Jonas Michael Grimm

"At one glance I love you with a thousand hearts."

- Mihri Hatun

born Wednesday, April 23rd

7:11 in the morning

8 pounds 1 ounce

20 1/2 inches

39 weeks

I would never want to live more than 5 minutes from a beach. It is all I have ever known growing up here and now growing my own family here. There is just something about living in a place where the air is salty and the breeze is constant. Sometimes it takes my breath away when I walk up over the boardwalk and have the first glimpse of the waves rolling into the shore.

I squint because the sun reflects off of the water, my favorite time of the day at the beach is the early morning or early evening. Both times of day, the beach is relatively empty and waiting for discovery. I feel the breeze rushing through my hair, I breath in the salt, I sink into the sand. I feel my shoulders relax, my face soften.

Our playground. The girls run and jump. They spread their arms as wings and pretend to fly. I believe they could take flight. They search for shells with natural holes to make a necklace. The others, well, they are treasure.

"Here, mama, can you hold these? I don't want to lose them because they are so special."

They skip down to the water's edge to tip toe into the waves, like they are sneaking up on a friend playing hide and seek. The waves rolls in to catch them, they scream in delight and run run run away, "Don't let the water get your toes, toes, toes."

They build elaborate stories around even more elaborate sand creations. Their cheeks are pink, they smell of sunscreen, my favorite. The warmth of the sun on my skin, the warmth of the joy in my soul. We dig and we bury. They are mermaids with tails made of sand, scales from seashells, seaweed hair. Their smiles are wide and my cup, it runs over.

We pack up to leave, we thank the beach for a beautiful day. Tired and sandy, happy and content we go home, but never far from that magical place. It holds so much for me and though it is long and open to anyone and everyone, it is mine and holds my thoughts and secrets. My stress and my elation.

It has been a stressful week but at the same time a week in which I had to consciously calm myself and take it in before our family changes. Change.

babymoon

Piper is 5!

Happy Birthday Bug!

Piper's 5th Birthday Party

more here

Names

so with names like Piper and Finley, you can't just name him Brian so here's our short list. I will let you in on a secret, though, we pretty much have already decided...

Felix
Seamus
Jonas
Callum
Gideon

Piper is insisting that his name is Michael so I think he will have a double middle name: Michael Grimm. Grimm is my mother's maiden name and, yes, she is a relative of those Grimms, the ones who wrote the fairy tales and I have always wanted to use Grimm but is just didn't seem to work with girls.

So, betcha can't guess which we've chosen?

and I'll post more about reactions and such later because I think is will be a novel and I don't have time for novels right now!

and because all our baby bedding is pink and flowery I think we'll be going with one of these:

they're both by Dwell and I'm leaning towards the transportation one because it matches Jason's Christmas present.

Holy Crap!

Pink or Blue

anyone care to make a guess?

today's the day, I'm halfway there!