we have seen the future...

...and it seems to indicate a lot of cute sweet boys vying for cadence's attention. this is cadence's little buddy at church, rudden. he's just a couple months older, and you should see the two of them chasing each other and squealing with mutual delight!

...fortunately, teddy wholeheartedly approves of the Boy. really, i don't think we could've found a cuter match for our little girl. and we already love his family too!

...it's fun to daydream about what kind of a woman cadence will grow up to be. what will be her interests and passions? what kind of music will she like? will she be compassionate and generous and loving? will she be creative? will she have kids? will we still be close?

...and yet, i know that each day with her is a gift and not to be taken for granted. it breaks my heart when parents lose their children, like the little amish girls whose lives were snuffed out so violently. i cannot even begin to fathom the depth of the grief that comes with such loss.

...it's thoughts like this that drive me to prayer, maybe not the on-your-knees-dear-heavenly-father kind, but nevertheless a prayer from my deepest parts, a prayer not utterable in words alone, a prayer because i know that as much as i'd like to, i can't watch over my little one every second of the day, and i can't control all the elements in the universe that affect her safety and well-being.

i guess that's why i still believe in god, in my own way. if i didn't, i would feel so utterly out of control that i would probably go insane...

back to the cadence channel

...cuz you can't get enough of a toddler named CADENCE playing the drums! ok, it's really a practice pad...but our downstairs neighbor is on vacation, and ted's setting up the kit today! we'll have to get some footage of the little one on a REAL drumset.

...is it just me, or does cadence look like a kid ready for kindergarten with that backpack on? holy patootie! she sure is growing up so fast...

...how is it that one day i had a cute little chubby baby like this...

...and a couple blinks later, THIS is what i've got on my hands??!! amazing, isn't it? cadence and i have been looking at old videos of herself when she was a few months old. she looked like such a blob back then. i mean, she was cute and all, but compared to the so-very-aware kid she is now, she really was more of a blob than a person--a very captivating and adorable blob, but a blob nonetheless. still, i sure do miss those days when i could cradle her in one arm, when a mere smile from her was enough to melt my heart, and the sound of her unintelligible cooing was music to my ears.

"do you believe in rapture, babe?"

a really long time ago, while we were still living in Ravenswood, someone stole the faceplate off our car CD player. i realize that it’s stupid to have a detachable faceplate if you’re not going to actually detach it, especially if you a) live in chicago and b) are going to forget to even close the damn door, let alone lock it. but we won’t go there…

being the lazyasses that we are, we continually put off replacing the faceplate, mainly because i had thrown out all literature pertaining to the car stereo and hence, without a faceplate, we barely could remember what brand the thing was, let alone the actual model number. of course, we could have just unscrewed the stereo and pulled it out and somehow figured it out, but that would’ve required considerable effort on our part.

so rather than do what would appear to be the obvious, we instead subjected ourselves to mere FM radio via the portable transistor we’d gotten as a thank-you gift from our subscription to our local public radio station. and this is how we got on for the past year.

well, that little transistor radio melted in the summer sun a few weeks ago. thus died my one tenuous connection to the outside media world during my torturous commute to and from work. granted, i drive to work only about 3 times a month (probably less during these past months of stereolessness), but i finally decided i’d had enough. i begged ted to please PLEASE!!! get me a replacement!!! and he did.

now, when we drive, we have MUSIC. of MY OWN CHOOSING!!! or ted’s, depending on who got in the driver’s seat first. i cannot even tell you what a relief it is, how soothing, how utterly satisfying it is to listen to some decent tunes on some decent speakers for a change. even cadence is much more docile during longish drives.

anyhoo, this whole long and drawn out exercise in penmanship (i’m writing this on the train) has been to inform you of the CD i chose for my maiden voyage w/ the new stereo. i thought it would be appropriate to play as the first CD an album i had previously never listened to before. i had a handful to choose from due to a recent music binge, and i finally settled on Rather Ripped, the most recent Sonic Youth album.

i got to listen to pretty much the whole album on the way to work last week, and, like, WOW! what a great pick for My First Drive With the New Stereo! i had heard some stuff about this album on NPR a few months back when it first came out, and i’d been meaning to get a copy for a long time. now that i’ve listened to it, i have to say that this is probably one of the most accessible SY albums. they play it tight on this one, for sure. some of the songs are just so pretty and sad, like the 3rd track 'do you believe in rapture?' which is like thurston moore meets the Left-Behind-a-la-iraq-war series. there are these lovely melodic arpeggiated guitar measures that, if listened to at the edge of the ocean during the hour of the gloaming, when the sun turns the world into a mound of sunken golden treasure, while you are alone but well-fed and amply caffeinated and nicotined—if listened to under such conditions, you just might explode from the happiness. or sadness. take your pick.

anyhoo, i highly recommend this album, even if you’ve never been a sonic youth fan. it’s worth a listen or two.

update on the birthday front

...some of you may remember last year's birthday fiasco for cadence to which the whole world was invited and 60 people actually showed up. we learned our lesson and decided that we will not throw any more bruhahas for our little progeny until she's old enough to clean it up herself afterwards.

...so this year, we didn't do anything spectacular. we invited only our immediate families for cake and candy and that's it. we also asked at least the siblings to please not bring any presents. i knew that gifts from the grandparents and great-grandmas would be inevitable, but i just didn't want people to feel like they had to get something for the kid every single birthday, and i also didn't want cadence to think birthdays are just about getting stuff.

we had a really nice time, definitely much more subdued than last year. cadence had a ball chasing her ay-pa (grandpa) around the condo and being doted on by every one else. and although we were tired after everyone left, it wasn't the type of party that will take days to recover from, like last year's was.

...as for our gifts to cadence, we got her her very own backpack embroidered with her name. i also filled it with some books and a stuffed elephant and a sigg water bottle, which she loves drinking from now. ted likes the backpack cuz he can put diapers and her snacks in it so cadence can carry her own stuff now.

we also got a very special gift from auntie lauren in sweden. she started a personalized alphabet scrapbook for cadence. using a 3-ring photo binder, she put in pages for the letters A, B, C and D with elaborately deocrated pages of items beginning with those letters, as well as photos of people in cadence's life, like Auntie Ali for the letter A, Auntie Becki for the letter B, Uncle Charles for the letter C and Uncle Dave for the letter D. i'll have to post some photos of the pages soon. lauren is so creative and artistic! it was such an unexpected surprise. she plans on adding more letters in the future, and i can't wait to see what she comes up with!

...yes, our little cadence is growing up so fast now! just in the past week, she's learned to climb on and off the bed like a pro (even i have a hard time getting in and out of our bed, which is pretty high off the floor), she had her first drink of cow's milk without complaining, and she put herself to sleep for a nap while i was busy tidying around the condo (she NEVER goes to sleep on her own when her mama's around!).

...she's also had some totally gnarly meltdowns, but i'm trying to accentuate the positives, and i refuse to think of these days as the 'terrible twos'...there's no reason why we won't get the 'terrific twos' instead. sometimes the temper tantrums are so downright frightening that it can be easy to forget that most of the time, she's totally delightful. i have to keep reminding myself that.

watch out, sheila e.!

here's our little cadence practicing her drumming skills. i'd say we named her quite appropriately.