A perfect day

Yesterday didn't start well - Elle woke up almost two hours earlier than usual ... and didn't go back to sleep. There were brief naps, cluster feeding and fussiness (on her part and mine). I was running on less than five hours of broken sleep, and we had a lot planned for the day. Tim and I hardly ever have days off together, and they usually end up crammed with errands, chores and end with us collapsing to watch a movie on the couch.

But today we had plans to enjoy the day. Be a family. Not be bogged down by laundry, dishes or grocery shopping.

And it was glorious.

We had an 80-degree, breezy and sunny day. After Elle's rocky morning, we headed out to attend out first spring training game of the season. The team I'll always root for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, hold camp in our city, and there is a deal this spring for county residents to get in to Monday games for $5. We took advantage of the deal and arrived just as the national anthem was being sung. 

Elle was hungry and insisted on eating the Ergo.

Decked out in her Pirates gear. (Thanks, Aunt Marti!)

"Daddy, my rattle is waayyyy cooler than those baseball players."

Elle was great - lasting through seven innings before the heat and her tiredness got to her a bit. We went home to give her a chance to nap. While we were home, I got a very special phone call from my uncle, who let me speak with my grandma, who isn't in the best of health right now. It meant the world to me to be able to talk to her and hear her voice, and it really made my perfect day even better.

After Elle woke up, we headed to the park. There are certain "first things" that we want to do together, and with our crazy schedules, we wanted to take advantage of the chance to both experience the "first time to take Elle to the park and swing."

The park we go to has three play areas, and the one we headed to was deserted. We started on the swings and played around on the other equipment.

"I'm a natural, guys!"

She loved being pushed:

"We've gotta do this more often!"

Family fun :)

And after that fun, we were hungry, so we came home to have dinner. Well, first we got the mail, which included my last W-2 that we were waiting for, so Tim filed our taxes and THEN joined us for dinner :)

Elle LOVES yogurt. She dabbled in carrots, chicken
and toast as well, but she couldn't eat the yogurt fast enough.

Elle was covered in sunscreen and yogurt at that point, so I gave her a bath, nursed her and listened to her babble happily as she drifted off to sleep. I edited the photos from our day, caught up on some e-mails and crossed a few things off my to-do list (OK, full disclosure: I also added a few items to my to-do list). Tim went to the gym, I did a Pilates DVD (one of my favorites is a prenatal Pilates video that can be done without adjusting for the limitations of different trimesters - but the instructor is 36 weeks pregnant in the DVD, and I realized it makes me feel skinny, haha) and then we ... well, collapsed to watch a movie.

But it was a perfect day. One that happens far too infrequently, one that wore us out and one that made us stop and think about how lucky we are.