6.3.17 - Sarah and Shannon's visits

Before Jane was born, Sarah mentioned she'd like to come up and help out after. I explained we had family in town through the end of May, so this last week Sarah called to ask if she could come up this weekend to help out.

She got here yesterday evening and she came bearing fresh vegetables. I had texted earlier in the day to let her know we have tofu (from when Don and Merlene were here) that I'd like to use before it goes bad, so she planned to make a gluten-free stir fry. When she got here she improvised a peanut butter soy sauce (after checking to make sure the soy sauce was gluten free) and she cooked brown rice, sauteed the tofu, and sauteed chopped up veggies. While she was doing that I sat in the kitchen with her and we each had drinks that were half Riesling and half orange juice and caught up. Jane slept on her coffee table makeshift crib almost that whole time, so cooperatively.

While Sarah was waiting for things to cook she also unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and just generally looked for other ways to help. She crashed on our (awesome) air mattress for the night and the next day (today) she just stayed around with me while Jack was at work and helped watch Clara while I attended to Jane. I was worried Sarah would think she wasn't doing all that much, but I explained to her that just being around to take things away from Clara (pens, paintbrushes, whatever) and keep an eye on her. Otherwise I'd be getting up and down while holding Jane all day and that gets exhausting. Plus Sarah kept me company and gave me an adult to have interesting conversations with instead of just feeling cooped in the apartment with two tiny girls all day. It really makes a pretty big difference.

It was really nice to get so much one-on-one time with Sarah and catch up with how she's doing at work (trying to get a manuscript published) and with Mark (steady as ever) and everything else.

Later in the day Shannon came over with a bunch of samples of gluten free foods she likes. Each sample included a label of what it was and where she'd bought it. She brought crackers, raisin bread, an English muffin, a hot dog bun, and some cereal. What we did offer to Clara she liked, and I expect she's going to like all of it in the end. Shannon also said she would email me some GF recipes she's liked. It was very sweet for her to make the trip just to help me come up with ideas. And she also was willing and happy to hold Jane or help with Clara.

Shannon's labeled GF samples.

Interestingly, Clara warmed to Shannon almost instantly, which she doesn't normally do with people she hasn't seen in a long time (doesn't remember). We did see Shannon just about two months ago, but I didn't think Clara's memory was that long. It didn't hurt that Shannon tossed Clara in the air a bunch of times, making Clara giggle like crazy. I said something about how Clara is getting heavier and Shannon pointed out that she does the same move with weights much heavier at CrossFit, haha. Clara even gave Shannon a hug before Shannon and Sarah left. It was very sweet.