Deal of the century.

During our visit, my dad and Nate went to the grocery store. When they came home, my dad was super excited about the amazing deal he got on lunch meat.

Over TWO POUNDS of assorted meats for TWO DOLLARS.

Why was it so cheap, you ask?

Because it was a pile of random leftovers from the deli. The ends of the deli loaf. You know, the parts that had been in the case for at least a week, handled again and again by the deli employees as they sliced chunks off for customers.

He wasn't excited for long, because we rained on that parade...hard. But I snapped a picture before he lost his bargain-hunter glow:

Birthday surprise.

Since there is nothing my mom loves more than having our family all together (except maybe Christmas, she REALLY loves Christmas), Jordan, Jill and I plotted a surprise visit to Illinois for her birthday.

She was surprised all right, though I'm not sure why. We were trying to be quiet and hidden out of sight when she and my dad returned home from church on Sunday, but Calvin was screaming bloody murder (sick of the car seat after six hours, I guess) and my parents came in through the garage, where my brother's Suburban was parked. Somehow neither of these things registered in my mother's brain, because she was genuinely shocked when she walked in and saw us.

It was a quick trip — we got there at noon on Sunday and left before noon on Tuesday — but it was so great to be together to celebrate our beautiful mom on her birthday. We spent the day eating, laughing, playing games, and just hanging out together. Oh, and we threw her a spectacular birthday dinner, complete with party hats and crepe paper.

I love my family.

Balancing act.

I feel like this blog has become pretty baby-centered. Which is all fine and good — I've got a beautiful little boy and I want to show him off. But this has been my personal outlet for the past year, and I miss it.

Actually I don't miss it. I miss having something interesting to say on it.

I had every intention of continuing to write the way I had been — about my life, my thoughts, my adventures, my rants and raves — once Calvin arrived. I didn't want this blog to become all about me being a mom, because I vowed I would always be more than that. I would still be ME — with my own interests and hobbies and a life outside my baby.

But my life is different now. Right now I don't have many thoughts that don't revolve around my son. I'm home with him all day, every day. I'm not working. I don't have a lot of adult interaction, unless you count Ellen Degeneres, Ina Garten, and the detectives on Law & Order.

It's like I'm living in a mommy cocoon, where all I see, hear, smell is baby.

It's not who I wanted to be. But it's who I need to be, right now, for my family. I need to be here with Calvin, because he's still small and I'm his source of comfort, of entertainment, of food. I need to be totally engrossed in my baby's every movement, because soon he'll be spending his days in childcare with a stranger, while I'm at work, missing out. I need to be home so Nate, who is working hard so I don't have to, can get a break once in a while. And I need to be this person, because I want to be this person. I want to be a mom. His mom. The person who knows him better than anyone else on earth, who loves him more than anyone else ever will.

I fear this makes me irrelevant to some. And I don't want to be irrelevant. I don't want my friends who don't have kids to think I've gone off the deep end, that I don't remember what it was like to not have children. Because I do. It was two months ago, and I loved it. How could I forget the freedom I had before I had a baby? (Seriously impossible. I dream about it daily.)

Every time someone becomes a parent for the first time, you hear about their new set of priorities. But I don't think I have a new set. I think I have a bigger set.

Of course Calvin is my number one priority. But that doesn't mean the others fall away. My faith, my husband, my family, my friends, myself — all still priorities. I refuse to give up my quiet time, regular dates with my husband, trips to see my family, long dinners with my friends, or weekend afternoons shopping alone. Those are things I need to do to be whole.

I can't teach my children to have a balanced life if I don't have one myself.

So, while I don't have much to say right now, I know I will again. I won't be cocooned up in mommyland forever. Don't get me wrong, I'm a permanent resident. I love it here.

But I will soon venture out, because it's not enough. I'm still me.

The Roll.

Probably the hardest thing for me to deal with over the past two months has been my body.

It's not good. My hips are wider, I'm flabbier from months of decreased activity, and my stomach...oh, my stomach.

While I haven't been skinny in years, I still try my darndest to keep from having a fat roll hanging over the top of my pants. At least while standing up.

Mind you, this is tricky. When you don't work out and have a penchant for french fries, there's bound to be some flab around the middle. Which means you have to dress for it. Either by wearing jeans that hit at a good spot, or wearing shirts that are a little flowier, or dressing in layers. I haven't quite mastered this skill, but I've been trying really hard. Which is why one of the highlights of wearing maternity clothes was the waistband of my pants. It lays flat — no rolls. Plus my belly was hard and smooth and cute...not something to hide.

But now, post-baby, I feel like one big fat roll. It didn't matter that I lost all 30 pounds of my baby weight within two weeks. I still couldn't get into a single pair of my pants until four weeks, and those were my fat pants. At nearly eight weeks I am now wearing my regular pre-pregnancy clothes. However, I cannot avoid the roll.

My stomach is like a separate entity, a striped blob just stuck on my front. (Striped because I suffered what is quite possibly the most extreme case of stretch marks ever in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I thought I escaped them, but then at 30 weeks one popped up...then at 32 weeks about 40 more popped up. It's not pretty.) And dressing for it is not as easy as I'd hoped.

When I went to my six-week checkup, my midwife asked if I'd started exercising yet (yes, I try to get an hour-long workout in daily, what with all the time I have these days) and then advised me to tie something like a towel around my waist before doing my "ab work" to help bring those muscles back together.

My question is this: Who said I planned to fix this roll situation with ab work?

My only plan is to begin searching for new pants. Maybe some with a stretchy waist...

He's going to drive a bulldozer.

That's what the Panera employee said to us today when we told him Calvin was only 7.5 weeks old.

Officially the weirdest comment someone has made regarding the size of our child.

While Calvin is obviously not small, just the other day I took these pictures detailing the width of this 0-3 month outfit vs. his actual body size. It's not like the kid is enormous. Long, yes. Big boned, probably. Super chunky, not so much. (Minus the cheeks, of course.)

To be clear, I have nothing against him driving a bulldozer. I'm just hoping he'll put his size to good use with, oh, I don't know...a multi-million dollar contract with a professional sports team.

He has parents to care for, after all.

Hiking, Breyer style.

My friend Ali takes her babies hiking. This is mind-boggling to me, as I can't even take myself hiking. Climbing hills with a kid strapped to my back? It's enough work carrying my own weight around all day, thank you very much.

So today, instead of hauling our child up the side of a mountain in some back carrier thingy like our impressively active friends, Nate and I went to the park. We had a yummy lunch outside at Sea Salt, then pushed Calvin around in his stroller and checked out the Minnehaha Falls from afar.

And that's about as much hiking as you'll find us doing...ever. But I'm giving myself bonus points for reading and then taking my son's picture near some sort of historical plaque. We may not be outdoorsy, but we are dedicated to learning.

Head control.

Oh, the torture that is tummy time.

Calvin's been working hard to get his head up. He does a great job of it when laying on us...in fact, he practically climbs up my chest. But he's not so fond of it when we lay him on his activity mat, as you will see in the video.