random musings

See you at www.theleen.com!

2008-10-28T00:05:00.004-07:00

I've finally made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress. I've (obviously) been at Blogger for a very long time, but I'm excited to explore the new world of Wordpress.

This means that if you've been using http://shinelikestars.blogspot.com to access my blog, it will no longer automatically direct you to my new url, www.theleen.com.

So please take the extra minute to type the url in and visit me over at the new and (soon-to-be) improved www.theleen.com!

week in review, 10/15/08 (a day late)

2008-10-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is a day late; things have been busy in our house this week!

Friday: We had to give Elanor a bath in the kitchen sink because we were in the middle of re-painting and re-caulking the bathroom, so we couldn't use the bathtub all weekend.

Saturday: We dog-sat our friend Kim's dog, Fipo. He was really sweet and patient with Elanor, and she loved playing with him.

Sunday: Hanging out on the couch before I got her dressed for church. She loves to nom on Papa's deodorant container...go figure.

Monday: An impromptu early-morning photo shoot while she was playing in the living room. She seems to be thinking, "Huh. I have a hand. That's cool."

Tuesday: Official nine-month photo. She was not pleased. She was already overtired, and I couldn't get a good picture so I kept trying, which (clearly) did not make her happy.

Wednesday: Just playing around with Photobooth on my computer. I sound like a total dork. Heh.

Tomorrow morning, my eight-year-old nephew Zachary is coming to visit for the weekend, and then he and I and Elanor are taking the train back to Portland on Sunday night. Elanor and I will spend the week down there and then Brett will join us for the weekend. I am taking my computer to Portland with me so hopefully I'll have a chance to post while I'm there!

October 14: Monthly Letter and contest results

2008-10-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

The results are in!

At her appointment on Friday, Elanor measured thusly:

28 inches long
23 pounds, one ounce

Okay, if I'd thought this out better, I would have just had people guess on her size, because the chances are slim-to-none that anyone would guess both right on.

And, of course, no one did, so I guess I will have to declare two winners:

For weight: Meg, whose guess of 23.5 pounds was only off by a few ounces
For length: my sister Melissa, who was right on with her guess of 28 inches

Congratulations, ladies! The prize is a $15 gift card to Powell's Books, my favorite bookstore, because everybody needs more books! Meg, send me an email to the address in the sidebar with your mailing address and I'll get it out to you, and Liss, I'll get yours to you when I'm down there next week.

Thanks to everyone who participated; it was fun! I will have to think of some more contests in the future.

My two cents on her weight and height is that it sure as heck seems like she weighs a lot more than that. *shrug* I was downright shocked when I put her on the scale and that's what it said, but there's no arguing with a scale. It means she's still 95th percentile for weight (only 75th for height) so it's not like she's small, she's just lighter than I guessed. I suppose she just seems a lot heavier since I carry her in the Ergo so often. Go figure; apparently I am just bad at guessing these things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

Today you are nine months old! I am not sure what to write without it sounding trite or full of clichés about how wonderful you are or about how much I love you or about how much of a joy it is to be your mom or about how fast you're growing. (All of those things are true, though.)

Eight month picture, September 14

You are getting bigger all the time and are continuing to develop into a fun, hilarious, curious, good-natured child. That said, Papa and I are starting to get glimpses of how strong-willed you are. If we’re doing something you don’t like (usually involving holding you in our arms and trying to get you to go to sleep), you protest vehemently with crying, grunting, and arching your back to try to make us let go of you and let you keep playing.

Playing, September 24

You are both crawling and standing up with ease. A few weeks ago, when Noni was here, you stood up in the bathtub, holding onto the side with your right hand. You then noticed that your rubber duckie was in your left hand. So, you let go of the edge of the tub, standing on your own and playing with your rubber duckie. Noni and I looked at one another in amazement and disbelief as we watched you stand on your own for at least 30 seconds before sitting back down on your bum.

Standing up, October 13

Since then, your pulling up skills have vastly improved, and you will now pull up on anything. You cruise around the living room, holding on to the edges of the furniture. We can’t leave you alone for a second anymore; that’s how long it takes for you to get into something you shouldn’t or to lose your balance and bonk your head.

Making malarkey, September 26

These days, your favorite toys appear to be mostly non-toys: our camera bag (best.toy.ever), Papa’s hairbrush, a plastic clothes hanger, your shoes, and a silky ribbon belt that came with a pair of your pants. I gave the belt to you to play with because I just could not fathom putting a belt on a baby. It appears to be a good decision, since you love it so much.

Nom-ing another favorite non-toy, Papa's deodorant, October 12

You are eating a lot more table food. We recently got you a high chair and you enjoy sitting up at our level for meals. You have not rejected any food yet (including Kalamata olives, which was a huge surprise for us) and you enjoy eating all kinds of different things. You pick up the little bits of food with your thumb and forefinger and bring them to your mouth. If things are crunchy, your (now seven) teeth take care of it, while making a really cute crunching munching sound. You still love to nurse, though, and I’m so glad.

Eating peach cobbler, October 6

Every week you seem to babble more. You now say many, many different babbling sounds. While you don’t have any real words (other than Mama) you do seem to be putting the pieces together about how language works, varying your tone when you babble and listening to everything we say. You’ve begun to say Papapapa, and I believe you are starting to understand it means that big, hairy, bearded guy who likes to tickle and snuggle you. And it’s no surprise that you’ve figured out how to tell us you don’t want to do something, which is when you say Neenaynaynay.

Peering over the edge of the couch while starting to stand up, October 13

You also seem to understand some signs, especially the sign for more, which you seem to do by clapping your hands. This afternoon, you were sitting in your exersaucer and you clapped your hands. I looked over and asked you if you wanted more Veggie Booty (your favorite food, ever, hands down, no contest) and you got a huge smile on your face and clapped your hands together more, as if to say that I understood you. You now patty-cake, too, (which Noni taught you) on command and love to clap your hands even if you aren't trying to say more.

In the Ergo, about to leave for community group, September 23

The best thing that's happened in the last month is that I'm done with my job and I have been able to be home with you all day, which I love so much! We have a good time, going for walks, playing toys on the floor, or rolling around and laughing on the bed.

Being gorgeous, October 13

Waking up next to you and Papa every morning and seeing you smile at each of us in turn is a beautiful thing, and I look forward to it every single day. I know, I say this every time, but you are truly a joy and a pleasure to spend my time with and to parent. I love you, my girl!

Love,
Mama

place your bets...

2008-10-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Elanor has always been, well, big for her age.

Even when I was pregnant, we knew she was big.

She has her nine-month checkup this afternoon (even though her nine-month birthday isn't until Tuesday...but that's a long story) and one of the things I'm most curious about is what she weighs and how tall she is.

I know a lot of our family and friends are curious, too, so in the spirit of friendly competition and curiosity, I'm going to give a special prize (yes, something real!) to the person who guesses the closest to what her actual weight and height are.

To make the most informed guess, you'll probably want to know previous stats, so here goes. I'm including pictures, roughly from around the time of her checkups, to give a visual as well.

When she was born, she weighed 9 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19.5 inches long.

At her first pediatrician visit when she was four days old, she had lost a little weight, but was a little longer: 8 pounds, 11 ounces and 20.5 inches long.

At her two week visit, she weighed 10 pounds, 8.5 ounces and was 21 inches long.

I can't find the little sheet from her two month visit, so I don't know what she weighed. I totally can't remember.

But at four months, she weighed 17 pounds, 5.5 ounces and was 26 inches long.

And at six months, she weighed 2o pounds, 2.5 ounces and was 26.75 inches long.

Here's her eight month photo, the most recent chair/pig one.

Here's a picture from last week. I know it's not in the chair with the pig but at least it gives you an idea of how big she is.

She's wearing a range of sizes, anywhere from 6-9 month stuff (although it's getting small) all the way up to 18-24 month stuff. The 12-18 month stuff tends to fit her pretty comfortably.

She seems so much bigger to me now than she was even at six months. It seems like she has grown a lot. But then again, at six months, I was expecting her to weigh closer to 25 pounds and she was clearly a lot less than that. However, she's always been solidly in the 95th percentile for both height and weight.

So, all of that said, what do you think? What are your guesses? I honestly have no idea. All I know is that she gets heavy awfully quickly these days when I try to carry her around.

Like I said, the winner will get a prize, probably a gift card to somewhere online! (Not for much, because I'm not rich, but it will be somewhere fun, I promise.) I'll announce the winner, let's see, how about Tuesday, her actual nine-month birthday?

Until then, comment away with your guess!

week in review, 10/8/08

2008-10-08T14:03:00.001-07:00

Wednesday: A view of a train going under the overpass at Fisherman's Terminal while Elanor and I were walking. I love seeing the trains at the rail yard there and it was neat to stand right over it and watch it go along the tracks.

Thursday: On the Ballard Bridge. She fell asleep in her stroller while we were walking to do our errands after playgroup.

Friday: On our drive to Ellensburg. We stopped here so I could feed Elanor, and the sign just cracked me up for so many reasons. First of all, the turtle at the top -- awesome. Rachel, he's totally an awkward turtle. Second, the juxtaposition of words made me laugh -- beans, beer, gas. Food, ice, LP (what in the heck is LP?). Lotto, scratch, dog. (Why dog? WTF? Is this all some kind of random code language that I don't understand?)

Saturday: In the pool at the motel in Ellensburg. Elanor adores the water!

Sunday: Brett and Elanor in our motel room in Ellensburg, just as we were getting ready to leave.

Monday: Elanor trying peach cobbler for the first time. I bought a box of peaches in Ellensburg so I made a cobbler, which is a special dessert in my family. The recipe was my mom's grandma's, and it's a traditional dessert we've always enjoyed. Elanor certainly liked it!

Tuesday: Elanor and I went for a walk and the view from Sunset Hill Park was so beautiful. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

wow. kind of intense.

2008-10-02T16:08:00.000-07:00

Uh.

I just tried to make some oven-baked french fry-ish sort of potatoes. Did not go so well. Perhaps it is a message from the Lord about my possibly excessive love of potatoes.

I turned on the oven to preheat while I peeled and sliced potatoes. As I finished, I realized it smelled funny in the kitchen.

I opened the oven door to see what the deal was and there were FLAMES, like actual firey flames, in my oven.

I think I yelled, "OH BALLS!!!" while I just stood there, dumbstruck, and watched the flames for a minute, thinking about how I don't have a fire extinguisher and maybe I should call 911 and what in the heck would I smother a fire that wouldn't just catch fire itself IN THE OVEN AHHHHHHHHHHH!

So I did the first thing I could think of. I grabbed my phone and called my mom, since I knew she'd a.) answer right away and b.) know what to do. (There's a good chance Brett wouldn't be able to answer and that he would have no idea what to do. Mom seemed like a better choice.)

"Hi-mom-there's-a-fire-in-my-oven-flames-smoke-helllllllp!"

"Oh, uh, wow! Um, baking powder! Put baking powder on it."

I ran to the cupboard and threw it open.

"Powder? Are you sure, powder? Not soda?"

"Oh, uh, I, uh...yeah, soda! Baking SODA."

"Soda soda soda where the heck is the SODA!!!"

I finally found it behind the red wine vinegar (seriously? I clearly did not re-shelve it properly last time I used it) and turned around to see smoke billowing through the kitchen (well, ok, maybe just wafting) and Elanor looking at me with curiosity. I pulled the oven racks out (with a hot mitt, of course, I'm not that dumb) and threw them onto the oven door, then proceeded to dump at least half a box of baking soda onto the flaming piece of whatever-the-heck was stuck to the bottom of my oven, extinguishing the flames.

Whew. That? Was a crazy five minutes.

And I am still hungry. :( Sigh. I guess I will wait until the oven cools off, wipe it out, and then try again with the potatoes. And I guess that I will also be running a self-clean cycle on my oven, very, very soon.

week in review, 10/1/08, and a special birthday shout-out

2008-10-01T12:00:00.001-07:00

Thursday: At Fisherman's Terminal, while walking to pick up some things for my WAHM gig. Elanor laughs like crazy when I say "net shed" to her over and over again in a silly voice.

Friday: In the Ergo, munching on the camera strap, looking beautiful and luminous in the natural light from the dining room window.

Saturday: Walking to Fiore. The trees were glowing with the sunlight, and they looked very dramatic against the dark grey sky.

Sunday: Chopping tomatoes and putting them in cans.

Edited to add the following: So, I didn't really take any pics on Monday or Tuesday. Yeah. Lazy. But, in consolation, I'll post this.

Today is my nephew Zachary's eighth birthday. He's always been a fun and wonderful kid, and he's growing into a fun and wonderful young man.

It's hard to believe that this day was eight years ago. And yet, at the same time, it seems like it's been so much longer, like Zach has always been a part of our lives.

October 1, 2000: I'm holding Zachary on the morning he was born. He was so tiny!

December 2000: I'm pretty sure this was when I was home from college for Christmas. Can you see where Elanor gets her chunkiness? Ha.

July 26, 2008: This is the most recent pic I have of him, from when we were down in Portland this summer. He's the one in the back making the hammy face. From l-r is our friend Molly's son Carter, then Zach, then Zach's brother and sister, Jacob and Adeline.

So, happy birthday, Zach man. I'm so glad you were born and that I get to be your auntie. I love you!

black bean soup and cornbread

2008-09-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Cooking is one of my favorite things to do, and I'm really glad that I'm going to be home and able to cook a meal most of the time.

I tend to get into ruts with cooking, in that I tend to cook the same recipes over and over again. But hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

Maybe I shouldn't call it a rut. I guess these recipes are more just staple recipes for us. Most of them are quick, easy, and cheap, and, obviously, they are yummy, or I wouldn't keep making them so often. I'm hoping to post a few of them over the next weeks and months, because I know I am always on the lookout for good recipes, and I've found a couple of favorites through recommendations from friends.

I've made black bean soup a few times recently, since the weather has started to turn, and I'm reminded again just how much I love it.

I initially had black bean soup in Maine, at our friends' Joey and Lisa's house. I also had it at a restaurant called Norm's, which was next door to Brett's school in Maine. At Norm's, you could get a cup of soup and a slice of cornbread for something like $3, which suited our poor-student budget quite well.

Lisa's recipe wasn't exactly like the one at Norm's, and I've been trying to get it a little closer to what I remember the soup being like at Norm's. I think I'm pretty dang close, and I think it's really, really good.

So this recipe started with the one Lisa gave me, but I've added quite a bit -- the red pepper, the carrots, more spices, lots more pepper -- and have reduced the amount of tomatoes and corn. At this point, I guess you could say it's pretty much my own creation, since it's fairly far removed from the original recipe Lisa gave me.

Black Bean Soup
olive oil -- enough to cover bottom of soup pot
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4-5 garlic cloves, minced (more or less to taste)
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
4 medium size carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup frozen or one can of corn
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes in juice
32 oz (2 cans, one carton) vegetable broth
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp black pepper
(I think I usually add more of the cayenne and black pepper, but I don't measure, plus, we like things spicy, so I tend to add more than not)

for garnishing:
chopped scallions
chopped cilantro
grated cheddar

Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, bell pepper, carrot, cumin, oregano, and salt. Saute over medium heat until onions start to caramelize and brown and carrots are soft, about 10 mins.

Add all other ingredients, bring to a boil, and let simmer until hot. Adjust spices to taste, adding more if desired.

Serve hot, and top with scallions, cilantro, and cheese.

Now, I'll confess that I got the cornbread recipe from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, although I did make two modifications, noted below. It was a hit the other night: crumbly, slightly sweet, very corn-y. We ate almost the whole pan at dinner. (Yep, we're pigs.)

Basic Corn Bread, page 646, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
2 T butter
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 t baking powder
2 eggs (this is where I changed -- I don't like eggy cornbread, so I only used one egg and it turned out great)
1/4 cup butter, melted
2-4 t honey (I wanted to give some to Elanor, so I used 1 T raw sugar instead)
1 c milk

Preheat the oven to 425. Put the butter in an 8-inch square baking pan and set in the oven while it's heating. Meanwhile, stir the dry ingredients together and make a well in the center of the bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. As soon as the oven is hot, remove the pan and brush the butter around the edges. [note: don't be a dumbass like me and leave it in there for any longer, because I forgot to take it out and let the butter burn, and then had to start this step over] Pour any excess into the wet ingredients. Quickly mix the wet and dry ingredients together, then pour the batter into the pan and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Enjoy! If you make either recipe, let me know how you like it!

probably not very interesting to non-parents as I talk about diapers ad nauseum

2008-09-27T12:04:00.001-07:00

We've had a couple rough days, sleep-wise. Or I guess I should say lack of sleep-wise. Elanor's decided she doesn't want to nap much longer than 30 minutes at a stretch, and she also doesn't seem to want to go to bed until 11 p.m. All signs point to the fact that we're entering the nine-month developmental spurt/sleep regression: getting at least one more tooth, pulling up, crawling, babbling more, and the like. Knowing that helps, I guess, but it doesn't make the not sleeping easier. Sigh. She's asleep on me in the Ergo right now, and I really should go try to put her down in the bed and then get some things done around the house, but, well, I'm tired and I worked hard yesterday and Brett hasn't been home much this week to give me a break (he's at work now, even, on a Saturday), so I am going to blog instead.

Aaaaanyway, with that long and rambling introduction, I'll get started.

I have like four immediate things I want to blog about, but I guess I'll just pick one and then try to write up the others while Elanor is asleep so I can post them later this week.

For a while now, I've been wanting to get gDiapers. My friend Isabel uses them with her son and has been singing their praises for a while now, and I've heard good things about them elsewhere, too.

While we usually use cloth diapers at home (and let me just be very clear that I love, love, love my cloth diapers), we do occasionally use diposables: when we travel to Portland, when Elanor has a bad diaper rash and I want to load her up with diaper cream, or when I've been lazy and all our diaper covers are dirty.

But we've had some major problems with disposables lately. One result was this:

And the other was this:
It's obvious what happened in the first picture. She had a blowout of epic proportions. ( Thank you, Seventh Generation. )

In the second, she'd had another huuuuuge blowout, this time in a restaurant while we were on Bainbridge Island for Joel and Rosanna's wedding. ( Again, thank you, Seventh Generation. )

This second event resulted in her clothes being covered in poop, and me running to the grocery store next door with Rosanna to buy something, anything other than Seventh Generation diapers. Then when I got back outside, we had to strip her completely naked on the sidewalk so I could wipe her down with baby wipes and then put a new diaper and a new outfit on her, since there wasn't a changing table in the restaurant and I wasn't about to change this one at the table. Uh, no.

So, because of those two incidents, I'm done with Seventh Generation, which is unfortunate since they worked well for us when Elanor was younger. It's also unfortunate because at Fred Meyer right now, they are on sale for $7 per pack. Yes, that's right -- $7. It's a great deal...but not if they inspire huge blowouts.

Anyway, some of you might be thinking, "Why doesn't she just use Huggies or something?" Well, I don't want to use so-called normal diapers, the kind with all the chemicals/dyes/scents. I know. Call me crazy, or fanatic, or whatever, but I just don't. For one thing, they don't decompose for a very long time. For another, Elanor tends to get rashy when we use them. So we don't. Am I being stubborn? Maybe a little, but given our other crazy environmentally-friendly tendencies, are you surprised? Probably not.

Since Seventh Generation has failed us so epically multiple times now, I had to find an alternative. I bought Tushies that day on Bainbridge Island, which were just ok. I didn't love them, and although we didn't have an epic blowout, that's only because Elanor didn't poop while wearing them, and not because they work any better. I think they'd probably be about the same as Seventh Gen, honestly.

I finally just bit the bullet and invested the money in the gDiapers starter kit, since we were almost out of the Tushies anyway. And let me tell you, gDiapers = awesome.

I put her in one when we got home yesterday, just to try it. I went to change it a couple hours later, and, much to my surprise, she had pooped. And there was no epic blowout -- the poop was contained!

HOORAY.

Granted, the cover was dirty and I had to wash it, but that's par for the course. I usually have to wash our cloth covers, too, after a poop, so it's not a big deal to me.

The liner even flushed exactly like it's supposed to, despite the fact that our plumbing is old and somewhat crappy.

Plus, the covers are seriously cute, and they are nice and trim like normal disposables, so if she has an outfit where her cloth diaper is too big, the gDiapers will still work.

I'm just thrilled that they've worked out so well, and that I seem to have found an environmentally-friendly pseudo-disposable that works well for us and will make traveling a lot easier.

Coming later this week...a favorite (easy, cheap, healthy) recipe of mine, a good-bad-ugly post, the week in review, and a follow-up to this post. Yeah, I know I'm being ambitious, advertising four upcoming posts in a week, but you never know; I might actually be able to make that happen.

a new weekly feature and a staying home update

2008-09-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm going to start doing at least one weekly themed post. The one I've decided to try first is a Wednesday week in review post, which will usually be heavy on the photos, light on the text. My hope is that I'll eventually be able to post one photo for every day of the previous week, just to give some kind of snapshot of what we've been up to. This week's, though, is going to be a little less complete, since I don't have a photo from the first few days. I'll post what I have for this week below.

Second, Annie asked in the comments on my last post how my first week at home is going. It's going really well! Some things, of course, are different than I'd imagined or hoped they'd be, but that's to be expected. That said, some things are even better than I'd hoped. Here's a quick rundown.

Things I've done more than I expected:

Sleeping. I took a nap with Elanor today and it was great.
Trying to get Elanor to sleep. Even though she's tired in the mornings, she doesn't seem to want to nap.

Things I've done less than I expected:

Blogging. Clearly, since this is my first post of the week.
Laundry. I have a backlog that's been piling up since last week. I forced myself to do a few loads today, primarily because every towel in the house was dirty and I'd put the last sest of clean sheets on our bed. It's hard since the laundry is in the basement and there's nowhere down there that I can put Elanor where she'll be safe while I load the machines. I'll have to figure out a solution to this one, because I'm going to have to do laundry while Brett is gone, and thus far, I've only been doing it when he's home to watch her or when she is napping, hence the major backlog.
Cleaning. I've done a little every day, and have been able to at least maintain some standard of neatness around the house, but it's nearly impossible to deep clean a bathroom or to mop the floors when Elanor is awake. I guess this will have to be reserved either for nap time or for when Papa is home.

Things I've done about as much as I'd hoped:

Cooking. I've made dinner, including some sort of baked good, every day so far. Monday was cornbread, Tuesday was snickerdoodles, and today was a yummy beer bread.
Walking. We've taken a walk every day so far, which is good, because we both like to get out of the house and because the fresh air and exercise are good for us.
Enjoying. Basically, this, being home with Elanor and taking care of her and our home, is fantastic. Sure, it's different than I thought it would be in some ways, but almost nothing is ever what one expects it to be, so I'm fine with that. Overall, I'm thrilled to be home and to be taking care of my family every day.

And now, for the Wednesday week in review.

Friday: Brett's dad, otherwise known as Grumps, held a ready-for-bed Elanor as he and Brett were getting ready to go out to see our friend's band play. He and Noni came up to visit for the weekend.

Saturday: Brett made toast from some yummy sourdough bread on Saturday morning, and he gave Elanor the crust to chew on. I think she liked it.

Sunday: Brett's mom Noni was about to go back home to Portland. She was getting one last snuggle with Elanor before she and Grumps hit the road.

Tuesday: I had Elanor in the Ergo, ready to leave for community group, and I took a photo to document that the hat Brett's mom made before Elanor was born still fit.

Wednesday: Brett and Elanor enjoyed watching YouTube videos together after Brett got home from work.

2008-09-20T21:42:00.001-07:00

It's been an interesting week; we've had a lot of change happen all at once, mostly on Thursday.

First of all, Thursday was my last day at work, at the job I've had since we moved back from Maine, the job I had before we moved to Maine, too. It's the job I've had the longest in my post-college life, and it's been a good job with good co-workers. So as excited as I am to be home with Elanor, it was pretty bittersweet to leave it forever.

Second, Rachel left on Thursday to go back to school. She's been with us the entire summer, since mid-June. She has truly become a part of our immediate family, and in addition to helping us watch Elanor while we were at work, she's been our caregiver, our helper, our companion, and, most of all, has become a really awesome friend to me. She's only been gone a few days but I miss her already.

So, two big changes in one day. It's all just starting to sink in, and I think it will continue to do so over the next week or two.

One big effect that will come out of Rachel leaving is that once Brett's parents leave tomorrow (they're visiting for the weekend), Brett and Elanor and I will be alone in the house for the first time ever, with the exception of a few weeks here and there. For one thing, we used to have a housemate, but he moved out, and for another, we've had family here nearly continuously since Elanor was born. There were maybe eight or so weeks of my maternity leave when none of our family was here, but between visits right after she was born, and then visits to help care for Elanor when I went back to work, and then people taking care of us after my heart thing, and then Rachel being here...yeah. We've had constant people here with us for the past five months or so, and the three months before that were not constant but were nearly so.

Anyway, it's going to be weird to be here alone, I think. It's going to be great in a lot of ways; I'm looking forward to some changes we're making with regard to how the house is set up -- moving the guest room, setting up an office/work space for me -- and I'm glad that I don't have to worry about Elanor disturbing anyone if she wakes up early or if she cries in the nighttime or if she's just being loud. But it's going to be strange to be alone, and, I'll confess, probably a little creepy, too, since I'm so used to having other people around.

I have so many other things I want to blog about these days, but I don't ever seem to have the time to type them out. I've taken to composing blog entries in my head as I walk around the neighborhood, pushing Elanor in the stroller. The only problem is that I don't have any way to record them when I'm doing that, and my time at the computer is limited, so the majority of these mental blog posts never get posted. And that's a shame. I've started carrying around a little notebook wherein I can write at least snippets of the things I want to blog about. Maybe it will help me remember them and will make it easier to type them out once I do have a few minutes at the computer.

