My growing boy!

It's been a while since my last post--forever in baby time! Eli is now 10 weeks old. It's amazing how much he changes in such a short time. His weight isn't even the most dramatic of changes, and that's saying something! At his two month appointment a week ago, he weighed in at 14.5 lbs, from a birth weight of 8.5. Wow! Even more dramatic than that, though, is the development of his personality. He's rarely quiet these days. He spends most of his time babbling and smiling at lights and tracking people's movements around the room. Derrin (oops, Daddy) has gotten him to copy noises--particularly, the word "yay". Of course, he won't do it when we try to show anyone or pull out a camera, but it does happen!

He seems to love lights for some reason. If the lights are on in a room, you can bet he's staring at them. Mom and I walked into Costco last week and his eyes almost bugged out of his head when he saw all the lights! He also enjoyed the pig face on my mom's Redskins pillow pet. We have to get him a Giants one so there's no bad influence on his team allegiance. Sierra plays with him all the time. He always grins when she giggles.

He's started wearing cloth diapers the last couple weeks, to save some money. That makes me officially "one of those" crazy babywearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cloth diapering moms. Yep, I'm kind of a hippie.

Here's the dramatic change between birth and now:

Minutes after birth (10/18/11)

Christmas Day, almost 10 weeks old!

And here's a Christmas picture for good measure:

Hopefully I'll be better about posting from now on!

My Little Chunker!

Little man is now 3 1/2 weeks old, and growing like a weed! It's hard to tell from looking at him, but Mom and I each weighed him yesterday and he's coming in at 10.4 and 10.6 pounds on two different scales! He was wearing a onesie and a diaper... but still! 2 pounds since his birthday! Not too shabby, little dude. He's definitely a big old breastfed baby. It's reassuring to me that he's getting all the nutrition he needs and that I can tell for sure that my milk supply is enough for him.

And there's my chunky boy!

Smile Alert!

Hello, world! Mr. Eli has been smiling in his sleep since he was just a few days old, but he's starting to combine it with open eyes now. And last night... I got it on camera!

Milky content smile

 Grin baby grin!

Awww, he's so cute.

Eli: Two Weeks Old!

Eli is two weeks old today! It kinda seems like he's been around forever, but at the same time he's still so new to us.

He's had two pediatrician's appointments so far. At his first, he was down 7 ounces from his birth weight, and at the second he had gained back 5 of those ounces! I'm sure by this point (a week after the last appointment) he's back up and over his birth weight! He nurses like a champ so I'm sure he'll be a little chunker before long. He got his first shot at the last appointment and he's decided he's not a fan of needles (he is his mother's son). He turned into a tiny, wailing ball of rage and sadness!

He sleeps pretty well at night, although there are exceptions to that rule. He much prefers sleeping in someone's arms to sleeping in a bed or a swing--he's gonna be spoiled rotten by all this attention! He doesn't have to go back to the pediatrician until he's a month old, which I'm sure he would be thrilled by if he knew he should be.

Yesterday was his first Halloween--he didn't go trick-or-treating, but we did put on his little costume! I knit the hat, which is just barely small enough to sort of fit his little head.

Details, details!

Well, this little corner of the internet hasn't seen much activity in the last... oh, seven months. I really meant to write at least a post or two. As a matter of fact, there are several draft posts saved on my account that never got past the opening paragraph. I think I have a few good excuses for the neglect, though!

Knowing that I have family members that live at a distance but want next-door-neighbor details, I knew this blog had to come out of hiding and do its job. Without further ado, the story of Eli's birth.

On Monday, October 17th, I had an appointment with my midwife. I was 5 days overdue and Derrin and I were both getting pretty antsy to get Eli movin' on out and into the world. The midwife, Nannette, offered to check to see if I was making any progress. Surprise, surprise--two centimeters dilated, and Eli's head was super low in my pelvis. Nannette said we would probably have a baby in the next couple of days. She swept my membranes to help get things moving.

