our thanksgiving

ella is sleeping in j.'s arms right now. it's so precious. it's been wonderful having him home. we had a good thanksgiving dinner at mom B.'s where elenora just slept in the swing throughout and was pleasant almost all of the time. then yesterday we took her to BofA to open a savings account. i'm so pleased that we have started this account. we're going to work towards $1000 and then open a CD for her with that. neither j. nor i are very money savvy (other than that we save our money more than we spend it, we have no debt other than school loans, and i have a profit share worth quite a bit at work). neither of us knows much about investments or the money market. maybe we're missing out on a lot, but i know we're very content with our financial standings at the moment even if by other people's standards we're rather poor.

anyhow, we opened her an account and put money in it and i think we're both pretty pleased.

j. jokes that we've now saved enough to pay for the first ten minutes of her first class in college.

last night we went to j.'s parents' house again to see aunt d. and uncle d. it was their first time meeting elenora and she was so good. she sat with aunt d. for awhile just being pleasant and looking around. at dinner we tried to have her sit in her swing but she started to cry. but i picked her up and held her on my lap and she was so lovely. she just wanted to sit with the adults at the table and be involved in the conversation. i'm getting good at eating with her in my arms.

today j. and i wanted to go out to breakfast. that's one of the things we just love doing and haven't done since the baby came, so we thought today that we'd just try it and if it was a disaster than it was a disaster. she was extremely tired when we got to the pancake house, so we were afraid she'd be screaming the whole time. the manager at the desk asked how old she was and we told him she's two months today and this was her first restaurant experience. he put his hand on my shoulder and said "good luck."

at first she was really interested in looking around at the other tables and customers. she stood on my legs and peered around the room. the waitress was gregarious and wanted to know all about ella and wanted to tell us all about her own three daughters. as brunch arrived, though, she got her lovely little pouty face that precedes a cry, so j. stood with her and bounced while i ate, then i stood with her and bounced while he ate. she was quiet, but if we tried to sit she would get the pouty face again. however, the second time j. took her and bounced her she just let the sleep overtake her and she actually fell asleep. the rest of brunch was just so nice--almost like old times with j. and i sipping our coffees and talking about boxing and violin. we didn't rush out the door because ella was so content to just be held with her head against our chests in a deep sleep.

when we transferred her to her carseat she was in such a deep sleep that i got to sit up front next to j. and we decided to go for a drive. the days end sooner now, so the sun was slanted through the leafless branches. the only colors now are rusts and greys, and it's quite pretty. we decided explore Great Neck, a place that i stumbled across in 2001 and haven't been back to since. it's this community that is placed on some hills in the midst of the salt marshes, and it probably won't be there for more than twenty more years if global warming continues at the pace it is. but it's such a gorgeous location where you can look out for miles over the ocean and marshes. a nice drive for a saturday afternoon.

we'd toyed with going to mount washington as a day trip, but maybe we'll tackle that one some other day.