family pics

Just two quick pictures!

First off is our last family picture, taken kindly by Carl's parents:



Left to right: Isabel, Mom, Carl, Sam, me, Baby D, Dad. James is the one in the hospital bed, obviously.

Despite the abundance of Christmas trees in this picture, it was taken in August. August 7, even, as it shows up on the picture itself. That was Nathaniel's blessing day.

Here's Nathaniel again, in his little church clothes. Aw!

why I'm back on Twitter

I really dislike Twitter, but Project Runway got me into it again. My old BFF from college, Joshua C, is a contestant on the show, and this season the Fan Favorite will win $10000. They get to be the Fan Favorite if they get the most tweets with their particular hashtag. In Josh's case, that's #PR9joshuac.

So I've been tweeting again. I always feel ridiculous when I tweet. I think it's because I really don't care what everyone else is tweeting about, and I don't care what I'm tweeting about, and I have a hard time imagining anyone caring about any of my tweets. But I'm committing to doing my best to get over that if I can boost my friend's chances of winning.

If you'd like to help, that would be awesome! What I decided is to just get active on Twitter again and throw his hashtag on my tweets.

Oh, there's a rule that only one tweet will count per person per five minutes. Check out the rules here.

Anyway. Josh and I haven't spoken in something like half a decade, but I still adore him. Carl and I literally jumped off our couch and cheered when he stayed on in Episode 1, and when he came back on Episode.. 4? 5? whatever, we were so thrilled. I'm really proud of him for coming so far with his design. The last time he and I really spoke he was banking, and I know he didn't love it. I'm glad he's doing things that he loves.

So. Help a sista out and tweet for Josh, please! #PR9joshuac

what we do

A friend emailed me with these questions today:

How is Nathaniel doing? I knw you like to keep busy--how do you spend the day usually? Is Carl still liking work? What's next for you guys? Or is there a "purposeful" next?

Good questions! Sorry, friend, for answering on my blog instead of in a legit email! But I figure at least someone else I'm related to who reads this might wonder the same things.

Nathaniel is doing well. He's been wiggling and smiling and sticking his tongue out and cooing like a champion. His hair is something like 3 inches long now. It curls when it's wet. He is super cuddly and would probably be happy to be in my lap all day long. And all night. Forever.

Typically we spend the days just chilling together. I usually spend most of the day reading and writing, and then doing chores or cooking dinner. Baby D spends most of his time on my lap, and I read aloud to him and sing him songs as I write. We nurse a lot, still, but he spends more and more time awake and not eating, so that's exciting.

I keep some easy food in my bedroom, so I can eat while I nurse him and not have to leave the room. But usually this means that I spend the whole day in that one room, eating essentially chips and Goldfish crackers and nothing else until Carl gets home and we have dinner together. I don't mind it, but it's not very healthy and I know it.

Carl, as far as I know, still likes his job. At least he likes it enough to keep going to it every day!

And as far as what's up next... who knows. It is cheaper for me to stay home with my baby than it would be for me to go back to work, at least at what I was making before. So right now I don't have to feel too guilty about being home with this baby. Eventually I'll have to figure out another way to generate income, probably. I'll start teaching piano again soon, though, and I wonder if Deseret Book would buy some of my original hymn arrangements or something. It's worth looking into.

But right now, what's up in my immediate future is just taking care of this little boy. I think it's a "purposeful" next.

in love

I actually sat down here because I had to tell the world that I'm in love. My little baby is the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing in the world and I can barely stand it. He's asleep on my bed right now, his long hair all sticking out because he was sweating, and then I turned on the fan and his hair dried all crazy. I'm so glad he has so much hair. It goes down past his ears now. He's not even 7 weeks old.

He coos conversationally now. If you talk to him, he'll offer up a little "goo!" or "urgle!" or "uuuuuh." Doesn't sound too impressive, I know, but it is just excessively darling. I can hardly stand passing him off to anyone else, because I just want to hold him myself all the time.

He is getting so long, some of his 3-month clothes are too short on him. They have trouble snapping on him.

He's been so good at moving his giant head around (did I mention that when he was born, his head circumference was over 2 inches larger than average? This kid's head is HUGE!!). He's been spending less time nursing and more time just looking around and cooing.

He practices sticking out his tongue, and shaping his mouth into an O. If you sit him down in front of you and stick your tongue out at him, he'll try and do it back. If you make an O face at him, he'll try and do it back. If you coo at him, he'll try and make the same sound back. It is way too cute. I love it because when he practices moving his tongue and lips, it looks so purposeful. He uses all sorts of muscles I can't even figure out how to use on my own face, to copy him. He'll try and make an O face and only lift up one quarter of his upper lip, or he'll twist and turn his tongue this way and that in an attempt to stick it out. He's getting better. I just love to watch him try.

