Labor Day 2014

This weekend is one I never want to forget. And yet I know I will. I know it will get lost in the shuffle. Among so many far more adventurous, exciting weekends, ones filled with weddings and birthdays and visits with family and friends, road trips and anniversaries and holidays, this little weekend in which nothing particularly special happened will fade into obscurity the way so many weekends do.

But it was wonderful. It was four days with my two favorite people. It was three of us spending time together as a family, doing nothing and the best things all at once. We embraced the fact that we no longer feel like "taking advantage" of four days off together to load up the car and drive somewhere far. Instead, we stayed home. We made no plans. We said no when friends and family so graciously asked us if we wanted to hang out. It was hard to do that, because we cherish those times, too, but we did.

We went for a long walk. We drove up to UCLA so Terry could donate blood. We cooked dinners at home. We played with our three-month-old son, who is learning to laugh and reach for his toys and lift up his head. We took a family nap in Marshall's room (we put him down in his crib, and then I got nervous about letting him sleep there for the first time while we slept, so Terry and I slept on the floor). I caught up on some thank you notes. We watched House of Cards. We drank a few glasses of wine. We did a crossword puzzle together. We played with Scout. We completed a few chores around the house. We ran some errands. We just enjoyed the time together.

Marshall enjoyed hanging out with us while we watched the first Bruin football game of the season. We won, but it wasn't pretty. Let's hope those boys clean it up.

We enjoyed lots of downtime. Scout is creeping closer to Marshall for longer periods of time. 

Terry and I took Marshall outside a few times to get some fresh (hot) air and some exercise. We got the go-ahead from our doctor to run with the jogging stroller, so we're testing it out slowly. Turns out pushing that chunky little dude is pretty tough! 

Today we completed a tough workout at the Strand:

- One person walked with the stroller heading away from the stairs

- The other person jogged up and back down the stairs, then jogged to the person walking the stroller

- We switched, so the stairs person then walked with the stroller while the other person jogged to the stairs

- Repeat twice up the stairs each

We were pretty wiped out by the end, and the whole thing (including a little walk before and after) took about 40 minutes. 

Tonight's meal: lamb burgers, served with sweet potato fries and a big green salad. We decided to eat  early, and Marshall hung out with us, which was fun. Scout looks like a creeper in that photo.

There won't be a lot of weekends like this one. Certainly most of our long weekends--especially four day weekends--will ask that we leave town or attend a party or run a half marathon. And this time, we agreed that we needed rest, time to sleep and play and laugh and slow down. So we did. Just me, Terry, and Marshall, for several days of relaxation and fun and nothing.

I'm sure that in a year or two I will not remember the specifics of Labor Day 2014. So I wanted to write it down here, to capture the essence of it. The end of summer, a summer that changed our lives so profoundly. I'm glad we found a way to embrace the newness of our little family, to exhale a bit amid the chaos of the last three months. We didn't plan it that way, but this weekend turned out to be perfect.

While summer ended this weekend (by traditional standards, which state very seriously that summer begins with Memorial Day and ends with Labor Day), something new started. I got a glimpse into our future, and it's incredible. How lovely to think that the best weekends to come will be simple, like this one.

I also love that Marshall arrived on Memorial Day weekend. He officially began the best summer of our lives, so it makes sense that the best weekend was the end of that same summer. I can't wait to see what autumn brings.