being here

friends, big and small

Zoralee loves the window. She watches cars, bikers, and joggers go by, the two dogs next door, and the schoolchildren on the playground at recess. Right now she’s watching a landscape crew replace our fence. My sister made mention that this was a happy thought, Zoralee being entertained by the goings on outside, but also sad to think that her previous window experiences were so measly – a great big meadow of very little excitement.

Our rhythms here are already so different. No chickens, no horses, no wild turkeys or deer roaming through each day. No animal life, per say, to derive context from. We can only see a patch of sky, instead of the weather coming from miles away. It's ironic, since we're in Alaska, the last frontier, but we live downtown in Alaska's largest city, something we always thought would be fun to do. We can see the wilderness, to be sure. The mountains are already covered in snow, tall and wild. But at our house, we hear traffic, the voices of walking companions, and every couple of hours, the screams of playing, teasing, energetic children. We are loving to see our family and long time friends again.

Our closest neighbors are a couple that Jason went to school with before. They’ve already given us some carrots, squash, and potatoes from their greenhouse! Our kitchen window looks directly into theirs. Like the guy said, at first it’ll be awkward catching each other’s eyes, but, we’ll just waive and go about things, and pretty soon we won’t even think about it. Zoralee, in fact, has already waived at them. Jason feels he has to throw on a shirt to get a snack though, and I’ll have to be cognoscente of where in the house I am talking to myself; they’re close enough to know I’m not wearing a Bluetooth. Gets you remembering how funny it is that we all live in these house bubbles, peeking into each other’s lives through neat, silent, two by three feet squares.

the plane trip up

One week ago, I was frantically running about the house in hopes of making that day's flight out. With some extra babysitting by my folks and cutting a few corners (to where now my mom is mailing us a box of forgotten tidbits), we made it to the airport. I was one of those dreaded non-rev passengers who shows up at the very last minute with too heavy of luggage, has to repack at the counter, forgets to tell them about the baby, and has to run back to the car and get the car seat to check. I remember those inconsiderate passengers when I worked for the airline.

Mostly, Zoralee did great flying. She nursed contentedly on take offs and landings for both flights. While they were revving the big jet’s engines for take off from Seattle, her eyes got round and confused, but she kept drinking. And when we our tires hit the ground in Anchorage, everything started shaking, including her head and my boob in her mouth. Very funny. I would've shouted for everybody to come see, but for the darned seat belt sign.

She was a ball of energy the entire time, other than a small nap in the Ergo that started in the Seattle airport while we waited to board and ended while we were on the taxiway. Otherwise, she needed to be entertained. We went from one activity to another, and it was great when something lasted on the order of minutes. I was utterly exhausted and my neck and back really tight by the time we hit Anchorage, from the combination of keeping her busy and worrying she’d be a nuisance to people.

Two best parts:

David met me at the Seattle airport! He drove there from Portland, on his out-of-the-way back to Montana, just to hang for our 2 hour layover. The guard, of course, wouldn’t let me hand Z off to him while I went back for food, so we talked on cell phones from opposite sides of the security hallway, looking at each other, the guard between us, making our meal plans, because we wanted something from inside of security while I was there. When we did meet up, David chased Zoralee around while I scarfed a fish taco and fries. We wondered what could be going through Zoralee’s mind, to all of a sudden see Uncle Dave in a totally bizarre environment, and then we get on another machine and fly away.

Zoralee was the most attentive passenger during the flight attendants’ presentation. She sat on my lap, facing forward, and her little head poked out into the aisle to watch this strange lady pointing and waiving and carrying on. She must've thought, “Now this is some sign language, Mom. You need to get with the program.”

In closing, here are some great tips for flying with a kidlet that Sonja had sent me ahead of time. She had just made a long flight herself with their first baby. I followed all of them except the night flight thing, since Zoralee is - - cough, cough, ha ha ha ha ha, ohhhh man - - NOT a good sleeper.

1. Beg, plead and bat your eyelashes so you can get an open seat next to you - otherwise, plan to make quick friends with the person next to you because she'll probably kick them, grab them, or pull their hair if she's anything like Tate!
2. Unveil a brand new toy on the plane.
3. If possible and Zora's a good sleeper, schedule a night flight - I did that and Tate slept through most of it.
4. If you're still nursing, dress so you can easily nurse for comfort from ear pain and/or bring her favorite sippy.
5. Don't bring much - it's a pain to haul everything around.
6. Bring lots of snacks for you - you'll be exhausted!

last month in Montana

I just can't move on so quickly without first throwing on a few pics from our last month in Montana.

helping Grandpa to really stuff in the hunting supplies

My mom thought Z's first trip to Walmart was just hysterical.

She took pics, phone pics, video. Crazy Grandma.

a relaxing summer's evening on Flathead Lake with Kristi and Brent

Z and the wii

getting familiar with Alaska friends

This one's from more than a month ago, but I have to post it.

Jese, Nikki, Nya, and Brette, we miss you and the gang!

Seared into my memory is also the image of Justin and Alex standing by the wood stove, looking down at Zoralee and Brette on the living room side of the baby boundary. It was a precious sight, two grown men taking time to say goodbye to a couple of little boogers.

These are also from earlier in the summer,

but they come to mind when I think of Montana.

Sunday Swirl

we're in Anchorage

Welp, we're here!

You can see by the lack of blogging or responding to emails that my attempts at accessing the internet have been Denied with a capital D. We have none at our house, but otherwise, we have the ideal short-term housing set up, so yay for that! One day I walked a mile and a half round trip downtown, Zoralee strapped to my back, and the computer backpack on my front. I was overcharged for a very simple beverage, had the computer refuse and refuse to connect to internet because the battery is shot, finally got it to connect and needed a password, got the password, computer died, Zoralee woke up and got grouchy, switched to a table near a plug-in, had the building fire alarm go off and the workers start evacuating us, alarm quit mid-pack-up and the evacuation was called to a halt, Zoralee wanted to crawl but the floor was filthy so she threw back-arching fits, received real or imagined looks of understanding as well as vibes of frustration from fellow customers, packed up and walked home.

But to put it in perspective, this weekend I also attended a presentation by a midwife who was discussing birth and death rates among the most impoverished people of the Philippines that she works with, and she casually mentioned events in her life like the ferry she was riding capsizing, and floating around in the sea awaiting rescue, and getting to shore only to be directed by uniformed personnel saying, "Survivors, this way..." I am horrid at remembering statistics, but that presentation was eye-opening and saddening. We take a lot for granted, you know, living in a culture that has a basic respect for women and children. In many places, the women eat last, even pregnant ones, which means they don't get enough. Many don't have a single soul looking out for their health, and they're expected to birth in squalid conditions, often on their own or with very marginal help. They die. The babies die from lack of very simple actions like cutting the umbilical cords with a clean knife or wrapping up the babies to keep warm, or feeding them pretty soon! So, women like Vicky Penwell are going all Mother Teresa on their asses.

Anyway! Now I am at Border's, and Z has just fallen asleep on me, so I can finally post some pics and blogs I wrote up ahead of time.