Everyone made such a big deal of how hard it would be to be parents. All the time during my pregnancy, I just remembered how I spent my whole life caring for my older brother, and I thought to myself--seriously? These people really think a BABY could be harder than that??? But in the back of my mind, I wondered if they were actually right. If parenthood were really that difficult to adjust to.

But I think it's just like the marriage thing. Everyone said that it was soooo haaard to get used to being married to someone. But Carl and I said our vows, moved in together, and realized that being married is basically just pure awesome. All we had to adjust to was how fantastic it was.

Same thing with this sweet baby boy. People were right when they said parenthood would be an adjustment--but when they spent all their time complaining about pathetically tiny diapers and so on, they should have been talking about how wonderful it all is. We have been mostly struggling with the adjustment of how great it is to be Baby D's parents. We are pretty blessed.

messing with my friends

Okay. So one of my friends just told me about a guy who messed with her. No details about that, but here's a detail for ya:

You mess with my friends, and I will be ticked off at you.

Forever.

Oh, I've gotten over the people who've messed with me. More or less. At this point in my life, everyone who's tried to do me wrong has actually ended up helping me out accidentally, so I've been pretty thrilled about that. Nothing pleases me more than seeing the plans of haters backfire in my favor. Ah, it thrills me.

But, oh. Oh. You mess with my friends... oh.

Let's just say, there are several boys out there who should be SO. GLAD. I am a Christian woman and won't personally show up on their doorstep to beat the living daylight out of them.

X.x;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

storm preparations, plus ear!

We're due for a hurricane! So Carl and I are hunkering down with this little baby. I've been working hard to clear our freezer of all the Italian ice that will melt if the power goes out. It would be a travesty to waste it all.

I have flashlights here, batteries, candles, and chips. And goldfish crackers. And a three or four day supply of water. I did a bunch of laundry yesterday. Do I need additional stuff? ??

My ear is back to normal size, and I can hear again (hooray!!). In the meantime, the infection has moved to my throat so I sound pretty awful and I have a bad cough. Baby D is fine.

Oh, also it's my birthday. Doesn't feel too birthdayish. I was hoping we could go to RennFest today, but that seems like a very bad idea given the weather.

We got the car back yesterday. $2221.00 later, it runs like a dream.

medical updates, plus earthquake

Since my last post, we have been to the midwife, the pediatrician, and the otolaryngologist. In chronological order:

1. Otolaryngologist... and EARTHQUAKE!!!

I'm combining them because they happened at the same time for me! I was on my way to the otolayngologist when the earthquake struck. Of course, because my ear is so screwed up, my balance is off--I couldn't hear the earth shake or anything, I just tripped a little. I thought I was losing my balance because of my ear.

Of course, then everyone around me pulled out their cell phones. I had a moment of confusion--are they seriously texting about how I tripped??--and then just shook it off and kept going. When I got to the doctor, everyone was crowded under the doorframe. One guy asked, "Did you feel that?"

"What?" I asked, because I couldn't hear.

"Did you feel that?"

"What?"

"Did you feel that?!?" And that time I could hear it, but I still didn't know what he was talking about. So he had me touch a metal rail that was still rattling.

So that is how I basically missed out on the earthquake. Anyway, my family's fine. Worst damage done was that a door broke at my mom's work. Outside the family, of course, the Washington Monument cracked and the DC temple lost some siding and the tips of the spires. :^(

Anyway. Then I had my appointment. Since our car (and stroller) are in the shop, I had to walk Baby D over there in his sling. At first he was good, while the doctor just felt my face and neck, but the second he had me say "ah" and shone that light in my mouth, Baby D FREAKED. Like it was the worst thing ever. I thought it was so funny, because as soon as the doctor stopped having me do that, Baby D was fine. But after that the doc had me hand the baby to the receptionists (they were so, sooooo sad about that.... not really).

Well. My freaky dumb ear is swollen too shut to see into. He inserted a wick and I have special drops for it until Friday, at which point he will be removing the wick. In the meantime, I have lost my voice and am still in total pain. He didn't want to give me any heavy-duty painkillers because I'm breastfeeding. So that's that.

2. Pediatrician

Baby D is now 23 inches long, 10 lbs 5 oz, with a head circumference of like 38 cm or something (she didn't tell me, I just snuck a quicko peek at the chart). Even though he's not back up to birth weight yet, the doc says that's fine. Right now he's at the 50th percentile for weight and head circumference, and the 75th percentile for length. The doc says he's probably one of those babies that grows long before he grows fat.

