We improvise

Here's Ian. He's almost nine months old. For the past week or so, he's been working on his top four teeth. The two in the center have poked, angled, nudged and maybe ripped through the gums. However they did it, it was painful. They're out and on their way to being fully installed baby teeth. He now enjoys grinding them audibly against his lower two teeth, making his mama cringe. The two upper incisors on each side of the center top two are still bulging painfully behind pink gums, stretched to white in places.

Ian and I are sitting in the car, in the garage this rainy morning. He has been fighting sleep for the past hour. I'm feeling under the weather with allergies and what might be the beginnings of arthritis--the symptoms seem to fit the description, anyway. Suffice it to say, neither Ian nor I are feeling our best today. 

We're sitting in the garage because after that hour of Ian fighting sleep, I decided to put him in the car and take a few things back to Target. Target is a 25-minute drive from our new place; it was 5 minutes or less from us before. There are ample upsides to this inconvenience, and I have no regrets.

So, I strapped a cranky Ian into his carseat, threw my purse/diaper bag in the front seat, went back into the house for a thing or two, came out, and sure enough, he was peacefully asleep. I started the engine, put the car in Reverse... then back to Park, then turned off the engine, rolled all the windows down and fetched the laptop. If he's going to sleep, I'm not going to waste that time and energy driving in the rain. I didn't really want to leave the house today anyway. I've had writer's block for a long time, and I thought I would dust off this blog and maybe another one I've neglected. There are four windows(!) and a lovely view from our garage, so much so that we might convert it to a den at some point.

Camping out in the front seat while Ian snoozes in the back reminds me of driving the girls around to get them to nod off when they were babies and toddlers. Sometimes I'd finally get them to sleep in the Starbuck's drive-thru, then park nearby, sip my coffee and read a book until they woke up. I took my breaks where I could get them, tried to extend the girls' naps where I could. It wasn't so bad. I'd roll down the windows, sniff the breeze and enjoy watching the swaying leaves and whatever was blooming in the parking lot medians. Was it exactly what I wanted or needed to do? No, but it was good enough. We improvised. I wasn't being productive, I was taking a break, and that was nice. I could see the girls' sweet little angel faces every time I glanced in the mirror or turned around.

Rachel

Natalie

These days, unless we're on a long road trip, Natalie doesn't sleep in the car. Rachel will still catch a catnap in the car, quite intentionally sometimes. She usually wakes up miffed about waking up.

At this moment, Natalie is in Kindergarten, and Rachel is in preschool. I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and piles of laundry to do. There are messes in need of tidying in almost every room. I am sitting with a peacefully sleeping baby in the car, in the garage, and that's okay with me.