Weekend of excellence

Cats, cats, cats. Oh and a big ol' belly!
From left to right, my favorite aunt, sister, and mom. And me in a dress that makes me looks way more expansive than I actually am.
Yay love!

Yesterday was Mother's Day, duh. I was terribly touched by the slew of Happy-Mother's-Day-You-Almost-Mama text messages that I got from friends, and by the incredibly sweet and thoughtful gifts bestowed upon me by my dear husband (including this mix that I'm listening to right now, which made me cry from the first note). It was a trip to both be and not-be a mom. My mom instinct is definitely in full-swing (Jason, please don't sit on the edge of the garage-top-deck, you know I'm terrified you'll fall backwards and smash your head; Jenn, does Arlo know how to get down from his highchair properly? Is he going to fall?; I definitely think that car is going to run me over, even though I'm in a crosswalk and it has a red light; That dog looks untrustworthy; Is this yogurt expired?; etc etc) and in many ways I feel like a mom—at the same time, I mean, whatever. I have yet to give birth, I have yet to gaze into my daughter's eyes and feel that feeling that I hope I'll feel, I have yet to nurse a crying creature at 3am, to change diaper explosions, to watch my baby sleep, to sit on the bed with Jason and Ivy and marvel at what we've done. So it was nice to be appreciated and celebrated, but I know this was a Pre-Mother's Day.

Still: what a great day/weekend it was. Friday night found Jason and I exploring our potential new neighborhood on foot and falling madly in love with it. From the park to the houses to the amazing gardens to the friendly cats to the punk rock kids walking down the street to the cool-looking young parents strolling with their babies to the elementary school. Ooooh the elementary school. We swooned and swooned and then had amazing dinner at Marzano. On Saturday we did the family Mom Day thing at Nancy's: lovely delish brunch with mom, Aubs, Doug, Nancy, Jason. Favorite baked eggs and pecan coffeecake and fruit and reading the paper in the sun and lounging, light napping, watching Giants game. Then Jason and I proceeded to enjoy each other's company very very much, listening to new great records and playing Scrabble (Scrabble is hard w/ preg brain). I made a Spring Bounty dinner: whole wheat linguine w/ fava bean + chard pesto (favas liberated from seemingly abandoned garden plots in Dimond Park; chard from garden, robust remnant from last year's garden), asparagus, zucchini, and peas (peas + asparagus from garden/CSA respectively); and marinated baby artichokes (also from CSA). And a tiny glass of good red for us both.

Then yesterday I started with a truly challenging and gorgeous preg lady hike up in the Pt. Richmond hills with Jen and Lan—both having late July summer babies, both doing home birth, both awesome. It was seriously a hike—like big steep hills, gorgeous vistas, more big steep hills, etc. Buzz and Spider (Jen's adorable tiny rat terrier) romped all over and loved it, and we huffed and puffed up and down hills, drinking plenty of water and yammering about preg stuff in between gasps and pants. I'm exaggerating slightly—we fared quite well, and I was very proud of myself when all was said and done. I came home refreshed and starving and received from Jason the sweetest package, which included a note written on the cutest baby picture of him ever, and this mix, and, um, the most amazing necklace that I immediately put on and it made me cry (duh) and oh, this man can select jewelry for his wife! And then we headed to Jenn's for (of course) amazing brunch with Jenn, Arlo (getting cuter by the second), and Jon. Then to Ace Garden for flowers and ground cover; then to Mosswood Park to sit with Lara on a blanket and watch Mitch play softball; then home to work on front-of-house area, to make it look less white trash. Planted flowers, trimmed out-of-control bouganvilla, etc. Then hung w/ Lara and Mitc, discussing bellybuttons, Single A baseball, pretzels, cheap beer, and birth videos. And then to Cato's for pizza, complimentary non-alcoholic bevs for preg mamas (since I'd already had some champagne at brunch and a few sips of watermelon beer ((?!)) ), and dice games (C-lo and Damn Straight). And then home to an excellent bath, and some reading of Waiting For Birdy, the charming and pretty damn funny book by one Catherine Newman, my former teacher/hero during my undergrad years, and now world-famous mom/food blogger extraordinaire.

And then we went to bed, crazy in love and sated with relaxation, anticipation, and appreciation.

It does not suck, this life. Not. At. All.