Step by Step
The moment we have all been waiting for is here. Coming in at 14 months, 2 ft 11 in, weighing 24 lbs*, with blue green eyes and a full head of curly hair……Ellie Jo is finally walking! We are officially the parents of a little toddler who seems to have aged 6 months overnight. I am amazed at how much older she seems simply from being bipedal. As expected, she is constantly on the move, always challenging the status quo of what she can get into. We have learned quickly that the toilet paper roll, toilet, bidet, toys in the toilet, litter box and stairwell gate are all hotbeds of creativity and wonder. She has given us a newfound appreciation for exploration.
I feel bad having to close so many doors and quarantine her off from certain areas of the house, but she doesn’t skip a beat. She will find something else to delve into. Now that she firmly has her land legs under her, we have been spending more and more time at the Sugarhouse Park playground. We spend the first few minutes precariously walking across the bridge and through the tube, until she remembers there’s a swing and that’s all she wants to do. I think she would sleep in the swing if we let her.
*These height and weight estimates were provided for dramatic effect without express permission from said toddler nor corroboration from her primary care physician’s calibrated measuring devices and do not accurately represent Eliana Josephine Trujillo’s measurements.
The last month has been a whirlwind of changes centered mostly around Eliana. We hired a nanny to watch her part time, freeing up more time for me to work at Undercurrent. I am now working four days a week and still enjoying the social aspects of cocktailing. I can tell that my lack of drinking for the majority of last year has affected my palate. Dare I say, I am becoming less interested in the harsh taste of liquors and moving onto the refined, surprising tastes of Amari liqueurs??? But I digress. This summer will be the busiest summer Undercurrent has ever experienced. We are hitting numbers that we never saw even during our busiest winters. It’s great! The perfect storm of vaccinations, pent up stir craziness from stay at home orders, an abundance of cash from not going out last year, and a striving to return to normalcy before the next big wave of COVID hits…
Speaking of perfect storms, Salt Lake has been experiencing some pretty uncharacteristic rain storms over the past month. After wrapping up July with a few blistering weeks of a scorching heat wave, August welcomed us with two torrential downpours. In the five years we have lived in our house, we have never seen anything like this. In a matter of minutes, street gutters had overflowed and engulfed the bike lanes and half of the driving lane. Sophie and I stood in awe looking from our front porch so sure that we were going to see a car accident at any minute. As we started seeing water streaming down our neighbors driveway from our backyard, we got the sense to check our backyard. The alleyway behind our house was spewing water into our backyard. We had to create a makeshift dam to divert the water away from the house and into our lawn. There was at least 2 inches of standing water on our lawn before the storm passed us by. Two weeks later the same thing happened. All this rain has been great for our garden though. Our blackberries are suspiciously big, our beans and squash are poppin’ off, and the cabbage aphids are holding raves every single night. Good fun for all!
Two more weeks later, I now sit in bed with gauze under my nose, spewing out clumps of blood from another successful sinus surgery. I reread the last entry I posted 7 years ago when I underwent my first sinus surgery. It’s amazing how many of the same emotions I felt going through the same procedure. I was still anxious, still thinking about the statistical small chance of something going incredibly wrong leaving me paralyzed, deformed or dead. I still could not shake that sneaking suspicion that everything may not be alright. I guess these feelings are normal. Lying there on the hospital bed, you are acutely aware of how fragile you are. There’s something disconcerting to me about putting my life and well being into someone else’s hands. But alas, everything went according to plan and I am now recumbent, eagerly awaiting my full and expedient recovery. I am under strict orders not to bend over or lift anything more than 10 lbs for the next 7-10 days. That means I can’t pick up my daughter and give her a big hug as we traverse around the house and yard admiring the world around us. It’s only been one day and I’m already feeling that loss of intimacy with Eliana. 6 more days and counting. Until then, I will fill up my time looking at old pictures, planning ahead for my next career move, and drifting off into the best worst sleep I can muster. Oh and watching shows. Did I mention that?
#ozark4evah
#breakingbadislife
#tedlassoanyone?