I should wrap this up. Brett wants some more gingerbread (I just pulled it out of the oven a few minutes ago; it's yummy and warm and we both devoured our pieces in a matter of minutes) and I think I do, too. So since he is holding a sleeping Elanor, I suppose I should get up and get it for him. He just looked at me pleadingly...I'd better get to it. (Besides, I want more, too!)

funny...

2008-09-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning all of the personal stuff off the hard drive on my work computer in preparation for my last day, and I came across this picture, which was taken a year ago Saturday.

I had a hard time at first remembering why we were on the roof at my building. I think it was when Brett's sister Rachel and her friends came up to Seattle to go to a concert, but it sold out before they could get tickets so we went on the roof instead. If I'm remembering right, that weekend was also the first time anyone on the outside of me felt Elanor kick. Rachel was the lucky one to have that experience...it seems her connection with Elanor was present even then.

2008-09-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Ack. I sat down to write a blog post and my mind is going in about a million different directions. That's what I get for not posting in a long time, I guess.

So for now I'll just post one thing; I might as well keep it short and get a post out and published before Elanor needs my attention again.

My last day at work is Thursday. I'm really excited to be home with Elanor and am sooo ready to just be done. It's hard to focus but I want to leave on a good note so I am making myself do it even though it's not easy.

That said, I'm feeling oddly conflicted about not getting up every day and going to a job. With the exception of my maternity leave, the time I was out on disability after my heart thing, and a very few random weeks here and there, I haven't not worked a "real" job since I was 15. FIFTEEN! Yikes. That's...well, suffice it to say it was a long time ago.

I've got to confess, too, that I'll truly miss some elements of going to work every day. I'll miss seeing my co-workers and interacting with them. I'll miss my bus commute, oddly enough, since it's a guaranteed hour or hour and a half a day when I get to just be alone to read and listen to my iPod. I'll miss going over the Ballard Bridge every morning as the sun is coming up. I'll miss being downtown and feeling the sense of busy-ness and energy I get whenever I am there. I'll miss having a parking pass that grants me 24-hour access to a garage in the city. I'll miss being able to go up on the roof of the building where I work at any hour of the day or night.

But all of those things aside, I truly am excited to be home with Elanor. I know it's what is best for her, for me, and for Brett, and I'm looking forward to finding a rythym and a niche that works for us.

changes

2008-09-03T22:44:00.002-07:00

Come September 19, I'm going to have a new boss.

She's short, and has wild hair, and can be temperamental and moody at times. She likes to yell and often gets her hands dirty, but at the same time she likes a laid-back environment where she can just sit and let it all hang out. She can also be full of crap and tends to drool over the littlest things.

But no matter how hard she can be to deal with from time to time, when she smiles at me, all of the bad stuff fades away and I feel happy.

Ok, since this analogy is getting really awkward I'll just cut it off and say what I'm getting at: Elanor is going to be my new boss! I quit my job today; my last day in the office will be September 18 and then I am going to stay home and take care of her full-time!

Brett got a promotion at work and some at-home opportunities have panned out for me, and with Rachel going back to school, the time was just right for me to make this change. Everything fell into place perfectly and in the perfect time; God's hand has so been present in this.

We are really excited for me to get to be home. Ever since I was in college, I've known that what I am supposed to do is be home with my family. I am beyond grateful to have the opportunity to do so. At times over the past several years, it's seemed like staying home was something completely out of reach for me. I'm so thankful that God has given me my heart's desire and made all of this happen.

Given how amazing my co-workers have been in the past year, I'm sad to leave them, and Brett and I did have to consider carefully if my job was worth walking away from. In the end, obviously, we decided that it is, since our family is worth more than any job -- no matter how wonderful the company and co-workers are -- could be.

I'm hoping that with this new phase in life I can do more with my blogs. I've been wanting to do more for a while, but just haven't had the time to dedicate to it. I hope that now I'll be able to. I miss writing regularly.

So, that said, it's late and I have a lot of knitting to do before Joel and Rosanna's wedding on Friday since I'm knitting some things for the ceremony, so I should either knit or go to bed. I do have to get up for work tomorrow...but after tomorrow, I'll only have to do it eight more times! HOORAY!

new domain name

2008-08-28T21:28:00.001-07:00

I'm really excited to say that I have a new domain name: www.theleen.com. I've wanted to get my own name for a long time, but the impetus to jump in and do it has been that my friend Rosanna, who designed our gorgeous baby announcements, helped me design some business cards with my email address and website name.

She printed them today and they look beyond amazing. I will scan one and post it soon; it's really lovely. I'm thrilled with them. (I'm actually hoping to eventually take the plunge and move away from Blogger entirely at some point in the near future and do a website re-design that will incorporate elements of the cards. It will look really cool!)

(PS -- if you need any stationary made, like business cards, notecards, wedding invitations, baby announcements, basically anything you can dream up, you should talk to Rosanna. Her work with the letterpress is truly talented and she's working at building up a business so she's eager for projects. I'd be happy to send her email address to anyone who is interested.)

Any link listed as http://shinelikestars.blogspot.com will continue to point here for the time being, until I move away from Blogger entirely, so that is convenient.

Ok, Brett just brought me some chocolate ice cream, so I'm going to enjoy it while I keep typing in www.theleen.com over and over again just to see how fun it is to have my own domain name. I'm such a dork.

un-freaking-believable

2008-08-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

I got kicked out of a coffee shop today.

(Yeah, I know...it seems pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? I mean, seriously, people. Anyone who knows me will find it hard to believe that I would actually get kicked out of somewhere. Brett, now -- well, I'm sure you can see him getting kicked out, but me? I don't think so.)

Elanor and I were downtown with Brett's mom and Rachel, Brett's sister. We had been shopping and decided to get some coffee, as we had about 45 minutes to kill before we had to take Rachel to meet up with some friends.

We were in the middle of downtown, but coffee snobs that we are, we didn't want to patronize any old (yucky) coffee shop, so we got in the car and drove down to Trabant in Pioneer Square.

When we walked in, the place was empty except for the two employees -- one male, one female.

I ordered our drinks -- cappuccinos -- and paid for them. The male barista made Brett's mom and me gorgeous cappuccinos, which we sat down and began to enjoy.

(A side note: It truly was one of the best cappuccinos I've had in a very long time. The coffee tasted wonderful, the milk was nutty, and the foam was really nice and dense.)

We were the only customers in the shop for a few minutes, until about five people came in and sat down at a table up by the door.

The high ceilings were making everything echo -- the espresso grinding, the doser, the music...and every noise that anyone in the shop made.

Elanor was being a typical seven-month-old and was babbling away. At one point she squealed and it echoed in a huge way. I looked up at the barista and said, "Oh, sorry, she's being kind of loud." He smiled and said that it was no problem.

We'd been there about 30 minutes when I had finished my coffee and Elanor started to fuss. She broke into full-on crying, and I stood up to take her outside to wait while Brett's mom and Rachel finished up. I was just telling Rachel what I was going to do and was asking her to grab the diaper bag when we were approached by the female employee, who had been over at the other table of customers in the store.

Elanor had been crying for maybe -- MAYBE -- a minute, tops, at this point.

The female employee then told us that if the baby was going to be loud that we would have to leave. She said she was trying to teach a class and that they "can't hear anything."

She also said that she didn’t “know anything about children” but that she had to ask us to leave if the baby was going to be noisy. Clearly, she knows nothing about children; no one ever seemed to tell her children don’t come equipped with an on/off switch.

In the moment, flustered by being confronted and by Elanor’s crying, I just told the woman that we were already leaving and then walked out of the shop, leaving my family to collect my bag and our other things.

Of course, now I can think of about a million different things I wish I would have said, many of which are not very nice.

At the top of the list is some form of HOW DARE YOU followed by YOU ARE NOT A NICE PERSON AND OBVIOUSLY NOT VERY BRIGHT SINCE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE I WAS ALREADY LEAVING followed by MAY YOU BE CURSED SOMEDAY WITH A VERY FUSSY BABY IN A MUCH MORE PUBLIC AND INAPPROPRIATE PLACE THAN THIS.

It's probably good that I didn't say any of that while I was there since none of it is very nice.

After we left, I called Brett and told him what had happened, and he was shocked. We've been in this shop many times before and Brett is at least somewhat acquainted with several of the employees and even interviewed for a job there around the time he got his current job.

So, instead of marching back in there and telling the woman off like Brett's mom wanted to do, I did what I do best and wrote an angry letter, which I plan to mail on Monday morning, in which I mention that I am going to blog about my negative experience both here and over at Seattle Mom Blogs. (Which, yeah, I'm sure they're oh so scared that I'm going to blog about this, since I'm so important and since I get so much traffic on my blog -- not -- but still, it doesn't hurt to mention that I am going to talk about my negative experience with other people.)

I'm going to ask this over at Seattle Mom Blogs, too, but I'm curious. How many of you have been asked to leave a public place because your child was loud/disruptive/etc? What did you do?

August 14: Seven Months Old

2008-08-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

This is almost a week late, but better late than never, I guess. It's been a busy and kind of crazy couple of weeks for us; I was sick again (ugh) and then the way life has gone lately, I haven't had much spare time to sit down and write anything coherent. This is the first chance I've had to finish this letter and get something posted. Elanor's asleep on the bed beside me so I'd better hurry up and post before she wakes up!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

Today you are seven months old. It seems sometimes like you are so much older than this; I often have to remind myself that you are just a little baby who doesn’t understand as much as I sometimes think you do.

At Carkeek Park, July 20

You seem to be continually ahead of the curve in terms of physical development, especially in getting teeth. You have four now – three on the bottom, one on the top – and two more top ones coming in. It’s been a rough week or so with that happening. I can tell that your top middle teeth have been the roughest so far. They are big and seem like they’ve really bothered you as they have been popping through. It's strange now to see you smile and have your mouth be full of teeth. Gone are your gummy baby grin days!

In a big-girl car seat on the way home from Portland, July 27

Along with teeth has come biting. It’s not so fun. You don’t know any better – although we are trying to teach you not to bite – so we can’t get mad when you do bite us, but it hurts! Your little teeth are really sharp.

At the pool with Mema holding you, July 26

Your preferred form of transportation is now a combination of crawling and scooting. You can also pull yourself up to standing and do so with startling regularity and growing ease. It’s actually quite frightening. You are so quick to move across the room or the bed or around your changing table, especially when you have a motivation like trying to grab the cat. (You love the cat, by the way, and will dart across the bed just to try to catch her. You think it’s the best thing ever. Her? Not so much.)

Playing and snuggling with Papa and Miss Kitty, August 3

You also seem to really know what Mama means now. I love it. You’ll be across the room and see me and say, “Mamamamamama” and reach out your little arms for me. It is the most precious and heart-melting thing I’ve ever heard.

Having a bath in Aunt Amy and Uncle Seth's sink, July 25

On that same note, you definitely know when someone other than me or Papa or Auntie Rachel is holding you, and there are lots of times when only one of us will do. Separation anxiety, they call it, which makes sense to me. Of course you’d be anxious at being separated from one of us; you are with one of the three of us 99% of the time so it’s probably weird and scary when suddenly none of us is right there.

Meeting baby Ezra at Leah & Kevin's wedding, August 2

You now eat fruit regularly, especially peaches, nectarines, and banana. You love peaches and nectarines! Auntie Rachel had the brilliant idea the other day to slice one and then freeze the slices before putting them in your mesh teething feeder, giving you a cold treat that not only tastes good, but also feels good on your teeth. (The upside for us is that it doesn’t get sticky juice everywhere since the juice is frozen.)

Family picture at Leah & Kevin's wedding, August 2

Your hair just continues to grow and grow. The hair on the top is thick and sort of strawberry blond, and the hair in the back is just very long and mullet-y. Or maybe rat-tail-y. Really, it’s like some insane combination of a mullet and a rat tail. I am not sure what we are going to do about it. Papa does NOT want it cut off; either he thinks it’s funny or he’s more emotionally attached to your hair than he lets on. (I’m guessing it’s a combination of both.) We’ll see what happens as the rest of your hair gets longer. We’ll have to even it out at some point.

A morning snuggle with Mama, August 8

You are still very chubby, that’s for sure, even though it seems to me that you’re evening out a little bit. Marci said the other night that it’s getting to where we can get occasional glimpses of what you’ll be like as a little girl. She’s totally right; every now and then I have this vision of you in six more months, a year, two years, which is both scary and wonderful at the same time.

Playing with Papa while watching the sunset at Sunset Hill Park, August 3

A few more milestones this month include going down to Portland again and swimming in the big pool at your Great-Grandpa Buz’s house (where we got to see not only lots of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, but also friends like Molly and Carter, Yvette and her kids, Carmen and Giles and Greta, and Becca), getting a new big-girl carseat, attending a wedding, and getting to see Miriam again. It’s been a busy month, but a fun one.

With Daisy and Miriam, August 8

You grow more amazing every day, Elanor, and I can’t wait to see what the next months will bring!

Love,
Mama

more emotional processing

2008-08-06T18:24:00.002-07:00

I’ve mentioned before that one of my biggest struggles with the whole heart thing has been the fact that I remember nothing of the incident itself and next to nothing of the two or three weeks that followed.

I recently re-read the Lord of the Rings books, and there’s a part in the Fellowship of the Ring that stuck out to me as being something I could identify with.

Frodo has just arrived in Rivendell after being stabbed by and then pursued by the Nazgul. He wakes up with Gandalf sitting next to him, and he tries to recall everything that has happened to him since leaving the Shire, but there are holes in his memory, so he asks Gandalf to tell him what has happened.

‘I wish you would tell me what happened!’
‘All in good time! You are not supposed to talk or worry about anything today, by Elrond’s orders.’
‘But talking would stop me thinking and wondering, which are quite as tiring,’ said Frodo. ‘I am wide awake now, and I remember so many things that want explaining.’

That’s how I feel about this whole experience. I wish someone would just walk me through the gory details and tell me what happened, but everyone keeps telling me that I shouldn’t worry about it and that it’s better I don’t remember. But I feel like Frodo does, that thinking and wondering are tiring in and of themselves, and that there are lots of things that I’d like to have explained to me.

People are getting to the point where they’ll talk a little more openly with me about what happened. I think that up until now, the people who were there with me throughout the experience – Brett, my mom, our sisters, Brett’s mom, my dad, my friend Becca – haven’t wanted to talk about it much because the reality of what could have happened was so scary. Now that things are better and I seem to be ok, though, they seem more willing to open up, and I’m glad of that.

All of these people who are close to me – plus many who aren’t close – have been deeply impacted by what happened to me. And I, on the other hand, feel a huge sense of detachment from what happened because I don’t remember and because I seem to be fine now. It all just seems like a very surreal blip on the radar.

It’s hard for me to have the amazing sense of joy and thankfulness that all of those people have, simply because I have a hard time grasping how frightening the whole experience was.

I’m at a point now where I’m ready – at least I think I am – to start facing the fact that I came very close to dying or at least having some permanent damage.

We’ve been watching Six Feet Under again, and an episode we watched the other night underscored what I’ve been feeling.

In the episode, the main character (Nate) comes very close to dying because of a medical condition he has. He has this…I don’t know, I guess it could be called a vision, or maybe a dream, of all of the different ways things could have ended up. One scenario shows his funeral, with his family and friends all sitting at his funeral looking shell-shocked and grief stricken. Another scenario shows him with permanent brain damage, living at a near vegetable level, having to be cared for all the time by family. Another scenario shows him being completely recovered, and spending time with his wife and baby.

Throughout the episode, as he lives his life out according to the third scenario he saw – complete recovery – he has flashes of the other scenarios, just brief visions of what might have been.

That is so how I feel. Every now and then, out of the blue, I’ll have a flash of what might have been, and it’s like the feeling you get when you think you’re going to get in a car accident, or when you’re on a roller coaster and you crest the top of the big hill and start to fall – that sort of stomach-turning adrenaline rush, that taste of fear that never quite comes to fruition.

I had an experience like that while we were watching that episode of Six Feet Under. Brett’s sister Rachel was holding Elanor and playing with her, and they were both just laughing and enjoying each other. Elanor, though, would get tired every few minutes and reach over to me and say, “Mamamamamamamama” and whine until I took her.

And I had a flash: if I had died, other people would have replaced me in Elanor’s life. I would not be the one she reached out to when she was tired, the one who provides comfort to her, who gives her love, who teaches her things…it would have been other people – Rachel, our parents, our other siblings. And as much as I love and trust all of those people and want them to comfort her and love her and teach her things, I want to be Elanor’s primary person, along with Brett.

I was, well, it seems weird to say this, but in that moment, watching Elanor and Rachel play, I was at once jealous for the role Rachel and everyone else would have played in Elanor’s life had I died, and at the same time, so very, deeply grateful that I hadn’t died and that I was there to reach over and take Elanor when she got fussy, to hold her while she put herself to sleep.

I mentioned to Brett as we were going to sleep that night how the episode of Six Feet Under had affected me, and he said he thought the same thing I did. It’s scary to see all of the possible scenarios explicitly spelled out. My scenarios are pretty much the same as Nate’s were: death, permanent damage, and being a healthy medical miracle.

I don’t have a pat, neat ending for this post. It’s nothing that can be neatly resolved, and it is clearly a really ragged and raw topic for me. Like all of life, it’s messy, and you know what? I think I can be ok with that for now.

"eating on the run" has a whole new meaning

2008-08-03T10:33:00.001-07:00

This week has largely been getting over a cold and recovering from a very fun but very tiring trip to Portland last weekend, so my blogging time has been light, unfortunately. The good news, though, is that I have several posts lined up to post over the next week or two.

