stops on the Freedom Trail.

The three of us girls at the monument of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The fancy 7-11…and Addie downing my slurpee.

We started our Sunday by going to church in Cambridge. Then we spent the rest of the day driving down through Plymouth, visiting the town where the pilgrims landed and established their colony, then driving up through Cape Cod. Cape Cod was beautiful (and lighthouses galore!), and I bet it would be even more beautiful in the summer! We stopped at the famous red-and-white lighthouse, and had a fun photo shoot at the “three sisters” lighthouses which had been relocated from the shore to a park. We ended the day in Provincetown. A WEIRD place. Just a funky vibe there. (Turns out the pilgrims landed there first, and even they found it weird and had to move on again to Plymouth!)

We just love this picture (outside the church) for some reason. What a stinkin’ cutie Addie is!

I used to be a real lighthouse fanatic, and still do find them fascinating and mystical somehow. Can’t explain why.

Addie seriously thought she was in a photo shoot. Could she be cuter? (This was on the steps of one of the “Three Sisters.”)

We spent our last day doing the really creepy stuff: exploring Salem. Being October, it was one big Halloween party! We started the day by stopping in Marblehead and eating lunch there, then went on to Salem where we visited the With Trial Memorial, then took a “haunted Salem” tour on a trolley. I must say, I love Halloween, and this has to be my biggest tribute to such a strange holiday yet!

On the beach at Marblehead.

Seesa and Kate at the Witch Trial Memorial.

On the ghost tour in Salem.

It was such a great trip, full of exploring historic sites (and a lot of cemeteries), experiencing new things, getting lost, and of course the inherent silliness and hilarity that comes from traveling with the girls. Thanks for such a fun adventure, girls!

(That was fun reliving it. *sigh*)

Oh, and I guess I should add that all of these photos are courtesy of Kate. Addie managed to break my camera on the first day with that magic touch of hers, so I didn’t end up with very many of my own. Thanks Kate!

I know, it’s been months. Three-and-a-half, to be more precise. Believe me, I have a full essay written in my mind entitled “Why I Suck at Blogging,” because I’ve given that topic more thought than I’ve given actual blog-post planning. Counter-intuitive, I know. But, like my two novels (yes, count them, two) I’m working on, you’ll never see that essay, because, well, most of my ideas are still locked up in my brain. 

Anyhow, in the spirit of being more productive in the evenings (instead of watching hours of TV shows like Scrubs, Friends, Burn Notice, or Psych and playing solitaire, or my new obsession, my old Nintendo Gameboy Advance), I figured I could get around to posting some stuff. Because if I don’t now, I won’t ever. (See, I really think blogging might be another one of those things that, when you do it poorly, you just feel guilty. Like scrapbooking. Or doing photo books. Or even just taking photos. Yes, all part of my Why I Suck at Blogging theory.) 

Anyhow, last fall we did a bunch of camping with family. In September, we did Zion with Mel, Kate, Steven, and Shawn. The boys all went and did the Subway, and the girls wandered around the park. Addie finally let me put her in her backpack for longer than five minutes. (Oh, and she single-handedly ate an entire bag of “natural” white cheddar cheetos during the trip. Who knew.)

At the end of September, we headed to Arches with the Forreys and Knight grandparents. It was sunny and warm, and then the wind (and sand) kicked up. The hike up Delicate Arch on our last day there was quite blustery, but of all of us, Addie had the best time on the hike. She sang and laughed and pulled my hair the whole way, even though the rest of us were just struggling to stay upright in the strong gusts.

Happy Camper indeed.

Everyone came back to our house after the camping excursion, and Addie had a blast playing with her cousins. (Well, ”playing with” is a bit of a stretch – but Maci and Jacob were good at entertaining her.)

And Aunt Beth gave Addie her first haircut!

Not too long after this trip, we headed to San Diego to go camping at the beach with the Noltes and Knight grandparents. We do this trip every year, and someday, Addie will love the beach. Once again, however, the sand freaked her out, and this is the closest she and I got to actually spending time on the beach itself (lasted about 20 minutes), and this was as close she could stand to be to the sand. (In her defense, she was at the beginning of what you might call a train wreck series of illnesses, so she just wasn’t a happy kid in general.)

Addie was happiest when she got to ride on the bike with her dad. And I’m sure her dad enjoyed that part too. We sure look forward to this trip every year!