3. Midwife
I can start exercising again. YAY!! Except for the next three weeks I'm just supposed to do these weird crunches where I use my hands and arms to physically hold my guts together, because I guess my muscles are still not too close together. So weird.

Anyway, things are good (minus my ear, nose, throat, and associated pain etc). The end!

my stupid ear; also, our car

So a while ago I wrote about curing my otitis externa. Well, now I have a bout of otitis media in my OTHER ear (I'm pretty sure--haven't confirmed but I'm pretty sure). I am completely deaf on the left side, and it's spread into my left side of my nose and sinus, and my throat. Strangely, the right side of my head and throat are just fine. But it is excruciatingly painful. Ow. Sometimes I can hear my heart beating in there. Or feel it. Or something.

It hurts to swallow and being on the phone makes me want to die. Please don't call me. Having the phone near my ears makes my brain hurt.

In other news, our car has had weird issues since May. I finally took it into the shop yesterday, figuring it would be something small but crucial.

Yeah, our bill is estimated to be $2200 and we won't get the car back until Thursday at the earliest (and possibly later than that). Hooray for immobility and a crippling ear infection!

In other news, Nathaniel is incredibly cute. He's sitting in his boppy chair right now because when I hold him now, he likes to chuck himself straight at my ear. Owwww. But he is a happy dude and we love him to bits. Aw.

pictures from a while ago

Got some pictures just now from Carl's parents!

Here is Baby D at three weeks with his Grandma Ann:



Baby D with his daddy!


Our new house with a rental car in front of it:




Carl's brother Niel, Carl's dad, Carl, me and baby! See, slowly but surely my hair is growing back:


Yeah, I'm pretty sure Baby D is the cutest thing ever.

five weeks

Baby D is five weeks old today! He is becoming an expert at propping himself up on his elbows. He started doing it without help yesterday, and he'll do it a few times a day now. Yesterday he maybe did it 5-8 times, for several seconds each time. Today he's already done it maybe five times, and once for what felt like a really long time.

Yesterday Carl didn't get home from work until really late. I ended up having to change James twice by myself. I hadn't done that since November or something. It's significantly more difficult now, but it turns out I am still strong enough to lift him. I was able to pick James up off the bed in his entirety and reposition him, even though I haven't worked out for real since November either.

I kind of feel like I spend all my time feeding people and changing people. Between James and Nathaniel, and their every-three-hour feedings (okay, Nathaniel's more like every 45 minutes), and their diaper changes, and the two cats and their feedings and the litterbox--it's a lot of feeding and changing. I barely have time to eat for myself.

Here is a very good song:



One thing I love about Nathaniel is that already he loves music. When I sing to him he stops what he's doing to focus, and then goes back to whatever after the song is over. If we seat him in his boppy bouncer, he will make sad faces and almost cry, until we put on the music. In the car, he is guaranteed to cry--but if you put the music on, he'll typically relax a little. Sometimes he will cry at one song, but if I change the radio station in the car to a different song, he'll chill out. It's kind of cute and funny.

Nathaniel's also started doing sad faces. The kind where he sucks in his upper lip and his lower lip gets all pouty. It's cute and hilarious. Carl and I always laugh at him when he does it (sorry, baby!!). Hopefully he'll start smiling for real soon.

updates!

Carl and I are watching James this week while my family is on vacation in Florida. It's been chill so far. Yesterday we watched:

- Hidalgo
- When In Rome
- The Lincoln Lawyer
- Sweet Home Alabama
- State of Play

Today we watched:

- Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
- The Adjustment Bureau
- Pride and Prejudice (with Kiera Knightley)
- The Princess Bride
- Night at the Museum

Since all James can really do at this point is watch things, we are stuck watching things all day long. There was nothing really on TV so we took turns picking movies. Bet you can't guess who picked what! ^.~

Nathaniel's been good. He's spent more and more time awake and alert. Right now he's cuddling with his daddy. That's my favorite thing to see.

James has been all right. He's lately been doing this full-body charlie horse thing, where his entire body cramps up. It looks extremely painful, so we've been giving him extra painkiller.

In other updating news, my hair is FINALLY getting to the length I forbade my hairdresser to cut above. I told her not to cut anything above my ears, and oh, I pantomimed, and repeated myself like three times to make sure she understood. And then she had me take off my glasses, and while I was blind she cut the entire top of my hair to be like 1 inch long (NOT EXAGGERATING!).

