Doing Life Together

Today's my birthday. As my mom reminded me last night at about 9pm, "29 years ago [she] was laboring HARD to bring a reluctant baby into the world." It's also the day that my own little one turns 16 weeks old (aka: 4 months).

It's tough being so far away from family on days like this (and not just because my father-in-law, in his eagerness to wish me a happy birthday and apparently forgetting the two hour time difference, woke me at 3:45am with a text message!). It's made the more difficult knowing that today is also my little nephew's 2nd birthday, tomorrow is my little sister's 26th birthday, and Saturday is my mother's (we'll leave it blank) birthday. But praise God, for He has blessed me with an amazing community of adopted family and friends clear out here in Southern California.

Craig and I had various church leadership meetings to attend yesterday afternoon. In the women's meeting, our women's pastor talked about her hometown in Maine of 700 people, a general store, an antique shop that's always closed, and two churches of 70 members each. She described the fund-raising jars set up in the general store and gas station to raise money for a teenaged boy who fell off a roof and his single mother. She described the outpouring of love (and food!) that the community gave her as she mourned a death in the family. She described the unlocked doors, the tire swings, the children riding bikes down the middle of the road. I sat in the meeting and felt homesickness wash over me. I thought, "That's what I had. That's what I want for my Evelyn."

Well, as my mother so wisely pointed out to me in August: God has me exactly where He wants me. God has Evelyn exactly where He wants Evelyn. If Evelyn needed family nearby, He would have us near family. But He doesn't, because she doesn't. He has us here because, for whatever reason, here is where she (and I and Craig) need to be.

In the general leadership meeting following my bout of homesickness, our head pastor talked about his desire for our church to grow in community. And he defined community as "doing life together." Community is not about tire swings and unlocked doors. It's about pouring love into other people's lives as you go through life together. And that's exactly what Craig and I have been blessed with out here. We have a community tucked away in this massive urban sprawl. We mourn together, we celebrate together, we eat, fast, and pray together. We do life together.

Praise God! (I'm so blessed to have you guys--you know who you are!)

Meanwhile, here's a video of my baby. Because I know that's the only reason most of you read this blog anyway.

My Life Lately

The problem with blogs is that (at least in my experience) when you have the time to actually write them, you have nothing to say--that's why you have so much time on your hands. But when you have a lot to report, you have absolutely no time to sit down and report it. Well, that's been my life the past few weeks since my last post, so here's a brief pictoral overview.

Two weeks ago, we loaded Evelyn up for her very first plane ride. Despite a mammoth poop blowout that occurred in the security line (and was discovered when I lifted her out of her carseat to go through the metal detectors), it was really uneventful. She smiled and made friends with everyone around us before falling fast asleep.

We landed in Kansas City at 5:45pm Friday evening and were at a wedding by 7pm, where Evelyn met Great Grandma Norie, Great Aunts Millie and Dorothy, her soon-to-be uncle KC, and a whole host of second and even third cousins.(Yes, the third cousin pictured with Evelyn below is two weeks older and weighs half as much. My baby is such a chub-a-wub!)

Around 10pm, we left the Kansas City metro area for a two hour ride to our hometown, where we bedded down for the night late and woke semi-early to get things ready for my sister's bridal shower the next day. Craig took Evelyn with him to his parents' house, where she met her Cousins Ethan and Kendall, her Aunt Andrea and Uncle Chad, and her Big Papa.

Prior to the bridal shower, she posed for a four-generation photo shoot with me, my sister, my mom, and Grandma Norie.

After the bridal shower, she got to meet Great Grandparents Trautwein, Great Aunts Susan and Shelly, Second Cousin Jen, and a whole host of other greats and seconds.

Then on Sunday, she and I headed to a baby shower held in her honor, where she met Great Great Aunts, Great Aunts, Second Cousins, etc. that she hadn't yet met. Other family members are currently hoarding these photographs. :)

Monday, we took her to Great Grandma Phyllis and Great Grandpa Joe's house, where she met several people, including Great Great Aunt Jean and Third Cousin (is that the right relationship? My dad's cousin.) Kathy (who didn't like having her picture taken).