Addie didn’t get much of a traveling break after that (maybe a couple of weeks), but I’m going to save that for Part II. 

I think an episode of Psych is now in order.

We’ve been watching Christmas movies for a few weeks now (Addie still loves Toy Story, but Polar Express is a new favorite…someone suggested that perhaps she just likes Tom Hanks’ voice!), and I almost forgot that we hadn’t had Thanksgiving yet!

Last month, I took Addie to Boston with two of my sisters (Melissa and Kate). I’ll do more on that later, but the part of the trip that’s on my mind tonight is our visit to Plymouth. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard about “Plymouth Rock” since I was in elementary school. For some reason, up until a month ago, I thought Plymouth Rock was the name of the beach where the pilgrims landed – or at least the name of the cliffs around them. I didn’t realize that it really was…a rock.

I was a little disturbed by this, maybe because I had never thought of them landing at Plymouth - it was always Plymouth Rock. But it gets better. Apparently it wasn’t until over 100 years later that a priest visited the site and decreed that this was the rock that the pilgrims tied the Mayflower to when they landed, and pretty much declared it a historical artifact. So, basically he guessed. And I’ve grown up believing in the significance of “Plymouth Rock” when really…who knows?

I started getting a little worked up thinking about how what we assume is history may not be true, and that history can really just be a series of stories made up or adapted by the people who tell them. So what is true, really? 

Well, the cynic in me kind of enjoyed dwelling on that. But then Kate pointed out the sign by the rock.

I guess I wasn’t the only one with a bit of resentment about the fabrication of history, but this statement made me stop complaining. I looked around that beach and the surrounding land where the pilgrims landed, and did feel a sense of gratitude. Okay, it didn’t matter whether this rock was of any significance or not. The fact that was important is that they braved the journey, and that they stayed. The two previous American colonies were financial ventures, and they did not last. But this hardy group of people came for another purpose, and came with their families to find a new life. And I’m grateful they stayed.

(Photos by Kate.)

And it really is no bad thing to be founded on a rock. Happy Thanksgiving!

We’ve had a pretty busy couple of months. I’ve got a lot of posts to do about all the trips we crammed in during September and October, but before I finally launch into those over the next few days, I thought I’d start with documenting one of Addie’s current interests. Her ducks.

Addie generally loves her bath,  but only barely touches the toys I put in the tub with her (so why I keep putting them in there, I don’t know). She prefers to play with cups and blow bubbles and splash (who wouldn’t?). But one day she decided to gather up her ducks and hold them as tight as she could, like a big mama duck. She held on to them so tightly, she wouldn’t even let me take them when I tried to drain the tub. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

Then a few days later, Addie disappeared into the bathroom and was quiet for awhile. You’ll probably think I’m a bad mom for not worrying about her for awhile, but, you see, Addie has never had any interest in the toilet or toilet paper. I guess I knew she would eventually, but I wasn’t really prepared to find this when I went to check on her.

I guess she was trying to take care of them. Ducks do belong in the water, so she had that part right. She’s so dang adorable!

More posts coming!

Wow. I really am a failure of a blogger. Oh, well…here’s a (photo-heavy!) snapshot of our last couple of months:

Over the 4th of July, we had an impromptu reunion in San Diego with these guys:

(The whole Knight clan!)

Addie particularly enjoyed spending time with these guys:

(All the Knight grandkids!)

And Jesse enjoyed being with these guys:

(The Knight siblings.)

At the end of July, I left Addie with Jesse and my mom (thanks, guys!) to go on the Magical Mystery Tour of Northern California with these guys:

(Steven, Mike, Dan, Kato, and me at the Winchester Mystery House.)

We drove to San Jose in one car, stayed in one hotel room, and had a 4-day-long dose of crazy togetherness. We visited the Myster Spot…

And Capitola…

Along with the Winchester Mystery House and the Santa Cruz boardwalk (where we broke the log ride…you think I’m kidding). It was pretty much silliness start to finish, and the craziest part was that we weren’t sick of each other when it was over. I wonder if we’re growing up?

As for the star of the show, her summer has involved a lot of…

Swimmin’

Chillin’

Playin’

Campin’

Walkin’

Smilin’

Growin’

And drinkin’ (apparently).

I wish I could post all the other silly pictures I have of her, recently, but she seems to always have some of my underwear around her head or in her hands. She is getting so big, and is just busy, busy, BUSY all the time these days! She surprises me almost daily with the things she does, and is constantly making me laugh.