I cried myself to sleep over it for weeks, and have spent months embarrassed to exist, and I hate looking in the mirror, and I am so upset that I will have to forbid my child from seeing pictures of me and him together from this period in our lives, BUT at last the top of my hair is ALMOST to the point where it touches my ears. It's only been, oh, months and months. Three months. Thirteen weeks. Thirteen weeks of torture.

But the top is almost to where it was before it was sliced by an incompetent hairdresser. And in the meantime I have taken a pledge to not cut my hair for at least a year (besides trims).

Hope your lives are going well!

One Month!

One month ago today, Nathaniel was born!

He came out as a sort of chubaroo, which was reflected in the pictures our friend Heather took when he was three days old:











In the weeks since, his face has thinned out a lot. I don't have an uploader thing for more recent pictures, but his skull has really filled out his skin. His head keeps getting bigger and bigger.

He has his name; he's been blessed; oh--totally got his corrected birth certificate in the mail yesterday (he's a boy after all!). When we do tummy time I put my hands behind his feet so he can push himself forward; he pushes himself forward probably something like 15-20 feet per day that way now. He holds up his neck well, too. He spends a lot of time looking at things.

It's so weird that he's already been here for four full weeks (and then some). My sweet baby! Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!

finding the wallet

On Sunday my husband lost his wallet. For the next few days, a bunch of people helped us search all over for it, but to no avail. We prayed and prayed and couldn't find it.

This morning, as I drove Carl to work, I prayed to find Carl's wallet.

At a red light, I checked the glove compartment. Empty. So I reached under the seat. And lo and behold, my fingers closed around the wallet.

And not a moment too soon--four days is a long time to miss that!

cloth vs. disposable diapers

So! We just ran out of diapers in Nathaniel's size. Not really; last night I ordered some on Amazon and they just got here. But we're getting to the point where I feel like if we're going to cloth diaper, we should really just buy the diapers, and get it over with so we have enough to make it worthwhile. Right now, we just have enough cloth diapers to get us through about a day.

Here are the pros and cons of disposables:

PROS
- less bulky than cloth
- you can just throw them away

CONS
- expensive (~30 - 45 cents per diaper change)
- have weird chemicals in them
- not environmentally friendly


Pros and cons of cloth:

PROS
- around 8 times less expensive per diaper change--and that's just counting one kid. But we could use them for all future kids as well.
- not filling up landfills
- no weird chemicals

CONS
- lots of laundry
- have to rinse out yucky stuff
- bulkier than disposables--although not THAT much, depending on the brand

Now, I was concerned about moving to cloth because one thing I've noticed about Nathaniel in cloth diapers is that whenever he gets wet, he freaks out. It makes him a very sad boy.

BUT, what I realized just yesterday, is that he freaks out about wetness in disposables, too. He just hates to be wet. Even if the disposable FEELS dry, because disposables are so absorbent, he seems to know when he's gone, and since the yellow stripe on his Pampers turn blue when he has, I know when he's gone even if the diaper feels dry. It seems that he is just the kind of kid who understands when it is that he should be changed. In the past, I've assumed that most of his crying came from being hungry, and he never turns down a nursing. But now I'm realizing that most of them time when he cries, it's actually because he needs a diaper change--as long I keep on top of monitoring when he sucks on his hands (a subtle cue to me that he is STARVING! At least in his own mind).

So it appears as though he will cry just as much either way. So the real issue is if we're willing to do extra laundry to save money over the long run. I think I'm into that, although I do think we should still have some extra disposables on hand just in case, or for traveling and so on. But I don't think Carl is convinced.

Any thoughts? Any cloth diaperers out there? Did you love it or hate it? Comment, please!

answered prayer

I still have some leftover injuries from birth. Given Baby D's size, I believe this is understandable.

Well, I hadn't been doing a very good job of taking care of some of my wounds. In my defense, I didn't know how bad they were.

On Monday, I called my midwives and they said I needed to clean out the wound. I started doing it at one point, and it was so excruciatingly painful I ended up unable to walk, and just trembling with pain. So I gave up. But it still needed to be done.

I was so upset and afraid to just bite the bullet. I kept praying that I would be protected from the pain. But I was still so scared.

Finally I decided I had just better do it--better to get it over with than risk further infection or anything else. I said a final prayer, but then prepared for pain, faithless. I was sure it would leave me as incapacitated from pain as the last time.

But just as I was about to do it, I heard this:

Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?

And it made me brave enough to get it over with. The pain was terrible and I cried, but I survived and it was okay.

The words came from my favorite hymn growing up. As soon as I thought the questions, I knew the answers. Heavenly Father hears all our prayers, even if He doesn't answer them the way we want. I still felt all the pain. But He gave me the strength to go on through it.

