After laundry, a few quiet family visits to meet the baby, and some lovely dinners at home just the 3 of us, we’re off to family dinner! It’s beautiful and sunny on the East side, which means we’ve had a blissful couple of days watching families play in the park and sitting on our porch in the shade (letting Tess get used to the great outdoors with no people). I don’t think I could’ve dreamt up a nicer few days of settling in.

Tess is doing well with the mixed versus prepared formula and the new
bottles. Our little afficionado will only eat from Dr. Brown’s apparently! Sometimes she likes tummy time, and sometime she cries til we can’t stand it anymore and scoop her up. She’s practicing all kinds of sounds and faces, which cracks us up most of the time. It’s less funny at 2am that one would imagine.

Having Tess in the nursery, in the kitchen, all over the house is amazing. It’s not a baby explosion – we’re trying to keep the gear under control – but it’s this joyful presence of our daughter in every room. I guess what I’m saying is right now we’re all bliss and gratitude.

Despite the no touching rule, family dinner is all that and a bag of chips. We got to introduce Tess to Erlachers (quasi aunt/uncle/cousins), Adam and Brigid (actual aunt/uncle), and reinforce that just because Grace can’t touch her doesn’t mean Tess isn’t fun. 🙂 We felt like a million bucks sitting on the patio the way we always do and enjoying family.

Tomorrow reality hits: back to work! Real life will wash in and absorb our new family member. But these few days of pause have really been peaceful and have finally let us absorb the reality of our parenthood. And family dinner? The crowning glory. 🙂