Maybe I won’t be such a slacker now, but no promises.

…well, a sheet actually.

Addie cracks me up with her thing for cloth. Not only does she LOVE her blanket (I now have two so I don’t have to deprive her of it every time it needs washing), but she loves the kitchen dishcloths, diaper wipes, washcloths (I always throw two in the tub to bathe her, one for her to play with, one for me to use…if she’ll let me have it), her old burp cloths, and now sheets, apparently. She likes to put them on her head and crawl around. Not kidding. One Sunday we were in church, and she had everyone around us cracking up because she was giddily playing with an old white burp cloth, and putting it on her head and crawling around like a ghost.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when she was playing in her room so quietly, and I walked in to find this:

She seriously makes me laugh almost every day. Another funny thing she’s taken to doing is to climb into her car seat when it’s sitting on the living room floor. She likes to climb in and just chill out. Or read a book. Whatever.

Addie turned one year old on Monday, May 25. That morning, since it was a holiday anyways, her daddy couldn’t wait for her to open her first present. She actually had a little fun herself with the wrapping paper!

Once it was put together, Addie had her own little stroller. Walking (with help, of course) is one of her absolute favorite things right now, so we’re hoping this toy will give her a little independence and help her on her way to being a true toddler!

That evening, we had my entire family and Aunt Heather over for a Memorial Day barbeque, followed by a little birthday party for everyone’s favorite little girl.

Birthday girl!

She got a lot of fun presents (benefit of being the first grandbaby/niece in the Sloan fam), but I think she loved the balloons the best.

Then, of course, we presented her with her own birthday cake to dig into. She wasn’t so sure at first…

But then she started digging in, and played with the funky feeling all over her hands…

And after a lot of destruction (and a lot of laughter by those of us watching), she finally decided to taste some…

I love how she got her little feet into the action, too.

What a fun birthday for such a cutie! She also got gifts from her Knight grandparents and her cousins, and got phone calls with birthday serenades. Thanks to our families for making her first birthday such a good one!

Exactly one year ago, Adelaide Elizabeth Knight was born.

I’ll post pictures of her birthday/Memorial Day barbeque party later, but for now, I’m in the mode of remembering last year…

Like I mentioned before, we waited a long time for her. People who have never experienced that kind of wait and frustration will never understand what that’s like, even if they’d like to sympathize. I had never considered myself “baby hungry”, and I didn’t always get excited about seeing other people’s babies, like most girls. But the personal struggle was hard, and Jesse and I felt like, as awesome as our life was (and it really was…looking back, I wouldn’t trade those first 4 ½ years for anything), something was definitely missing.

It was pretty surreal when I first found out. It was around our four-year wedding anniversary, and I got to give Jesse the best present ever: a little bib that said “I love Daddy.”

 From then on, pregnancy was easy and pleasant. (You think I’m lying, but I’m really not.) The day Addie was born was eventful and memorable, but not horrible, like I imagined. It was pleasant. I remember sitting in the hospital, the day we were getting ready to go home, and just crying, looking at her cute little face. I wondered if she would ever know how much she was wanted and wished for.

 The doctor stopped in to visit while I was getting my things together, and said, “Just be aware that people get sad after having babies. It’s normal.” I just smiled and said, “I’m sure we’ll be fine.” After all, pregnancy had been easy. Labor and delivery were, if not easy, not that hard. I seemed to handle hormonal changes with ease (nothing really whacks me out, almost ever). Everything had been easy.

The following weeks were not.

Addie cried a lot in her first couple of months of life. A lot. Suddenly, I cried a lot too. I didn’t know how to deal with life. I cried because Addie cried. I cried because I was frustrated. I cried because I didn’t get to sleep much. And sometimes, I even cried because I suddenly realized what I had given up, the life and freedom Jesse and I no longer had because of the tiny creature that I so often could not soothe.

My family was great during those weeks. One time, I almost started crying (in fact, I probably did) when my sister Kate came over and asked me how I was doing (not the baby, which everyone usually was concerned with) and how I was handling the changes. For some reason, I was resenting the fact that I didn’t really matter anymore, and I appreciated that Kate showed concern for me. (Not that no one else did, mind you, but “hormone-addled” is the best term I can come up with to describe how I felt during those weeks.)

