We've been in our new house for nearly three weeks now, but it feels more like a few days. After a brief unpacking frenzy, we've been playing tourist with visiting family and friends at Drumheller, the Zoo and the amusement park, and while Mehdi is at work the girls and I have been exploring our new neighborhood. We love Calgary so far, and haven't even made it out to the Rockies yet!

The real reason I'm forcing myself to sit down and write this, though, even though what I really want to do is to hit the hay, is Elianne. She is growing up way way too fast and though I know she is only 5 months old and really not doing anything different from any other baby her age, I still wanted to record a little about her, right now, because someday I will want to remember. Here's her resume:

Hobbies:
- Being held and being carried and never ever being put down anywhere, not for a second.
- Observing her sister and cracking up at her every word and gesture.
- Staring at her hands, pushing her little thumbs very hard against anything she can reach, and lifting her legs straight in the air to play with her toes.
- Grabbing at her Mommy's face while breastfeeding, and taking the occasional breather to gaze up and smile at Mommy.
- If absolutely no arms are available to be held in, enjoys hanging out in her piano exersaucer for five minutes or so.
- Charming passerbys with huge grins while out walking in the baby carrier.

Strengths:
- Mastered squaking like a parrot, and has evolved to coos, ma ma's, and the occasional goo.
- Rolling over.
- Pushing the keys on the piano exersaucer with her very strong thumbs.
- Getting what she wants.
- Sleeping decent stretches at night.

Could use improvement:
- Napping in the daytime.

Pet Peeves:
- Being put down.
- Being in the car seat - unless Mommy is in the backseat too, in which case it is tolerable.
- Having a shirt pulled over her head.
- Getting out of the bath.

Talents:
- Smiling with her eyes.
- Keeping us all ridiculously wrapped around her tiny little fingers.

Before we had Eli, Mehdi and I had the usual fear that we couldn't possibly love another little person like we love Anissa. The capacity the heart has to love amazes me, because I am so full of adoration for both my girls that I could bust. They make me so very happy, and though they keep me busy and exhausted, I know these years, when they are small and with me every day, will likely be the best years of my life. I am very grateful.

We've been hanging out in Wandering River for a month now, and I'm surprised how quickly time is flying by. Though I'm anxious to get into our new house at the end of the month, I'm really enjoying catching up with the family. As Anissa keeps telling Mom, "Memere, you are really spoiling us!" Mom and Dad are taking very good care of all of us. The girls are especially soaking up all the attention.

Mehdi, the girls and I also squeezed in a wonderful weekend visit with old friends, and it was so nice saying "see you soon!" instead of feeling sad that it could be a year or so until the next get-together. And last weekend we went camping with the entire family, and though the weather wasn't great we had a lot of fun. Anissa doesn't let her big cousins out of her sight for one moment. She idolizes them so much it's become useful for convincing her to do something. ("Oh, you don't like celery? Your cousins looooove celery!") She's even got a big kid bike like they all do (an early birthday present), and has mastered driving it up and down Mom and Dad's driveway.

I had forgotten how beautiful it us up here. We see deer trotting through Mom and Dad's yard almost every day, have seen a handful of moose, a coyote and Mehdi got to (finally!) see a bear. The sunrises (at 4 in the morning - the fact that I see them is one advantage of having a baby that wakes me up at such a crazy hour) are gorgeous and the sky is endless. Ahhh, the prairies.

Not much new here - just making ourselves very, very comfortable at my parents' house. So comfortable, in fact, that we may never leave! Anissa is especially living it up, doing all kinds of things she never gets to do. Today she helped Pepere corral his horses on the quad with Mehdi, and finally got to have her first hotdog/marshmallow roast. She didn't actually like the hotdogs or marshmallows that were cooked over the fire, but I don't think that - or the mosquitoes the size of helicopters - damped the experience in the least. And Elianne? She's one chubby, smiley baby.

Where to begin? The past three weeks have involved:

1. Anissa’s last day of her first year of preschool, which ended with a lovely surprise farewell picnic.

2. A very-early birthday party for Anissa (which was actually more of a farewell bash) at the Children’s Museum of Portsmouth. She had a blast with all the wonderful little friends she’s made in New Hampshire during our 20-month stay there.


3. Packing up and moving out of our home in Newmarket, only 10 months after we had moved in. Goodbye Ladyslipper Drive, farewell NH and all the friends we made there - you’ve been very good to us!

4. A fun-packed visit to Montreal where the girls got spoiled by Mama Jo, Uncle Aziz and Aunty Eolie, and we got to hang out with our "old" gang. It felt like we had never left.

5. A crazy real-estate-hunting frenzy in Calgary, while camping out in Memere and Pepere’s camper trailer, during which I found and bought a house before Mehdi had even arrived. Once the moving truck with our car in it all the way from across the continent arrived, we packed up and headed up north to Wandering River.

6. Living the country life out on my parents’ farm. In the 10 days we’ve been here, Anissa has been golfing, gardening, driving tractor, feeding buffalo, quading, and frolicking (and even had her first sleep-over) with her cousins. Elianne has been getting more than her fair share of lovin’ from everyone, and is no longer a newborn (over 3 months old!). We’ll all be busy driving my parents, brother, sister-in-law and their kids crazy until we get possession of our house in Calgary at the end of June.

For anyone who didn’t know yet, Mehdi has a job at the University of Calgary which starts in July. So after 11 years away from Alberta, I’m back in the prairies, family in tow. The first week here, I kept saying things like, "The girls will just get used to the time change and it will be time to go back." It’s slowly starting to sink in that this is home again, after all those years. The East was wonderful and will always hold a huge place in my heart, but it feels so very good to have come back home.

(Someday, when I’m not blogging using my parents’ dial-up connection, I will make the effort to learn how to make a slide-show. For now, here’s some shots of the last few weeks…)

The (not quite yet) birthday girl.

One final playdate with her best neighborhood buddy, Aubrey.

Mama Jo et ses filles.



Reunion with Mariella.

Calgary Zoo.

First time on the greens (Elianne is sleeping in the car seat in the cart).

Elianne during one of the rare moments not in someone's arms.