We arrived back in SoCal around noon on Tuesday, where my best friend Rachel had been struggling unsuccessfully to start labor for several days (really, let's be honest, several weeks). She was induced on Wednesday and gave birth to Evelyn's betrothed, Liam Eric.

After this, our joyous string of events turned sour. Our beloved dog of almost five years, Chloe, (who has been progressively becoming more and more aggressive) escaped out of our house and proceeded to attack a neighbor's small dog. Being unable to afford the expense of a pet behaviorist, knowing we can't keep her around so many small children, and unable to find a no-kill shelter willing to take her in, we came to the very difficult decision to end her life yesterday, August 31. She was a very loving, loyal pet to our family and the house seems very empty without her, but we know that she had a happy, love-filled life and that she never suffered loneliness or pain. Here's how we choose to remember her.

Kansas-bound

We're busy gearing up for Evelyn's first plane travel--well, okay, her first travel of any kind--this weekend. It'll be a whirlwind weekend packed with a wedding, two showers, and various immediate and extended family visits. I'm trying to figure out if we really need both a stroller and a baby carrier while Craig is trying to figure out how to arrange drop off and pick up at LAX when we need a baby carseat. Neither of these hurdles should be too difficult to work out. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, we're getting Evelyn excited to visit the Little Apple with the KSU apparel some old coworkers of mine sent our way. Go CATS!

Our BIG Bundle of Joy

Well, it's been 9 weeks and our new life is finally starting to feel like a real life again and not just some some strange aberration. I zip out 2-3 freelance articles a day while scarfing down salads at lunch and banana bread at breakfast. I make sure Evelyn gets a little tummy time (despite her wails of protest) during play time and I try to get her to bat at various toys. Mostly I'm just happy if she waves her arms and grins. When she loses interest, I read to her, and what I read to her depends entirely on the day. Since today is grocery day, for instance, I just finished reading her the Mirin Glazed Salmon recipe from Nigella Lawson. Yesterday, because I was tired of the "Icky Sticky Frog" and the "Icky Sticky Anteater" (yes, they both have basically the same title and are about various sticky-tongued creatures' eating habits), I read Evelyn a chapter or two from East of Eden. She shows equal amounts of interest in all these books. I read that babies just like the sound of their mother's voice and, since I rarely go around the house talking to myself, decided reading anything I could grab would suffice. It seems to. I think she seems to prefer those books with poetic cadences, but maybe that's just my preferences coming through.

Apparently, though, I need to start encouraging more tummy time and other active types of play (despite her squalls). At her last appointment Tuesday morning, she weighed in at 12 lbs, 13 ounces and 22 inches long. Apparently, these measurements put her in the 50th percentile for height and the 99th for weight! Our doctor told us that if Craig and I were overweight or if Evelyn was on formula, she'd tell us to monitor her food intake and weight closer. But as it is, she said I just have particularly rich milk and Evelyn's weight is entirely healthy. Unfortunately, that evening I read an article claiming that babies who weigh more tend to develop such motor skills as turning over and crawling later than other babies. Apparently that additional weight is a bit much for them. Which could explain why Evelyn gets so worn out when I put her on her tummy. 

My life ... again!

We found a "new" cheeseburger joint over the weekend. I know I should be ordering salads and, in fact, this joint has some pretty amazing salads on the menu, but when it comes to cheeseburgers and pizza I just have a really hard time saying "no." Thankfully, most of the pregnancy weight slipped blissfully away while I continued to eat cheeseburgers and failed to do anything more strenuous than walks around the park a block away. But that seems to have ground to a halt and I find myself hovering at five pounds left to go before I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight (and 10 pounds left to go to my ideal weight). So I ordered a new Tae Bo workout video. I told Craig, while eating my cheeseburger, that once it's apparent the video alone won't be enough THEN I'll start ordering salads like a good little almost-29-year-old-trying-to-stay-25-year-old female.

Yes, it seems my days of eating like I'm pregnant are numbered. I suppose they should have ended weeks ago (9, to be exact) but pregnancy creates terrible habits that are hard to break when you find yourself breastfeeding and still every bit as hungry (maybe even more?) as when you were pregnant.

