My dear friend and photographer extraordinaire Jenn generously offered to take some family photos of us in front of our house before we leave. You can see for yourself how beautiful they turned out. At least someone is blogging about the WJs!

So, what are these big decisions and major life changes? First, I’ve tendered my resignation at Womanspace, where I have worked as a counselor/advocate (and most recently as the program coordinator for Counseling and Support Services) for the past 8 years. And second, we’ve decided to move to Brooklyn.

I loved my job and almost everything about it: my fantastic coworkers who are like family to me and my amazing clients, whose strength and resolve inspire me to be a better, more grateful person. I feel absolutely privileged that I got to be part of so many women’s (and a few men’s) journeys towards safer, healthier, more fulfilled lives. I think there is no greater gift than to be a major catalyst for someone healing from the trauma domestic violence and/or sexual assault. I had the honor of working with some clients for years as they went from having zero self-esteem, zero hope, zero resources and zero support systems to living rich, full lives free from abuse. But it is time for me to stop. The thick skin I developed over 8 years (a thick skin is the only way to stay sane in my line of work) got stripped away while I was on maternity leave with Miranda. When I went back to work, each story I heard sounded more horrific than the last. Call it vicarious trauma, call it compassion fatigue, or call it burn out….all I know is that I am ready to take a break from this work.

Womanspace crew At the baby shower they threw me before Miranda was born.
Susan, Amarilys, Ellen, Alana, Christine, Martina, me, Abby (with sleeping Annabelle)

More than that, I’m ready to spend more quality time with Natalie and Miranda. Working full time with one child is hard enough, but with two I really didn’t feel like I was spending enough time with either of them. Mornings were a rush of getting everyone dressed, packed up, and out the door. Evenings were a rush of getting dinner made, eating, and getting ready for bed. I’m looking forward to slowing down and having the luxury of playing, reading, and just being with the girls.

Sisters Really, who wouldn’t want to spend more time with these two?

Once I made the decision to quit my job and try my hand at stay-at-home-mothering for a while, the decision to move to Brooklyn was a no-brainer. Chris has been commuting about 4 hours a day into Manhattan for almost the past 5 years. Chris, of course, never complains, but I’ve often bitterly complained about the amount of time the commute takes away from our time together as a family. Recently, NJ Transit increased their rates, which pushed our commuting costs to over $500 a month. And lately, the trains have been subject to major delays (i.e. over an hour or sometimes as long as 4 hours) more often than usual. Moving to Brooklyn has been a lofty idea we’ve toyed with for a long time. Now that my time at Womanspace will be over as of August 20th, moving to Brooklyn became a realistic option.

So… we made it a reality! Since the last time I updated this blog, we’ve found a renter for our house and signed a lease on an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Our new place is on 12th Street, a beautifully tree-lined street with picturesque brick and stone buildings. We will be half a block from Prospect Park and it’s Harmony Playground. We will be 2 blocks from a highly-rated elementary school, P.S. 107, John W. Kimball.

New Home: Park Slope

So in moving to Brooklyn, we are basically trading space for time. It seems odd, as most of our peers are moving into bigger houses, that we are choosing to move from our 3-bedroom home to a 2 bedroom apartment with approximately half as much space. But we are actually relishing the opportunity to rid ourselves of excess stuff and live a simpler, less-cluttered, and hopefully, happier life. Because in reality, it is not our spacious house or the stuff we put in it that makes us happy. What makes us happy is to spend time together as a family.

In addition to reducing Chris’ commuting time and our commuting costs, living in an apartment will afford us more time to spend together in general. Weekends can be spent visiting museums, parks, zoos, and all the other great things NYC has to offer, because we will have less space and 1 fewer bathroom to keep clean. Although I will miss my garden and am sad to leave it after all the work we’ve put into it, its maintenance was a drain on our time and wallets.

Finally, we are confident that Brooklyn will be a fine place to raise our girls. There’s nothing wrong with New Jersey, of course, and we love our house and town, but Brooklyn has certain advantages that cannot be found in our current location. We are hoping to immerse the girls in more diversity, more art, and more music. We are thrilled about being able to instill the values of city-living (i.e. walking not driving, having less stuff, befriending different kinds of people, etc) in Natalie and Miranda.

Although we are sad to be further away from our parents and friends, we will be moving closer to numerous family and friends who live in Brooklyn. Since I will be a stay-at-home-mom, I will have lots of time on my hands to drive to NJ for visits. Certainly we do not intend to lessen the time that Natalie and Miranda get to spend with their awesome grandparents. And we just rented our house for a year. If we find that city living isn’t for us, there’s always the option of moving back!

