Is there just two of y'all? - blog

That question was overheard in a roadside bar-b-que place in the outskirts
of Dallas, Texas.

I was born in Dallas, but until this weekend, I couldn't have told you the
first thing about it, firsthand. Now I know that it's big, green, pretty
and full of lakes (manmade) and rivers.

Adam, Brigid and I traveled to Texas with his mom, Micah, Jenn, and baby
Elisabeth. We were ostensibly going to attend the wedding of his cousin,
Amy, but really it was just an excuse for a huge family reunion, and for
the new babies to meet their paternal grand-dad and great-grandparents.
The wedding was fun, but when you're not that involved in the planning,
weddings only take up one afternoon. The rest of the time was spent with
various family members, and visiting lots of important places, like the
cabin, Mop-Pop's and, of course, a real Texan bar-b-que.

I really enjoyed seeing everyone, and meeting some for the first time,
like Uncle Corky. Brigid was duly admired, and charmed everyone who met
her, especially her grandpa, who advanced towards us with arms open to
hold Brie everytime he saw us again. I don't think Brie's been held by
that many people since our first day in the hospital, when we had a new
visitor every hour.

Brigid is older now. That's the only way I can put it. I know she's a
baby, but she's not a terribly baby-ish baby anymore. She's a little-girl
baby, who likes to coo and stare and think. While in our hotel room in
Duncanville, I was sitting on our huge, king-sized bed with Brie, letting
her have some tummy time. Adam was in the bathroom brushing his teeth,
and soon heard me yelling excitedly: "Adam! Adam! Brie rolled over!"
and then, "She did it again!" She'd rolled before on slanted surfaces,
but this time it was on the flat. Brie had turned her face away from me,
but I kept talking to her, and in her effort to look over her shoulder to
follow my voice, she turned not just her head, but her whole body,
flipping from front to back! I guess she just needed the incentive. So I
put her back on her tummy, and she repeated the performance perfectly!

Her hair is the same color, but getting longer, so that it goes over her
ears. Her eyes are bluer than ever, but I guess that's not surprising.
She "turtles" all the time now, holding her head up to look around and
showing off her long, elegant neck. Her eyebrows still arch up, and are
beginning to fill in with little blonde/red hairs, lighter than the hair
on her head. She makes "engh! mwa! goo!" noises a lot, and occasionally
branches into two syllable expressions like, "enh-gaa!" Her smiles are a
multi-daily affair, and have been coaxed out of her by many more people
than her parents. They reveal a decided dimple in her left cheek.

Much as her grandparents enjoyed her, I think that the people who enjoyed
her (and Elisa) most were Adam's cousins, mostly Gretchen and Sierra, who
spent a lot of their time at the cabin holding babies. This was great,
because it meant that Adam and I were free to read, write, swim and things
like that. Also, because Adam didn't have to work, and was this able and
willing to help me with baby stuff, it was a real vacation for me too.
Brie is my lovely one, but she's also my job, and it was nice to have a
semi-break. As in: I have to nurse her, but in Texas I rarely had to also
get myself a glass of water, a burp rag or a pillow to help with the
nursing process. There were other people, mostly Adam, to help me with
the little things. And all those little things made a big difference.

I also went swimming for the first time since Brie's birth. The lake that
the cabin is on was made by damming, and it's full of old trees and tree
stumps and thick with mud on the bottom. (I hear it also has water
moccasins, but I didn't see any.) You get off the dock into the lake, and
your feet immediately sink ankle-deep in muck. Ick. Talk about incentive
to spend the whole time swimming, not standing.

The highlight of the swim was watching Dad and Coleman climb up an old
tree trunk, sans branches, and jump off the top into about five feet of
water and one foot of muck. Mind, this was about high-dive height, and
much less than high-dive depth. Dad came up triumphant, clutching
handfuls of mud. Coleman came up after a breathless few seconds, and I
decided that Tammy was smart to have gone back to the cabin, not wanting
to watch her husband do something so foolhardy and that it was probably a
blessing that Coleman's parents didn't see his trick either. Still, it's
a family that has experience doing foolhardy things, and they probably
have a better idea of what they're doing than it looks like they do. :)

Thanks to Mop-Pop for the excellent hospitality and the loan of their car,
to Terry and Brenda for a beautiful wedding and a fun reception, to Dad
for the carseats and the hotel room, to Mom for the plane ticket, and to
Laurel and my dad for rides to and from the airport. I've learned more
about being a Snell in the past few days than I have, well, in any other
few days. Good food cooked by Mop-Mop, good fellowship prompted by
Mop-Mop, and, well, lots of it was Mop-Mop. Long may the traditions
continue!

Oh. And my husband and his brother learned that Blue Bell, Fritos, queso
and beer make an excellent breakfast. But only at the cabin.