Here’s the first one…

~~~~~~~~~~

We went down to Portland last weekend to visit our families. It was a good visit, very fun to see everyone, and it was overall really nice. While the visit was wonderful, the drive down was a different story entirely. Elanor disliked – nay, hated – the drive, and screamed her little heart out for a good 80 percent of it. For those of you unfamiliar with the Seattle-Portland drive, that’s 80 percent translates roughly into about two or so hours of screaming.

Not fun. Not fun at all. It’s a drive I really dislike anyway, so adding in a screaming baby did nothing but make the whole thing completely miserable.

Thanks to an idea Rachel had, though, I eventually found a way to help the situation. Now, there’s minor law breaking on my part here (namely that I was not buckled), but dude, I had a really, really pissed off baby on my hands, so maybe you can all overlook the law breaking. I’m sure many of you have committed minor law breaking acts for the sake of your children. I can’t be the only one, right? Right?

Ok, maybe I can be the only one. But bear with me.

Back to Elanor. We were about halfway through the drive, and she was freaking out and hysterically screaming again, even though she was exhausted and we’d already stopped twice to feed her, calm her down, and try to get her to fall asleep, stretching the already three-hour drive out even further.

I had moved into the back seat after our first stop so I could sit by her, and this last time she started flipping out, Rachel made a suggestion.

“Leen, could you move over into the middle seat and somehow lean over her and feed her?”

I had actually seen a picture of this somewhere, and even vaguely remembered a story of my sister doing something similar out of desperation.

I said, “Well, I don’t know, let me try.”

So I unbuckled, scooted over, got up on my knees and leaned over. Rachel looked in the rear-view mirror and started cracking up. Brett finally looked up from reading The Fellowship of the Ring to see what I was doing. He laughed, too.

I must have been quite a sight, kneeling on the middle seat, clutching the headrest in front of me, and trying to balance, all while crouching over to let Elanor latch on.

As soon as I moved over and began to get ready to feed her, Elanor got really excited and even more agitated. But the second she latched, she was much calmer. And within about five minutes (a very long five minutes, I might add, what with the struggle to balance as we went around curves, the car seat digging into my ribs, the baby teeth digging into me, and the frantic little hands with very long fingernails clawing at me) she was asleep enough that I could unlatch her without waking her up.

Unfortunately, she woke up about 40 minutes later and screamed for the last 40 minutes of the drive, leaving all of us near tears before it was over, but hey, at least part of the drive was made in peace.

Maybe it was stupid to feed her while we were moving, but clearly, taking her out of the seat and trying to feed her and then put her back was NOT working (she cried so much after the first time we did it that she threw up on herself), and we’d already stopped twice with no results. I don’t know; maybe better parents would just keep stopping…I guess that makes us bad parents, then. At least I didn’t unbuckle her, right? (I would never, ever do that.)

Our drive home was much better, thankfully. We bought a big-girl car seat for her while we were in Portland and she was, I think, much more comfortable in it than she was in the infant seat she was in before. We went to a wedding yesterday about an hour from home, and she only cried for a few minutes before falling asleep. And that is a definite improvement over our last long car trip.

So tell me, have any of you ever done this, or anything equally as ridiculous and dangerous, all in an effort to calm your kid down? Or are you too ashamed to admit it?

Come on, if I can admit that I whipped out my boob on I-5 and knelt on the seat of a moving car to breastfeed my hysterical daughter, you can admit whatever skeleton is in your parenting closet. I promise, I won’t judge.

Captain Clumsy strikes again

2008-07-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, as promised, something more lighthearted than another boring old "what does it all mean" post.

People who know me in real life know that I'm not the most graceful person in the world, despite many years of ballet classes.

In fact, I'm extremely clumsy and have a tendency to either fall down, run into things, or hurt myself in some really stupid way.

I've been this way for as long as I can remember. When I was probably about five, I ran my bike into the back of a parked van. Around the same time, I ran my bike into a pile of sand in our driveway (my dad was doing some landscaping; the pile was huge and impossible to miss) and wiped out on my bike, giving myself a huge gash in my forehead in the process. (I still have the scar.)

While I was in high school, I went camping with my friends the Strongs. We went water skiing one morning, and finally it became my turn to get in the water and ski. I remember the water was really cold so I tried to partially climb down the boat ladder so I wouldn't feel the cold all at once. Somehow in the process of climbing and then eventually jumping, I managed to get the shorts I was wearing caught on the ladder, leaving my butt sticking straight up in the air and my hands and feet in the water. Everyone was laughing so hard that no one helped me right away; I'm pretty sure it wasn't until my shorts ripped that I finally got loose.

Yeah. Embarrassing. I wound up with a huge bruise on my leg where my shorts had cut into me while I was hanging there. It didn't go away for the rest of the summer.

In college, I was running through campus early one Saturday morning because I was trying to catch a bus. I was jumping down some stairs (there was my first mistake), landed wrong, sprained my ankle, and passed out. That was just plain stupid; I should know better than to try to run, let alone to run down stairs.

Right around the time we got married, I had two epic falls. The first was coming out of my building at lunchtime, onto Madison Street. My heel caught on the concrete stair and I fell face first down about four stairs, winding up on the sidewalk with two skinned knees, skinned palms, torn pants, and a very, very bruised ego, since at least five people saw me fall.

The second was coming out of our apartment building when we lived downtown. It was raining, and I was wearing flip-flops. I was running because of the rain, and when my flip-flop-clad foot hit the top of the marble staircase (marble stairs = old, worn, slippery), my feet went out from under me and I went down seven steps or so on my butt, just one right after another -- boom boom boom boom.

Brett was laughing so hard that he had a tough time being very sympathetic. He said it looked like something out of a cartoon. I didn't think it was so funny; my tailbone hurt for weeks.

After those two falls, I was very afraid I'd fall on our wedding day, but thankfully and miraculously, I managed to avoid it, although to this day I'm not sure how I got away with that.

My current co-workers are all very aware of my, um, problem with walking. We were walking down Third Avenue one day to get some lunch and my heel (pesky heels again, maybe that should be a clue that I should always wear flats) got stuck in a grate on the sidewalk. I kept walking, which meant I did a face plant when my foot didn't move.

So seeing as my co-workers know of my clumsiness, they were more amused than surprised on Thursday morning when I came into the office walking with a limp, clutching an empty coffee cup, and covered in coffee from my knee to my ankle.

I was looking for a little sympathy, so I walked down to my boss's office and poked my head in. She looked up and said, "Good morning!"

I wailed, "I fell down and twisted my ankle and now I have mocha all over my leg!!!"

She said, "Oh my God, are you ok?" and then looked at me for a second, covered her mouth with her hand, and started cracking up.

Of course, that made me crack up too, which was a good thing, since I was really peeved at the moment.

I was being really stupid and looking at my cell phone as I walked, so somehow I missed the last stair on the staircase coming into my building and just...fell.

It was like slow-motion; I saw the cup with my yet-untasted mocha go down, the lid pop off, and the coffee start to pool at the bottom of the stairs. I saw my bag heading right for the puddle, then I saw it land there. And then I saw my leg go right for the puddle, too, and then it happened -- SPLAT -- I had mocha all over my leg.

Of course about five people were right behind me and they all did the "OH MY GOD ARE YOU OK!?!" thing, which only makes a situation like that even more embarrassing.

All of the sticky mess and bruised ego aside, I actually did twist my ankle pretty badly and wound up icing it for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, my ankle is mostly ok now, and thanks to my mom's incredible laundry genius, the coffee and chocolate came out of my pants. (I called her not so much to whine about falling but more to get her laundry advice; the woman is a laundry genius. Her method of heavily spraying the pants with stain remover, then soaking overnight in cold water with Borax and detergent, then washing with warm water -- it was brilliant, and my pants are as good as new. Thanks, Mom! You rock.)

Basically, the bottom line is that I'm a huge, huge klutz, and I fear I always will be. I really hope this is one trait of mine Elanor does not inherit.

So, tell me -- am I the only totally clumsy one who tends to make a fool out of herself in front of lots of people? I want to hear your embarrassing stories of clumsiness, too. Make me feel better...tell me I'm not alone!

wonderful news, plus more rambling about my emotional response

2008-07-19T16:11:00.001-07:00

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this yet; I keep forgetting to say anything and now it’s been a while so it hasn’t been in the forefront of my mind.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I had an echocardiogram and an appointment with the cardiologist. I’d called because I hadn’t been feeling well, and the doctor had me move my next appointment up about a month to make sure everything was ok.

Miraculously, the echocardiogram showed that my heart has regained all of its function. In the doctor’s words, it looked like the echocardiogram of any normal, healthy 27-year-old woman.

That shocked me; I was sure it would take much longer for my heart to recover. Many women who experience this take medications for years to get to the point where I am, if they get there at all. So for me to be less than two months out from the big event and to be pretty much recovered where my heart function is concerned without having taken any medications to get here…well, miraculous is the only word I can think of to describe it.

(Note to readers: We’re now moving on to the “rambling evaluation of my emotional response” segment of our program, with which I am sure you’ve all become familiar in recent months. Sorry about that. This is just what life is like these days. It seems sort of arrogant and self-centered to take all of this time to delve into my psyche so much lately, but, well, that’s my reality. My apologies…I’m sure that someday I’ll get around to posting something fun again!)

Anyway, hearing the wonderful news that my heart looks great has forced me to start dealing with all of this in a different way. Since I’ve heard my doctor say that my heart is pretty much the picture of health, it makes me feel like life should just be back to normal, like it was before all of this happened, like everything should be business is usual and like I should feel really good physically, and if I don’t then I’m doing something wrong.

The problem is that I don’t feel great physically. I’m doing much better than I was, certainly, but I still get so exhausted at times that I can barely move. Yesterday was one of those days; I was alone with Elanor all day – 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. – and I was out and about quite a bit, too. On top of that, Elanor hasn’t been sleeping great lately (she’s getting about three more teeth -- fun, huh?). By about 4:30 or 5 p.m., I felt worse than I had in weeks – exhausted, short of breath, unable to focus on anything, just totally drained.

I’ve also noticed that my heart seems much more sensitive to stress. It barely takes any stress for me to feel like it’s going to beat out of my chest. A sudden stop in the car or any whiff of relational conflict and I’m suddenly feeling my heart beating in double time.

So to feel that way when I’m recovered – whatever that’s supposed to mean – seems strange. I have to keep reminding myself that two months ago I was lying in a hospital bed and the doctors didn’t know whether or not I’d have brain damage when I woke up since I stopped breathing for a few minutes when my heart stopped beating, if I did wake up at all. I’ve come a very long way in the past two months, and it’s perfectly reasonable that my body would be less accustomed to stress and activity than it was before this happened.

All of this reminds me of something that our pastor said during one of the meetings we’ve had with him lately. We were talking about how I was dealing with everything, and how I felt this compulsion to process everything in some kind of analytical way. He said something to the effect of, “Don’t let anyone, least of all yourself, dictate how you should be feeling emotionally right now. You are processing it, every single day, and there is no right way or wrong way to do that.”

No one else is telling me I have to be recovered, that I have to be back to 100% at home, at work, with Elanor. They’re all saying to take it easy. So why am I telling myself that I should be back at 100%?

My mom told me something a friend of hers named Kate told her once, when my mom was having a hard time and was struggling with feeling like she couldn’t keep her head above water because of the very real struggles in her life at that time. Kate told my mom to imagine that a friend of hers was going through everything my mom was going through, and that the friend was describing everything that was happening. She then asked my mom to think about how she’d respond to the friend. Would she have compassion? Would she give them a hug and say she was sorry and ask how she could help? Or would she laugh and give them a hard time for not being able to keep it together?

Kate then told my mom to think of her life in those terms from time to time, and to at least have the compassion for herself that she’d have for a friend in the same situation.

It’s been helpful to think of what happened to me in that context. Because, really, when I call a spade a spade, what happened is hard both emotionally and physically. It makes sense that my body would be tired, that I’d have a hard time doing things. I came within a hair’s breadth of dying. I think it’s ok that two months from that day I would still feel tired and overwhelmed at times.

Just like it’s going to take me a long time – years, probably – to work through this emotionally, it’s going to take me a long time to feel normal physically, too, regardless of how great any echocardiogram might look. I’m coming to realize that it’s ok and good and normal and healthy to realize my limitations and to try to stay inside them.

I’ve had many people tell me recently that I know my body best. That is true, I do know my body better than anyone else does, and right now, I need to listen to what my body is telling me, which is – of course – to take it easy.

our 15 minutes of fame

2008-07-15T23:21:00.000-07:00

Brett's been experiencing quite the spurt of notoriety recently. As the ever-supportive wife by his side at all times (ha), I've been riding along on his coattails and have shared some of the recent media attention.

The barista competition was the first thing that thrust him into the spotlight. He had a picture and a mention in a Barista Magazine article (he's on page 23), which was fun. He'd leave the magazine open around the house when friends were over to see if they'd notice his picture.

If that wasn't enough, the beard competition that we attended in Bremerton last weekend has generated even more attention. Brett won second place in the Full Natural Beard with Styled Moustache category. (There are lots of mostly very dark pics on my Flickr if you want to take a look.) It was pretty hilarious. There's so much I could say about the beard competition but it really deserves its own post...and it's way too late at night for me to try to write that tonight.

There was a reporter from the Seattle Times at the competition. She wrote an article about it, and another reporter did some interviews on video, which are posted on their website.

Even more exciting than that, there was a photographer from Newsweek there. Yep, that Newsweek. He took some pretty awesome pictures of the event. Check out photo six. I think I look pretty ridiculous. Or angry. Or...something. I don't know. But I look silly.

Then, in addition to all of that, we went in to the studio at 710 KIRO tonight for an interview with Luke Burbank and Jen Andrews of Too Beautiful to Live (tbtl), a radio show that airs every weeknight. They heard about the beard competition from our friend Nikki, and wanted him to come in to talk about the beard. But then they read our websites and realized what had happened to me and wanted to talk about that, too.

So we spent about 45 minutes talking to the two of them about our lives, my heart, and Brett's beard. I kind of forgot I was on the radio; it was fun to talk with the two of them and, I'll admit, to talk about ourselves. (If this blog proves nothing else it at least proves I'm good at talking about myself.)

The archive of the show is up on their website for those of you who have an hour or so to sit and listen to us ramble on about everything from beards to being in a coma to music.

And for anyone who might actually have come here after I mentioned my blog address on the show, welcome! Thanks for taking the time to come over and take a look.

Ok, I gotta wrap this up. It's really late and I have to be up insanely early. Blech. Maybe I will get up a few extra minutes early (really, what's the difference between 6:20 and 6:40? not much) and go get a coffee for my bus ride. I'm finished with my book -- re-reading LOTR for about the eighth time [seriously, I'm a nerd where these books are concerned], I have a post brewing about that too -- so it would be a good day to listen to a podcast and sip a mocha on the bus.

So, yeah, we are sorta famous...kinda...hopefully we don't get too much of a big head about it.

July 14: Six Months Old

2008-07-14T19:51:00.001-07:00

Dear Elanor,

Today you are six months old -- a whole half-year!

I was just looking back at the last monthly letter I wrote, and was confronted with a picture of you on our trip to Denver. You were so little, and despite how I thought you were so big, you were still such a little baby compared to the person you are today. I'm sure I'll say the same in a couple of months when I look back at who you are now.

Unfortunately, I don't have a letter for you for months four or five. I was not able to write them, because on the day before your four-month birthday, I underwent what I am sure you will one day realize was a very frightening experience.

That said, I am so, so, so glad to be here today writing about the past couple of months. I'm so glad I am here to see you grow up and change from a baby into a toddler into a girl and someday into a woman.

At Magnuson Park, July 11

So, to recap, the past couple of months have been pretty chaotic for us. You, however, have weathered the chaos extremely well. Your adaptability and good-naturedness has been such a blessing to us and to those who have helped us care for you -- all of our family members, and many, many good friends. Especially during the first very difficult weeks, you were so good and amazing and really just rolled with the punches in a way most babies wouldn't.

Getting kisses from Papa on Father's Day

And now to the more immediate past and the present. Before all of this stuff with my health happened, I went back to work. It was a hard transition for us, but we were doing ok. With help -- again -- from our family and friends, we were making it work, even if Papa and I were tired and a little overwhelmed by everything.

But then my heart stopped, and we had to realign our priorities. Spending time with each other and with you became even more of a priority than it was before.

Showing off how well you can sit up -- not to mention your amazing fat rolls -- at Magnuson Park, July 11

Your Auntie Rachel came up just after your five-month birthday to take care of us and of you. You have been having a great time with her every morning while I've been back at work! She takes very good care of you and you love to be with her.

Within the past two months, you've had lots of fun firsts: you've rolled over, front to back and back to front, you've gotten two teeth (one on June 10 and one that popped through this past week, both on the bottom), you can sit up unsupported, you've learned how to inchworm yourself forward (but not quite crawl, although you are so close), and you can stand up if we help you balance.

Standing up with some help from Kim, July 6

You enjoy playing in your exersaucer for quite a while. You like the orange lion because he's squishy and nice to chew on, and you like the little flippy book part with the pictures of monkeys and lions and such.

Looking adorable in your exersaucer, June 20

When you've had enough of your exersaucer, you'll now look at us and do what Noni calls uppy -- you put your arms up in the air and look at us pleadingly and make little whimpering sounds, which is your way of asking us to pick you up and snuggle you.

Another important thing we've done lately is introduce solid -- well, ok, mushy -- food. You liked cereal ok, you loved bananas. Avocadoes, though, were more fun to squish than to eat. I am excited to continue offering you new things. Despite all of the new foods, you still love to nurse and I am in no rush to stop doing that. It is so good for you health-wise, it calms you in a way nothing else will, and it's such a lovely connection that we have. I'm so very thankful that we are still nursing. It's a minor miracle considering what I went through medically.

Avocado aftermath, July 3

Your hair is less mohawk-like these days. It sits down on top, unless it gets messed up by the wind or something. But it's soooo long in the back. What we used to call your mullet has grown and is now your rat tail. I am not sure what we will do about it, whether we'll let it grow or whether we'll eventually cut it off to even things up.

Stuck under a chair after scooting yourself there, June 29

Sleeping is still not really in a schedule yet. You have a general pattern, though, and I am really ok with that. You continue to sleep really well if you are in the Ergo or sling, or if someone is lying down with you, although there are times when you will sleep by yourself if you are in the co-sleeper or on our bed. Honestly, though, even though 90% of your sleep is with one of us in bed with you or with you sitting on us, I don't worry about it. It's funny, though: if someone had told me that you'd be sleeping with us 100% of the time at six months, I wouldn't have believed them. And I would have been even more incredulous if they told me that I'd love it. I guess this is just one of those things about parenting that wound up being totally different than I'd pictured it.

You still love to squeal and screech all the time. The sounds you make are starting to mimic our speech more, which is fun. You say lots of sounds like "Ma ma ma ma ma" and "Da da da da," which is so fun to hear. However, although I was saying words at your age, you have not yet spoken any true words. I feel like that's coming soon, though!

Enjoying your pool, June 28

The water is still one of your favorite places. Even though the water is usually freezing, you love to sit with Papa or me in your little plastic pool on our patio. We slather you in sunscreen and put your swimsuit on and you'll splash and play until you're shivering, but you don't seem to care.

You also had your first media appearance this month! Papa competed in the North American Beard and Moustache Championship in Bremerton, winning second place for his moustache and beard. A photographer from Newsweek snapped a picture of the three of us while Papa was waiting for his turn to be judged on his beard. http://www.newsweek.com/id/145035 Pretty neat, not even six months old and already in the national media!

With Papa at the North American Beard and Moustache Championship, July 5

I've now said it every month, but I'll say it again: you are amazing and you fill my heart with joy. You are happy, funny, adorable, beautiful, and good-natured. Papa and I love you so very much. I am beyond happy to be here on this Earth to take care of you and to see you grow.

Looking beautiful at Magnuson Park, July 11

Love,
Mama

whiny whiny whine

2008-07-08T17:15:00.004-07:00

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on my last post. I have really been trying to take it easy and not overdo things, but it's an ongoing challenge, so we'll see how it continues. Thankfully a couple of friends are going to come over in the next few days just to help with getting things done; I really appreciate their help. And since I wrote this, Brett's been forcing me to take it easy more, too, and has been doing a ton around the house, which I appreciate more than I can express. He doesn't care, really, whether the bathroom floors are clean or dirty, but he scrubbed them on Sunday because I care. And that? Is what makes a wonderful husband.

Work is...overwhelming, both while I'm actually there as well as when I'm not there, as it tends to really sap my energy in general and leave me exhausted once I get home. And that's frustrating, because I have very little energy for the things I need to do -- see my previous post -- not to mention the things I want to do, like having fun with Elanor and Brett, blogging, hanging out with friends, answering emails, etc.

I am not really sure what to do about that imbalance. We are trying to talk it out and pray and figure out what our life should look like going forward...because how it looks at this present moment isn't practical or sustainable for us. We're both too tired and too overwhelmed to continue as we are, but we are really not sure how to get from here to where we want to be.

My friend Carmen and I were talking today (I called her while I was pumping at work, which is the only time in the day I have to do things like make phone calls) and she mentioned how when she worked part-time, she was often really frustrated by it, even though almost everyone else she talked to seemed to view part-time work as ideal.

Carmen said that what she found was that when she was working part-time, she felt stretched way too thin: she never got everything done at work she needed to, and found it hard to be present at work when she was there, and then when she got home, there was still the same amount of work to do at home but it was that much more overwhelming because she was gone that much more. And dude, that's totally how I feel. Even though I'm only working half-time, commuting adds about an hour (well, about 45 minutes) on to either end of my day, so I am actually gone for 7 hours, which is -- I think -- a long time to be gone every day. By the time I get home at about 2, the day just feels like it's gone. I can *maybe* get a quick nap in, or a quick errand, but then before I know it, Brett's home and it's dinner time and we're eating and cleaning up and there's laundry to be done and then I have to get everything together (clothes ironed and laid out, bus bag packed, etc) to start it all over again the next morning.

I almost feel bad writing that because it seems like I'm just never content with my lot, and that I somehow think the grass is always greener on the other side, since when I worked full-time I would have given my right arm for the schedule I have now.

But I guess I'm just being honest, that part-time work isn't all I had it cracked up to be in my head. That's probably partly due to the fact that I am just freaking tired from all the health stuff and partly due to what Carmen and I talked about, that stretched thin feeling when you are not fully in one world or another.

Anyway, I'm just feeling in a complain-y state right now, and I hate it. I do not like being frustrated with and dissatisfied with things, and I don't like complaining. I feel like I do it waaaaay too much. Yet here I am, whining once again to the Interwebs. Sigh.

I promise there are more fun and interesting -- read: less whiny and self-centered -- posts coming soon. I have a whole list of things to blog about; I hope I can get some time in the next week to just get some posts written. I guess we'll see about that.

I'll leave you with a more cheerful thing: a picture of Elanor. We went on a walk on Saturday morning and she was wearing her cute outfit with the bear ears, which her Noni got for her. It is one of my favorites!

taking it easy

2008-06-30T12:00:00.001-07:00

So, I mentioned in my last post about how everyone and their mom (literally, everyone and their mom; I'm not just saying that as a figure of speech) is telling me to take it easy these days.

Here's my confession: I have no clue what "taking it easy" should look like.

Sure, I'm only working 20 hours a week. That's a start. But even when I'm at work, everyone -- including my boss -- is telling me to take it easy. It's a simple thing to say...but it's a hard thing to do. I don't want to neglect my work duties in the name of "taking it easy" but I don't want to overdo it, either. I'm not sure how to find that balance.

And that lack of balance is bleeding over into every area of my life, really: housework, caring for Elanor, etc, etc, etc.

I'm not really sure how to take it easy. I've always been a go-go-go kind of person. I struggle to let go of things like my floors being filthy (which they are) and the bathroom being a mess (which it is) and dirty dishes piling in the sink (which they aren't, only because I spent 30 minutes doing them last night -- probably not in line with "taking it easy") and laundry -- both clean and dirty -- piling up (which it is; our bedroom and Elanor's room both look like the closet and dressers exploded).

I know, I know -- in the grand scheme of life it doesn't matter if my floors are dirty or if the bathroom is clean or if the dishes are done or if the clothes are put away. I know. I am here, I am alive, that is what matters.

But what if I feel better, less anxious, less stressed, more able to relax if all of those things are done?

It doesn't seem fair to put this burden onto Brett or his sister Rachel when they don't care about those things as much as I do. So then I feel obligated to do them myself because I'm the one who cares if they're done or not. And then afterward I feel guilty, because clearly I'm not "taking it easy" if I'm cleaning the bathroom or doing all the dishes or doing the five loads of laundry that need to be done.

Sigh.

If I were still working full-time, I'd just say we'd hire a cleaning service and be happy with that compromise, but now that I'm working part-time, we're on an austerity budget for the foreseeable future, so that's out of the question.

Do any of you have any ideas? Do I just need to unclench and let it go if my floors are dirty or the bathroom needs a good scrub or the dishes are undone or our clothes are piled everywhere? Or do I need to humble myself and ask for help with this stuff, from Brett and Rachel and even from other friends?

What should taking it easy look like? And how can I get over my guilt at not doing what I feel like I should be doing, whether at home with regard to Elanor or Brett or the house, and also at work?

I don't expect anyone to have the answers to my questions, but if you have any ideas or insight, I'd appreciate hearing them.

finally summer!

2008-06-27T12:06:00.001-07:00

It's finally feeling like summer around these parts. We had several weeks of crappy, rainy, windy, wintry weather, which left Brett's mom (who was visiting at the time) and me shivering and looking outside with confusion and, let's face it, a small sense of being personally affronted -- how could it be early June and 40 degrees and raining? HOW?

Anyway, it appears those days have passed. The forecast for this weekend is that it's supposed to be in the mid-80's, the low 90's, even! While that's a bit too warm for my comfort, hey, I'll take it -- at least the sun is out!

One awesome thing about having the sun out is that it's doing wonders for our garden. Brett's been working hard on getting yummy things to grow since sometime in March, when he started seeds inside. He has since built a raised bed in the back yard, lined it with hemp coffee bags, filled it with rich soil from our compost pile, and planted in it a large array of yummy, yummy things.

We were worried when it was so cold and rainy that a lot of the plants wouldn't survive. But thankfully it appears that they were hardier than we thought -- we were able to harvest and eat the firstfruits of Brett's labors this week!

Here he is next to the garden, holding up the first results: a radish. Hooray! Good job, Bretto!

And here he is, munching the radish. We each took turns taking bites of it until it was gone, and boy, was it tasty. Sweet and watery and crisp at first, and really sharp and spicy on the other end. SO good.

Hopefully we'll have some more veggies soon. The tomato plants and squash plants are flowering, and the carrots are thriving, and several unidentified plants are growing well, too. (Brett didn't label them when he planted them from their seed pots into the ground, and now we are completely stumped as to what they are. We think some are arugula, and some possibly leeks...I may have to do some Googling to figure it out.)

We had a salad last night that included radishes from the garden and cherry tomatoes from our indoor tomato plant. Not only was it really tasty, it felt wonderful to be eating things we'd grown ourselves! I'm so excited to eat more out of our garden as the summer progresses.

~~~~~~~~

Again, a small footnote-style update on my health and Elanor...

Health: I'm doing ok after my first week back at work. I worked 20 hours -- five hours a day, for four days. It was tiring, that's for sure, and I'm so very thankful I didn't have to work 40 hours because I don't know how I would have managed it. As it was, I had to come home and nap on both Wednesday and Thursday...which was lovely, I must admit, to climb into bed in the middle of the afternoon and snuggle with Elanor for an hour or two. Blissful. That said, I don't feel 100% great. In fact, after working, I feel more tired and yucky (read: out of breath and having palpitations) than I have in several weeks. (Don't worry; I'm going to call my doctors this afternoon to ask them about all of this.) But I'm managing, and I'm hoping it will get better. "Take it easy" seems to be my theme these days. Everyone says it: Brett, my boss, my mom, Brett's mom, co-workers, friends...everyone. I'm not really sure what taking it easy should look like...but that's a topic that kind of deserves its own post, so maybe I'll address that later this week.
Elanor: She's great. I love her. She woke up at 9 this morning, stretched really big, opened her eyes, saw me, grinned, looked over and saw Brett, and grinned again. It's like she saw us and thought, "Oh, YOU'RE here! Hooray! Oh, and YOU are, TOO! I am so HAPPY to see both of you!" We'll have to take her in her pool again this weekend since it's supposed to be nice. I am looking forward to that!

Also, a hello to those of you who are visiting my blog for the first time after (finally) getting a baby announcement. Welcome! I'm glad you are here! Don't be shy, feel free to comment if you like!

Elanor update

2008-06-20T17:33:00.007-07:00

I haven't talked much about Elanor lately; it's time I updated a bit!

She is growing so fast; she is so much more of a big, interactive baby than she was a couple of months ago.

Her five-month birthday was last week. Obviously, she can sit up and likes to reach for everything these days!

She's very aware of the environment around her. She won't nurse or sleep in loud/crowded/distracting situations anymore, and she loves being out in the world and looking at everything. The grocery store and Target are two of her favorite places; she loves seeing all of the people and colors and objects.

One of her bottom teeth popped through last week. Her Noni calls it her "razor ridge," since it is as sharp as a razor. We joke that Razor Ridge sounds like a subdivision name. Ha. That said, we are waiting for Razor Ridge, Phase II -- it looks like bottom tooth #2 is ready to pop through any day now.

Elanor can now roll from her back to her tummy and to her back again. She loves to play on a blanket on the floor and will roll over and over and over again until she is off the blanket and across the room. We have to watch her every second. Now that she is mobile, I know our lives will never be the same!

She likes to chew on EVERYTHING now, and she's starting to show preferences for various toys that are chew-friendly, like spinny bird (she loves nom-ing on his beak) and Elo-the-Elephant (she loves nom-ing on his crinkly ears).

Diaper changes are becoming a huge challenge since she learned how to roll. Now all she wants to do is roll around and reach behind her to grab anything and everything that's sitting there. She arches her back and reaches her hand back; it looks like she is trying to do a bridge or something. Getting the diaper and clothes on is...well, not easy anymore.

She also looooves the sound of her own voice. She squeals and laughs and coos, and it's just adorable to hear. I guess we shouldn't be encouraging the really loud happy screaming...but it's just too cute to discourage.

We fed her some rice cereal the other night for the first time. She loved it and ate it all up. She was a complete mess afterward (um, duh, Mama should have used a bib) but it was really fun to see her gobble it up.

There are tons more details I could add about her, but I'll stop here. I can say for certain that we are majorly blessed with an incredible, happy, adaptable baby. That's been key this past month, with so much chaos and with so many people coming in and out of her life. She's still a ton of fun and Brett and I love her more and more every day!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A short update on other items: I go back to work on Monday, which I am not really looking forward to. Lots of reasons for that; I definitely miss my co-workers but I just love being home with Elanor...plus I get really tired during the day; I am hoping I can handle it. Thankfully I am only going back for 20 hours a week, at least to start -- so I will be working 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday for at least a few weeks, but hopefully indefinitely.

Also, a big shout-out to all of the PPCM-ers from the PPCM board...*waving*...I'm glad I found you guys! Welcome to my blog!

We have a busy weekend; some friends are getting married tomorrow and Brett is the best man. In fact, I should wrap up this post because I just looked at the clock and realized I have less than an hour to shower and get ready before I have to meet them at the rehearsal dinner! YIKES! I'm out of here...

checking in

2008-06-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hi! I am still here, just not super-bloggy lately, which is kind of weird considering I feel like I'm tied to my new laptop all day long right now. Most of what I'm doing online is completely unproductive stuff like reading blogs and message boards and visiting I Can Has Cheezburger, instead of doing productive things like updating my own blogs and writing emails that I really, really need to write.

Elanor has been really wakeful at night lately. It's better now than it was last week, but it's still frustrating, because while I was in the hospital and for the first week or so after I was home, we were having my mom or Brett's mom take her at night and she really wasn't waking up much at all, maybe once if that. She was also sleeping in her co-sleeper. Now that she's back in the room with Brett and me, it's all gone to pot and she's in bed with us and practically nursing all.night.long. She's teething (first tooth popped through yesterday!) so that is part of it, but although knowing that is nice, it doesn't make my nights much easier.

Thankfully, we have had family here (Brett's mom is here now) so I can get some rest during the day. I have to admit that I feel guilty when Brett hands Elanor off to his mom or my mom when he leaves for work and I go back to sleep, sometimes until as late as early afternoon. But I do feel like I need a lot of sleep right now, so I guess it's just a blessing that we have people here to help. I seriously do NOT know how I would handle her lack of sleep if I had to get up at 6:15 every day and haul my butt into work. I would be soooo sleep deprived and miserable!

I have slowly been processing everything mentally and emotionally. I was talking with my dear friend Marci (who is home in Seattle for the summer! YAHOO!) about it last week. I've gradually been going to the place in my mind that I've been walling off, the place that says: You could have died, and left Brett a widower at 26 and Elanor without her mama. And that place scares the shit out of me.

Marci made the point that when everything was going down on the 13th and she didn't know whether I was alive or not that she was more afraid for Brett and Elanor than she was for me, because if I had died, I would be in heaven with Jesus but Brett and Elanor would be alone on the earth. And that totally clicked...she's right. That's the scary part, that they would be alone here, with no wife and mama to take care of and love them.

This came up in kind of a humorous way a couple of days ago. We've been talking about starting Elanor on rice cereal soon, and Brett's mom and I were talking about it the other night at dinner.

Brett said, "Rice cereal? You mean like Rice Krispies?"

His mom and I exchanged a glance and started giggling.

"No, it's like Cream of Rice," I said.

"Oh. Well, then I guess it's a good thing you're still around; if you weren't, Elanor would be eating Rice Krispies."

Seriously! Heh.

All humor aside, I've been experiencing a lot of anxiety over the past week or so. As the doctor said when we visited him yesterday (more about that in a minute), "I'd be worried if you didn't have any anxiety right now." He actually said he'd expect me to have some degree of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Yikes!

I think part of why the anxiety has been sinking in lately has to do with the fact that it's beginning to hit me how very differently things could have turned out. What if Brett had already left for work that morning, which he normally would have done? (He had an off-site training that started a few hours later than his normal day starts.) What if Brett's mom hadn't been visiting and hadn't been able to give me CPR?

