Less than Twelve Parsecs

We spent the last day of 2019 sledding down Snowmans Hill Summit   at Mt. Shasta. Fae was a sweet heart and came along and napped the entire time, trying to grow into her giant outfit: Happy New Year everyone!!! Here's some more glimpses of our day: Mara and her tiny but well proportioned snow man: Gorgeously tall trees all around, compared to Greg and the kids: Boys going down the hill: Mara on her own: And the beautiful human-size nutcracker at our resort - photo taken by Mara:

There's nothing sweeter that a sleeping baby in your arms. That gentle warmth that builds up between your body and theirs. How she sprawls her body onto yours in a feeling of complete abandon, going utterly limp, arms akimbo.  She gives you the gift of half a giggle in her sleep - not a full one, mind you, because her dream has already moved onto a dreamier land. And you smile and try to imagine: what would a baby really dream of? And you dream along with her... In those moments you realize that she trusts you completely, to care for her and protect her into eternity. And you realize you will, with all your power and for as long as you possibly can. I guess that's why they call it Baby Bonding .

Fae has started sleeping better! 4-5 hour stretches at night, for the past three nights. The first night I thought it a happy fluke. On the second, my body got excited about going out of sleep depravation and tried to get in a bunch of REM episodes, but I kept getting woken up. Each time, I would check the baby but it hadn't been her, so I'd groggily lie back down, yet it would happen again, and again. By 6am I see the door slightly moving and realize it had been Greg all along waking me, not Fae. I go out to find him dejectedly lying down in the shower, having gone through an extremely tough episode of food poisoning :-(. We let him recover yesterday - he needed it badly. And it gave me the opportunity for some quality time with all three kids! The third night - last night - Fae stayed true to plan: 5 hours, then two 3 hour sleep cycles! Jackpot - I got sleep too!  I woke up with Gaius running in the bedroom at 7:30am to tell me that "my chocolates were ...