But what started to save me was when a good neighbor stopped by (even though I didn’t really like seeing people for awhile) and commiserated about the post-partum experience. It started to dawn on me that I wasn’t broken or ungrateful. And what became a sort of lifeline for me was the darling girls in my “FTM” club (First-Time Moms). They helped me see that it would get better, that I wasn’t a bad mom, and offered the positive direction I didn’t really know I needed so badly. I don’t think those girls really know how much they saved me, and I don’t really think I ever said a proper thank you for it. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You know who you are.

I wouldn’t have known from Addie’s fussy beginnings that she would turn into the most perfect of perfect babies ever. From about two months on, she’s been nothing but a delight. She’s actually made it so easy (we’re back to that word!) on us, that we’re utterly spoiled.

We love her so much. I wouldn’t trade her and the experience of being her mom for all the trips to Paris in the world that you could throw at me.

So, Happy Birthday Adelaide!

Addie’s coming up on her first birthday, which makes me reminisce and reflect a bit about the past year. Bear with me, here…

When I got pregnant, it was an intensely personal experience. We had waited over three years, and when it finally happened, I wanted that not-small miracle to be a private experience for Jesse and me. I didn’t really feel like sharing it with just anyone, including all the random people you meet who seem to think that a pregnant woman’s body and health present an open forum for discussion and curiosity. I didn’t discuss pregnancy with hardly anyone, I didn’t show off my growing belly, and I tried as hard as I could to act as though nothing was different about me. I just wanted it to be a personal.

When our long-awaited baby arrived, I looked at her as Jesse’s and my daughter, as the first step to growing our own personal family. I knew our families were excited for her arrival as well, but I didn’t think much about it. In fact, the first Saturday we were home from the hospital, my mom called and asked if I needed her that day. I told her not to worry about it and not come over, because I was fine. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it alone, and that Addie and I were going to be fine just the two of us. (I’m sure I hurt my mom’s feelings that day, but I’m also sure she’s long since forgiven me for my hormone-addled behavior…those first few weeks were rough, but more on that another time.)

However, as the weeks, months, and even the year passed, I started to realize more and more that I (or we) never had to do it alone. Yes, she was my daughter, and Jesse’s daughter. Yes, she was the miracle that Heavenly Father had granted us. But when Adelaide Elizabeth Knight entered the world, she wasn’t just a gift for us.

She was also a gift to her grandparents.

A gift to her aunts and uncles.

And a gift to her cousins.

(Yes, there are people not represented in these photos, but these are just examples.)

This past year, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that she really is everyone’s baby, not just mine. I know Jesse and I have created our own little family now, but in a way it feels like Addie is simply another one of the group, and I love that. I’ve had more than enough help this past year, and it’s not because people love me (although, I’m sure they do), but because they adore her. I feel so blessed to have so many people who love “their” baby girl.

Apparently I suck at blogging. My excuse is that my memory card is full, and I have to borrow Jesse’s to take pictures. So I don’t.

Anyhow, here’s a funny Addie tidbit for you.

Adelaide loves to watch Toy Story (and Toy Story 2). You probably think I mean she likes the characters, but like any not-quite-year-old-baby should, she watches a little bit here and there.

Nope. She LOVES to watch Toy Story. That means start to finish. She has an unsettling concentration when it comes to watching Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Some mornings, when I need to get ready and I don’t really want her playing in the toilet while I shower, I’ll turn it on for her. One morning a couple of weeks ago, I documented her behavior every time I walked by.

And then Grandma shows up, and they finish watching it together.

Yep, start to finish. If I knew how to upload videos, I’d post the video I took of her playing in her room (pulling stuff out of her drawers to be exact), then I turned on Toy Story, and at the sound of the very opening music, she stopped, turned, and crawled like the wind so she could see Buzz and Woody. And when one of them shows up, she gets a big grin on her face.

Now, before you start thinking I’m a bad mom (and truthfully, I don’t really care if you do), I will say that the magic is in Toy Story (and 2) only. We’ve tried other Pixar movies (Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Wall-E, etc.), and although she gets all excited when she sees that little Pixar lamp at the beginning, once she notices it’s not Toy Story (and she notices immediately), she gives you a look that says, “Hey…what are you trying to pull here?”

We’re coming up on her birthday, and this past year seems to have flown. She’s got two little teeth now, and puts them to good use. She’s also into everything, and standing up to anything she can reach. And if she can’t reach it, she’ll knock it down. What a cutie.