I'm trying not to think about those what ifs. Because the reality is that those things were they way they were, thank God. And I'd like to believe that's for a reason -- that it wasn't my time, that God has plans for me here. Clearly, he chose to leave me here, and I thank him for that.

This anxiety is coloring everything right now. The whole incident has hit home the lack of control I (or any of us) have in the macro -- you know, whether I live or die. And it's making my reactions to the micro -- like whether pots and pans are put away where they belong, or how Elanor's onesies are folded, stupid inconsequential stuff -- that much more intensified, because I can (supposedly) control them. (Which, HA, because when other people are taking care of you and your house...there's really not much control involved.) The anxiety is just magnifying all of those stupid little things and I am freaking out about them, and I hate that.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little better about the anxiety the past couple days, but it's still there. We are going to talk to a pastor at church this week; I feel like I need it. We both need it. On top of all of my health issues, we have some other stressors in our lives right now that are only intensifying the effects of the anxiety. It's nothing I can talk about here, but suffice it to say it's making both of us more anxious than we want to be.

So, yeah, moving on. I had an appointment with one of the cardiologists yesterday. He said that I seem to be doing fine, and that it appears this incident can be chalked up to postpartum cardiomyopathy, also known as peripartum cardiomyopathy. There's lots of information on the web about it; dork that I am, of course I googled it extensively when I got home last night.

Peripartum or postpartum cardiomyopathy is heart failure that happens either during the last month of pregnancy or within six months postpartum, when there is no other cause for the failure. That certainly fits my case. They can't find anything else to explain this: no lifestyle issues -- I've never smoked, I don't drink much, I've never done any drugs, I am not overweight, I exercise (I don't have a CAR for pete's sake! I walk everywhere!) -- no genetic issues, nothing else to explain this.

So that scares me, that it's apparently something related to pregnancy and/or birth. The doctor said they don't know why it happens; there's not, that he knows, any correlation between a stressful pregnancy or delivery and this condition. It's just a mystery.

Dangit. And I wanted answers!!

I'm going to make an appointment with my OB to talk about this, to try to figure out what she'd recommend in terms of another pregnancy someday (because I really want more kids) and just to see if she can offer any more insight.

Really, that's the update. I'm not quite sure about going back to work yet. My short-term disability currently expires 6/23. There are plans in the works to make me part-time (I'd just like to note here that I have an amazing boss and amazing co-workers who are willing to help me and let me work the amount I need to and can handle working), but we're working out some things with regard to my health benefits right now. Hopefully it will all come together. If you're the praying type, you could pray that it does. I'd appreciate it.

I am hoping to be around more in the coming days and weeks. It's funny; since this has happened, many, many people all over the country have confessed that they read my blog, which is totally great, but it also makes me want to stop being lame and actually post regularly.

Ok, this entry is random and rambling and long enough already. I'm cutting myself off now and hitting the publish button...

beautiful.

2008-05-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the sun in the backyard with Brett and Elanor, blogging from my new laptop (yay!), Elanor lying on her little mat in the grass, cooing and singing to herself and wiggling around, ice cream in my belly, my mom cleaning my bedroom, a friend bringing dinner...what a blessed life.

processing

2008-05-24T20:40:00.001-07:00

The past week has been something of a roller coaster. After happily coming home last Sunday, (I was SO READY to leave Harborview, but that's another post entirely), I wound up back in the hospital, only at UW this time, from Monday to Wednesday because of a blood clot in my arm.

The clot is taken care of, and I am home once again. Let me first say that I am very glad to be here -- both here on the earth and here in my own home. Hospitals get really, really old after a while.

That said, everything about life is an adjustment right now, and lots of adjustments at once are not very easy. I hope this post doesn't come across as being too whiny. I really am grateful to be alive and to be home and to have the support that we have, don't get me wrong.

Anyway, the biggest adjustment from all of this is that because my incision needs to heal, I cannot pick up Elanor until at least mid-June, which means that I basically can't care for her until then. Sure, I can change her diaper if she's already on the changing table, and I'm feeding her when she's brought to me, but I can't pick her up when she cries or hold her when she wiggles. It's really, really hard.

We're also not co-sleeping anymore, which I have loved up until now, because I can't get her flipped over to nurse on the other side and we are afraid of her kicking/bumping my incision. Plus I have been taking pain medications, which are not ok to take when co-sleeping. On top of that, she'll sleep through the night if she's with someone else, and it's just been easier for our family to have her sleep at night. I think she knows when her food supply is right nearby and that keeps her wakeful, so not having me right there helps her sleep.

There are lots of people here helping, which is really nice, and I am so grateful we have so many friends and so much family nearby. But it's also hard...I am an independent person who likes to have my own space, so having lots of people here, doing things in ways that aren't bad, just not how I would do them, is challenging for me.

I'm just feeling a little...weird, I guess, about everything. I haven't processed what happened (the fact that I almost died -- oh, my; it freaks me out to think about that. It sunk in a little today when my friend Marci told me that she was just distraught for the four hours the other morning when she didn't know if I was alive or dead), and although I am home and so happy to be here, I feel very out of place and not sure at all what my role is. Sure, I know, my role is to get better, but being the person I am, there's only so much lying around on the couch I can take. I don't even have anything to read, for Pete's sake.

Compounding this is the fact that my memory, my wonderful, accurate, tack-sharp memory, is completely fuzzy. I don't remember what happened, I usually can't remember what day it is, I can't remember which family members were here when. It's very difficult for me. I usually remember everything -- and I mean everything -- with razor-sharp precision. Like what Brett wore on a date to dinner at the Taco House to meet his aunt in June 1999, and the fact that we talked about her recent trip to Dallas and how Brett wanted to go there to see Dealy Plaza and go to the JFK museum someday. You know? That kind of accurate. And now I can't remember the day of the week or the pin number for my ATM card. It's really disconcerting and honestly pretty frightening for me.

Enh, ok, enough whining. I'm really doing ok; I think today has just been a little strange. A lot of days are probably going to be strange for a while. I feel moderately ok physically, so it's the first day I haven't really done much lounging around, and I'm just not sure how to mesh wanting to be up and about with needing to recuperate.

Anyway, that's the update. Health-wise, I'm doing wonderfully; mentally, it's all starting to sink in...but I'll deal with it in time. It's all just a process, I guess.

**Edited to add: Thank you all so much for your comments, emails, thoughts and prayers. It means so much to me to know I have so many amazing friends, many of whom I've never even met in person. It's really encouraging to hear from all of you!

long story short

2008-05-17T23:12:00.002-07:00

Because it's late, and because I'm tired, and because I'm still in the hospital (yeah, that's dedication -- posting from the hospital) and because of what happened, this is going to be short.

On my birthday, May 13, Brett woke up at about 5:45 to hear me gasping for breath. He couldn't get any response from me, and Elanor started to cry, so he took her downstairs to his mom, who was there helping care for Elanor. He went back upstairs and I was blue and unresponsive, so Brett called 911. Brett's mom came upstairs and gave me chest compressions and CPR before they arrived and, to put it bluntly, saved my life.

Basically, I had a cardiac arrest.

Yeah. I know. I can't think about it too much and I don't think it's sunk in well yet.

I don't even know what exactly happened, and I've only just started remembering things today. I am still very forgetful, which is in part due to all of the drugs I've had in the past four days, and in part due to the experience itself.

So I've been at Harborview (which I'll have to write about in another post sometime; it's a post in and of itself) recovering. They put in a defibrillator yesterday (May 16) and amazingly (by the grace of God, really) I am up today, talking, walking, took a shower, and most wonderfully am off of narcotics and was able to nurse Elanor.

The amount of support my family has shown me has been incredible. (Becca, that includes you.) Thank you to all of you who have emailed, sent cards, posted on Facebook. It means a lot to know how much I am loved.

I've got more to write about this, or at least I will at some point, but I don't know how much I'll be around my blogs (this one and at Seattle Mom Blogs) in the near future. Please feel free to email me or call me if you have my number...but my blogging time is going to be limited to some extent just because I really do feel better if I stay in bed. But we'll see. If the past few days (and how quickly I've healed) have been any indication, I'll probably be back more quickly than I expected.

Thank you for all your prayers. I'll try to update soon.

you know you're tired when...

2008-05-09T10:19:00.001-07:00

You see a headline and think, "Why are they talking about mushrooms seizing Beirut neighborhoods?"

And then you realize that they're talking about Shiites, not Shiitakes.

Sigh.

I'm really tired. I would really like some decent sleep, and soon...but it's probably too much to hope for. Even a couple of hours of uninterrupted, solitary sleep would be lovely. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon, for multiple reasons, including the fact that this weekend is going to be busy. Good, and full of lots of fun socializing, but really busy.

This working parent thing is hard. Before I left for work this morning, Elanor was being fussy, but when I'd pick her up she'd calm right down. It was so hard to leave her, even though she's with Brett, knowing that she was upset and I could calm her but I couldn't because I had to go to work. I can't even think about her right now without feeling really sad; I miss her so much.

Oh well; I guess this is just what life is like these days. I'm trying to have a positive outlook (and, really, most days I'm succeeding moderately well; today just happens to be a grumpy/tired/meh day) and be thankful that I have a job at a stable company, where the pay is fair, the boss is nice, the benefits are good, and the co-workers are people with whom it's fun to spend nine hours a day.

Ok, rant over...thanks for listening.

nine years

2008-05-08T09:00:00.002-07:00

Dear Brett,

Nine years ago today, I was nervously anticipating our first date together. I have a picture somewhere of me getting ready, waiting for you to come pick me up in your grandma's car, awkwardly wearing a tux (such a departure from your usual band t-shirts, spiky belts, and ratty jeans!) and looking just as nervous as I felt. The picture shows me looking excited, skinny, and, above all, so young.

But then, we were young, just two high school students on the way to prom. Who knew it would end up like this? I certainly wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me then that in a few years we'd be married and have a baby girl.

I remember, after the photo shoot at my house, going back to your parents' house for pictures, standing in front of the tree in their yard, dropping the wrap to my dress in the grass and putting it in your mom's dryer to try to get it dry. I remember Rachel, still a little girl just 10 years old, grinning and jumping up and down around us and asking nosy 10-year-old questions like, "Are you gonna get married?" I remember your mom telling your dad to go get the picture of them from their prom to show us and thinking that it was sweet your parents had dated and gone to prom at the same high school we did, and now they were married and their son was going to prom.

I remember our fancy Italian dinner, and how you didn't know what to order and you basically wound up with a plate of cold cuts (my, how things have changed, foodie that you are now), and then after dinner walking around through the Park Blocks, holding hands and rolling your eyes at the construction workers who asked if we were going to prom, then telling them that no, we dressed like that every day.

Strangely enough, I don't remember much at all of the dance itself, except that when it was over you kissed me on the cheek. I certainly don't remember anyone (maybe it was Jessica Risdon?) taking this picture.

What I remember more is sitting in the car at the water tower, listening to Elliott Smith and having you ask me if you could kiss me...and then making out in the back seat until the sky started to get light and I realized I had to be at church to play piano in the youth group worship band in two hours. Whoops. Boy, was my mom mad when I came home at 5:30 in the morning! (It was worth it, though, I have to say.)

The nervous excitement and shy awkwardness of those first months of our relationship have long since faded. I used to think that I'd be sad when that butterfly feeling went away, but it's been replaced with such an incredible, deep, contented devotion that I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Being your wife is a huge blessing to me. In some ways, it feels like the past nine years have gone by in the blink of an eye and it was just yesterday we started dating, and in other ways, it feels like I've always been with you. We have changed so much since that day nine years ago. Some of the changes have been hard ones to weather, but we have weathered them, and I am so glad. I can't help but look forward to the next nine years with anticipation and excitement for what's to come.

Happy anniversary, love. Thank you for being my best friend.

my husband is amazing

2008-05-03T19:36:00.001-07:00

I just heard from Brett a little while ago -- he made the semi-finals at the United States Barista Championship!!!! I am so, so proud of him! This means that he is one of the top 25 baristas in the country! Plus, it means that he met his goal in going to the USBC: all he wanted to do was make the semi-finals, and he did!

He will go on around 2 p.m. central time tomorrow. If you want to watch, it is live online at this link. His co-worker Natasha made the finals as well; she goes on first at 9 a.m. central time.

The competition in this round will be fierce; there are several past USBC winners in the group, plus he is up against all of the people who one the regional competitions this year. Still, like I said, he made his goal, so I'm sure that anything else is just icing on the cake for him.

Ever since I got his text message this afternoon that he made the finals, I cannot stop thinking about how incredible he is. I am so proud of him and so amazed by his talent, skill, and hard work. He has really worked his butt off the past month or so getting ready for this. I'm thrilled that it is paying off, and I'm honored to be married to such a hard-working and talented man.

Say a prayer for him (and for Natasha) tomorrow, if you think of it!

motherhood

2008-05-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

I thought about saving this post for Mother's Day, but I decided to just go ahead and post it a little early. You can think of it as a reminder that Mother's Day is coming up quickly, I guess.

Both my mom and Brett's mom were up here recently for a week (separate weeks, back-to-back) to help watch Elanor. As much as I love our families and as much as I love having company, three weeks straight of family (my sister was here, too) is a lot for anyone to handle, especially for Brett and me since we tend to really value our independence.

But both visits with our moms turned out to be wonderful and completely un-stressful. I've been thinking about why they were so great and I've come to some conclusions.

Since I've started the journey to become a mom, I've seen some interesting changes in my relationship with my mom as well as with Brett's mom. It's been fairly imperceptible, and has happened by degrees -- there was no huge watershed moment of transformation, although my miscarriage as well as Elanor's actual birth were both big markers along the way.

It's hard to describe what exactly has changed (but I'm going to try, and probably use a lot of unnecessary words in the process), except to say that both of those relationships are better than ever these days.

I find myself calling both my mom and Brett's mom a lot more often just to chat: to tell them about what Elanor did today, to tell them about something funny that happened, or to ask them a question about something mom-related. This is not the norm; sometimes I'd go a week or more without talking to my mom, and months without talking to Brett's mom. Now, I feel like at the very least I should let them know what's going on with Elanor, since I know that aside from Brett and me, they both want to know more than anyone every little cute thing that she does and every new skill she masters.

Anyway, I'll start with my mom...suddenly, since Elanor has been born, I find myself having sooo much more understanding about her mom-ness. The biggest part of this is the mom-nagging, which used to drive me completely nuts.

"Be careful! Call me when you get there! I worry when you take the bus at night." (No matter that I'm nearly 27 years old and have lived on my own for nearly 10 years.)
"You're tired? Well, have you eaten any protein or had enough water today?" (Yes, Mom, I know, food and water are important for humans.)
"Don't forget to thank [so-and-so] for the baby gift!" (I know, Mom, I'm not completely socially inept.)
"You're home alone? Make sure you lock your doors!" (Sigh.)

You know. Things like that. It used to drive me nuts when she'd nag. I'd think, "Um, yeah, I KNOW, Mom! I'm a grownup! I can take care of myself!" Now, I don't mind. She can nag all day long...it's all a part of how moms express their love; I get that now, even though Elanor isn't old enough for me to nag yet.

And Brett's mom...well, Brett and I have been together for nine years now, so we've had a long time to get to know each other. I think we have always had a better in-law relationship than most people, but over the past two years -- especially over the past several months -- it's gotten much more close. We are open and candid with one another these days, and our relationship is much less formal than it once was. It's really nice. I feel like we're on the same team, so to speak -- the "We Love Brett and Elanor" team.

Having Elanor, in addition to some other family things that have happened, has helped to bring about that change. It's made me understand how strong the bond is between mother and child, which, coupled with the fact that having Elanor has made me feel closer to Brett than ever, takes away that underlying sense of competition that marks so many mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. There's no need for any competition; I don't feel at odds with Brett's mom. We are on the same team, the "We Love Brett and Elanor" team.

I'm so very blessed to have such an incredible mom and such and incredible mother-in-law (not to mention my sister, my sister-in-law, and Brett's sisters). And Elanor is blessed to have wonderful grandmas and aunties who will help Brett and me teach her about life and God and love and, well, everything.

Here's a fun picture of Brett's mom, me and Elanor, and my mom from about a month ago, when all the ladies went to the beach.

Happy Mother's Day, Mema and Noni. I love and appreciate you both!

So, fellow bloggers, tell me: did your relationship with your mom or your mother-in-law change after you had a baby? If so, was it a good change or a bad change?

miscellaneous

2008-05-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. We've been really busy; besides having our moms in town (mine from the 12th to the 19th and Brett's from the 20th to the 26th, my sister and my niece were also in town from the 26th until yesterday. Plus we were getting Brett ready to go to the United States Barista Competition in Minneapolis to compete again, so that has made things a little crazy as well.

He's in Minneapolis now, living the high life, apparently, since he got bumped to first class on his flight and he's staying in a really nice hotel. He won't be back until Monday night around 11 p.m., so it's just Elanor and me until then. I'm taking vacation from work tomorrow and Monday; I figured if he got to go out of town without me the least I could do was take vacation and stay home with my girl!

I'm really excited for him to compete. This will be his third competition, and he just keeps getting better. His signature drink this time is out of this world amazing, and his cappuccinos are pretty incredible as well. I wish I could be there to see him! Ah, well, I guess the live blog will have to do. Anyway, if you think of it tomorrow (Friday) around noon, say a prayer for him!

Our visits from our family members were really fun. It was good to get to spend time with all of them and I know they all loved having one-on-one time with Elanor! It's so nice being close enough for them to come visit easily; since they're in Portland it's only about 3 hours. Much closer than if we were still in Maine!

Hmm, what else? I'm pretty exhausted. Working full-time and having a baby is seriously tough, especially since Brett's been working from 6 a.m. to usually around 9 p.m., doing both his regular job and all of his competition prep. I'll be really glad when he's home and we can get our lives into some semblance of a routine -- one that will hopefully include having help in the evenings and going to bed by 10:30.

Elanor is hilarious these days. She coos and squeals and laughs and loves to interact. The little sounds she makes are SO adorable. I cannot get enough of them! I need to record them; maybe I'll try my hand at a video post when Brett gets back from Minneapolis with the video camera.

She's also cutting teeth. Her two bottom ones have been little nubbins below her gums for a couple of weeks now, but in the past day or two they've gotten much more pronounced and red. She sits and sucks/chews on her fingers or her lower lip all the time, and is constantly putting toys in her mouth and gnawing on them. She's very, very close to rolling over, and she's grabbing toys and putting them in her mouth now.

I feel like there were a number of things I wanted to blog about, things that are far more interesting than what I've written here, but I can't remember what they are. *sigh* Oh well. Maybe I'll remember them and have a chance to blog some more tomorrow or over the weekend!

like a ton of bricks

2008-04-24T14:03:00.002-07:00

Exhaustion: 1
Kathleen: 0

I give up. Exhaustion wins. (Well, this round, anyway.)

I'm more exhausted right now than I have been in a very long time -- or at least since I was pregnant. It's like everything caught up with me today: being back at work, not having had more than about four consecutive hours of sleep for probably about a six months between being pregnant and having a newborn, and the fact that Elanor hasn't slept well for the past several nights.

It doesn't help either that Brett is getting ready to compete in another barista competition, so he's been leaving for work around 6 a.m. and not getting home until 9 p.m. I'm happy for him that he gets to compete but I can say with all honesty that I will be so very glad when this competition is over and we can just work on establishing a routine that doesn't include having dinner at 9:15 p.m., going to bed at midnight, and getting up at 5:30.

I am having serious trouble functioning...I really hope I can catch a break soon and get some sleep or I might just fall over. Yeah, right...

Carless in Seattle

2008-04-19T17:06:00.003-07:00

So, that cool thing I've been talking about lately, that I've been promising to share with all of you?

Well, here it is: I am the newest columnist for Seattle Mom Blogs! I'll be writing a weekly column called Carless in Seattle, which will (obviously) be about our carless lifestyle, as well as our other efforts to live in an environmentally friendly way.

Here's the link to my column: Carless in Seattle.

You'll notice, too, both the Seattle Mom Blogs badge and the Carless in Seattle badge in the sidebar. Both of those should (if I can set them up right) link to the site and to my page.

So check it out! I know all of you moms can find something relevant on there, especially you Puget Sound ladies. There are lots of other columns about all things mom-related and Seattle-related. Poke around; I know you'll enjoy it!

Here's where I need your help: if you have questions about our carless lifestyle, feel free to ask them here by posting a comment. I'll ask readers over there to post their questions, too, and I'll answer them in various posts over there.

See you over at Seattle Mom Blogs!

WTF?

2008-04-18T18:54:00.003-07:00

Uh. People?

This is what is happening outside right now:

Yes, that's right: snow. In Seattle. In April. And it's sticking! And while we were sitting in the kitchen about 30 minutes ago, drinking coffee, we saw a flash and heard the loudest crack of thunder I've ever heard. Yep, a snow and thunderstorm. The hell?

This is why I moved away from Maine, for Pete's sake!!! I couldn't handle the snow, especially the snow into April!

There's something seriously wrong in the world for this to be happening...

(For more pics of the snow, head to Flickr...)

April 14: Three Months

2008-04-17T16:01:00.004-07:00

Sorry this is a few days late. I had it written but have had no time to post. Life's a little chaotic with me being back at work; we're in the midst of finding some balance but haven't gotten there quite yet.

Sometime later this week, I'll be posting the exciting news I referenced in a couple of posts recently...it should be, well, exciting!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

You are now three months old! We definitely cannot call you a newborn anymore; you are awake and alert and you love to interact constantly.

This month has seen big happenings, not only in your development, but also in where we've gone and, perhaps the biggest thing, my transition back to work.

We began the month with our trip to Denver. You were amazing on the airplane; I was so proud of you. Either you were sleeping or you were awake and happy; the fussy times were few and far between. Thankfully, we got a whole row to ourselves on both flights, which was a Godsend.

Spending time with Daisy and Miriam was a treat. Ten-month-old Miriam didn't quite know what to make of you. When you'd cry, she'd whimper too and look up at Daisy with a worried look on her face. And when you were happy and sitting on the floor or in the bouncer chair, she'd scoot over and touch your face and head.

After our trip to Denver, we went straight to Portland, and then down to Roseburg. You were a good baby on this leg of the journey, too. You got to meet your second cousin Joey for the first time, which was fun.

You also got to expand your love of water by taking a swim in the hotel swimming pool. You loved it. Even though it was chilly and you were shaking by the end, you didn't cry a bit, just stared around wide-eyed as Papa and I held you in the water.

After we got home, we just laid low for a couple of weeks, during which we celebrated Easter in style with an adorable outfit from Noni.

We then went to the beach with all of the ladies for the weekend -- you and me, Mema, Noni, Auntie Amy and Auntie Rachel, Great-Grandma Dori, Great Aunt Lauren, Cousin Missy, and your second cousin Joey.

We had a great time!

You were highly underwhelmed by the ocean...

...and the carousel.

You loved bathing in the big tub, though.

We haven't done much since our return from the beach. I wanted to savor the last few days of my maternity leave, so most of our time was spent snuggling, going on walks, or hanging out at Cafe Fiore -- not exactly picture-worthy pursuits.

Going back to work has been hard for me, but it's been wonderful to know you are being cared for by people who love you. I'm just holding out hope that someday I can be home with you more.

You've changed so much this month; I barely know how to begin. The biggest change is what I mentioned before: you are really not a newborn at all anymore. You are so alert and attentive when you are awake! You follow everything that is going on, and you love to be a part of the action.

You have gained so much weight. It shouldn't be a surprise, since you love to eat and you've been ginormous since you were in my belly, but I was shocked when Papa put you on the scale at work the other day and it said you weighed 17.6 pounds. Oh, well. I'm certainly getting strong arms from carrying you around!

My favorite thing is watching you smile. You will grin when you see Papa or me (or anyone who smiles at you, really). You'll also laugh when we are playing. It's this little giggle and squeal and I cannot get enough of it.

I'll sum up by listing some of your current likes, dislikes, and things like that.

Likes: sucking on your fingers, playing during a diaper change, baths, singing silly songs, nursing, watching movies with Papa (you talked and cooed throughout a Kurosawa movie the other afternoon), riding the bus, being snuggled in the Moby.

Dislikes: being hungry, being too hot, no one paying attention to you, eating from the bottle (sometimes), being in your carseat.

Favorite toy: Squeaky pink bunny and jingle Piglet are currently in the running for favorite toy status. You love pink bunny's squeak, and your favorite part about Piglet is that his little snout is perfect for you to latch onto.

Favorite position to be held: You still love being on your stomach across an arm.

You are becoming more and more of a little person every day, and it is so fun to see. You are, for the most part, a very happy little girl. That said, you do know what you want and if you aren't getting it, you let us know, usually loudly and with lots of crying. You're just opinionated, I guess.

It's funny; at first Papa and I didn't want you to get big. We loved how little you were and wanted you to stay all new and tiny forever. Now, though, as we are beginning to see your personality develop, we can't wait for you to get big! To talk with us, and color pictures, and go to the park...it's going to be so much fun!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm sure: I love you, little girl. You make my life a thousand times brighter by being in it. I don't care if you are smiling and laughing, screaming your head off, spitting up on me, or pooping everywhere. It's all a complete joy.

Love,
Mama

I saw the sign

2008-04-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I couldn't resist the title. I mean, who doesn't love a little Ace of Base every now and then? I know I do. *running to iTunes to turn on some Ace of Base*

One of my favorite memories from my France trip a couple years ago was doing karaoke of Ace of Base songs (and many other random artists) in this really weird karaoke bar in Honfleur, owned by the guy shown below, a Korean man who had moved to France via San Francisco, and who liked to play his flute or saxophone along with all of the songs. It was pretty hilarious.

Aaanyway, the point of my title is that I've been meaning to blog about some signs and fliers I've seen lately that made me either crack up or do a double take.