Heavenly Father, are you really there?
And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?
Some say that Heaven is far away,
But I feel it close around me as I pray.
Heavenly Father, I remember now
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago:
"Suffer the children to come to me."
Father, in prayer I'm coming now to Thee.

Pray: He is there.
Speak: He is listening.
You are His child, His love now surrounds you.
He hears your prayers; He loves the children.
Of such is the Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven.

as performed by Sweethaven

Nathaniel's blessing

Nathaniel got his name and his baby blessing on Sunday. We were so happy to see all our friends and family who showed up for it!

The blessing was a pretty long one. Carl's mom wrote it down, and I scribbled down the highlights as quickly as I could. It was hard because though Nathaniel was quiet and calm throughout, the other kids in the congregation were not as polite, and they cried and yelped and whatever during it, and also the microphone was not turned up all the way, so it was very hard to hear. It took a lot of concentration to hear what Carl was saying. But it was a good blessing and I am so excited for Nathaniel's future.

Afterward we all went to my parents' house for brunch, which was fun. A bunch of people showed up, and everyone fawned over Nathaniel and passed him around, and he was so nice about it. We have the nicest baby around. Here is a picture our darling friend Emily took:



Argh. My hair is still growing out from its foul pseudo-Bieber mullet, and I am ashamed of every picture. But just focus on the cuteness of that darling baby, okay?

After everyone left from the brunch, we did some family pictures. Good times. Hopefully a few of those turned out all right!

on memory

I have all these blog posts I've been thinking of, and now is the time when I might be able to write a few of them! But this one is on memory.

When I was in labor with Nathaniel, the one thing I kept telling myself was that in the end, the pain would all be a memory anyway. Tomorrow, it would all be a memory. It got me through the worst of the pain before I got the epidural.

I've thought that so many times: how pain is just in the moment, and how quickly it becomes a memory. If you can just hold on long enough, eventually it comes to pass, and then it's behind you.

I think of that every day now with Nathaniel. He is a good, good baby. Every day I look at him and think, tomorrow this will just be a memory. It's a heartening thought when it comes to pain management, but when something is beautiful, it's a little bit sad.

Our little boy is so good. Sometimes I look at him and realize that in twenty years, he'll be all grown up. In twenty years, he'll be practically my age. That's weird. We don't have a lot of time to spend with him while he is so tiny. So it's important to make every memory a good one.

family visiting!

Carl's family--well, half of his family--flew out on Tuesday for Nathaniel's baby blessing on Sunday. Baby D has had a great time cuddling with everyone.

Baby D with Grandpa Bob at lunch:



Baby D asleep in his sling:

baby doozit... secretly female????

His birth certificate arrived yesterday.

Apparently my son is actually... my daughter? Yes, his birth certificate is labeled "female."

X_X

I called the MD office of vital stats or whatever, and they basically just blamed the hospital. I don't really know what to do about this.

It's like that time when I took Carl's surname and I had to go to the Social Security office 4 times because they kept misspelling my name. Ugh.

so. tired.

My midwife and the pediatrician keep telling me to just chill out and rest while my, you know, entire body heals from giving birth, and also works to create all of the nutrition that my giant Godzilla baby requires to grow, but here is the deal: I am a productivity freak and resting is not exactly my biggest talent.

Today was an insane day. I got up super early (yay nursing!), dropped Carl off at the Metro (even though I think I'm still not supposed to be driving, due to that whole "resting" thing--although how exactly do those people think I'm supposed to be getting to their silly appointments, anyway? I didn't get to the pediatrician's by resting there), then went to my parents' house to help watch James and organize my coupon binder and plan my shopping trip--which then I completed, Baby D in sling (thanks for the slings, guys!! <3). Then had to carry up all the groceries from the car. Then had to nurse for like 3 hours straight to make up for all that time (yes, 2 hours) that Baby D didn't nurse while we were out and about.

Then I tried to nap with baby, but he kept on waking up and fretting so that didn't happen. Then the plan was to do the laundry and the dishes and make dinner at 6, in time for Carl to get home--but of course, a Metro train hit some poor guy and essentially shut down the Red Line (so no Carl) and Baby D decided that our 45 minutes of almost-naptime had made him starving, so then we had to nurse for another two hours.

Then went and picked up Carl, came home, cooked dinner, ate it while nursing Baby D, gave Baby D his first bath (I think it confused him), and THEN got to do all the laundry, dishes, and random cleaning that I planned to do earlier. For the past, oh, what, like 2.5 hours. I am so fried. And everything is still a mess even though I worked so hard. The end.