Walkway

Mother nature must have had a read on Nora this week, because the weather was a perfect match for her: cool and rainy early on, but sunny and warm towards at the end.  She cut two top teeth on Monday (and she must take after me, because they’re giant).  With the teeth came a general malaise and a temperature for three days, at one point as high as 102.9.  It was her first temperature, so I was a little nervous about it, but my P.E.O. sister Cindy was able to talk me off the ledge before I dove head-first into a new parent freak out.  Towards the middle of the week, her temperature was down, but she had a mega-rash, poor girl.  Luckily, Friday she was back to her normal self, happy to sit and play with a rhododendron branch while I sold the couch, love seat, dog house, and (hurray!) Chris’ car.

(She really will eat anything.)

Today I knew for sure that she felt better because she woke me up, happy as a lark, at 6:15 in the morning.  So much for sleeping in; she knew we needed to get things done so we would have time for some fun this afternoon.  After going to the bank to pay off the Toyota loan (did I say hurray already?), selling some baby stuff, and picking up the house a bit, we met Laura at the Walkway Over the Hudson for one last walk to Poughkeepsie.

Walking over the bridge and getting lunch at Soul Dog is one of our favorite things to do, and I had to honor the tradition one last time before saying goodbye to the Hudson Valley.  It was nice and warm, but overcast, which kept it from getting too hot.  And despite Nora’s awful face in this picture, we had a great walk over and back.

She rode most of the way in the Beco and conked out right away, so Laura and I could catch up and burn lots of calories walking and talking at the same time (Haha), before gorging ourselves at Soul Dog on Chili Mac’n’Chz Fries, Marsala Mushroom/Poblano pepper dogs, quinoa salad, and mint tea.  Mmmm, I’m going to miss this place.

Before we left, Nora’s best friend Sylas and his mom Samantha met us at the restaurant so we could have one more baby date and to bring me some awesome business cards for my venture into childcare on Nantucket (not right away, but eventually).  Thanks, Samantha!

Laura was awesome and took some pictures of us to add to Nora’s baby book.  And we took a lot – if I’ve learned anything as a parent it’s that you need to take a lot of pictures of a baby to get a good one (or at least I do) and so if you have two babies, then you need double the pictures.  Or, you put them side-by-side like the one above to have a good picture of each baby.

After picture-taking and an on-the-street diaper change for Nora the exhibitionist, Laura and I waved goodbye to Poughkeepsie and headed back over the bridge.

There’s still a few days before the truck pulls up to load our belongings, but today was the last official hurrah.  And it was a good one.

For fun, here’s a photo collage of Nora’s last time on the bridge, and her first time on the bridge at a month old.  [Sigh.] How things change.