The first one is this one, for a pho restaurant about a mile from our house:

Bwahahaha! I love it. UnPHOgettable. LOL. That's my kind of humor, right there -- the cheesy pun. (PS -- I took this photo from the window of the moving bus while on our way to our friend's birthday party...sorry about the glare.)

Every time Brett sees this sign he says that he wants to open a take-out pho restaurant called Pho-Off. I tell him that it should really be Pho-Out if you're going to be grammatically correct, but I realize that ruins the pun. Heh.

The second thing that made me do a double-take and roll my eyes was a billboard I saw on the side of a bus a couple of days ago. I tried to take a photo with my cell phone, but the memory on the camera was full so it didn't let me save it.

Anyway, it was for this website that is www. goredforwomen. org, which is about fighting heart disease in women. But COME ON PEOPLE, did you not read what your url actually says? It looks like gored for women, not go red for women! I had visions of some bull goring people on behalf of women...D'oh. Not so much.

The third thing I saw that made me basically just throw up my hands and say WTF is this flier I got when I was in Denver. Daisy and I were at the mall, and there was a Christian bookstore. Seeing as Seattle is, like, totally pagan and I can't think of where on earth there is a Christian bookstore here, I went in because Brett and I had just been talking about getting a new Bible, so I wanted to see what they had.

I wound up buying one (a version of Eugene Peterson's The Message that is divided out into sections so you can read it in a year) and the cashier stuck this flier in the bag with the Bible. When I pulled it out later, the section on the far right struck me as, well, as being kind of unclear and bizarre.

It says, "50% off sale event, healing through Christ, one week only!"

Ok. So. What in the world does that mean? Is "healing through Christ" a book series? A set of study materials? A seminar for people who need emotional healing of some kind? What? I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!

Because to me, it sounds like the store is selling healing -- like, you know, what Jesus did, stuff like curing the lepers and making the blind see and the lame walk -- and said healing costs money, but it's on sale only for one week.

I hate crap like this, stuff that is completely unclear and makes you think one thing but really means something else, because, let's face it, I'm sure they're not selling actual healing. But it certainly sounds that way. It's one thing if it's some botched English on a sign or something in another country (like this photo Joel and Sarah took when they were on vacation a few weeks ago), but if I'm in an English-speaking country, I would hope that things would make sense and be spelled right and be grammatically correct. Ah well, a girl can dream, can't she?

So that's the random crap I've been thinking about lately, when I'm not missing Elanor. Not terribly exciting to most people, I'm sure. However, I'm sure there are some of you out there who think the way I do and who have seen some great signs or whatnot along these lines. If you have some, please, share them!

making it

2008-04-10T18:27:00.002-07:00

Thanks to all of you for your comments and thoughts and prayers. I won't deny it; the past two days have been hard. It's not that I mind working or mind being back -- on the contrary, it's fun to be with my co-workers again -- it's that I mind being away from Elanor. I miss her terribly during the day.

The worst part was leaving her yesterday morning. I cried for much of the bus ride; I'm sure my fellow riders on the 17 express thought I was weird. I wasn't worried for her; I knew she and Brett would have a good day (and they did). I was just sad that I wasn't going to be with her all day.

However, the day got better, and it was fun to see my co-workers and to show off pictures of Elanor. And having Brett bring her down to see me at lunch helped a lot.

Overall, things have gone really smoothly the past two days. She hasn't gotten hysterical, even though she's only eaten a teensy bit during the day. She's definitely reverse cycling to make up for it, though, as she ate for over an hour straight last night. (Her feedings are usually 10-15 minutes, max.) But I don't mind. I want to keep breastfeeding her as long as possible, ideally well past a year, so if she'll wait to get the bulk of her calories from me then I'm fine with that.

I'm definitely tired. She nursed from about 8:15 to past 9:30 last night, and it was all I could do not to fall asleep while she was eating. My original intent had been to nurse her to sleep and then get up and do some things (like laundry) but I soon realized that just wasn't practical, given how tired I was and the fact that I had to get up at 5:30 if I was going to shower in the morning before Brett left. So instead of getting up to do chores, I just changed into my jammies, crawled into bed, and snuggled her up while she nursed yet again. I was asleep by 9:40...and it was lovely!

So, yeah. That's the update. It's going ok. I don't mind being back at work, although I miss her something fierce throughout the day. We're working on refining our routines for the morning and evening, so that we can get things done and yet get to bed at a reasonable hour or get to work on time, but that will all fall into place eventually so I'm not too concerned.

For now, it's enough to just come home in the evening to her smile when she sees me, and then snuggle her close all night long.

bleh.

2008-04-07T19:12:00.002-07:00

So, I go back to work on Wednesday. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse by talking about it again, but it's all I think about these days.

Yeah. Thankfully we have the first month covered -- Brett is going to stay home some, a friend is going to watch her for a day or two, my sister is coming for a few days, and both of our moms are coming for a week.

Still, it's going to be hard. I keep telling myself that I'll get through it and everything will be fine (and I will and everything will be) but that doesn't help. I almost wish it were Wednesday evening already so that I was done with the dreaded first day.

The past three months have been incredible. I love being home, and I adore being a mama. Not to toot my own horn too much, but I feel like it's finally something I'm really good at! I mean, I guess I was good at being a journalist -- at least I'd like to think so -- but that was long hours with little pay and lots of frustration. The fact that I loved it wasn't worth the tradeoffs of being up until 2 a.m. writing stupid stories about city council meetings.

Being a mom is way better. Sure, it's long hours, and yeah, there are frustrating parts some of which do take place at 2 a.m.), but seeing Elanor smile at me is worth more than any paycheck I have ever received.

So anyway, that's what's on my mind this week. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers, please, this Wednesday -- it's going to be a very long ten-and-a-half hours.

mommy brain

2008-04-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

For quite a while now, I've heard my friends with kids talking about what they call mommy brain. Apparently, this is a kind of absentmindedness that strikes sometime during pregnancy or shortly after birth.

I experienced being absent-minded while I was pregnant, but chalked it up more to the extreme exhaustion I felt and how sick I was more than mommy brain.

I have always considered myself a highly capable person. In the past few years, I feel like I've gotten to be pretty good around the house. I can cook, bake, do laundry, and all of that other stuff in a pretty automatic way. Plus, I don't forget stuff -- I always make sure the oven is off when I'm done using it, and I clean out the lint filter with every load of laundry.

Anyway, it appears that mommy brain struck for me twice this past weekend, when in an uncharacteristic set of circumstances, I did two really dumb things. And of course I did both of them in front of seven other women, including my mom, my mother-in-law, both of my sisters-in-law, Brett's grandma and aunt, and Brett's cousin's wife.

The first incident of mommy brain struck on Saturday afternoon. We were all at the beach house, enjoying just hanging out and staring at the babies (Elanor and her second cousin Joey), when I decided to do a load of laundry because Elanor spits up on every single thing she wears. Even though we'd only been at the beach house for about 24 hours, I already had a full load to wash. (Such is life with a spitty baby, I guess.)

So I gathered up all the laundry out of my suitcase and then grabbed a couple of things I'd laid next to her changing pad on the floor, threw it all in, and walked away.

I returned an hour or so later to switch it to the dryer, and as soon as I pulled out the first thing, I knew something was wrong.

There was white fuzz all over a black shirt of mine that I'd thrown in with Elanor's things.

"Huh, that's weird," I thought. "I wonder if one of Elanor's outfits did this?"

I pulled out something else, which sent little gel beads all over the mudroom.

That was when I knew that there was some kind of liquid-absorbing item in the wash. At first I thought it might be a breast pad that had gotten stuck to one of my shirts. But as I kept pulling things out of the washer that were covered in fuzz and little gel beads, I realized it had to have been something much larger than a breast pad.

Yep. I'd washed a disposable diaper. I must have scooped it up with the things that were next to the changing pad.

And what's even more stupid than washing a disposable diaper? Running into the living room, holding the shreds of the diaper and yelling, "How DUMB AM I? Look what I just did! I just washed a diaper!"

Everyone gave me this look. You know, like, "Um, ok. Thanks for sharing. That's grody."

My mom followed me in to the mudroom to help me get the gel out of all the clothes so I could re-wash them.

"I don't think I'd have told everyone if I washed a diaper," she said.

Sigh. She's probably right; I should have just kept it to myself. (Of course, here I am now, telling the entire Internet, but whatever.)

The second stupid thing I did was when we were making dinner later that evening. The stove at the beach house is really wide, and has a large section on the right-hand side that doesn't have burners.

We'd taken a cookie sheet and the broiler pan out of the oven to cook something else in there and someone had set them on the left-hand set of burners.

I went to cook something, and set the pan on the right front burner. And then, stupid me, turned on the left front burner. Because, you know, the right front burner was further left on the stove than I was used to, and the left burner was covered up with the broiler pan so I didn't see it.

As I noticed that the pan didn't seem to be getting hot, I kept turning it up and up, until finally it was on high, and I looked down at the broiler pan sitting there and noticed a round, burner-like shape in it.

"Huh," I mumbled. "That's stra-- OH CRAP!!!"

And then I proceeded, once again, to announce to the entire group what I had done -- melted a perfect, burner-shaped circle into the metal pan.

I never used to do stuff like this. Ever. I always sort laundry religiously. (Although I don't sort religiously enough to suit my mom, I'm still more particular than most people about laundry sorting.) And I have never done anything like the burner thing. After Brett left a burner on high once with a near-empty pan and almost ruined it, I always, always check stuff like that. Except clearly, I didn't check this time.

I really hope this absentmindeness is just mommy brain or lack of sleep or something temporary, not something more permanent like me getting dumber or just altogether losing my marbles. Hopefully once I get a little more sleep, I'll be back to my normal self again.

Either that or I'll just have to learn to shut up about the ditzy things I do. (Unless, of course, they make a good story for my blog. Heh.)

the fright of my life

2008-04-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

I was just now walking home from a nice couple of hours at the coffee shop up the street. Elanor was wrapped in the Moby and sleeping away. I was dwelling on how next Wednesday is my first day back at work and looking at some plants in someone's yard when it happened -- I tripped and fell, hard.

As I fell, I could see Elanor's head falling backwards and going directly toward the pavement. I yelled something -- I am not sure what; I think it was something like, "Oh, GOD!" -- and managed to catch myself on my knees and my hands before her head hit.

I dissolved into tears as I started getting up, looking at my bloody hands and now muddy jeans and thinking about what had almost happened. Thank God I managed to catch us before her head hit the pavement!

It was one of the scariest 30 seconds of my life, thinking that she could have hit that sidewalk and what might have happened. I don't know what to chalk it up to: whether I was wearing larger (and therefore clumsier) shoes than normal, or whether I was preoccupied, or what. And that sort of freaks me out, because I don't know how to prevent it happening again. I'm certainly not going to stop walking to Fiore or wearing her in the Moby; that would be, in my opinion, an extreme overreaction.

I guess I can't always prevent accidents like that from happening. I'm sure every parent has a story like this one. Even so, knowing that doesn't make it any less scary when I stop to think about what might have happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, Elanor and I spent the last few days down in Portland, first hanging out with my mom and sister, then heading down to the Oregon coast with my mom, Brett's mom, Brett's two sisters, Brett's Grandma Dori, his Aunt Lauren, his cousin's wife, Missi, and her new baby, Joey. We had a great time! Pictures will be forthcoming -- I've posted them to Flickr and will post some here soon.

Ok, I have to work on our income tax return while Brett has Elanor upstairs...ugh...not what I want to be doing right now, but I have to get it done before I go back to work!

Movie Review: The Business of Being Born

2008-03-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Over the past two nights, Brett and I watched the movie The Business of Being Born. I was interested to watch it, since it talks a lot about the rising c-section rate in this country and the commercialization of birth. The stuff about rising c-section rates, anyway, hits close to home.

*disclaimer: It's entirely possible that I'm a little overly sensitive about this topic, given my own experience, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.*

I came away from the movie feeling a mixture of frustration and sadness. I was frustrated because the movie really seemed to vilify the idea of giving birth in a hospital, especially with an OB instead of a midwife. It specifically seemed to vilify having a c-section. Sure, lots of the interviewees would say things like, "...unless a c-section or hospital birth is medically necessary," but the filmmakers just let those statements hang: they never pursued that line of thinking. I wish they'd explored more what "medically necessary" might mean, but they just didn't. And that surprised me, since one of the main people in the movie attempts a homebirth but has to transfer to a hospital while she's having agonizing contractions. (Her water even breaks in the cab. Pretty intense.) In the end she winds up with a c-section.

It seemed like the overwhelming message of the movie was that giving birth naturally -- that is to say, vaginally and without pain medication -- with a midwife, in a birthing center or at home, is the only "right" way to birth, and anyone who does it differently is somehow less of a woman. Yes, it may be ideal to birth outside the hospital without interventions. Sure, I'll accept and even agree with that. But I felt as though the filmmakers really made hospital births attended by OB/GYNs out to be this horrible thing that takes away the womanhood of those who choose to birth a baby that way, and that the OB/GYNs are just out for profit, that sometimes they just do c-sections because they want to go home for dinner or to go to bed, that they push interventions out of convenience or ease.

And I'll give them the fact that maybe that happens with some hospital births, but I don't feel like that was the case with me at all. Yes, I gave birth in a hospital, under the care of an OB/GYN, not a midwife. Yes, I wound up with many more interventions than I wanted -- an epidural, continuous fetal monitoring, intravenous medication like Zofran, and, ultimately, a c-section.

But in no way do I feel that the doctors and nurses made those decisions because they were out for profit or because they wanted to get home for dinner or for ANY reason other than my best interest or Elanor's best interest. A homebirth or a birthing center birth would have been disastrous for me. I cannot imagine how horrifying it would have been to have been transferred when I was feeling that intense, profound pain after almost three hours of pushing. To have to have gotten in a car and driven 20+ minutes (probably more; it was rush hour and snowing at that point) to the hospital would have been more than traumatic.

So while I was angry that hospital births were given such a bad rap, I also felt guilty and sad. One of the things I most wanted out of my birth experience was to get to hold the baby right away, to have that skin-to-skin contact, and to get a couple of hours of bonding with the baby and Brett by ourselves. And I didn't get that. I was far too out of it with pain medication after the c-section to open my eyes, let alone hold Elanor. When I finally did get to hold her, it was only for a couple of minutes, since our families came in to the room pretty much as soon as I was reasonably coherent.

It was hard to watch all of these beautiful, natural births and see that moment where the baby was put up on the mom's chest, all wriggling and wet. To see the wonder and love and the tears in the mom's eyes. I wanted that. I have to say that not having that and not having those minutes or hours with Brett and Elanor after the birth is, in retrospect, the one thing I struggle with about her birth. I don't care that I had a c-section, I don't care that I wound up with an epidural, but I do care that I didn't even get to see Elanor up close until she was an hour or two (maybe more, maybe less; I have no clue) old. But I can't change that, and she was born in the way that she needed to be. Ultimately, I'm thankful that she and I are safe and that we live in an era and in a city in which access to immediate emergency care is both excellent and readily available.

So yeah. The movie made me angry with its blanket indictment of hospital births, specifically c-sections, and it made me sad when reflecting on parts of Elanor's birth, which in turn made me angry, because at the core of it, I am satisfied with almost everything about her birth. Who are they to put a burden of guilt on me for birthing my daughter in a hospital? What regrets I do have are not anything I could have changed, since like I said, I feel 100% confident that I was taken care of completely by my doctors and nurses, and that Elanor was born via c-section because she needed to be, not because the doctor wanted to get home in time for the 11 p.m. news.

After watching the movie, I wish in some ways that I hadn't. It's a good thing, by the way, that I didn't watch this while pregnant or about to deliver. It would have scared me to death. Even 10 weeks out from Elanor's birth, some scenes were really difficult for me to watch without tearing up, shuddering, or needing to turn away.

I guess my point with all of this is that the movie seemed one-sided, favoring midwives/natural birth completely over OB/hospital birth, failing to recognize that some midwives are more intervention-minded and some OBs are much more like midwives in their approach to labor, which I feel that mine was. The movie seemed to lack balance, which frustrates the journalist in me, who always has to try to see both sides of an issue. Then again, it was clearly an opinion-type piece, so maybe I am expecting too much if I want balance.

So yeah. Bottom line? If you're really intrigued by birth, watch it. If you aren't, then you'll probably be either bored to tears, freaked out by the graphic scenes of babies being born, or scared out of your wits. And for all my pregnant friends out there -- don't watch this until quite a while after you've had your baby.

I knew there would be days like this...

2008-03-22T09:26:00.003-07:00

but I don't think I was prepared for them.

I have never slept as badly in my entire life as I did last night.

Elanor's had a bit of a cold since Tuesday, and it looks like I caught it too. By yesterday evening, I had a massive headache, a sore throat, a runny nose, and that foggy-headed-ness that comes with a cold.

Last night was miserable. I was exhausted when we went to bed around 10, and just wanted to sleep. Of course, nothing went according to plan, and whether it was my nose running, or Brett snoring, or the stupid cat jumping on my legs, or our housemate's loud movie, or Elanor needing to eat, I kept being unable to fall asleep. I had a crying meltdown at 3 a.m. because I'd only slept for about 40 minutes at that point and I was so uncomfortable I couldn't stand it anymore.

So I slept for maybe 3 hours total the whole night, and most of that was sitting up, because if I tried to lie down, my nose would run or I would need to sneeze, and inevitably, it would wake Elanor up if I did. And now, she's up for the day -- so I am, too, even though all I want to do is drink some orange juice and crash back into bed with all the pillows in the house behind my head so I don't actually have to sit up against the headboard to sleep anymore.

Like I said, I knew there would be days like this...but boy, do they suck big time. It's going to be a long day, I fear.

Psalm 37:4

2008-03-20T18:49:00.009-07:00

I've been feeling in a little bit of a funk this week for the first time since Elanor was born. It's partly due to some relational issues that I won't talk about here, but that have been consuming a lot of my mind and heart. One of them is mostly worked out, and the other will eventually work itself out, but they are still hard to deal with and make me sad to think about.

However, the main reason behind my funk has to do with the fact that I set a definite date to return to work: April 9. (If you hadn't guessed, that is the thing I mentioned in my last post that makes me cry when I think about it too much.)

I knew when I got pregnant that I'd have to go back to work full-time. I also knew that God would provide people to care for Elanor when that time came. Thankfully, it looks like either one of her grandparents or aunts or else a handful of our close friends will be able to care for her until the fall -- a huge relief off of my chest, knowing not only that she'll be with people who love her but also knowing that most of this care will be free, allowing us to sock away as much as we can can in savings or toward debt over the next several months.

Still, knowing that I'd have to go back and actually doing it are two wholly separate things. It's going to be the hardest thing I've ever done, even though for the most part I enjoy my job and truly like my co-workers. While I've had jobs I've liked before, I have to say that staying home with Elanor beats every single one of them, no contest. I love it. It is everything I've ever wanted to do. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I really feel like this is what I'm meant to do in this life: be with her every day and see to it that our home runs smoothly. I just don't know from a financial standpoint how that's possible, though.

Really, it comes back to trusting God, I suppose. I do trust him. I know that he put the desire in my heart to have a baby. I know that he redeemed the miscarriage through Elanor. I know that he made her arrive beautiful and perfect and healthy. I know that he has provided amazing people to care for Elanor. I know that he has put the desire in my heart to be home with Elanor, and any other children we may have. So what I ask myself, then, is that doesn't it follow that he'll provide a way for me to be home with Elanor more? Verses like this one make me think that it does. "Trust in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)

And, if for whatever reason that doesn't happen, and I don't get to do what is the desire of my heart and be home with her, I will have to trust him anyway, to provide the strength to get through the long 11 hours I'll be away from this sweet face each day.

Note: I don't want to jump into a SAHM vs WOHM debate with this post. Just know that it's how I feel -- that I want to be home with her and I can't be, at least right now. It is in no way an indictment of those who could be home and choose not to.

Note #2: An update on the fun thing I mentioned in the last post is forthcoming, probably this week. It's exciting, I promise!! Well, at least I think so, anyway. :p

home again, home again, jiggity jig

2008-03-18T11:32:00.003-07:00

Ok, I've started two posts about our trip last week, and both are boring laundry lists of what we did. So I'll just say that overall, it was good. Elanor did great on the plane rides, and seeing Daisy was fantastic. We had an amazing time. I don't think we stopped talking all week! Our time in Oregon was good, mostly -- we were there for Brett's cousin's dad's funeral, which was very sad. But it was good to see our families, and good to meet Brett's cousin's new baby.

Overall, I'm really glad to be home. It was a long week, and Elanor and I missed Brett a lot.

There are pics up on flickr -- the link is over in the sidebar.

I've got some other updates to post soon, one really fun, and one that makes me cry. But right now I have a crying baby on my lap and about 9,000 things to do today, so unfortunately this is a short post!

A link I forgot!

2008-03-08T15:46:00.003-08:00

See, I told you I forgot to add a link! I'm sure this one isn't the last, either.

Thanks to D for the reminder...her blog is one I should have added!

And Baby B Makes Three -- D's blog about her life with her little girl, Baby B. D and I "met" on a message board for miscarriage survivors. She, along with the other girls on that board, helped support me through the dark time last year. The board has been a fantastic resource to have, not only throughout the grieving process but also throughout pregnancy and now as a parent.

March 10: Two months

2008-03-07T17:54:00.011-08:00

I am posting this a little early because come Sunday morning, I am off to Denver to visit my friend Daisy!! We had talked for months about me trying to come while I am on leave, and it looked like it wasn't going to work. Then, this week, I looked at tickets, and I was able to get one with some of our airmiles -- if I went from this Sunday to Thursday. While it will be hard to be away from Brett for so long, I am really looking forward to spending the time with Daisy!

After that, I am flying straight to Portland Thursday night, where I will meet up with Brett. On Friday morning, we are going down to Roseburg to be with Brett's cousin and his wife, as Brett's cousin's dad just passed away last week and the service is next Saturday. Please keep Brett's cousin and his wife in your prayers; they just had a baby last week as well. What a stressful time.

After that, we will head back to Portland, and then take the train back to Seattle next Sunday night. It's going to be a whirlwind week, that's for sure! At any rate, I doubt I'll be able to get much blogging in while I'm gone, so expect a big update when I return!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

Eight wonderful weeks have now passed since you were born! I know this is a very cliche mom-type thing to say at every milestone, but it seems like just yesterday that I was getting to hold you for the first time.

You have changed and grown so much during these four weeks, and we've done many new and exciting things, and you've met many great people. I barely know where to begin!

The first weekend of the month held a lot of meetings for you, as well as your first road trip! Papa and I took you down to Portland to see once again everyone who came to your birth as well as to meet the rest of our extended family.

One person whom we were very excited for you to meet was your Great-Grandma Dori. You are her first great-grandchild, and your middle name is her last name, Naudain. We took a special picture of you with Papa, Noni, and Great-Grandma Dori to commemorate the meeting.

You were also able to meet your Great-Grandpa Buz. We took a special picture of you with Papa, Grumps, and Great-Grandpa Buz as well.

Another big first this month was that you and I took your first bus ride!

We rode the #17 home from downtown. You did great and slept almost all the way. Since then, we've taken the bus almost every day, and you have been wonderful every time. Even if you fuss a little, you usually calm down if you can suck on my finger or if I bounce you. Sometimes, if the ride is bouncy enough on its own, that's enough to calm you down. And goodness knows, with as bad as Seattle's streets are, that's the case more often than not.

A funny first is that you took your first shower in the big people tub. Papa was in the shower on a Sunday afternoon, and he said to hand you in, since we'd been planning to give you a bath later that day anyway. While you still love taking baths in your tub, I don't think you liked the shower too much!

You also got to meet your fellow babies from our childbirth class at our reunion last week. Although you are the second youngest, you are by far the biggest!

I've noticed that you're a baby who likes to be in motion. A lot of times, if Papa or I stand still when we're holding you or wearing you in the Moby or the Ergo, your cries of protest are loud and demanding. Once we start bouncing or moving again, you are happy.

You still love to be worn in the Moby or the Ergo. If we're out and about, something I try to do every day, you tend to fall asleep most contentedly. When we are home, however, you don't sleep as soundly in the carriers. I have wondered if falling asleep when we're out is your response to all of the stimulus; it's just easier for you to fall asleep than to process everything that is going on around you.

One major milestone is that you have finally figured out how to get your own hands into your mouth! Papa or I will be holding you and we will suddenly hear a hilarious and loud slurping sound, and we'll look down to find you sucking on your fist like it's a popsicle on a summer day, and it's melting faster than you can eat it.

Also, the other night you were holding a rattle and you tried to put it in your mouth, missed, and tried again. It's clear that you're learning the relationship between your hands and your body!

One of my favorite milestones thus far is how you will smile back at Papa and me when we smile at you and talk to you. It is really fun to see and makes me feel all gooey inside when you grin back! You even giggled for the first time a few days ago when I was changing your diaper.

You're also content to be on your own in your rocking chair or swing -- or even, sometimes, your car seat -- for a little while these days, just looking around and seeing everything that's going on nearby. While we love holding you and snuggling you, these intervals are a welcome break for Papa and me, as our arms do get tired from time to time and it's much easier to make dinner or do laundry or go to the bathroom when you're not holding a baby!

A difference we've noticed as you've gotten more alert over the past month is that you tend to be fussy more often. You're so much more attuned to your world that when things aren't going the way you want them to (i.e., you're not being held, or else we are not interacting with you), you let us know right away. I think if we were the kind of parents who wanted to put you down all the time we'd term you a fussy baby. As it is, since you like it when we wear you, you are pretty easy to make happy and we can't really call you a very fussy baby.