We joined a volunteer-led tour of the farm with one other family and literally we were the only ones there. Felicia, the volunteer farmer, told us that Mother’s Day is always packed and Father’s Day is always deserted at Howell. Weird. Although we are regulars at the farm, we’ve never actually gone on a tour before. The tour was amazing! I think the volunteer was happy to have some company and took Natalie around to do all sorts of cool farm chores that we don’t normally have access to. The girls were troopers at the farm, despite the 90 degree heat and being hungry. Unfortunately, when we got home they were both pretty worn out and cranky. I wonder how old they will be when they are able to accomplish not giving Chris any grief on Father’s Day?
Natalie and Daddy model their crowns Natalie decorated a crown for Chris for Father’s Day. Off course then she wanted one, too!
Natalie with her crown
Miranda jumping Our friend Joanne was kind enough to hand down this jumper to Miranda!
Visiting the horses
Pigs in mud
Natalie with Felicia the farmer
Collecting farm fresh eggs
Volunteer farmer shows Natalie how it’s done
Natalie and Daddy scrape feed corn off the cob
Natalie helps grind corn
Natalie turns the crank
Natalie looks at the ground corn
Natalie feeds her corn to the chicks
Pumping water
Natalie gives water to Blaze the 30 year old horse And he spits it right back at her!
Funny faces Most times this is the only way that Natalie will "pose" for pictures these days.
Miranda’s First Father’s Day III
Family Portrait Kids not smiling, of course!
Smily baby Miranda getting her diaper AND outfit changed outside yet again.
Lamb Grazing
Miranda’s First Father’s Day II
Miranda’s First Father’s Day I

Happy 4 Months Miranda!

On the day Miranda turned 4 months old, I put her down in the playroom on her back. When I came back in the room, she had rolled onto her tummy and was looking quite proud of herself, as you can see in the photo above. Miranda has also discovered her feet and loves to grab them when she’s laying on her back. Sometimes she’s successful in getting her toes into her mouth!

At 4 months old, Miranda is a joy. She’s happy to play with toys, ride in her stroller, or hang out in the beco. She’s waking up a little more often at night, courtesy of the 4 month sleep regression, but is consistently sleeping in her crib for naps and at night. Miranda loves her big sister, as evidenced by her wide grins when she sees Natalie.

Miranda is happy nearly all of time—even today after having four shots, she was only mildly fussy. Traveling in the car is improving. The one frustrating thing is that she has learned to pull her binky out of her mouth. She’s working on it, but still doesn’t have the hand-eye coordination to put it back in. I suspect that once she master’s that, we can stop swaddling her for sleep.

We took her to the doctor today for her 4 month check up. The doctor says she’s doing great. Miranda is now:

26.5 inches (97%)
15 pounds, 1 ounce (90%)

When I spoke to the owner before signing her up for the class, I was impressed with their philosophy. He said at this age they are looking for the kids to learn how to take a class, by listening to the teacher and taking turns with the other kids, and gain confidence in being in a new environment. The gymnastics skills are the vehicle through which those goals are achieved. The class also helps kids build gross motor skills.

I’ve been impressed with the teacher, Miss Janette, who is so patient and kind with the kids. Not only does she help break down the skills into easily learned pieces, but she encourages the kids to challenge themselves. At the end of the class, Miss Janette asks the kids to tell his or her parent what their favorite part of the class was. Then the kids all high-five each other, the parents, and their teacher. It’s super cute.

Natalie LOVED it from the moment we walked into the big gym. There’s never been a skill or new activity she hasn’t enthusiastically participated in. She occasionally gets frustrated when she cannot do something perfect immediately, so I am thrilled that the class is helping her learn to be patient and practice. I love watching how proud she is of herself when her hard work and practice results in her accomplishing a new trick.

One of the skills was to jump with both knees together onto the vault. Natalie had trouble getting her knees to stay together, so she practiced over and over again, using our couch as her personal vault. When she could do it well, she was so excited to show her teacher, Miss Janette. When it was her turn on the vault, she held up the line to be sure that her teacher saw her, shouting, “Miss Janette, Miss Janette, WATCH THIS!!!!!”

Now Natalie is more than ready to graduate to the kids only class, and once I go back to work Meema and PopPop will take her to class each week. Luckily I took this video that I can watch since I won’t get to watch her doing gymnastics live each week. The video shows off Natalie’s gym skills, as well as my lack of steady-camera skills!

A lot of friends have season passes to Six Flags Great Adventure and I wanted to go with them once before I return to work next week. Since I get motion sick, other moms (and dad) were gracious enough to take Natalie on the rides that she couldn’t go on by herself. Although amusement parks are not my favorite, Natalie and I had such a great time with our friends that I’m sad that my work schedule will prevent us from joining in on the weekly great adventure outings!
Natalie and Mama Ready for fun!
Amy & Jen Jen was nice enough to give me her "bring a friend free" coupons so I didn’t have to pay admission!!
Natalie and MacKenzie
Miranda and Mama Luckily, Chad had this extra hat in his diaper bag to lend us….I pulled Miranda’s hat out of our diaper bag and it was covered in mysterious brown spots.
Big Red Car Maya, Robert, Nick, and Natalie
Bouncy ride
Balloon Ride
Chad, Laurel, and Natalie ride the airplanes
Peyton, Maya, Heather, Jill, and Cameron
Caryn and Gabe
Brenda and Liam
Jenn & Ben
Jill and Natlie Getting their groove on the wiggles show
Joanne, Alex, Jill, and Cameron
Amy & Jenn
With the wiggles guys Natalie, Robert, Olivia, Ryan, and MacKenzie
Natalie and Olivia
Friends Nick, Natalie, Olivia, Laurel
Andrea rockin’ out! She says, "how can anyone not dance to the shimmy-shake??"
Cooling off
Charlie
Natalie and Olivia

* We’ve named the group Marvelous Moms, and a Dad named Chad. Cause we’re cheesy like that!

