Welcome to toast & cereal

The Telephone Room

If you're in T-Town tomorrow night, stop by the opening of the new Telephone Room gallery. I'm part of its inaugural exhibition.

"The Telephone Room is the world's second-smallest (hello Tollbooth!) art gallery at 12 ½ square feet. It is located in a Dutch Colonial home (3710 N 7th Street, Tacoma - between Union and Proctor) in Tacoma and since 1930, its sole purpose has been to house a black rotary dial telephone. Until now...

My world of spit up

Since my day and my clothes are both full of spit up, I offer these thoughts on the subject:

• It smells really bad. Angie warned me, and I did not believe her, but it stinks, even when dry. I thought we had a lot of burp rags, but there are somehow never enough clean ones.
• There is a lot of it. Turns out Viola has a touch of the old acid reflux, confirmed by her pediatrician yesterday. One or both of the sphincter muscles in her esophagus is immature, so lots of her meals come back up to greet us. Joe gets the gold medal for receiving a load inside his sweatshirt and in his slipper, which he subsequently stepped into, both in one night.

My last View from the Hilltop Post

After months of procrastination, I am finally ready to invite you to the new website: Toast and Cereal. The new site will still have all the Jess you want, but with some added Joe, too. And of course, more Viola than the recommended daily allowance. This will be my last post here, so see you over there!

Walking around with Viola

Viola is obsessed with walking around especially around midnight in order to maintain calm and stability.

I'm too tired to be writing this

According to Viola, the world is about to end every night around 9:00. Then, around 2 am, she changes her mind and decides everything's ok. At least, that's how I interpret the look of utter desperation on her face as she screams and cries inconsolably during these hours.

And yet we, her parents, continue the nightly farce of "going to bed" by doing such ridiculous things as changing into bedclothes, brushing our teeth, and turning out the lights. As if we were going to actually sleep - and sleep together, at the same time - like we used to before we had a newborn. Instead, we take turns with the little girl, applying myriad interventions which sometimes work for up to 10 minutes at a time. Last night after exhausting my lullaby songbook (Sweet Child O' Mine; 4 + 20 by Crosby Stills Nash & Young) I saw limited success with walking really fast and jiggling the outward-facing baby around the house. She paused with tear-stained cheeks and stared at the scenery, but she was no closer to sleeping. Swaddle, unswaddle, swing, rock, bounce, sing, shoosh, feed, hold, put down...tonight we will try adding bath and massage, and see if that buys us an hour of positive outlook.

On the other side of the coin, Viola was her sweet self during her first sponge bath:

Her umbilical cord stump fell off today, so we are free to bathe her in water now. Speaking of which, the time is nigh...

I’m too tired to be writing this

According to Viola, the world is about to end every night around 9:00. Then, around 2 am, she changes her mind and decides everything’s ok. At least, that’s how I interpret the look of utter desperation on her face as she screams and cries inconsolably during these hours.

Viola's first Sunday

Last Sunday around 6:30 am, I was sitting at my kitchen table, nearly 40 weeks pregnant and waiting for my contractions to start. I was eating a rosemary-cheddar scone (which I made with the fresh buttermilk leftover from making butter) with a fried egg and reading the New York Times. Our midwife and her assistants were just waking up from spending the night on our futon and couch; she commented that the whole breakfast scene was very civilized.

Today around 6:30 am, I was again sitting at my kitchen table eating a rosemary-cheddar scone with a fried egg and reading the New York Times. Only this time, I was holding the baby in my arms instead of willing her to come out of my belly. What an eventful week!

Viola wishes you all a very happy 2009.

Viola’s first Sunday

Last Sunday around 6:30 am, I was sitting at my kitchen table, nearly 40 weeks pregnant and waiting for my contractions to start. I was eating a rosemary-cheddar scone (which I made with the fresh buttermilk leftover from making butter) with a fried egg and reading the New York Times. Our midwife and her assistants were just waking up from spending the night on our futon and couch; she commented that the whole breakfast scene was very civilized.

Viola 5 days

Announcing!

Our little girl came to join us on Monday, Dec. 29th - on her due date! - at 2:34 am.

She is minutes old here, on our bed, with the caring hands of Joe and our midwife. She is laying on a receiving blanket from Joe's infancy.

We named her Viola Irene Balsam Miller - Viola is pronounced like the instrument. Irene is the middle name of both of our maternal grandmothers.

Today is her 5th day of life and I think I am more in love with her every day.

Here she is today after gorging on lunch, the remains of which you can see around her mouth. Needless to say, she has had about 1,000 pictures taken of her already.

Much more to say later!