Swaddling is still a must at nighttime, and you still wake up every three hours or so to eat. It's definitely starting to wear on me a bit, but considering that I feel about a million times less tired than I did when I was pregnant, I think I can handle it. You go to bed when we do, and you sleep snuggled right up next to me or Papa. You won't sleep unless you are in one of our laps or we are holding you or we are lying right next to you in bed, even during the day. All of your naps are in the Moby or the Ergo or in our laps, and as a result I am getting a little concerned about what we will do for naps once I go back to work. I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Your hair is even more wild than it was before, as it continues to grow. We call it your Mo-Mullet, as you have a mohawk on top and a mullet in the back. It is getting long! I love the mohawk on top; it's really quite adorable. You do have a couple of bald-ish patches right on the sides of your head behind your temples, although I have no idea why. Everyone we meet comments on how much hair you have.

Unfortunately, you're still spitting up quite a bit. For the most part, it's not accompanied by crying, and you are clearly gaining weight well, so we don't think it's reflux. We just have to have at least one backup outfit with us every time we go out, and some days, I have to change your clothes up to six times -- and my own nearly as many. I am certainly getting more disciplined at doing laundry right away; gone are the days of wearing my pajamas for a week or two before I washed them, or of wearing a shirt twice. Chances are, whatever it is I am wearing will be covered in spit-up or breastmilk or some combination thereof before noon. You did spit up in Papa's beard the other day, which made me laugh.

Also, you can toot and burp like a champion. Sometimes you are so loud, I think it's your papa tooting or burping instead! The best is when you do so at inappropriate times, like last week, when you burped very loudly during the prayer time at community group. Papa and I couldn't stop laughing!

You are the most wonderful baby, my girl. I love being your mama. Papa and I both think that you make our family complete. Each day is a fantastic adventure, seeing you make a new face, master a new skill, or feeling you snuggle up against me. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Love,
Mama

links

2008-03-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

A quick housekeeping note: you may notice that I've cleaned up the links section in the sidebar. I've culled out some dead links, as well as some blogs that hadn't been updated in a while, and added some new ones. If I took your blog off, it's nothing personal, so no hard feelings, ok? Most likely, I took it off because it hasn't been updated in a while. (My cut-off was that if it hadn't been updated since January 1, I was deleting it.)

Also, if I added your blog and you'd rather I didn't link to you, please let me know and I'll take it down.

One more thing, if I don't currently link to you but you think I should (because I'm sure I'm missing a few blogs on this list), either comment in this post or drop me an email and I'll add you.

Enjoy!

2008-03-03T12:33:00.004-08:00

After last Thursday's rough day, I realized that it's really important for me to get out of the house at least once a day, even if it's just for a walk to the park about two blocks from our house -- especially if it's a day where Brett won't be home in the evening. Plus, Elanor sleeps much better if I'm out and about than if I am wearing her in the Moby at home. I don't know what it is, but she seems to sense when we are home and is more awake during those times. Maybe she goes to sleep when we are out somewhere as a response to all of the stimulus. I don't know.

Anyway, after a pretty wakeful night last night, (she was up to eat at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 6:30 and 7:30, and then up for the day at 8:30), I decided it would definitely do me good to get out of the house, so this morning I walked up to the coffee shop about eight blocks from our house. It was raining, but I didn't care. I just threw on a hood and put a hat on Elanor -- this is Seattle, after all, she needs to get used to being out in the rain. :p But really, it was nice to just be outside, and then nice to spend a couple of hours somewhere other than here.

I got a latte and a bagel and settled in to do some reading, both from An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard, which was recommended to me by my friend Leah, and from the Bible and the How People Change workbook, which is the study our community group is currently using.

Gillian Welch was on the stereo, the coffee shop was warm and the windows mostly steamed over with the rain hitting them, Elanor was asleep against my chest in the Moby Wrap...and as I sat there listening to Revelator, drinking my latte, watching the wind blow the rain against the windows and blow the trees around outside, reading my books, periodically bending down to kiss Elanor's milky-smelling cheek or snuggle her head, I realized there was nothing I wanted more than to be able to do that every day.

Now that I've passed the mid-point of my maternity leave, each day like this is a little bittersweet, because while I love spending all day with Elanor, I know that in about a month, I'll have to go back to work and will be away from her for roughly 11 hours every day. It's going to be so very difficult. I'm trying not to think about it and focus on the positive instead, that we have family and close friends to watch her until September, at which point I really hope I can be home with her more.

While I was sitting in Caffe Fiore this morning, I couldn't help but think that this wonderfulness of being home with her, of being able to wear her all day, of being able to bend my head a few inches and kiss her head, of being able to see her smile, of being able to smell her baby smell whenever I want -- it is such a luxury! And it is all too quickly approaching its end, a thought that made me really sad.

I guess I should just appreciate each day that I'm home (and I do) and not think about being back at work, at least for now. I knew it would be like this when I got pregnant, that I wouldn't be able to stay home with her full-time, but I don't think I knew the reality of how hard it would be to actually go back to work after getting to be home for three months. And, of course, I wouldn't trade having her now for anything, even though I wish our circumstances were different and I could stay home full time, or even part time. I just hope and pray that by September, I'll be able to be home with her at least a little bit more.

2008-02-29T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not really sure what to say about this, because I've already said most of what I feel, but I feel like I need to acknowledge it somehow anyway. This Sunday will mark one year since the miscarriage. In some ways, it feels like a lot longer -- so much has happened in this past year.

It's been on my mind a lot lately, not in an overly emotional way, necessarily. I've just been thinking about it, and how hard it was, and how dark the time after the miscarriage was. I don't even remember March or April, save for one or two events like Carolyn's visit and Easter with Caleb and Marci.

We were singing a song at church on Sunday, and there's a line that says, "I will arise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms. And in the arms of my great savior there are ten thousand charms." I suddenly teared up, remembering the image Annie had of me getting to heaven and being embraced by the baby we lost and by Jesus.

Definitely, having Elanor here has helped immeasurably as I remember this time last year. It doesn't take the pain away, and certainly she doesn't invalidate the baby we lost, but it helps. I can look at her funny little face and feel happy that she is here, and she is ours, knowing that she couldn't have been if I hadn't lost our first baby.

So, yeah. What a year it's been. A really tough first half, with the miscarriage and then me being so very sick during my pregnancy with Elanor, followed by a wonderful second half.

I feel so blessed, especially as I look back to this time last year and how bleak everything was, between the miscarriage and Brett's struggle to find a job. Today, we have our little girl, Brett has a job he enjoys that seems like it was made for him, we are living in a house we love...really, there is not much more I could want.

another first -- not so fun

2008-02-28T17:22:00.003-08:00

Today was our first one of "those days," as I've heard my friends call them.

Elanor has been fussy (read: inconsolably screaming) nearly all day, unless she is nursing or I am holding her just. exactly. right. And that just exactly right position tends to vary by the second, apparently, because it seems like she is only calm for a very brief period once we find a comfy position for her and she calms down. Either that or by the time I get her calm, my leg or arm is totally asleep and I have to move it because it hurts so badly.

My normal tricks, like letting her suck on a finger, or putting her on her belly, or wearing her in the Moby, or dancing around the living room and singing to her are not working at all. I have a headache, I am sore from nursing her so much, I have no idea how I am going to manage eating dinner like this, let alone how I am going to cook it. Plus, Brett is out tonight so I am flying solo. Him going out is something we'd planned on for at least a week -- not that that makes it any easier, I'm just saying.

It's frustrating that she's so fussy today. We've been out and about almost every day for the past two weeks, and I was really hoping to just take it easy today and rest a bit. But that's hard to do when your normally mellow baby has turned fussy. So now, of course, I'm not only feeling frustrated because she has been grumpy today, but I'm also feeling stir-crazy from having been home alone pretty much alone all day. (Brett was here for about an hour, during which I was able to switch the laundry and shower.)

When Brett left, I went upstairs to change Elanor's diaper and sleeper, since she'd somehow peed through both of them. As she screamed on the changing table (a place where she is usually totally calm), I had to fight back tears myself. Ugh. That's the first time that's happened since she's been born, that I've been so upset and frustrated with her that I wanted to cry.

Sigh. If I thought she'd sleep, I'd just go to bed in a couple of hours in hopes that tomorrow, and with it, a fresh start, would come a little sooner.

(Ok, just as I finished typing this, she seemed to calm down and I was just able to put her in the Moby...I hope she'll be content for at least a little while!)

yummy? I think so!

2008-02-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

I've heard lots of people refer to babies as being "cute enough to eat." I've also heard people say, "I just want to gobble him up!" in reference to a baby.

Well, we've discovered a new spin on that concept.

Let me preface this by saying that I wear Elanor most of the day, either in the Moby Wrap (our favorite!) or in the Ergo Carrier. I've told Brett that wearing her on the outside bears a lot of similarities to being nine months pregnant: your center of gravity is totally different and you are front-heavy, leading to backaches and a skewed sense of balance, and also you have a giant baby in between you and whatever you want to do, whether it be wash your hands, pee, do dishes, cook, or, the one that I struggle with the most, eat.

I usually wind up eating my meals with Elanor in one of the carriers because while she'll sleep contentedly in one of them, she'll scream if I put her down. This results in a curious problem: trying to avoid dropping food on the baby.

Brett and I are both guilty of dropping food on her, no matter how careful we are. There have been many times I've gone to change her diaper and found toast crumbs in her onesie, or have leaned down to kiss her head and noticed it smelled like coffee, or have taken her out of the carrier to change her diaper and found a macaroni noodle stuck to her pants. The best is finding crumbs in her neck folds. I don't know how they get in there because her neck is so fat I can barely get at it to clean it, but somehow crumbs seem to work their way in regardless of any fat rolls in the way. (I try to wipe her neck off a couple of times a day; between the crumbs and the spit-up, it gets nasty pretty quickly.)

I suppose this is just something that comes with the territory of figuring out how to be a parent, and balancing taking care of her with taking care of our basic needs -- like eating.

Sure, it's a little grody to be finding crumbs in her neck fat. But there's not really much I can do about that other than clean it up often -- that is, if I want to eat regularly.

All that said, I think she cleans up pretty nicely, don't you? (And yes, that was a shameless and not-very-seamless transition to showing photos of my kid.)

photo update

2008-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:00

I was going to post a photo recap of just our weekend, but then I realized I should probably go ahead and catch myself up and post a photo recap that would get everything up to date. As always, photos are on Flickr as well.

We took Elanor to meet Brett's Grandma Dori on Friday morning. She didn't know we were coming over -- hence her pajamas. But, we really wanted her to have some one-on-one time with Elanor apart from the party on Saturday, since we knew a lot of people would be wanting to hold her then. I'm really glad we were able to let Grandma meet Elanor in a quieter, more peaceful setting. Elanor was really good; she let Grandma hold her for almost two hours, and was even awake and alert an quiet for a decent portion of that time.

First photo of the two of them together.
Displaying a bit of personality for Grandma.
This picture cracks me up.
And so does this one.
I love this picture. They are so snuggly.
On Friday night, we went over to my mom's house to spend some time with her and my sister and my niece and nephews. We went out for dinner at this Mexican restaurant, which was an interesting experience for a few reasons. One, they could NOT get my order right, and messed it up two times, despite me giving very clear instructions on what I wanted. It was really frustrating. The waiter came back three times and asked if I wanted sour cream, which I didn't. It was totally bizarre, and by the third time, we all just looked at each other and cracked up as he walked away.

The second reason it was an interesting experience is that as we were sitting there, who should walk in but Brett's parents and sister Amy and her husband Seth! It was totally random and coincidental, but funny all the same.

Mema and Adeline with Elanor on Friday night.
The big party took place on Saturday. There were about 40 or maybe 50 people there throughout the afternoon. Elanor did well; she didn't start to get fussy until the early evening. I think it was much harder for me than it was for her. I have to admit that it was really hard for me to let her get passed around so much, and it was really tough when she was fussy not to just snatch her out of the arms of whoever was holding her and run back into the bedroom where it was quiet and calm. But, it's over, and she's been introduced to the family and friends, and that is a good thing.

I didn't take a ton of pictures; I was busy talking to a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time while simultaneously fighting the urge to grab my baby! :p

A sweet picture of my nephew Zachary holding Elanor.
Cousins: My sister Melissa with her kids and Elanor. Zachary is holding Elanor, Adeline is on his right, and Jacob is the little guy.
Four generations: Walkers. Brett's Grandpa Buz, dad Jeff, Brett, and Elanor.
Four generations: Naudains. Brett's Grandma Dori, mom Priscilla, Brett, and Elanor
With her Noni on Sunday morning.
In the Walker family bassinet, in Brett's childhood bedroom, where we stayed over the weekend. The bassinet was new when Brett's Grandpa Buz was a baby, and every Walker baby has slept in it (or at least had their picture taken in it) ever since. The tradition goes that the ribbon gets changed to the appropriate color depending on the baby's gender.
Close-up in the bassinet.
Relaxing after a diaper change in her new pink elephant outfit that my mom and I got at Old Navy over the weekend. I think it's really cute!
On Monday, we had to return the rental car that we drove home from Portland. The car return was downtown, so I met up with a friend for lunch and then did some shopping. (Yay for the Old Navy kids and baby sale!! Isabel -- I did get some good bargains; they actually had a lot more there than I was expecting.)

Having lunch with Isabel. I love how snuggly Elanor is in the Moby Wrap! (Thank you, Julie and Karen, for passing it on. We LOVE it!)
I'll share one funny anecdote from our trip downtown. After lunch, we went to browse around in the stores. As we were leaving Old Navy, I noticed that Elanor was getting cranky and I knew she needed to eat. So we headed across the street to Nordstrom, so I could nurse her in their mothers' room, which has couches, a really nice changing table, and its own sink. (Which, I might point out, all of the teenage girls kept coming in and using to put on their [garish] makeup, but whatever.)

The second I opened the door to Nordstrom, Elanor started screaming. Not just crying, but full on, I'm-pissed-off screaming. I panicked and went back into the vestibule to try to calm her down. I thought I had her calm enough to where I could at least get to the elevator without further incident, but boy, was I wrong. The second I opened that door again -- screaming. The entire floor got totally quiet and everyone looked at me. At least that's how it seemed...I'm sure it wasn't that bad. But boy, her screams did carry. Those marble floors really make the sound of a screaming baby echo!

She was fine once I got her upstairs and nursing. It was pretty funny, albeit embarrassing, though, that she kept freaking out when I opened the door. I guess makeup and shoes don't yet appeal...

Waiting for the bus at Third and Pine for Elanor's first bus ride, going home from downtown after returning the rental car and having lunch with Isabel on Monday.
The bus stop. We catch the #17, which runs within a block and a half of our house. It's very convenient!
On the bus. She slept quite a bit during the ride; I think she liked the vibrations from how bumpy it was.
Official five-week-old photo from Monday night. It looks to me like she and the pig are conspiring to create some kind of mischief.
And, because I can't resist, a photo I took yesterday afternoon with my cell phone while we were playing. I think she is the cutest baby I've ever seen!!!

So that's the update, photo-wise. WHEW. It was a busy weekend and it's been a busy week. She is a little cranky today, and she hasn't been sleeping as well as she did over the weekend, when she slept from about 11 pm to about 5 am two days in a row. It was heavenly, let me tell you! Last night, though, as well as most of this week, she was up several times, probably four or five altogether, and the only way she would go back to sleep was to be latched on and nursing. Thank goodness that we can do the side-lying position with more skill these days! Even if I wake up with spit-up everywhere and everything hanging out, at least I was able to get some sleep!

Speaking of eating, it's time for me to feed her again, so we'll head upstairs.

why is it...

2008-02-20T09:26:00.002-08:00

...that when I'm lying in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, I can think of about 7 things I want to blog about, but when I sit down at the computer to type, I can't think of what I wanted to say?

So annoying!

Oh, yeah -- I guess one thing I was going to do was post a recap of the weekend.

Elanor's first road trip went moderately well. She definitely got tired of the carseat at times, necessitating Brett to contort his arm behind the seat and pop a finger in her mouth (I don't know how he does it, especially when her seat is right behind his; I guess his arms are a cross between those of Inspector Gadget and Gumby).

Traffic was terrible on the way down to Portland last Thursday, so after having been sitting for over two hours and only being just to the north part of Tacoma (a trip that usually takes about 40 minutes), we decided to stop and find some food for us and feed and change Elanor.

We pulled into a Taco Time and Brett stayed in the car with her while I ran in to go pee and get our food. We had decided to have what Brett's family always called a car picnic (a fancy way of saying that we would just eat in the car) so we wouldn't have to bring Elanor inside.

I came back out with our food, and as luck would have it, Elanor was really hungry right that second. (She seems to have some kind of radar about being really hungry just as Mama is getting ready to eat.) So, I started feeding her right away, while also trying to eat my dinner. (Have you ever tried to nurse a baby while eating a fast food burrito? Yeah, it's definitely not easy. But thankfully, I did it without dropping beans & cheese on myself or the baby, so all things considered, I would say it was a success.)

I wanted to change her diaper before we got on the road, so I got in the back and set everything up with the changing pad on the seat, a task which required that I move everything that had been packed on the back seat into the way back. (We were not thinking clearly when we packed the car. Then again, when have we ever needed to change a baby on the back seat before?)

Finally, I had everything ready and Brett handed her back to me. I set her on the pad and got her diaper off. As I moved to put the diaper in the garbage bag, I realized that she was peeing, all over the seat.

I shreiked, then started cracking up. Brett was laughing, too, and then he said, "Happy Valentine's Day, Leen. Sorry it's not more exciting and that you have to spend it in the back seat of the car with a peeing baby in a Taco Time parking lot in Tacoma."

And that was when I realized that next to the Valentine's Day five years ago when Brett proposed, this Valentine's Day, spent in a Taco Time parking lot in Tacoma, trying to eat my burrito while feeding a baby, followed by watching my baby pee on the back seat -- well, this Valentine's Day was probably the best one yet.

More trip recap to come...including Elanor's first meeting with her Great-Grandma Dori and her first big party.

quick update

2008-02-18T16:24:00.003-08:00

The weekend went fine, despite being very tiring and somewhat overwhelming. But overall, it was good. We got home about 9:30 last night, and this morning Elanor and I spent a few hours running errands which are easier to do with a car before we returned the rental we drove back from Portland -- grocery shopping, buying cat food and cat litter, taking some groceries for the week to Papa at work, etc.

Then we headed downtown to return the rental car, have a very fun lunch with Isabel, and then do one of my favorite things: hang out downtown and browse through the shops. The afternoon was capped off with a huge first, as the two of us rode the bus home.

A post about Elanor's big weekend and about her first bus ride are forthcoming, hopefully tonight. (I'm working on uploading the pictures to Flickr now.) I've also got a post in the works about our decision to be carless with a baby. It's taking longer than I wanted to write but I'll work on it this week and get it posted soon.

daunting

2008-02-14T10:51:00.002-08:00

Before we had Elanor, I always said that when we had kids and traveled with them, I wasn't going to be one of those moms who brings everything including the kitchen sink "just in case" -- we'd travel light, like we always do, just with a few tiny clothes thrown in. How much room could they really take up, anyway?

Yeah. Right.

In about four hours, we are leaving to go out of town to see our families in Portland for the first time since we had Elanor. I feel like we are taking 10 times as much stuff as we normally would -- the Boppy, the breastpump, the bathtub, a duffel bag of clothes with (literally) 2/3 of Elanor's current wardrobe (I should note that before, Brett and I could fit all of our clothes for a weekend in that bag), a suitcase with (literally) 2/3 of MY current wardrobe (dude, people, the spit-up is intense...some days we change clothes up to six times), a bag of cloth diapers, a bag of disposable diapers, the Moby Wrap, the diaper bag, the carseat and base...and we aren't even taking the co-sleeper, vibrating chair, or swing.

Thank God we are driving both ways and don't have to deal with lugging all this crap on the train. *shudder*

(Aside: I just looked down at Elanor and she smiled at me with half-closed eyes. I think she's the sweetest baby I have ever seen.)

I hope this trip goes smoothly, both in terms of schlepping all of her stuff as well as in terms of balancing time with our families. I thought it was stressful before Elanor was born in terms of trying to balance seeing everyone and trying to make it fair. Well, that was a walk in the park in comparison...I really hope it goes ok.

I'm sure that no matter what, we'll have lots of pictures to share next week as Elanor gets to meet all kinds of family and friends!

February 11: One month

2008-02-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

Note: I know this is a couple of days late, but this week has been really busy so far. I haven't had much time to be online. So, a bit belatedly, here you go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

It's very hard for me to believe you are already four weeks old! The time since your birth has, in some ways, flown by -- it seems it was just yesterday that I was still pregnant and waiting for you to arrive. And yet, it seems like you've been a part of our family forever.

You have grown so much in the past few weeks. Although you were large when you were born (9 pounds, 7 ounces), seeing pictures of you from that week makes me realize how much bigger you've become. You seem so tiny in comparison to how big you are now. Papa and I were just remarking last night how heavy you are getting, and that it is starting to make our arms sore if we hold you for too long. I'm sure you are bigger now than you were at your doctor's appointment on the 31st -- a whopping 10 pounds, 8.5 ounces.

You make grunty, squeaky moans when you are asleep or when you are awake and trying to suck on your hands. Papa and I love watching you try to get your fingers in your mouth; the gusto with which you attempt the task is truly hilarious. You still love to suck on one of our fingers. Sometimes that is the only way to get you to calm down or to sleep. I have to admit that I have contorted my hand in ways I never dreamed possible over the past few weeks, all in an effort to get a finger in your mouth when you're fussy.

You've started moving more on your own, too. You can roll on your side and actually prefer to sleep that way, snuggled up next to your papa or me. You like to grab things -- one of our fingers, a toy, your sleeve, Papa's beard. You can grab on (especially to his beard!) so tightly we have to literally pry your fingers open. You've also started being able to scoot your body around by kicking your legs if there is something to kick against. It's a little scary how quickly you've become semi-mobile!

The spot on your head where it was bruised and scabbed over because it kept hitting my pelvic bone is finally almost all healed. There is just a tiny bit of scabbing left; Papa and I call it your road rash. Your hair is getting lighter, too. It's not nearly so dark as when you were born, and Papa and I think it has a little reddish tinge to it.

I've started to be able to read your cues more and to be able to tell what your different cries mean -- you're lonely, you're hot, you're hungry, or you just want a snuggle.

One of my favorite things is when you sneeze. You usually sneeze at least two or three times in a row, and it's adorable! You take a deep breath, and then out comes this little baby sneeze. You look around, confused, just as another one hits you. Sometimes you sneeze as many as five or six times in a row!

You love riding in the Ergo carrier or the Moby Wrap, although you do protest (sometimes loudly!) when we first put you in. However, you soon settle and either look around at what we are doing, look at our faces, or fall asleep.

Over the past week, I have noticed your desire for interaction increase. You are no longer the sleepy baby with unfocused eyes. You look right at your Papa and me with a sense of calm and recognition. When you are upset and crying, if one of us picks you up, you usually settle down in our arms. It feels so good that you know who we are!

You enjoy playing "This Little Piggy" and you enjoy it when you and I play the kisses game -- where I kiss you and you grin.

We haven't been as good as I would like about reading to you. We've read a few books, but it hasn't become a part of our routine yet. Papa and I were talking last night about starting to read a book a night; I think we'll start that tonight.

You love to snuggle with either Papa or me. You don't sleep well at night unless you are touching one of us. My favorite way of sleeping with you is to lie on my back, with you on your belly on my torso. It's so sweet and snuggly; I can kiss your little head and I can give you my finger to suck on easily if you like. The only drawback to that position is that when you get excited, you kick me right on my c-section incision -- OUCH.

You love it when Papa holds you on your belly across his arm. I came upstairs the other night to find him sitting on the birthing ball, holding you like that and bouncing while watching an arty foreign movie.

We've had many fun outings and adventures since you were born. Your first outing was when we went out to dinner at the Kebab House and to church when you were six days old. You did great! You slept almost the whole time, although you did cry a bit when you got too hot during dinner.

Your second outing was monumental. At a week old, Papa and I took you to Ikea. We were probably crazy to do so, but we were going to be near Ikea anyway and wanted to go while we were borrowing a car. You did great! Papa carried you all the way through the store, and all of the older ladies in the checkout line oohed and awed over you.

We've gone lots of places since: the grocery store, the doctor's office, running errands in Ballard, Target, the coffee shop, Papa's work, Rosanna's studio, and you've even gone to Moped Monday with just Papa.

We've had lots of visitors, too, both friends and family. Everyone is very excited to meet you and to get to snuggle with you.

I can't believe how much you've changed over the past month. It's so apparent when I compare photos of you from the first few days to photos taken more recently.

My girl, I can't believe that you are here and that you are ours. This first month has been a complete joy. I have loved almost every minute of it and I cannot wait for all of the many months to come.

I love you more than I could ever tell you.

Love,
Mama

Fun with Flickr

2008-02-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

Last night, Brett took Elanor out to Moped Monday, just the two of them. It was so hard to see them go! I nearly cried when the door closed behind them and I heard them drive away.

As a consolation to myself, though, I came straight downstairs to our computer and bought myself a Flickr Pro account, so that I can upload and organize all of the adorable photos we've taken so far and all the ones we'll take in the future.

So, if you ever want to see some Elanor cuteness, you can just go here, to the collection I made of Elanor photos. It's where I'll post new ones as I upload them, so check back often.

That doesn't mean I won't post some photos here on the blog; it means that I'll post a selection here but that all of them will be on my Flickr site. I'll post the link in my sidebar, too, so it will be handy if you want to click over and see what's new.

(Brett said she did great, and wasn't really fussy at all. He apologized after they got home, because he said he hadn't thought about how hard it would be for me to have him take her somewhere without me. I appreciated that; it was definitely hard. But it's something I want him to do, take her places, I mean, and we all survived, so it's ok. Plus I got a Flickr Pro account out of it. Heh.)

2008-02-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

For a very long time, two of my biggest fears about having a baby were related to two things after the baby was born: sleep deprivation and post-partum depression.

I've always needed a lot of sleep; I'm talking at least 7-8 hours per night or I am a wreck: spaced-out, bitchy, and not very fun to be around. My ideal is actually closer to 9 or 10 hours: pretty much impossible under the best of circumstances, let alone with a baby. So I'm sure you can understand why the idea of having a baby who woke up all night long was scary, considering how irrational and irritable I can be if I don't get enough sleep.