By the time we got home I was feeling crampy. Derrin went to work and Sierra and I went shopping. We picked up some herbs Nannette recommended and some crickets for the lizard so he wouldn't starve if we had the baby and couldn't go out and get them. We got home about 5:30, I showered, we ate dinner, and I took a walk around the block. By 7:30 I was having some very crampy contractions and I thought this could be the beginning of something for real. I debated texting Derrin at work and letting him know, but thought it wasn't serious enough for him to come home and I didn't want him all worried and excited and preoccupied at work.

I actually found myself displaying some very animalistic behavior. I was closed up in my room, I didn't want to talk to anyone or be around anyone. Mom asked me if I was okay a few times and I just brushed her off. Looking back on it I can see I was behaving like most animal mothers who seclude themselves and hide away till their baby is born. I just thought I was cranky. I started trying to time contractions, but found that they were pretty irregular. I'd have a few that were 2-3 minutes apart, then some that were 6 and 7 minutes apart. I convinced myself this wasn't regular enough to count yet.

Derrin got home about ten. I told him I'd been having "some uncomfy contractions"... and he was shocked when I had three within the first ten minutes I was home. I insisted I didn't need to call Nannette. I could still walk (sort of) and talk (kind of) through the contractions. Finally, he convinced me to call her. She told me to drink some hot tea, get some rest, and call her again if the contractions were consistently less than 5 minutes apart for 2 hours. We tried to go to bed, but there was no way I could sleep through the contractions at this point, which were way beyond uncomfortable. He started timing contractions. Two were 6 minutes long and a minute and a half long. Then three in a row that were a minute and a half apart, but only 30-40 seconds long. I was so frustrated I ended up in tears. I thought the inconsistency meant they weren't the real thing. Derrin finally stopped timing them so I would stop crying.

Derrin dozed off for a few minutes and woke to me moaning through the contractions pretty intensely. He asked if I should call Nannette and all I could say was "I don't know, I don't know." He suggested I get in the shower. What an amazing idea. It felt so good and the pain was so much milder under the hot water. But after a while I got all cramped up from sitting in the little tub, so I got out. The contractions hit twice as hard. Derrin told me to wait so he could walk down the stairs in front of me--I ignored him and took off as fast as I could. All I knew was the faster I got back to the bedroom the less likely I was to have a contraction on the stairs.

Once we got back to the room, I was hollering pretty good through the contractions. Derrin was becoming more and more insistent that I call Nannette, and I still really didn't want to, so I told him to wake my mom and ask her. He went and got her, and she walked into the room, heard my noises, and said, "Uh, yeah... call her now." He called her while Mom started rubbing my back through contractions. It was about 2 AM, and I was probably in transition or very close to it at that point. I was nauseous and I got sick right after Mom came in.

It was about 3 AM when the first birth assistant, Amy, showed up. I didn't know she was there until she had her hands on my back. I was still on my hands and knees, and she recognized how much tension I was building up in my arms and legs from bracing myself against the pain. She suggested I lay on my side. I didn't think I could move, but once I did, it helped so much. She started rubbing and pressing on my hips, which helped to open up my pelvis and felt so good. Everyone in the room heard me sigh in relief. I have no idea what I would have done without this amazing woman. She was so wonderful. During every contraction, she reminded me to keep my noises low instead of high-pitched, to breathe deep, and to relax. If I tensed a certain muscle she squeezed it and told me to relax it so that I could feel exactly where the tension was and relax it. She had Mom rubbing my feet because I kept tightening them up and kicking them with the pain.

Nannette arrived about ten minutes after Amy, and just in time! Right after she got there, my water broke, and she said I was fully dilated and could push anytime. They got me onto me knees with my head on Derrin's shoulder even though I kept saying I couldn't move, and that was all it took. It might have been as many as three more contractions, and whoosh! Out came Eli, head and body all in one push. Amy told me to reach down and take him. I couldn't find him for a second when I reached for him. Turns out that he had his hand up by his head, and the cord wrapped around him a couple times, pinning his arm to his head. Nannette had to take an extra moment to untangle him. Then they put him in my arms, and I leaned back against Derrin. Eli started crying after a minute. He never got very loud, just cried enough to let us know he was okay.

