Saturday, October 18, 2008

Flying



Life with Amos is flying by! Another month has passed since I've written here and it seems like last week that I wrote that last post. The good days keep coming and each day is even better than the one before. Amos' smiles keep getting bigger and come all the time now. Brent can get him to laugh, the sweetest sound this musician has ever heard. He knows us and even turns to the sound of our voices. The first couple months, because of all the pain ad physical problems I kept having, I would sometimes secretly wonder why people do all this, but I get it now. :) I'm still in pain, but I still get it. How he loves to hang onto my fingers or a lock of my hair while I'm feeding him, how when he awakes he starts looking for me and smiles as soon as he finds me, how he loves to watch his airplane mobile even if he has to turn his body almost upside down to see it, and just how I think he's starting to know how much we love him and I think love us back, I love it all and it's flying by too fast!

Speaking of flying, the crazy Dickinson's took a wonderful trip to California earlier this month. Amos was a star flyer, with our row mate commenting that he was better behaved than most adults she's flown alongside. It was a whirlwind tour of southern CA for Brent's promotional arm of work he does at NYCAMS. I love being in California so much, just looking out the window makes me a gleeful lady with all her cares left behind. I always say, "people live like this? Like their normal day includes that beach and mountainous vista?" and of course "...so why don't we live like this? Greenpoint isn't so green you know... and Coney Island beach doesn't count..." ;) And we were able to spend good times with our old friends from NYC, the Bauers, Hales and Albaneses. All are doing well of course, for everyone does well in CA right? Don't worry too much, I'm an east coast girl more than I'll admit. I found it pretty funny the two times professors we met mentioned how "fall-like" it felt to them that particular day. It's subtle of course they said, but different somehow. Hee, hee I'm enjoying the not-so-subtle fire orange trees and acorns on our street today very much and would certainly miss it as soon as I didn't have it.
We visited a school on cliffs overlooking a world class shore break (yes, we did climb down the cliffs with the baby, I just had to get close!) We wondered how anyone could get work down with all the good surfing around (all the art professors surf of course) B grew up surfing the Jersey shore where John Bauer learned right there at Point Loma, same but very different!
Then we were off to Santa Barbara, a gorgeous city that we only had time to see from the car window and went to a magical campus in the foothills. We kept catching ourselves whispering there, it felt more like a yoga retreat than a college.
We stayed right near Venice Beach for a few of our days spent in LA. It's like the East Village and Baywatch combined, and I loved it. Amos kept being asleep every time we would show him the ocean, but he got a good look at it early on our last morning there. Here are the boys as we headed there (glasses didn't last long, but we tried!)
I'm excited for the days (which amaingly are not far off) when we can run around on the sand and waves together.




Now we're home and after a week of flu which I got on the tail end of the trip (sorry Hale's I hope I didn't leave that as a parting gift) we are getting better and better at this mommy/work from home adventure. I still have very late nights sending work related emails, but a bit more happens during normal working hours, and on really good days I get a load of laundry and a balanced meal too. The little boys (Doug included) and I have taken to long walks in the mornings. It's good for Doug's and mommy's waistline and Amos loves taking the world in and then drifting off for a long nap. Fall is perfect pug weather (they can finally breathe!) so we've been having a good time. Doug has gotten used to his little brother now. On our walks he proudly (and over protectantly (not a word? well it should be!)) strides beside us and at home the other day I caught him whining next to sleeping Amos asking him to hold his bone for him. too funny!
Brent is being the most super dad, vollying from work, to baby, to studio, to baby. He and his boy are becoming best buddies. We went to our childbirth class reunion last week to see that sigh, yes, I was the only c-section, but also to see that Amos definitely is still winning the size and cheeks category! The babies were nice to see, but even more amazing was seeing all the mother's faces back to themselves. Some women looked very different! Seems I was one of those (I knew B was being too kind when he kept assuring me my face hadn't gotten fat!)

Well, I'm off now for what will be another month I'm sure (it just takes so long to type one-handed!). Amos will be baptized next Sunday. I never thought I would be one of those couples up front with their baby, but here we go taking the plunge, er little head drizzle since it's PCA. :) God has given us a good little guy, ans we commit that little guy to God. so cool.