...doing lots of spring cleaning, lots of walking, some writing, and of course, tons of baby entertaining.
Some officials from the local council came around yesterday and made suitably grim noises at the state of our balcony/yard. The bad neighbors are continuing to let their dog roam free, and it's cleverly found a way into yet another neighbor's yard to wreak destruction. Our downstairs neighbor has had all of his flowerpots upended and dug out. I'm hoping it's only a matter of time before something's done about it.
Meanwhile, life continues as usual. Elijah and I are off to our usual baby singing group tomorrow at the library, where we've made some friends. Speaking of friends, the baby in the above picture is nearly 2 months younger than him, and is the daughter of our friends in N. London. Isn't she a cutie?
For some reason, the UK holds Mother's Day earlier than the US. B took me out to lunch at the cafe on the Common. We had a nice long walk while the baby had a good doze.
Here's a photo of me (one I deem worthy of posting). Elijah is looking very serious, but he was concentrating on swapping the spoon from one hand to the other. That's serious business, you know. Shortly afterward, he was all smiles like usual.
Also, thank you to everyone who emailed and wrote about my mom. It was so nice to hear how she affected everyone and the stories people remember!
On a different note, we continue to have neighbor problems. I don't want to write in-depth about it because a) it's depressing b) it's infuriating and c) it's an ongoing issue with potential legal ramifications.
To sum it up, we have 3 sets of neighbors in our immediate area (our building is 4 converted flats/apartments). Unfortunately, the neighbors to our left have been problematic in terms of loud (bass) music for about a year and a half now. They're social tenants (think Section 8/welfare if you're confused) so we and others have been complaining to the relevant authorities.
The latest annoyance is their acquisition of a pit bull mix in January which they've been letting run wild. There's no fence in between our yard and theirs, so our yard is completely trashed right now. Our flowerpots are broken as well, and nobody bothers to clean up after the animal whatsoever. To make matters worse, the neighbors keep trash in their back yard/balcony which the dog drags around.
So... rather unhygienic situation, and potentially dangerous, since when I was out in the yard this afternoon I was nipped and jumped upon. Typical behavior from an adolescent puppy - I'm not complaining. But what if I'd been out there with the baby?
The end of February is always difficult. Lots of painful memories. Usually, the key is concentrating on the good memories, focusing on the positive. This year, with the baby involved, I can't help but wonder what my mom would have thought of him. It's not so much the remembered pain of the loss as the what-ifs and might-have-beens that get me. That, and being 5,000 miles away from the family and friends I grew up with make things a bit more difficult.
I've been doing quite a lot of thinking... thinking about what she would have said about Elijah's blond hair (man, she would be tickled at that. A first child, on our side of the family, having blond hair?), or what she would have thought of his name, or how she would have absolutely loved his cheerful personality and ready laughter.
I'm no good at voluntarily displaying public emotion. I mostly keep it bottled up, hidden away. But I thought it would be good to get how I feel about this anniversary out in the open, kinda remove the elephant in the room and make sure she's remembered properly. Especially since I know most of you out there have a lot of memories too.
Several folks have made some requests fairly recently, so this update is for you!
For Jean-A and Hannah Pearl:
I couldn't get one of him smiling, sorry! He's way too interested in the camera. But he loves that elephant!
For those random people asking about a video* update:
I got him doing his gobbledygook babbling. It's new, and it's awesome. He gets a bit frustrated at the end there, mostly because the things he's waving don't make any cool smashing or jingling sounds when he shakes them. The "kkh" sounds in the middle are because he's noticed the camera and wants to make friends with it. Seriously, he goes "kkh" or "kee" quite a bit when he's feeling curious and friendly. It's super cute.
For "Realma" in WA:
Elijah was a bit over 4 months when we took this. He looks poleaxed but was smiley the rest of the time, honestly.
He's such a cheerful kid that I'm actually getting a bit of a reputation around the area as the mother with the baby who always smiles. Seriously, I saw three women I know when I was out today and they all commented.
Speaking of which, we've all got this informal coffee chat thing going once a week. It's nice. Doubly nice because we actually talk about something other than our babies. Triply nice because nobody is hyperfocusing on the babies. It's like, wow, maybe I'm still human after all, with normal interests.
Also, just a quick note: Some emails are being auto-sent to my spam folder (again!). This is doubly annoying when I get an email that looks legit and turns out to be some sort of ad for purple dinosaur hooves or something, and it's NOT in my spam folder while something legit IS! So if I've not responded, send again, maybe with a crazy title or something.**
Right, off to bed! If I'm lucky I'll get four hours straight!
*I might remove the videos from YouTube at some point but I'll leave them up for awhile longer - just a bit concerned about privacy issues, but that's a whole other post - one I'll leave til later!
**Bruno and I both agree that the best spam email title we've ever seen is Collective Octopus.
Meanwhile, life continues as usual. Elijah and I are off to our usual baby singing group tomorrow at the library, where we've made some friends. Speaking of friends, the baby in the above picture is nearly 2 months younger than him, and is the daughter of our friends in N. London. Isn't she a cutie?