He was latched on and nursing within twenty minutes. When I got up to go to the bathroom Nannette did her exam on him, including his weight and length. He's a tall boy, although a couple of his 22 inches were his big alien head that has shrunk down since (he came in at 20.5 inches at the pediatrician on day 2).

Derrin was awesome. He got me through it all by himself for all but the last hour and a half. And he's learned that the next time we do this he shouldn't listen when I insist he doesn't need to call the midwife!

Hopefully I'll be good about posting updates with all the new Eli stuff--and Grayce, I hope this was enough detail for you!

Lesson: Growing Up (Ouch)

This is a lesson I can't say I've learned in its entirety. I'm pretty sure I've only scratched the surface. What I do know is that something changes in you when you walk out a door you've passed through your whole life, knowing you'll never walk back through it the same way again.

I knew leaving home was going to be hard, especially since I was moving so far away. A five-hour distance made inevitable changes happen that much faster. There have been a few times I thought it had sunk in fully. When I called to talk to Sierra and she came up with conversation topics for half an hour, instead of answering a few questions and then yelling "Gotta go!" as she ran away from the phone. When I was calling and commiserating with my mom over the money problems we were both having. When I realized that the majority of what I know about my siblings' lives now comes from their Facebook statuses. When I was stressed out and all I wanted was to hug Mom but she wasn't within arms' reach like she has been for twenty years. When my dad visited and instantly diagnosed what was wrong with my bathroom sink, and I realized how much I miss having him there to quietly solve all my problems.

But every time I think I know how it feels, something else hits me that reminds me growing up is not a moment, it's a lifetime. It never stops. Which means that the growing pains never fully stop, either. Sometimes we go through a growth spurt and the discomfort gets more intense. It's so overwhelming sometimes. Is it worth it? Of course it is. The blessings and rewards from the process far outweigh the struggle. From inside the haze of the pain, though, it's hard to see that.

I'd love to end this post with a grain of wisdom that gives me and anyone else in this situation the answers and the comfort they need. In this case, the wisdom is frustratingly elusive. Maybe that's part of growing up: you can't rush it. I'm still in the middle of the growth spurt, and I don't expect to have all the answers until I come up for air on the other side. For right now, the only conclusion I can draw is that everything happens for a reason (I knew my first blog post had a point) and God has plan somewhere inside the pain.

'Tis the Season: Part Two

Since today marks the first real snowfall of this winter, I figured today was a good day to continue my series on Christmas. We're just eleven days away, folks! This Sunday my father-in-law preached on Joseph. Interestingly, I had been thinking about Joseph for about a week before he preached that message. I've always applied Mary's story to my life, probably because as a teenage girl she was the most relatable character for me. Her lessons about accepting God's will and being a servant were always a pivotal part of the Christmas story to me. This year, however, it has been Joseph that has struck a bolder note for me. I think it has something to do with my position in life.

All the past years I've been learning from the Christmas story, I've been a young woman under my father's roof, looking forward to a future that had not quite arrived. I could relate more to Mary: still a young woman, still under or just barely out of her father's care, overwhelmed by the changes in her life. This year, however, I've moved past that stage. My future is here. I'm struggling to find my way, with a partner but independent from the authority of my parents. Just in my four months as a married woman I have seen multiple times how plans change at the moment I think I have them figured out.

I think that's why I feel drawn to Joseph's story this year. He was a young man stepping out into his future. His whole life was figured out and going well: he had been promised a beautiful, godly young wife, he had a career in carpentry, he was planning to take his place as a member of his religious and cultural community. He knew the challenges ahead. Caring for a wife, and eventually a family, was not an easy task. He would work hard, pray hard, and he would have a good life. He hoped to be respected, maybe even admired, for his faithfulness and dedication.

