A Growing Home

Not only do we have a new baby in the house, but we decided to adopt a kitten as well.  Quixl is a 5-month old female with gray and white markings and a curious, fearless, and affectionate manner.  She's been making Pepper feel a bit harassed at times, but they are gradually working out how to play with each other.  It has been good to have another female in the house to help balance out the genders - I didn't want "he" to become my default pronoun.  As for the origin of her name, it came about because Quixote wasn't acceptable, it sounded good, and it's short for quicksilver.  She's definitely quick, and it seems to fit her.  Not that we did it on purpose, but we are now a very alliterative household what with Pepper puppy, Quixl kitty and beautiful blue-eyed baby B bug.

B has been a delight.  He is awake a lot more and gets more interactive every day.  He is doing more cooing and "talking," and enjoys human mirrors to imitate or which imitate his expressions.  He'll stick his tongue out or grin big with little encouragement.  He is also encountering his hands more; sometimes when he is hungry he will gnaw on the side of his hand.  His thumb is mostly tucked inside his fingers and he hasn't so far liked our trying to help him put it in his mouth.  He will figure out what he wants and get better at achieving it, I am sure.

We managed to have a housewarming & B-welcoming party yesterday.  Despite wondering the day before if we were insane to attempt such a large event, it went wonderfully and I now have an extraordinarily clean house in which to work.  I bounce from project to project these days depending on baby's needs and my abilities.  Just keeping on top of all the pictures that we take is a big job what with dating them, distributing them, and posting them to his webpage (available from our home page).

I decided not to return to B__R__.  The job wasn't compelling enough to overcome my desire to stay home with B.  I have the skills and experience to get a job doing project or people management in the computer or health care industry when I care to go back to it.  I enjoy earning lots of money, and I think it will be important at some point in the future to show my kids that mom and other women can be successful in that way.  Right now, however, my kid is impressionable in a different way and it is important that I be home with him.  Such an arrangement also frees B up to spend a lot of time with daddy when C is home instead of having to catch up with both of us after coming home from some child-care solution.

At the same time, much as I enjoy mothering and have come to appreciate how much of a full-time job it is, I would also like to do something professionally and intellectually stimulating.  I anticipate doing some more contract programming eventually, working from home and setting my own deadlines.  I enjoyed my last stint at it so much as to not want to be doing anything else while I was programming.  That's not a quality to be squandered, so I will continue to develop this skill.

Am I still writing?  Kind of.  B has certainly inspired me to capture more of my life in writing than I had been doing immediately pre-B.  I've made a habit of jotting various thoughts and observations into "mama musings" and sending them off to my parents, for instance.  I don't feel as though I am done with writing, or that it is done with me.  I hope to do more and pursue the craft throughout my life.  In time I will coax out the stories and books, essays and poems.  Right now, though, I'm pretty happy with what gets done and where I spend my time.

Maternally,
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