But I think I'm glad that my diet life is about to return to normal. It seems to symbolize a return to normalcy in general and, really, this past weekend saw a lot of "normal" return. For one thing, Craig and I returned to the movies! Our last movie was in early May when I was weeks away from delivering and we sat through almost 3 hours of Robin Hood; I thought I was going to die I was so uncomfortable! This time around was much better. We left Evelyn with some friends (her first time staying with non-family) and went to see "Inception," which is also almost 3 hours long but was much more bearable--even enjoyable.

Also of note: we left Evelyn with the church nursery for the first time. Since she's getting her two month vaccines tomorrow, I'd planned to keep her with me, but when I headed to the nursing mother's room, I found the nursery workers standing around twiddling their thumbs because they didn't have any babies! So I decided to give them something to do, dropped her off and asked them to feed her her bottle. Which meant that I actually got to sit in the sanctuary with the adults and take notes ... though I didn't actually take notes because I'd mistakenly left my pen in the diaper bag with the nursery workers. Well, getting back to normal can't happen all at once.

Two Months!

It's amazing what changes in eight weeks. And no, I'm not talking about what changes in babies.

No, what I'm talking about is the change from a clean, orderly home to one littered with damp burp cloths and various pieces of baby furniture--the bouncer, the soon-to-be-outgrown Moses basket, and the still-unused highchair. The change from actually drying and putting away dishes to letting them air dry for 24 hours before putting them away and washing the next batch. The realization that going to the movies can no longer be a last-minute decision on a lazy Sunday afternoon but must be planned out days in advance--a babysitter must be arranged, emergency contact list filled out, and milk provided.

I've begun speaking in the 3rd person and altered my already-mild expletives: "Stink! Mama has spit-up all down her shirt." My baby does not crap or even poop. She "poos" and her diaper is full of "poo." My husband and I have left off debating how Calvinistic election works and instead argue over what to call the pacifier and even over the need to call the pacifier anything other than "pacifier." (Mama's tired of coming up with cutesy names for everything.)

But these changes are not bad and could even be called beautiful. Mama might even say the cluttered house is more beautiful than the clean one she once tried (rather unsuccessfully, to be honest) to keep clean. And, of course, the changes wrought in Little Evelyn Grace these past 8 weeks have been extraordinary, as can be seen from these photos:

Evelyn Grace 3 days old

Evelyn Grace 8 weeks old.

The saga continues ...

We do our best. We carefully note what time Evelyn eats. We lay her on her brand new Baby Einstein floor gym (complete with motion-activated music and lights); we shake rattles to the side of her head to make her eyes track; we lay her down for naps after an hour and half of wakefulness. In the evenings, we bathe her and massage lotion all over her body; we wrap her in footed pajamas and read to her from a book; we use two nursery nightlights (one with music and moving animals); we give her gas drops and vitamin drops; we swaddle her; we unswaddle her; we rock her in our arms while making up words to what we think are lullaby tunes; and, finally, we bring her out to snuggle with us on the couch until 11pm or so, at which time we feed her again, sing and rock her in our arms again, turn on the Twilight Turtle, and (this time FINALLY) watch her drift peacefully off to sleep.

We try to limit her late afternoon napping and we try to wake her at a reasonable early hour, but for whatever reason Little Bird does not want to go to sleep at her 9pm bedtime. We've been told it's gas. We've been told it's her afternoon napping schedule. We've been told she just wants to be with us. We've been told we've spoiled her. Who knows? Regardless, Craig and I have decided we don't particularly care if she gets held until 11pm. Yes, we'd rather she went to sleep at 9pm. Yes, we care about her learning to put herself to sleep; yes, we're worried that we're creating a future 2 year old tyrant. But "letting her cry it out" isn't working. We tried that. She cried so long, the next thing we knew it was time to feed her again. And no, she doesn't cry when we lay her down for naps in the middle of the day.

What all this means is that little Evelyn has had her first Star Wars experience! Since she won't sleep until almost midnight, and since Craig and I have been watching the Star Wars saga this past week, she has gotten to fall asleep on Craig's belly while listening to that unmistakable sound track:

da da da daaaa dum da da da daaaa dum da da da daaaa dum da da da dum....

Maybe that's what we should try next: a Star Wars soundtrack lullaby CD!