Then his wife-to-be showed up pregnant. In an instant, every plan he had made was thrown into chaos. On the surface, there was one explanation: Mary was not the godly, faithful girl he believed her to be. Her situation was disgraceful, shameful to herself and to him. Who could respect a man whose own wife would do such a disrespectful thing? He would have to divorce her, and his dream of a happy family life would be gone. It was a terrifying change of plans. But the other option was still more terrifying: Mary was telling the truth. The concept itself was hard enough to grasp: Mary was carrying the Messiah he had been waiting for all his life. That she was still faithful and pure was a relief, but what was he to do now? Could he be the earthly father to the Son of God? How would people look at him if he did not divorce the woman they thought was an adulteress? The quiet, moderately successful life he wanted was but a memory of a dream.

Joseph doesn't play as central a part in the Christmas story as does Mary or Christ the baby Himself. He is given guidance in dreams to keep his family safe, and then he fades into the back ground of the "silent night" picture of the mother and child. While Mary "treasured up all these things and pondered them", Joseph's reaction to the shepherds and their tales of singing angels, to the wise men and their precious gifts, to Simeon and Anna in the temple, is never recorded. I think, though, that he must have treasured those things, too. He must have been stunned by the direction his life had taken, how he was thrust from normalcy and mundanity onto an exciting, supernatural, and sometimes frightening new path. I wonder if he often thanked God for his life and all its trials. I wonder if, every now and then, he wished he had his old life back because of the stresses he faced.

I also wonder if I will ever have the strength, courage, and consistency that shine through in Joseph's limited scenes. What an intimidating challenge he faced; what a thrilling and frightening life he led! In my whole life I will never deal with anything close to the ordeals he did. I can only hope I will handle them with the same solidness and faith.

'Tis The Season (Part 1)

It's here: the holiday season. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's; a season full of family, friends, and food. It's the season that every television show, newspaper, website, and yes, blog, has an obligatory holiday episode or entry. And who am I to disappoint? I am thoroughly in the Christmas spirit (probably part of the reason for my lack of entries here) and this is a bit of a landmark holiday season for me.

Wait: did I says "a bit"? This is a gigantic landmark for me! This is my first holiday living away from my parents' home. It's my first Christmas with my husband, the first time I've been in charge of decorations, and the longest gift list I've ever had! I was going to try to write one entry with my thoughts on this Christmas, but partway through I realized there was a little too much to cover in one entry. Therefore, I've planned a (possibly) short series on the different events of the Christmas season.

I have always loved Christmas. Whether it was family feasts at my grandfather's house, bringing out the decorations with my mom, or passing out gloves and hats at the rescue mission on Christmas morning, it's always been a magical time. This year, things have changed dramatically. Suddenly I'm in charge of engineering Christmas for Derrin and myself (the frivolous part of Christmas that comes from us humans, anyway). The decorations, the tree, the smells and sounds that make up the aura of the holiday season, will not happen on their own.

This realization led to an enthusiastic trip to Wal-Mart and a full cart. Then the budget element sank in, and that cart was pared down to what I saw as a few necessary elements of Christmas cheer. My New York parents furnished us with a cute little 4-foot tree, which I adorned with a few ornaments, including an "Our First Christmas" ornament that Derrin thoughtfully brought home.  Derrin did the honors of topping the tree with the quintessential newlywed topper: a gold, sequined, cardboard star from the dollar store. A couple stockings on the wall, some snowflake mirror clings, and a wreath for the front door completed my humble decorating. And then my oh-so-festive husband accused me of overkill! I think, for a new bride decorating her first apartment, I showed commendable restraint. I hate to think of what he'll say when I decorate our first home together!