I really hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying this, but oddly enough, it really hasn't been bad. Elanor does wake up several times at night, and yes, some nights are worse than others, but overall I don't feel the level of exhaustion or desperation that I thought I would feel. I can still function moderately well during the day, thankfully. Granted, I'm not working, so that plays a big role, and, yes, I'm tired, and you'd better believe that some days a nap is necessary if I'm going to make it, but it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

The other thing I was afraid of was post-partum depression. With a history of depression in my family and in my own life, I was terrified that I would have to deal with this. Again -- it really hasn't been an issue, something for which I am so very thankful.

Really, the first week-and-a-half after she was born were filled with an extreme sense of euphoria. I was on top of the world and I couldn't imagine being happier.

Now, things have settled down and I don't necessarily feel euphoric, but I don't feel depressed, either -- more just content, for the most part. Sure, I have my hormonally-induced grumpy times, sometimes a little more often than I would like, but it's not like it's depression or like it's out of control.

The grumpy times are not fun; I hate being a grumpy person. Somehow things (and people) just push my buttons waaaay more easily right now than they would otherwise. But I remember after the miscarriage that it took a good 6-8 weeks for my hormones to settle down. Why should I expect anything less now, when I've actually been pregnant to term and delivered a baby?

Honestly, there's a lot about this parenting thing that I didn't expect. Or maybe a better way of putting it would be there is a lot that no one could have prepared me for. It's not bad stuff, though. Like how I don't mind when I have to change her poopy (or as Brett calls them, "Poopie-woopie-woopie!") diapers. And how I don't really mind when she spits up all over me. And how I don't mind waking up to feed her in the night. And how it is so hard not to snatch her out of the arms that are holding her when she cries. And how sad I feel that she is already growing and changing so much, and how much I miss the tiny newborn she was. And how amazed I feel when I look at her and realize she is my child. And how wonderful it is to watch Brett with her. Above all, the thing no one could have prepared me for is how much I love her.

the name game

2008-01-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

As I posted here throughout my pregnancy with Elanor, we had a really hard time thinking of a name for a girl. We had our boy name picked very, very early (I think around 20 weeks). It was really easy for us; we both just knew when we heard it.

The girl name, though, was tough. We couldn't agree on our favorites -- he liked one thing, I liked another. We thought we came up with The Name at Thanksgiving, but the more I thought about it, the less I was convinced.

We talked about it while I was in labor and had our girl names narrowed down to about three choices, including Elanor. Although Elanor was my favorite, and a name that I'd had in mind for a girl for a long time, I knew it wasn't Brett's favorite -- he was holding out for the one we'd talked about around Thanksgiving.

So when Elanor was born, I called over to Brett, "What are we going to name her?" And he said, "I don't know!"

A few minutes later, when I was still on the table being stitched up, I said, "How is Elanor doing?" And then I said, "Wait, I just called her Elanor. Is that fine; are you ok with that being her name?" And he said he was fine with that. (Like I said before, I think he would have said yes to anything at that point.)

Here's where the meaning behind her name comes in. And here's where, once again, I prove that I am a huge, huge dork. So please don't make fun of me! :p

As I've mentioned before, I love Lord of the Rings. I have read the books a gagillion times, and I even took The Fellowship of the Ring to the hospital to read when I was in labor, since it's a comforting, familiar book for me. (Like I said before, I didn't get very far, but at least it was a distraction for an hour or so.)

A few years ago, while I was reading the books, I started looking for names that we could use as names for our kids someday. It wasn't like I actually thought we'd use them, more that it was just an idle activity for me.

At first, I thought Lorien might be nice for a girl. But it's so obviously from Lord of the Rings, I decided it was too blatant. And then I hit upon Elanor.

Here's the passage where the word Elanor is introduced. The company have just come through the Mines of Moria and have suffered a crushing loss. They are feeling lonely, exhausted, and confused, and they are grieving the loss of a great friend.

However, they have just entered into the beautiful and ancient Elven land of Lothlorien, a place of healing, peace, and grace. They have been blindfolded in the tradition of the Elves (non-Elven visitors must wear blindfolds) but their guide, Haldir, has bid them to take off their blindfolds and see the beauty and peace that surround them. (My emphasis in bold.)

"When his eyes were in turn uncovered, Frodo looked up and caught his breath. They were standing in an open space. To the left stood a great mound, covered with a sward of grass as green as Spring-time in the Elder Days. Upon it, as a double crown, grew two circles of trees: the outer had bark of snowy white, and were leafless but beautiful in their shapely nakedness; the inner were mallorn-trees of great height, still arrayed in pale gold. High amid the branches of a towering tree that stood in the centre of all there gleamed a white flet. At the feet of the trees, and all about the green hillsides the grass was studded with small golden flowers shaped like stars. Among them, nodding on slender stalks, were other flowers, white and palest green: they glimmered as a mist amid the rich hue of the grass. Over all the sky was blue, and the sun of afternoon glowed upon the hill and cast long green shadows beneath the trees.

'Behold! You are come to Cerin Amroth,' said Haldir. 'For this is the heart of the ancient realm as it was long ago, and here is the mound of Amroth, where in happier days his high house was built. Here ever bloom the winter flowers in the unfading grass: the yellow elanor, and the pale niphredil.' "

Later in the book, one of the main characters, Sam Gamgee, names his first daughter Elanor as well. Sam was always enamored with the elves; it's no wonder he chose it as his daughter's name.

So that is where we got her name, non-traditional spelling and all. I know, I know, I always said I didn't want to give my kid a name with a non-traditional spelling and doom her to a life of correcting people...but, well, I did it anyway. Sorry, kiddo!

I hope, too, that by giving her this name I haven't somehow jinxed any love for Lord of the Rings that she might one day have. I hope that she loves the books someday as much as her Mema and I do.

Anyway, the name just seems to fit her perfectly. She is our golden, star-shaped winter flower, and I can't imagine her being called anything else.

***Edited to add:

My mom pointed out that I hadn't explained her middle name, Naudain. It was our middle name choice for a boy or a girl, and it is Brett's mom's maiden name. The Naudain name can be traced back to Elias Naudain, the Huguenot, who was the first Naudain to come to America in the 1600's. Brett's late Grandpa Big Al could trace his lineage all the way back to Elias. Pretty amazing, if you ask me. Many of Elias Naudain's descendants have been active all over the country, in both politics and business.

Neither of Brett's uncles on that side of the family had kids, which means that the Naudain name in that branch of the family is no more. So using Naudain as Elanor's middle name is our way of continuing the name in some way and of honoring Brett's Grandpa Big Al, who I unfortunately never had the pleasure of knowing, as well as a way of honoring his Grandma Dori, who at 90 years old is still going strong, and whom we both love very much.

a quick photo post

2008-01-29T15:04:00.000-08:00

Because I know her aunties and uncles and grandmas and grandpas and cousins and other relatives, at least, would love to see some more photos of her, and I haven't had time to finish the post about her name.

First bath! She actually really liked her bath, and didn't start crying until we took her out at the end to dry her off; I think she was cold by that point.

Papa videotaping while Mama bathes

Angry because she is cold

Soothed by Papa's magic finger. I think this may be one of my favorite pictures of her, simply because I feel like it captures what I think she looks like better than any others. I love the look on her face when she's been upset and finally gets to suck on something, whether it be on my breast or on someone's finger. She just looks so concerned, like she was afraid she'd never get to suck on anything again, and content that she is finally sucking on something.

Almost the same size as the cat

"Hi, my name is Elanor, and I am adorable. What's your name?"

"Don't mess with me; I have wild hair and an expression to match!"

Our week on our own is going well. She is totally asleep in the Ergo carrier now, which I like, because I can lean down and kiss her little head very easily. It's quite nice!

I had my two-week c-section follow-up appointment (geesh, enough hyphens?) yesterday. All is well; I am cleared to drive. Hooray!

I think I am actually going to go out for the first time without Elanor in a little bit; I need to run some errands, like going to the post office to buy more stamps for my many thank-you notes, and going to Kinko's to fax my short-term disability paperwork, and going to the pharmacy to get cream for my oh-so-sore breasts, and possibly going to the kids' consignment shop down in Ballard to see if they have a couple of things we need.

It's daunting to think that I'll be without her for an hour or two...I know she'll be fine with Brett but I have loved having her with me and next to me constantly over the past two weeks. For instance, it's really reassuring right now to feel her warm little body all curled up against my torso and to hear her little sounds and her breathing. I love it.

I'd better get going if I'm going to get back before she needs to eat...

a small victory, and some bonus photos

2008-01-25T22:01:00.000-08:00

So, ok, please don't hate me, but for the past two days, I have worn my pre-pregnancy jeans.

Are they uncomfortable? You bet.

Do I have a muffin top? Of course.

Are they two sizes bigger than my ideal? Oh, yes.

But they are, as I've been calling them, real people clothes, with a zipper and buttons and everything, and that feels so good. We went to Target tonight and I couldn't stop looking at all of the cute spring-y clothes, the swishy skirts (my big clothing weakness) and all of the comfy shirts. I didn't buy any of them (nursing bras took priority, unfortunately), but man, was I tempted.

(So what if I'm still wearing mostly maternity shirts, right? They hide my muffin top, and for the most part, they're the only ones that have easy access through the top for nursing.)

I'm working on a post about Elanor's name, and why we chose it. Hopefully it will be done in the next few days. We'll be on our own after Brett's mom leaves on Sunday, so we will see how much Internet time I get after that, when there is no one here to hold the baby.

I'll leave you with a couple of photos. The first one is Elanor's official one week photo. She was not so cooperative, to say the least! The only one we have in which she isn't screaming, she is spitting up. Yeah, not so much.

The other two are from Tuesday night. We went for a walk to the park about two blocks away, which has a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. The sun was setting and it was just beautiful.

One week old

Elanor and her papa

Elanor and her mama

everything I thought I didn't want, and everything I didn't know I needed

2008-01-20T11:26:00.000-08:00

Warning: I'm not going to spare details, so if you're squeamish or uncomfortable reading about my nether-regions, be ye forewarned.

There were times in the week before I went into labor that I thought it would never happen, and I would just stay pregnant forever. Last Sunday night, the 13th, was one of those days.

I spent most of the day either in bed or playing Nintendo. Brett had a bunch of friends over to help him shoot a video piece that he wanted to submit for an upcoming show. I felt anything but social so I stayed in bed while everyone was over. I felt bad hiding out, but I just couldn't handle more questions about the baby and the pregnancy and how I was feeling.

After they finished the video, they all left to go have a beer, but a couple of hours later, about 6 people wound up coming back over to have some Thai food with us. I was so mad at Brett for having so many people come back with him; I did not feel up to talking to people and just wanted to hang out with him. I fear I was rather bitchy. So, Arianna, Lailey, and Leah -- I'm sorry I was so grumpy. Please forgive me; I feel bad!

Everyone left and we went to bed pretty early, about 9:45. Brett fell right asleep but I was awake for a long time. I was having contractions but they weren't bad, although they were enough to keep me awake for a while. I finally went to sleep sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

At exactly 1:03 a.m., I woke up to feel a warm gush of fluid. I wondered if my water had just broken or if I'd had one of those unfortunate pregnant-lady accidents. I got up and went to the bathroom and noticed there was some bloody show and that it seemed like the fluid was of a different consistency than pee.

I went back to bed and woke Brett up about 1:15 and told him I thought my water had broken. We decided to time contractions for a while, and he went downstairs to do a couple of things in case it was real labor -- like put away the moped parts he had spread out on our patio, since he'd planned to do some moped work the next day.

After an hour, the contractions were 3-6 minutes apart and were definitely different than any I'd felt before. However, I hadn't had a big gush of amniotic fluid and was questioning whether my water really had broken or not. I called the doctor and she said that it sounded like I needed to come in and get checked, but not to rush as it didn't sound like there was any hurry.

So I took a shower and got the rest of my hospital bag together, and Brett made some coffee (of course) and we headed out to the hospital.

We arrived about 3:30 and went up to triage. The monitor showed that the baby's heartbeat was perfect and that the contractions were, in fact, about 5 minutes apart. However, the nurse had a hard time checking me to see how far dilated I was, and she had to call the doctor to come check me. I was dilated to about 2 and was about 90% effaced -- no real change from my doctor's appointment a couple of days earlier. Also, they did a couple of the pH strip tests to check for amniotic fluid, and both came back negative, but the doctor wanted to make absolutely certain so they did a swab test as well, which she then went to look at under a microscope.

She came back about 4:30 and said that my water had indeed broken and they would admit me, and that after we got settled in our room we should walk the halls for a few hours to help things progress. We asked her if she had any idea how things would go, and she said that it would probably be quite a while yet before I was in active labor and that she'd think the baby would be born late afternoon or early evening.

In a few minutes, we found ourselves walking the halls and looking at all of the artwork on the Labor and Delivery floor, critiquing many of the pieces as a way to pass the time.

At this point, the contractions were definitely getting stronger and closer together, but it was completely managable, although uncomfortable.

Sometime around this point, we called our families to let them know what was happening. It was a bit like herding cats to try to get everyone sorted out in terms of how everyone would get to Seattle and how people would handle their work situations. Finally, we decided that my mom would drive up immediately and that Brett's mom and sister Rachel would ride with her. My dad and stepmom would come up mid-morning, and Brett's dad would come up with Brett's sister Amy and her husband Seth sometime late morning. At that moment, we didn't think my sister was going to be able to come. (Thankfully, she got someone to cover her shift the following day and was able to come that evening with my niece Adeline and nephew Zachary.)

I was relieved to find out I could eat some light food, since it was around 7 a.m. and I hadn't eaten since our Thai food dinner the previous night. I had some Jello, and some graham crackers, and some hot tea. Little did I know that would be the last thing I'd eat for over 24 hours.

At this point, I was still able to focus on other things, so I leaned over the birthing ball on the bed and cracked open the copy of The Fellowship of the Ring I'd brought with me to the hospital. I didn't get very far, but it was a decent distraction for an hour or so.

Around 8:30, the doctor came back and checked me again, to find that I was already 4cm dilated. Active labor had officially begun.

This is where things get much fuzzier for me. I know that I labored for a while all over the room, on the birthing ball, leaning against the sink or the bed, hanging on Brett. The contractions started to hurt quite a bit more and required some focus to get through.

One thing I loved about the hospital we delivered at is that you have one nurse, one-on-one, for her entire 12-hour shift. It was so nice to have that continuity and that level of attention. Our amazing nurse, Angelica, ran a bath for me sometime in this period, and I have to say that the Jaccuzi tub was fantastic. It really helped with the contractions, and I stayed in there for about an hour. It was easily my favorite part of labor.

I was starting to have to vocalize through the contractions -- moaning, praying, even swearing, sometimes all at the same time.

I got out of the tub probably around 10, and our moms arrived shortly thereafter -- sometime around 11. They really wanted to see me so I said they could come in for a few minutes if they were very quiet and calm. I felt self-conscious about vocalizing with other people in the room, so it took a lot of willpower, but I remember being able to be quiet during the contractions while they were standing there.

I think it was around this time (probably around noon, although I have no idea) that they checked me and I was dilated to a 7-8 and was beginning transition.

I remember things got really painful around this time. I had been feeling nauseous for a couple of hours, and I got up to go to the bathroom. While I was sitting on the toilet, I had a horrible contraction and knew I was going to throw up. I just sat there heaving while Brett and Angelica held me up and held a tray for me.

The next couple of hours are a complete blur. Everyone started making comments that I'd have a baby by lunchtime, etc. Our nurse Angelica kept pushing her lunch break back because it really seemed during the early afternoon that delivery was more and more immanent. I remember looking at Brett at one moment and saying how disappointed his sister Amy was going to be, since it looked like I was going to deliver before she and Seth and Jeff arrived.

The contractions were very painful by this time and I kept throwing up. I was starving since I hadn't eaten but a 1/4 cup of Jello and two graham crackers in about 18 hours, and was terribly thirsty, but I was throwing up even ice chips. They'd put one in my mouth, and about 3 minutes later, out it would come.

By around 3, I was feeling the urge to push. The doctor checked me again and I was dilated to 9, but there was one small problem -- I had what's called an anterior cervical lip, which means that because the baby's head was presenting at something of an angle, the front part of my cervix just wasn't dilated to 10, although the rest of my cervix was wide open and the baby was at +1 station.

So around 3:20 I started pushing, and the doctor or nurse would intermittently try to hold the lip of the cervix back during a contraction so that the baby's head could move down. Let me tell you, that hurt like hell. It was horrible.

The next couple of hours passed, with me getting more and more exhausted and incoherent and the contractions getting worse and worse. They were literally coming on top of each other, with no break in between. I'd have 3 or 4 before I would even get any kind of release, and that was brief and still quite painful.

I had been hooked up to the external fetal monitors intermittently throughout the day. These are small plastic discs that are about 3 inches in diameter, and they hook on to your belly via an elastic band attached around the belly. One monitors the baby's heart rate and the other monitors contractions.

They started to really irritate my skin and my belly; the elastic bands were itchy and painful and the monitors themselves were digging into my belly and making the contractions worse. I remember at one point trying to push one of the nurses away when I saw her coming with them because I could not stand to have them on anymore.

The decision was finally made to switch to an internal fetal monitor, which I had been dead set against as it attaches to the baby's scalp using a small screw. The thought of that had set my teeth on edge before I was in labor, but at that point, I didn't really care and was just happy to not have the external monitors on anymore.

Sometime around 5:00 or 5:15, the doctor came back to check on me. I was still having the cervical lip, and the baby had not moved down at all since I started pushing.

By this point, I was so wracked with pain and so exhausted that I couldn't even talk. I remember lying on the bed and feeling a contraction come on, and just moaning to try to let Angelica and Brett know that I was ready to push so they could come hold my legs back.

I remember just sitting there sobbing for part of this time. The pain was so intensely over the top that I thought I was going to break in half, I was exhausted, I was thirsty, I was starving, and I was still throwing up. Oddly enough, I almost began to look forward to throwing up as it gave my mind and body a focus other than a contraction for a minute or so.

My entire body was tense and hard as a rock. I still wasn't getting a break from contractions and every muscle in my body was spasming.

I kept saying, "Oh, I wish I'd gotten an epidural." I thought the point where that was a possibility had long since passed.

I was lying on my side when the doctor came over and sat down right next to the bed and looked me in the eyes. I remember that she said, "You have choices here. You can get an epidural. It's still an option, and it's ok. You're not a failure. This is hard. You've been pushing for a very long time. We can get someone here right away."

I looked at Brett and, crying, told him I think I needed one but that I really didn't want to get one. He said, "Leen, if you need one, then do it."

I said to the doctor, "How quickly can you have the anesthesiologist here?"

And she said, "I'll go find him right now."

We had both been so against epidurals. I felt so disappointed in myself, and if I'm honest, afraid of what our moms would say. Both of them had all of their kids without drugs, and my sister had her three naturally, too. My mom had been telling me practically my whole life how she believes that epidurals are bad, that they slow labor down, that they can pass the drugs to the baby, etc. And Brett's mom, being a doula, had said many of the same things. After my nephew Jacob was born, the two of them sat there telling me all of this together, and how great they thought it was that my sister hadn't had an epidural. So you can imagine it was a very hard decision for me to make in light of that.

The anesthesiologist was in my room almost immediately, and he began working. The hardest part for me was having to stay totally still -- with my contractions coming so close together I had to maintain that stillness throughout the contractions, which was one of the hardest things I've done in my whole life. But Brett and Angelica were, as always, right there holding my hands (and sometimes even holding my legs and arms down), and that made such a difference.

When the drugs took effect a few minutes later, I experienced a feeling of relief that I have never felt before in my entire life. I just sat in bed, crying. It felt so much better. I could breathe again, and I could talk, and I didn't feel like I wanted to jump off the Columbia Center just so the pain would stop.

I really wanted to see my mom at that moment, so Brett went out to get our moms. I saw them come through the door and I just started bawling and saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't want an epidural but I just couldn't do it anymore." (I'm tearing up now just writing this...it was a very intense moment of emotion.)

Both of them just came over and hugged me and told me that it was ok and that they were so proud of me and that they didn't care. I really needed to hear that and after they both said that, I felt a lot better.

A few minutes later, Brett's sisters and my stepmom came in, too, while Brett went to get some food since he hadn't eaten anything all day. We just hung out for about 45 minutes. I was able to laugh and joke with them and was able to relax and rest. I needed that time.

They left and we just rested for a while longer, as there was a nursing shift change. So while Angelica updated our new nurse, Joanna, Brett and I just rested. We were both exhausted.

Around 8 p.m., I started to push again. Joanna and Brett were fantastic. They held my legs and talked me through the pushing. I could see everything in a big mirror they had put at the end of the bed, and being able to see what an effective push looked like was really helpful since I couldn't feel much with the epidural.

The doctor said we'd give it an hour or two and then see if the baby had progressed. She said that if the baby hadn't moved down from that +1 station by then, we'd need to talk about a c-section. When she said that, my heart just sank and I felt a sense of disappointment.

I started talking to the baby between contractions, telling it to move down, to come on out, that we wanted to meet he/she. During the worst of the contractions before the epidural, Brett would try to talk me through by telling me to just keep up the good work and we'd get to meet the Snugglefriend soon. But I didn't care. I didn't care that they could see the head, I didn't care that my baby was going to be born. All I cared about was the pain and how horrible it was. I could not focus on the fact or enjoy the fact that we were about to meet our baby.

After the epidural, though, I was excited. I wanted to get the process over not because it hurt, but because then I'd get to meet this little person who had lived inside of me for 10 months. I could use that as a motivator to push -- my mind was in a state where I could accept rational thought, whereas before it had been consumed with the irrationality of the intense pain.

So I pushed and pushed and pushed, and finally the doctor came back about 10:30 and checked me. The baby was still sitting at that +1 station. A bit of the head was coming down to a +2, but the doctor said that it was the soft part of her head that was just getting squeezed through every time I pushed; the bony part was not budging. She said the words I had dreaded: "I think you need a c-section. This baby is just not coming out. If you'd made any progress since you'd been pushing, I'd be fine to let you labor for as long as the baby's heartbeat looked good, but you haven't progressed, and I'm afraid that you could be here all night and not get any further and just get more and more exhausted."

Brett and I looked at each other, and we just knew that a c-section was the right decision. The circumstances were exactly the ones that we'd talked about being necessary for us to accept a c-section -- I'd tried literally everything to get the baby out on my own but the baby just wasn't fitting.

Overall, we feel 100% satisfied with the birth experience at Swedish and my OB's care. We feel like our desires were listened to and honored, but that when it became necessary, the doctor told us what she thought was best for me and for Elanor. The hospital was fantastic, too. Every doctor and nurse who cared for us was amazing, especially Angelica, Joanna, and the anesthesiologist. They were all wonderful and compassionate and real and truly made the experience a good one, even though so many things didn't go the way we thought we wanted them to. We will definitely be going back there when we are someday ready to have another baby.

After we decided to have the c-section, the next half-hour was a blur. The doctor spent a good 10 minutes answering our questions and walking us through what would happen. I really appreciated that she did that. I think we'd blocked out a lot of the details of what we'd talked about at my appointment a few weeks earlier with regard to a c-section, just because both of us believed it wouldn't be necessary.

Brett ran out to tell our families (who had now been waiting in the tiny waiting room for going on 12 hours), and the doctor went to find another OB to scrub in with her on the surgery. The nurses got an anesthesiologist back in, and reserved an OR.

They upped my pain medication, introduced the doctor who would be helping with the surgery, made me drink this vile stuff that is supposed to neutralize stomach acid (which didn't work and I threw it all up, of course, because what better way to end this pregnancy than how I began it: vomiting), and off we went down the hall.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I'd been shaking uncontrollably since mid-afternoon. It's pretty common during transition and pushing for women to shake; the hormones combined with the pain are usually the cause. But in my exhaustion, the shakes had continued after I had the epidural, and they were even coming on and off while we were heading to the OR.

As soon as the doors to the ER opened at the foot of the gurney and I saw the lights and table and equipment, something released in me and I started sobbing and shaking even harder. It wasn't that I was disappointed by the fact I was getting a c-section (honestly, by that time I just wanted it all over) but I was scared to death. I had never had surgery before, and I was already so tired and overwrought that it was just too much.

I tried to whisper scripture to myself, and to pray, but I was so over the edge that I couldn't even get a whole verse out of my mouth and all I could think to pray was, "Oh, God, oh God, oh God, please help, I'm scared."

Brett was overwhelmed at this point, too, and was running out of things to say. I remember opening my eyes to see him standing over my bed with his hands on my head, his eyes closed, and his lips moving, just praying.

Thankfully, the anesthesiologist saved the day. I cannot express my gratitude to this man. He sat with me behind the drape to monitor my pain levels throughout the process, so he was on my right and Brett on my left. He held my hand the whole time and talked to me in order to distract me from what they were doing on the other side of the drape. (Hearing them talk about moving my organs around was probably not a good idea, given how upset I was.)

The plan was that when they pulled the baby out, Brett would stand up and look to see whether it was a boy or a girl, and then he would tell me and go to the baby.

When that time came, the doctor told him to stand up. The baby's head an shoulders were out but they were having a hard time getting the rest out and were pushing on my stomach/torso really, really hard. I remember that I couldn't breathe and that it hurt a lot, even through the drugs.

Finally the rest popped out (at 11:22 p.m.) and Brett exclaimed, in a surprised and incredulous tone, "Oh my GOD, Leen, it's a girl!!!"

I replied, in an equally incredulous tone, "WHAT? Are you serious? A GIRL?!"

We were just so sure it was a boy. I had even bought some boy things and had really gotten into that mindset; I think we both had. So it was quite a shock for about two minutes, and I even admit to being somewhat disappointed. But since we got over that shock (pretty much immediately), it seems so right that she is a girl, and I cannot even imagine her being a boy.