Before we left we debated about whether or not to go. I took Natalie to the pediatrician to make sure she didn’t have any infections as she’d been running a fever for two days. But she was eating, drinking, and sleeping fine, and pretty much acting normal. The doctor said it was just a virus, so we decided to chance it. Of course in retrospect, that was a big mistake. Almost as soon as we got to the campsite, Natalie became fragile, clingy, and cranky. Any little problem set her off. She wanted to be held all the time. She had trouble sleeping*. A few times, twice at 4:30 am, she had complete, utter meltdowns that took her a very long time to recover from. She started picking at her chapped lips so much that they cracked and bled, which incited more meltdowns. Whenever she cried, her nose ran, which made her cry even harder, which made her nose run more—you see the problem. She often melted down upon waking up, which we realized was because she had to pee, but felt too tired to walk to the bathrooms. We bought a potty for her to use in the tent, but she didn’t always want to do that.

At one point, after a particularly bad meltdown, Natalie wanted mommy-and-only-mommy, and Miranda needed to nurse. Since Miranda is very easy to soothe and hasn’t yet gotten into a bad cycle of continuing-to-be-upset-as-a-result-of-being-upset, Chris held Miranda off while I tried to calm Natalie down. At a certain point, I had to feed Miranda, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t meet both of their needs at once. Natalie was still upset when I got to Miranda, and at that point, Miranda was as upset as she’s ever gotten. She nursed, but stopped every minute or so to scream at me for making her wait so long. When both girls were finally calm I felt like sobbing. I felt like I could *almost* imagine what my friend Lindsay, who has a girl Natalie’s age and triplet 10-month-old boys, must face multiple times a day. At this age, and even in that situation, the girls’ needs are pretty simple. And yet at that moment mothering them felt like an overwhelming responsibility.

Another thing we learned (although we already knew!) is that we have amazing friends. If Jodi and Jay hadn’t been there to support us, we never would have attempted, or made it through the trip. And the girls are so comfortable with them that when they were having good moments, they were just as happy to sit on their laps, be carried by them, or fall asleep laying against them.

Finally, Chris and I affirmed that we are a good parenting team. Monday marked our 7th wedding anniversary, which was fitting since it was one of the more challenging experiences we’ve had since getting married. Even though the weekend was extremely stressful, we stuck together. Our parenting styles are complementary, which is a good thing since this weekend, we needed all our tricks to survive.

Here are the pictures, which as I said, reflect an entirely different experience than the one I just described.
Natalie’s funny face
Look who’s old enough for back carries!
All the comforts of home
Funny faces
Ducklings on the lake
Mad faces
Chubby legs I guess Miranda’s socks are too tight!
The burn on Miranda’s arm Apparently our kids are destined to be scarred by the time they are 4 months. A flaming piece of wood popped out of the campfire and landed on Miranda’s arm. She didn’t cry even though it blistered almost immediately. Chris and I have both camped our entire lives and never had anything like that happen before.
Natalie in the coal mine On a rainy day we went on a tour of the Lakawanna coal mine. A lot of the details went over Natalie’s head of course, but it was fun to go so far underground.
Natalie shows off her rocks She sorted them in order of sparkliness.
Miranda and Natalie bundled up Finally calm after they both had complete meltdowns. Thank goodness for episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba on my iPhone.
Miranda with Auntie Jodi in the hammock
Natalie smiling Funny that we got lots of pictures of Natalie smiling on the trip, even though she was pretty miserable overall!
Eating pancakes in the screen tent
Hikers
The hiking trail was surrounded by these pretty flowers
Jodi and Jay
Miranda asleep on my back
Tree on the trail
Natalie with Auntie Jodi
Chris wearing a tired Natalie
Hiking while wearing the kids On our 7th wedding anniversary!
Happy after a nursing break
Stopping for a snack
Miranda with Auntie Jodi
Miranda and Mama
Ganoga Falls
On the edge In more ways than one….Natalie started melting down right after this photo was taken.
Overlooking a 90-foot waterfall The map said the trail to these falls was 3 miles, but according to my Nike+, it was 5.5!!
The lake on our campsite One last photo before we headed home. We chose to start a 4-hour drive at 10 pm rather that suffer through another horrendous night and morning. Hopefully our next camping trip will be better!

*The first night we all had trouble sleeping since the couple camping in the site across from ours stayed up until 3 am arguing. Loudly. Every other word out of the woman’s mouth was f—ing. That combined with Natalie waking up crying, Miranda waking up to nurse and both girls wanting to be held by mommy at the same time made for very little sleep for all of us. Then Natalie started the day at 4:30 am with a long, terrible meltdown.