Now, I certainly don't have the ill-conceived notion that Christmas will not come on December 25th if I don't decorate. My parents were wonderful role models in illustrating exactly what Christmas was all about: Christ the baby, the love He showed for us and our responsibility to pass that love on to other people. I get frustrated with the stores that put up the Christmas shop before the Halloween stuff has gone on clearance, and I don't really want to hear the Christmas music start until after Thanksgiving. But I firmly believe that Christ would have no problem with His people celebrating His birthday with a month or two of festivity, warmth, and just a little bit of a magical feeling.

I've been good at not stressing myself out over what I can or can't do to get ready for Christmas (like my limited decor budget) and whether or not it's going to be perfect. After all, like I said... Jesus was born whether I have one wreath or two, or fake snow on my windows or not. Instead, I'm thoroughly enjoying spending a few weeks multiplying my excitement. Some people might say that I'm getting a little too wrapped up in the "material" side of Christmas. Yet with every Kenny Rogers Christmas song I hear and every new decoration I put up, I remind myself again of the day--15 days from today--that Christ made His less than explosive yet spectacular entrance to the stage of the world.

Lesson: Keepin' It Real

Have you ever noticed how different people can be depending on the company they're in? I remember my sweet sixteen party. It was a surprise party at our church pavilion, and my mom had put together the guest list. She did a fantastic job corralling all of my friends--youth group, adults from church, friends from orchestra, and my whole family. Even at the time it occurred to me the challenge this demographic presented.

I, like everyone, have several different sides to my personality. While not to the extent of schizophrenia (though sometimes I wonder), it can be a dramatic difference. These aspects come out when the situation demands it. But when those personalities are forced to collide in one place, it can be quite a reality check! With the adults at my church, I mostly talked about my family and my plans for college. With my youth group friends, it was the youth events and the latest Sunday School lesson. At orchestra, I talked about music, school, and the boy in the orchestra I was head over heels for. Trying to figure out what to talk about, how to behave, when all those different social groups were present was awkward.

Sometimes, though, the way we behave in our social circles affects us more negatively than just a little bit of awkwardness when the circles overlap. Sometimes the way we behave in one group or another becomes not just a facet of our personality, but a behavior untrue to ourselves and our values. When I spent time talking to certain groups of friends, I tried too hard to be as "cool" as they were. They were older, more worldly, and I envied the popular, exciting lives they had. But trying to be like them meant compromising a lot of the standards I had set for myself, in speech if not in deed. That was typical teenage peer pressure, but it happens at every age in every circle.

Now, I have a few distinct social groups. I have my Maryland family, my New York family, my church friends, and my work friends, plus the friends I talk to from back home. I've found myself having to be very careful how I behave with each. I don't want to be a different person in each group I'm with. I may talk about different subjects at worship practice than I do at work, but I should be just as real in one as in the other.

So how does my company affect how I talk about God? About my husband? My parents? Am I changing my convictions based on who is listening? I forget that there is one common listener to every conversation I have. He doesn't care whom I'm trying to impress or what people will think of me depending on what I say. His concern is that I stick to the teachings He gave and the values I believe in. He just wants me to be real--the real woman He designed me to be.

Lesson: Happyness

I watched the Will Smith movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" on late/early television tonight. It was the second time I had seen the movie, so I got to enjoy it a little more deeply. It's a brilliant, heartbreaking film. Plus, his kid is so adorable! As I watched the movie, I got the unavoidable guilt trip that I really have it better than I think I do. A roof, food, a strong family support system--all of these are things I take for granted sometimes, especially in the midst of a stressful time. But what especially struck me this time around was the quote at the very end of the movie.

"This part of my life, this little part... is called happiness."

I have some hard stuff happening in my life. Nothing compared to the man and his son in the movie, nothing compared to some of the people I know. Still, it's hard enough to cause me some stress, some tears, some sleepless nights (nights that the lack of sleep is not because I'm working, that is). But tonight I curled up with my husband in bed. He made me laugh. He kissed my cheek and stroked my hair. He fell asleep with my head on his shoulder and mumbled "I love you" when I got up and left for work. And this part of my life, this little part... is called happiness.