She didn't cry right away, which scared me to death. I really thought something was wrong. Thankfully, she just had fluid in her lungs as a result of having been born via c-section instead of vaginally. (With a vaginal birth, the contractions and trip through the birth canal help squeeze out that fluid.)

I remember calling to Brett, "What are we going to name her?" And him saying, "I don't know!" A few minutes later, I called over, "How is Elanor doing?" and then realizing what I had said and saying, "Wait, I just called her Elanor. Is that ok; is that fine?" And him saying yes. (I think he would have said yes to anything I wanted at that point; he was so awed at what I'd been through that day.)

I couldn't really see her, since the nurses and doctors and Brett were all crowded around the warming table where they'd taken her. It was really hard for me not to be able to jump up and see her right away. Even when they got her all done and bundled up and Brett brought her to me, I couldn't get a good look since I was lying flat on my back. The best I could do was kiss her little head a few times -- I couldn't even touch her since they didn't want me to move my arms.

I remember Brett leaning over me and saying something like, "Here's our little girl," with tears in his eyes. I was crying then, too.

Finally, they got me all closed up. It seemed to take forever. Toward the very end, I started feeling sensation, too, which was very scary. The anesthesiologist immediately upped the dose in my epidural to the max and also added at least 2 narcotics, so by the time they finished, I was very out of it. I couldn't even open my eyes. I could hear everyone talking on the walk back to the room, but it was as though they were very far away.

In the recovery room, they continued taking care of Elanor and I just laid there because I couldn't move. Gradually, I began to be able to talk and move a bit again, and finally, finally, I got to hold her. They brought her to me and helped me get into position, and put her up to my breast, and she just latched right on and began nursing. It was a beautiful moment.

Brett had to go get our families at this point; it was now almost 1 a.m. and they didn't know what was going on. So the onslaught began, and all 12 of them came rushing in to meet her. It was hard for me to let them hold her, since I'd only held her for maybe 10 minutes at that point. But I did it, and I know they were all glad I did. I actually loved seeing them all ooh and ahh over her. I think my father-in-law Jeff's reaction was the best. He was instantly smitten with her and turned from his sometimes gruff self (if this says anything, the current front runner grandpa name for him is Grumps) into this big melty man who would do anything for his little granddaughter. It was really special to see all of the family (except my brother and his wife and kids, who live in Oklahoma) get to meet her right away.

We didn't get moved to our postpartum room until about 3 a.m. The curtains were open when they wheeled me in, and I could see the entire downtown all lit up right there, including my building. It was really pretty.

By the time they got us settled there and left us alone, it was 4 a.m. -- 24 hours since we'd been admitted, it was finally over. We were so tired but were too full of adrenaline to sleep.

That hour or so in the darkened recovery room, with the curtains open to a view of downtown at night, is one of the most special moments in our relationship. Just sitting there in the dark, looking at the city I love, praying and thanking God with Brett for this blessing, talking to Brett and holding Elanor in my arms was so special and intimate and wonderful.

I felt so whole and complete in that moment. Everything was right in my world. Even though the labor and delivery had been pretty much the list of everything I didn't want -- continual monitoring, epidural, c-section -- it was completely worth it to have what I have now, this perfect little girl, who makes my life complete in a way I didn't even know I needed.

It's only been a week, and I cannot imagine life without Elanor in it. Not only is she herself incredible and perfect and amazing, but having her here has brought me closer to Brett in a way that I never dreamed possible. The love I feel for him is so much deeper and stronger now than it was a week ago. His continual, reassuring presence during labor (even though I know it horrified him to see me go through so much), his praise of me afterward, telling me how tough I am and how proud he is of me, his sacrifice of his own needs and his selfishness to care for me this week, and most of all his clear, deep love of Elanor -- all of this has overwhelmed me.

He has truly been Jesus to me this week in a way he never has before, and has completely fulfilled his command in Ephesians 5: "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ... In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

There are so many examples of this; I could list them out here but it would take all day. I'll just say this: I am so in love with my little family, with Brett and Elanor.

It's bittersweet to know that Elanor couldn't have been here without the loss of our first baby. That baby was definitely on our minds and in our hearts on Monday. Still, knowing he or she is in heaven is comforting -- and now, having Elanor...well, I don't want to imagine not having her. I guess I feel like the miscarriage has been redeemed now through her, not that she's a replacement for the baby we lost, but that I can move on in a way now that she is here, knowing she couldn't have been without the miscarriage having happened. It's hard to explain this well; I hope I am making sense.

Our lives will never be the same -- we won't be able to sleep in, or go to the movies on a whim, or any of that kind of thing, but that's ok with me. This new family of three is so much better than before. None of that matters now. We have each other and we have Elanor, and she is worth any sacrifice we have to make in terms of our lifestyles. So while our lives will never be the same, I wouldn't want them to be.

Because this? Is so much better.

I'll end with this verse from Ephesians. It sums up exactly what I'm feeling, that right now I have immeasurably more than I could have asked for or imagined.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

beyond words

2008-01-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting here staring at this cursor, trying to find what I want to type. There just aren't words to say what I want to say. My heart is so full of love for Brett and for our new baby, who was finally born on Monday the 14th at 11:22 p.m. Contrary to what everyone (myself included) had guessed, it's a beautiful girl, whom we named Elanor.

She is amazing, and perfect, and snuggly, and sweet, and (in my most likely biased opinion) absolutely adorable and gorgeous.

I am working on a birth story; I'll post it in the next couple of weeks. There is a lot to say, but it's hard to get it written down because the computer is in Brett's studio in the basement, and since I wound up getting a c-section, my time at the computer is very limited these days. Sitting in this chair is not comfortable and navigating two flights of stairs to get from bed to the computer is not pleasant, either. But I am really going to make an effort to get it written down soon, before all of the details fade. There is so much I want to remember.

The synopsis is this: my water broke at 1 a.m. on Monday the 14th. We timed contractions for an hour, they were regular and stronger than they had ever been before. The doctor said to come in, so we got to the hospital and I was checked and was dilated to a 2. They finally admitted me at about 4:30 a.m. By about 8:30, I was dilated to a 4. When they checked me again around 1, I believe, I was at a 7-8. By 3 p.m., I was hovering just around 9 and was dying to push.

And push I did, until almost 6 p.m., with no progress. Around that time I finally caved in and got an epidural. Let me tell you, it was heavenly. More about this decision in the birth story...I have lots of thoughts about it.

I rested for a couple of hours and then pushed again for another two-and-a-half hours. (I'll do the math for you -- that's over 5 hours total that I spent pushing. Yeah. Yikes.)

Around 10:30, the doctor told me that the baby still hadn't progressed down and was essentially in the same place as he/she was at 3 p.m., and she advised a c-section.

So Brett and I looked at each other, and nodded, and within 30 minutes we were on our way down the hall to the ER, where Elanor was born at 11:22.

It was a very. long. day. We didn't get to our postpartum room until 4 a.m. -- suffice it to say we were exhausted. (And still are, really -- she's an amazingly calm baby, and is really fantastic at night, but the cumulative events of the past week combined with normal newborn behavior of needing to eat every two hours...well, it leaves new parents feeling like they've been, well, kept up for days and days on end. Seriously, though, we do not have it bad at all. I'm astonished that she is so good at night and that we're able to get a few longer two or three-hour stretches of sleep each night.)

Those are the bare bones; I have so many thoughts about it all and of course so much more detail to share. It's coming -- I promise!

For now, though, I want to go upstairs and hold my baby girl, smell her head, touch her cheeks, feel her tummy push against mine as she nurses, and just see her beautiful face again.

I'll leave you with some pictures.

Elanor, about 12 hours old

Elanor and her mama

The whole Walker family, Brett's mom and dad and sisters (note: I love how Brett's dad is touching him and Brett is touching Elanor; it is very sweet)

"Um, Papa, there is nothing coming OUT of here!"

Snuggling with her papa

Look closely -- her hands are all tangled in his beard.

This picture makes my heart melt. I can just see how much he loves her.

39 weeks

2008-01-11T20:18:00.000-08:00

I'm 39 weeks today, and at my appointment this afternoon, was "almost two" centimeters dilated and about 90% effaced, according to my doctor. The baby is at -2 station and my belly is measuring 42 cm/weeks.

So yeah. That's the update. I have a grotesquely huge belly, I'm tired as can be, grumpy, sore, and soooo ready to not have heartburn anymore.

Otherwise, I don't have much to say -- hopefully I will have a baby soon.

Brett's calling me from upstairs; I think he wants me to come watch a movie with him. If I'm going to be able to stay awake at all, we'd better get started...

an Herculean task

2008-01-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I did something that requires an amazing amount of courage, dexterity, and patience. There's no small amount risk involved, that's for sure. And it's not an easy task to begin with, let alone for someone who is nine months pregnant.

What is it, you ask?

I shaved my legs at nine months pregnant, and lived to tell the tale.

I've been contemplating shaving my legs again for about a week (they've been getting pretty fuzzy), but I haven't been able to find the courage to do it. However, during my shower yesterday, I decided it was time. It's vain, I know, but I don't want to go into labor and have really hairy legs. I'm weird like that. So I bit the bullet and got out the razor and shaving cream, and went to town. (I also don't want to have nasty toes, which is why I am going for a pedicure in an hour and a half.)

There are many problems involved with shaving one's legs at nine months pregnant. The most obvious is that you have the equivalent of a watermelon on your front, so the standard prop-leg-on-side-of-tub, bend-over-and-shave manoeuvre doesn't really work anymore, since your belly will hit your leg before you've bent forward more than a few inches, leaving your arms flailing several inches above your leg.

That means you have to shift your belly to the side of your leg and then reach around it to get to your leg -- a problem in the best of circumstances, but add in a slippery shower, a sharp object, and, my own personal problem of short arms...well, it suddenly gets a lot more challenging.

On top of the belly being in the way (solution: perform contortions you didn't know were possible) and the shower likely being slippery (solution: pray a lot), you also have to factor in the problem of loose and/or sore joints -- hips, knees, ankles, etc. Your body doesn't want to stay where you put it...your knees keep threatening to give out and your hips are sending shooting pain up your back and down your leg the entire time you are trying to balance and shave.

Yes, it's a challenging task...but, I am proud to say, I completed it without cutting myself once -- and before the hot water ran out! Hooray! And now for a few days at least, I will have legs I won't mind baring during labor -- if labor ever actually happens, which, at this point, I am beginning to doubt. I just hope it happens soon, before all my work is for naught and I have to shave again...

fun with speakerphone, or, how to embarass the socks off of Kathleen

2008-01-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

After my 38 week doctor's appointment today (for which I waited an hour to see a doctor I'd never met before [my doctor is on vacation] for all of about 7 minutes, in which she told me that I'm still only one centimeter dilated and 75% effaced, and that first babies are often late, but, well, at least I haven't gained much weight -- gee, thanks), I called my mom as I usually do to give her the (rather discouraging) report.

We proceeded to have a two-minute-long conversation about my appointment, my lack of progress with regard to my cervix, my grumpiness, my intense desire to go home and lie down instead of going back to work, etc. -- basically normal mom-daughter 38-weeks-pregnant stuff.

Our conversation was interrupted when I suddenly found myself on hold, listening to an annoying on-hold commercial about how "[Mom's Company] can meet all your construction needs..."

Confused, I waited a minute, then hung up and called my mom back.

"Why did you put me on hold?!?"

Mom, trying to stifle a laugh, said, "I didn't!"

"Well, then what in the heck happened?" I asked.

"Uh, well, you were kind of on speakerphone, so someone else put you on hold," she said, now beginning to laugh uproriously.

"Wait. Wait. Speakerphone?"

"Yeah, speakerphone. So someone put you on hold so people couldn't hear it anymore."

"PEOPLE?! What people!? YOUR ENTIRE COMPANY just heard the recap of my doctor's appointment?!?!?!"

"Um...hahahaha...yeah...You were on all-page to the whole compan-hehehehehe! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA," she said, as she dissolved into gales of laughter and I stood in the lobby of my doctor's building, aghast, fighting back tears at the thought that my mom's entire company now knows the details of my cervix and how much I want to be done being pregnant.

After I hung up in a teary huff, my mom emailed me to say that apparently only a little of our conversation was broadcast to my mom's co-workers, primarily the part about how I'm tired and how I didn't want to go back to work this afternoon. I'm not sure if I believe that...not that I think my mom would lie, but maybe her co-workers didn't tell her everything? I don't know.

Still. Of course, it figures that something like that WOULD happen to me, especially on a day when I'm so grumpy I can barely be civil.

Other than sharing my body's intimate workings with my mom's company, I haven't been doing much lately other than knitting and playing lots of Tetris because, let's face it, I'm effing tired. My main thought for the week is this: Thank God that Friday is my last day of work! Because I really don't think I could make it through the next two days if I didn't have that light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm exhausted, and whiny, and don't want to answer any more questions about how I'm feeling (I'm in pain and grumpy, thank you!), or how far along I am (still over two weeks away from my due date!), or how much my back must hurt (a lot!), or how big my stomach is (ginormous!), and I don't know how much more I can handle people exclaiming, "What?!? What are YOU still doing here?! You haven't had that baby YET?" The snarky part of me really wants to reply either, in a very dry voice, "Clearly, no, I haven't," or else, "Actually, yes, I did have the baby, but I liked having the belly and wearing maternity clothes so much I decided to keep it."

I know, I know, people ask questions and make comments because they care and are curious and are excited. But I'm just tired of talking about it, and there's not much I can say that isn't completely bitchy. So I keep my answers to monosyllables, and smile, and pray for patience -- a lot of patience.

*sigh*

Anyway, moving on to something cheerier...

I had a fantastic visit with Daisy and Claire this weekend. It was far too brief. As we ate our breakfast of organic yogurt & vanilla pancakes topped with as much fresh fruit as we could stand, we talked about how much we would love to live in the same city again, something that hasn't happened since 2001. We decided that if it ever happens (and oh, how I hope it does), we would get together weekly with our kids so they could play and we could talk and just spend time together. Sounds heavenly to me!

Friends like Daisy and Claire are the best kind. We can just fall back into the same easy companionship that we had when we lived together almost eight years ago, and although we are all very different people now, it still works and we still connect in the same deep way.

I miss them both so much. They are truly the sort of life-long friends I always hoped I'd make when I went away to college. I'm very blessed to know them.

Daisy, me, and Claire -- 12/29/07

37 weeks

2007-12-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

Besides the fact that I am ginormous (well, that my belly is, anyway) it's interesting to note that although these pictures were taken just moments apart from one another, my belly looks different in them.

In the top one, it seems like my belly is lower and more sticky-outy, and in the bottom one, it seems higher and rounder. Strange.

Once again, sorry for the blurry bathroom pics...I've just found that if I don't do them there, I'll never do them.

37 weeks

Yeah, I think my face in this one is saying something like, "OMG I am so tired please get this baby out thank you."

I definitely had some real (read: painful and frequent) contractions yesterday. They lasted for about five hours and then just stopped. I was disappointed that they did but hey, every contraction helps me make progress, right?

Once again, I'm looking forward to a long, four-day weekend. Hooray! We have plans tonight and tomorrow, but otherwise, we have nothing scheduled. (Although to be honest, I'm hoping to go into labor by Monday night. But we'll see. These things seldom happen as we want them to.)

I'm particularly excited for our plans tonight and tomorrow morning. Tonight, we are going to a party for our friends Claire and Isaac, who are visiting Seattle from where they currently live in California. Claire is one of the two women I will always think of as my roommates (Daisy being the other one). Claire was Daisy's and my next door roommate when we lived on Second South Marston our freshman year at SPU, and then the three of us lived together on Second Hill the following year. After that, Claire and I lived in an on-campus apartment together.

I remember meeting Claire on that first day at SPU and going to buy our books together at the bookstore, since we were both in the University Scholars program. I actually have a picture somewhere of the two of us leaving Marston and walking toward the bookstore. I wish I had it online!

Throughout the years that followed, Claire and I and a few other friends spent a lot of time being U-Scholars together. (Disclaimer: I will be the first to admit I was a bad U-Scholar. Claire, though, was a great one. She always did her reading and was just able to think on a plane that I never have been able to get to.)

Anyway, we haven't seen each other in three years, because Brett and I were in Maine and then right before we moved back, they moved to California.

And, even cooler, tomorrow morning, she and I are going out to breakfast with...wait for it...Daisy, who is also in town for the holidays! HOORAY! The roommates, together again! I think the last time we were all together was...hmmm...well, I guess it must have been Daisy's wedding in December 2004, and before that, at my wedding in 2003. And it's not like we got to spend much time hanging out together what with all the wedding craziness.

I am very excited to get to spend a few hours with the two of them. I wish I had some of the photos from our roommate days to post here, but alas, they aren't digital. I'll definitely be bringing the camera tomorrow, though, that's for sure!

still here, still pregnant

2007-12-26T22:27:00.000-08:00

Sorry to update and leave you hanging for the past week. I haven't had to go to work since last Friday, and it's been lovely. I've barely even checked my email, I've been so lazy, so updating the blog kind of fell off my radar.

Anyway, I had another doctor's appointment today. The exciting news (well, exciting to me, anyway) is that I'm 1 centimeter dilated and 75% effaced. Yay! Progress! Of course, I realize that people walk around for weeks dilated to 4 and don't go into labor at all, but still -- it's nice to think that all the contractions I've been having (some painful ones, too) are doing something.

This was the appointment where we talked through the fact that this baby is ginormous and what the plan should be because of that. My doctor was great; she outlined the risks of both a vaginal birth and a c-section and said that she would let us decide. As I think I've mentioned before, I'd really like to do this vaginally, which I told her. And she said that was fine, and we'd just hope I go into labor soon-ish so the baby doesn't get too much bigger.

She said that once my labor starts, she won't treat it any differently than any other birth just because my baby is big, which was a relief to hear. Another relief was talking through the scenarios that would cause her to recommend a c-section -- severely stalled labor (like pushing for hours and making no progress) or fetal distress (the baby's heart rate dropping or fluctuating). Those are both scenarios in which Brett and I feel that a c-section would be appropriate, so it's good to know that she will recommend one if she feels that it's in the best interest of either me or the baby.

So that's the update. I'm definitely having contractions, like I said, and am starting to feel more and more uncomfortable (I mean, dude, I'm to the point where even sleeping hurts...yeah, not fun), which is a little hard to believe considering I've been uncomfortable for weeks. But somehow it's possible, and somehow I keep getting through it. Thankfully, though, this weekend was, for the most part, relaxing.

The only day that was really intense was Christmas Eve. Both Brett and I felt a little of the nesting instinct, as we cleaned the house and organized things. Brett even did some touch-up painting in the bathroom. If that's not sympathy nesting, I don't know what is!

Also on Christmas Eve, I made our traditional Christmas Eve dinner and dessert (vegetarian tortilla soup and individual chocolate souffle cakes) for us and for four of our friends who came over. After dinner, Brett and I went to church at St. Mark's, the Episcopal Cathedral, which was beautiful. There's something about the liturgy at Christmas that just touches my heart and truly makes it seem like Christmas. Anyway, Christmas Eve was a very long day and by the end of the evening, standing up and walking were both extremely challenging, but it was worth it.

Otherwise, Brett and I spent the weekend napping and playing an excessive amount of video games, both on our old-school Nintendo and on the Super Nintendo that we just hooked up. (You know that if you have a blister on your thumb and your arm is sore from pushing the jump button over and over that you've played too much Zelda and Donkey Kong Country.)

Oh yeah, I totally forgot I promised an ultrasound picture. Here you go. I don't know how much you'll be able to see unless you are a seasoned ultrasound picture interpreter, but I'll try to post descriptions through the magic of photoshop.

It says Happy Birthday Noni on it because Brett's mom's birthday was the day after the ultrasound, so we had the tech type that and we emailed it to his mom. She got a kick out of it!

I hope those descriptions help. I know it can be hard to see the face -- it just looks blobby and kind of creepy and alien-like, but then, that's the nature of ultrasounds, I guess.

If you can see the face at all, and you have an opinion, I'd love to hear whether you think it's a boy or a girl!

And with that, I'm off to bed. I have to get up early to be at work tomorrow...at least it is a short week!

pardon me while I freak the heck out

2007-12-20T22:30:00.000-08:00

We had another ultrasound tonight.

I'll be 36 weeks tomorrow. That means I still have four weeks until my due date.

And the baby? Is measuring a whopping EIGHT pounds, 10 ounces. That's bigger than the average baby is at a full-term birth.

Hold me.

I am seriously starting to freak out a little. I was totally fine up until today. A little nervous about how things would work out, sure, but overall, not too worried, just trusting that God is in control and this baby will be born in his time and by the method that he has ordained.

But now, I'm not having such an easy time with that.

Part of me thinks, "Oh Lord, just let me go into labor ASAP so the baby doesn't get any bigger and I can do this vaginally and avoid a c-section!" [Holy crap, I just wrote vaginally on my blog. And my entire extended family as well as some male co-workers read this. *waving* Hi there, guys! Sorry! Had to use the v-word! Can't promise it won't happen again, but at least now you've been warned! Now back to your regularly-scheduled, probably-still-TMI blogging!]

And then a second part of me thinks, "OMG, what am I THINKING!? I can't go into labor ASAP! I have so much to wrap up at work! I need at least another week and a half if not longer!"

And then the first part replies, "Do you really want to wait another week and a half? That's ten more days to get through, ten days of back pain and exhaustion and grumpiness and heartburn and cramps and nausea and your hips not working!"

And then the second part of me says, "Heck yes, I want to wait that long! I don't want my baby to be born on Christmas and be doomed to a life of anti-climactic birthday celebrations! Plus my mom is going to be out of town, and I neeeed her here to help me after the birth! And besides, I need for the baby to be born after January 1st so I can use my 2008 flexible spending election to help pay the hospital costs!"

The the first part comes back with something like, "JANUARY 1!? Are you on crack? That's almost TWO full weeks of back pain and exhaustion and grumpiness and heartburn and cramps and nausea and non-functioning hips!"

Then a third part chimes in: "You both need to shut up! What if I actually go all the way to my due date?! Oh, God, I can't imagine how uncomfortable I will be in four more weeks, not to mention the fact that the baby will probably weigh 12 pounds! All this talk of going early just has to stop, in case I don't go early and really do have four more weeks to get through!"

Then a fourth side says, "Shut UP already, you guys! The baby will come out one way or another, so stop freaking out. It's after the birth we should be worrying about, because then, I'm going to be a parent. ME. A PARENT. What was I thinking?! How in the world am I going to handle this?!"

Then I just throw up my hands and try to stop thinking about it, period, lest I start crying.

Anyway. Yeah. The u/s tech did get some good pictures of the baby's face, so I'll try to post those tomorrow. No promises, though -- work is going to be crazy so I hope I have time to scan them in. He/She has enormous chipmunk cheeks, really full pouty lips, and a cute little nose. *grin* So much fun.

I'm sure I'll be talking with my doctor tomorrow about the ultrasound. At my last appointment, I wasn't dilated at all, although the baby was low and I was starting to efface. My next appointment is next Wednesday, but she'll probably want to talk just in case before the holiday and the long weekend, I would think.

I'll keep you all posted as much as I can. Right now, though, it's late and I really need to go to bed. Carrying around an eight-and-a-half pound baby all day is hard work!

back to where it all began, and also, ginormous? you decide.

2007-12-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Brett's sister Rachel and his Aunt Melissa came up this weekend to bring us Rachel's car to use until the baby is born. As much as I normally love not having a car (but that's the topic for another post entirely) I have to admit I'm pretty glad we'll have one for the next month or so. Hauling my butt to the bus every day is getting old.

Rachel's car used to be their Grandma Pat's car back in the day. Brett borrowed it to take me on our first date, almost nine years ago, and it's the scene of our first kiss. A little strange to think we'll be bringing our baby home in the very vehicle where our entire relationship started so many years ago! I think it's kind of cool, actually!

Anyway, while Rachel was here, she took a belly photo of me. And guess what?! It's not in a bathroom! Yay! :p Except I totally have hat hair because I was wearing my wool hat all day since it was cold...oh well...I'm convinced I won't ever have a nice belly photo.

So here I am at 35 weeks, 1 day. You decide -- do I really look all that ginormous for 35 weeks? I feel ginormous, but I don't really have anything against which I can gauge my size.

35 weeks, 1 day

random musings

See you at www.theleen.com!

week in review, 10/15/08 (a day late)

October 14: Monthly Letter and contest results

place your bets...

week in review, 10/8/08

wow. kind of intense.

week in review, 10/1/08, and a special birthday shout-out

black bean soup and cornbread

probably not very interesting to non-parents as I talk about diapers ad nauseum

a new weekly feature and a staying home update

funny...

changes

new domain name

un-freaking-believable

August 14: Seven Months Old

more emotional processing

"eating on the run" has a whole new meaning

Captain Clumsy strikes again

wonderful news, plus more rambling about my emotional response

our 15 minutes of fame

July 14: Six Months Old

whiny whiny whine

taking it easy

finally summer!

Elanor update

checking in

beautiful.

processing

long story short

you know you're tired when...

nine years

my husband is amazing

motherhood

miscellaneous

like a ton of bricks

Carless in Seattle

WTF?

April 14: Three Months

I saw the sign

making it

bleh.

mommy brain

the fright of my life

Movie Review: The Business of Being Born

I knew there would be days like this...

Psalm 37:4

home again, home again, jiggity jig

A link I forgot!

March 10: Two months

more about links

links

another first -- not so fun

yummy? I think so!

photo update

why is it...

quick update

daunting

February 11: One month

Fun with Flickr

the name game

a quick photo post

a small victory, and some bonus photos

everything I thought I didn't want, and everything I didn't know I needed

beyond words

39 weeks

an Herculean task

fun with speakerphone, or, how to embarass the socks off of Kathleen

37 weeks

still here, still pregnant

pardon me while I freak the heck out

back to where it all began, and also, ginormous? you decide.