The Weekend

Friday
Silas has been sleeping through the night! He goes down between 8 and 9 and sleeps until 5 when he has an early breakfast before going back to bed until 7 or 8. So when I got up in the morning I was actually energetic enough to go for a run. First thing in the morning even. You may be impressed by my motivation and energy, I sure was. And then, Silas went down for a nap after a quick nursing session. It was actually easy. He nursed. He fell asleep. I set him down in the crib. Miraculous. Right about when he was waking up our neighbor came over asking if I wanted to walk up to the baby store with her, as they were having a sale on carseats. So we did. Silas sat happily in the stroller while we looked at strollers and carseats and I bought some cabinet locks. He's tall enough to reach the drawer that has the knives in it, so we have to get serious about childproofing I guess. We got back and had a nice lunch, then took off again down town to get fish, seaweed, and pickled ginger. I had stopped by one fish monger in town, MoonFish, who said they didn't have sushi grade fish. I don't really know what makes fish sushi grade, I assume that it is just extra fresh, but maybe it has to be certified free of parasites or something. So I tried a second fish shop, John Wall's, by the river. Not only was he super nice, but the fish was super cheap, AND most importantly it was super delicious. He gave me scraps of salmon and told me the ray was really fresh and would be good raw too. I had never had ray before but took his word for it. It's a little chewy, kind of like squid, but quite good. I stopped at the box office for the Clonmel Junction Festival and bought tickets to five or six of the shows. We invited the neighbors and another American couple over for sushi. We all sat around drinking wine, eating fruit, and making sushi rolls. It was a really fun evening.

Saturday
We all slept in until 8:30 or so, after a brief 5 am snack for Silas. We cleaned up the kitchen from the wreckage of the previous evening and weeded the garden. Silas took a nap. I made guacamole and chocolate chip cookies to take to the beach picnic with the neighbors. They have a couple of sea kayaks and the husband loves fishing so we drove down to Helvic Head beach to go mackerel fishing with them. Despite the drizzly morning, the day turned out beautifully. Orrin caught about 10 fish. Silas climbed around on the sand and rocks and "played" with the neighbors 7 month old. Jean (the neighbor wife) and I sat on the beach while the guys fished and talked about babies, and home, and traveling, and photography, and sewing, and cooking, and anything else that popped into our heads. There was also a really nice dog on the beach, but his fur was a little matted and unkempt so I wasn't too keen on Silas climbing all over it and kissing it on the mouth as he did with Scout (Rachel and Trey's dog). I learned how to filet the fish and we grilled them up for lunch with some mushrooms, zucchini, onions and garlic. It was a really fantastic. Then I went out on the kayaks and caught three fish of my own in 45 minutes or so. Last weekend they went to the same beach and had dolphins swimming around the boats, but this weekend all we say were some jellyfish and a seal. Mackerel fishing is pretty easy, so it was really fun to catch so many in such a short period of time. We headed back home and made a bit more sushi with the fresh mackerel and the left-over rice. I finished Silas's birthday invitations so now I just have to distribute them to the neighbors and Orrin's co-workers. I hope I don't regret this big party.

Sunday
Another night of sleep for Silas, and then the rest of us. I stayed up late reading The Kite Runner, but none the less, had the energy to go for a run with Orrin in the morning. There is a nice loop that goes out to the next village and past a duck pond. I got Orrin to push the stroller most of the way, and -surprise surprise- it's way easier to jog when you aren't pushing a stroller! We did see a horse out on pasture on the jog too. It stood right by the gate and let me pet him. Silas seemed really interested in him and loved watching him toss his head around. So tomorrow when we head out we'll have to take some sugar cubes with us and see if he is still around. We also saw that our neighbor is growing artichokes, but he doesn't seem to be eating them, so either they are not the eating kind, or he's not going to use them. So I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow. Silas was just about ready for a nap when we got back, so we played on the floor a little bit and then he happily took an hour long nap or so. Meanwhile, I gave Orrin a haircut then made a banana cream pie. Silas woke up, got into the spice cabinet and pulled out a canister of caraway seeds, shaking it like a rattle. It was all good until the lid came off and the kitchen smelled like rye bread and sauerkraut. Orrin was good enough to vacuum up his hair trimmings, the caraway seeds, and then vacuumed the rest of the house. We folded diapers, did some ironing, grilled the rest of the mackerel for lunch, and listened to some music.
Then we headed out to the Rock Raven Rally Race. Orrin heard about it from work. I don't know if it is a UK thing, or just Ireland, or what. But they close down some windy country roads on a Sunday afternoon and these little race cars drive around getting timed on how long it takes them to complete each stage of the race. Spectators drive around on the roads that aren't closed and find a road that intersects the course and watch the 150 cars go zooming past. But you can only see them for about 10 seconds, if that. They don't announce the routes until the morning of so the drivers can't scope out the course, but that also means we had no idea where we were going until Orrin snagged a map out of a program. Even then we felt like we were on our own rally race trying to find a decent place. To quote Orrin "they just had a diaper blow-out! They're going to have to pull over, that's going to cost them some time" "And they're off again, but listen to that baby whine!" The first place we stopped all the cars had already gone past, the second place was just a terrible location- it was packed and we could only see the cars for 1 second each. Finally Orrin talked me into one more try and we found a nice place. There were only about 6 or 7 other people there and we got to watch them come barreling down a hill and then we were standing right above a 90 degree turn. So there was lots of skidding and burning rubber. I really thought I would hate this, but it was actually kind of neat to experience it. Once. It wasn't *that* neat. Although one of the guys Orrin works with actually races in these things, so maybe if he was in a race we'd do it again. Maybe.
We drove home, Silas napped in the car. I sat out with him in the car and read. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Once he woke up we made dinner, rice, peas and teriyaki salmon. And Silas actually ate dinner! After three days of eating a solid food total of five teaspoons of yogurt and four cornflakes he gorged himself on about a cup of rice and peas and two big strawberries. He was actually shoveling fistfuls of rice into his mouth! It was like cookie monster- except with peas, and that they were actually going into his mouth not just getting crunched up and dropped. I couldn't believe it. I'm glad no one else was there as they might have thought it was the first time we'd offered him anything to eat all day. Maybe his appetite is just now coming back after the teething. After dinner, Silas got a bath to wash all the sunscreen off. And we finally addressed the little cradle cap crusty stuff on his head. I'd read that you could soften it with oil then brush it out, and I guess sometimes the things you read are actually true. A little olive oil on the scalp and some good combing and his scalp is clean and smooth. Hooray! I got him tucked into bed about 8:30 and now I have the rest of the night ahead of me to finish my book.

It was really a great weekend. I felt productive, active, confident, adventurous, capable. I could keep going, but I'd have to check a thesaurus. Maybe I just felt to busy to be full of missing everyone, and full of my usual self doubt. Or maybe it was the sunshine and the uninterrupted sleep. Whatever it was, it was a remarkable few days, so I'm grateful.