9 months

Everett's ninth month was a blur, to be perfectly honest. I have been super sick with this pregnancy (much like the last one), so updating a blog has been pretty low on the priority list. Ahead of it was trying to find every possible second of sleep I can fit in a day already filled with taking care of Ev and working full time. But this little guy has been growing into quite the big boy these last few months. He is crawling like a champ, he is eating everything in sight, and he is talking so much. Not actual words, but he can say "Bella," and "Da-Da" which we are still trying to decide if he actually is talking to Cory.

This last month he has decided that his daddy is the greatest thing on this earth. He is so social and easy-going, but if his dad is holding him and then puts him down or worse yet, walks out of the room, he cries like someone is pinching him. It is really cute and really sad. I can't help but feel a little jealous, which I know is ridiculous...I know that he will trade favorites a million times in his life, but I can't help but wonder why he doesn't cry when I leave the room? You know, just me, his mom, the one that carried him and labored with him and delivered him and nursed him and stayed up all night with him. Just that person. I sound super bitter, but I really do love how much he loves Cory.

His favorite thing to eat right now is meat. You can put fruit and veggies and meat on his tray and he will pick through all of it until the meat is completely gone and then look up at you for more.

I love that he is getting bigger and more curious and exploring more. I love that you can tell he understands when you ask him a question and that he grabs on to you when you hold him. He is amazing!!

May 21st 2011

May 21st, 2011 I woke up like I do every Saturday. Cory was already up playing with our little man. The house smelled like coffee and Everett's babbles and coos traveled down to me from the living room. It was a beautiful morning.

I left my boys to their fun while I got ready for the day. Before I jumped in the shower I did something I don't do on the usual Saturday. I took a pregnancy test...


...and it was positive...


Those four words have to stand on their own because they are that crazy. To remind you, it took us almost two years and the help of fertility drugs to conceive Everett. The fact that I am writing this down, that I am living this out, is so crazy and magical and amazing and scary and blessed that there are almost no words for how I feel. I feel a closeness to God that I haven't felt in a long time. I feel like he is whispering to me, "Sara, I got this, why do you worry so?" "Sara, I love you, why don't you trust Me?" I am humbled with how GOOD God is. And not because he has given me something that I wanted, but because He has a plan, and He IS to be trusted, and that His way is set before us and we can let him lead. I know all that sounds so cheesy and earnest and not really like me, but it is TRUTH.

There have been moments (like right this second for instance) where these feeling of fear and worry start to creep in. I feel like I am just figuring out how to be a mommy to one little person, and soon I will have two. Now I don't just have Cory and I to think about when picturing this HUGE life change, but Everett. Will he feel loved? Will he feel left out? Has he had enough time to be confident in our love for him before having to share us? I think a lot of these fears are because last time I found out I was pregnant it had been such a long time beforehand of anticipation and planning and dreaming of it that once we got that positive test there was nothing to feel but pure JOY. I think this time I'm a little in shock and am processing it very differently.

Of course I am excited. This past month I have felt that familiar yearning in my heart for a child. I drive by the hospital and wish I was there, giving birth to a beautiful baby...so I know I'm ready, and I know that we will love this child just as much as Everett. I just need a little more time to wrap my head around it.

Oh, and I need to remind myself of the Truth that I wrote about three paragraphs ago. He is to be trusted with all things. Even the ones we aren't quite ready for.

FTW

Today was a good day for two reasons:

1. My husband and I are attempting to eat carb-free (well carb-less) for a month. Trust me, we are not "those people," but we both have some baby weight we could still lose so we are hoping that a month of not eating carbs will bring us back to food reality...wherein we don't think a huge plate of Chicken Marsala Marscapone (which, by the way, I really need to share the recipe for because it is SO good) is considered an acceptable weekly dinner option. The theory is a month with no rice or potatoes or pasta will make stuff like quinoa and brown rice feel like a treatsy because we are now used to just veggies and meat. Don't tell me if you have already proven this theory wrong in your own life because my little heart can't take it.

Anyway, we've been eating a pretty steady stream of different forms of meat from the bbq alongside a big pile of veggies. So tonight I had this crazy idea to make Shepard's Pie with cauliflower instead of potatoes. I've heard a mythical story that cauliflower can substitute for mashed potatoes but I've never had the desire to see if it's true. The result?


The fact that it is almost gone tells really sells something. If my husband doesn't like something he will politely eat one plate of it and then 20 minutes after dinner start slowly snacking until he's full. It's very sweet actually. The double bonus of this meal was that little Everett was able to partake as well. All of a sudden he is over baby food so I've been trying to figure out what to feed him. This meal was perfect for his little tiny fingers.

2. The above picture was taken on the ipod Touch that I got for Christmas. A really sweet present and something I was really excited about, mostly so I can have a camera next to me at a moment's notice in case Ev does something cute. Needless to say, there are a lot of pictures on it. However, I may or may not have forgotten I placed this very small and expensive gift in my front hoodie pocket and then threw said hoodie in the washer. When I discovered it all sad and wet laying inside of my washer I spent the next hour having a moral dilemma...tell my husband and both disappoint him and confirm that I am an idiot in one conversation. Or, NOT tell him and then when he discovered my ipod wasn't working I would just play dumb. Luckily the truth won and I told him. He took it really well and just kind of chucked and shook his head. Should I be offended that he didn't seem surprised :). Anyhoo, I put it in the junk drawer and tried to forget it happened. But today, in a true Cinco De Mayo miracle, I plugged it into the charger and it WORKS. If ever anyone doubts the power of the Mac please tell them this story.

So all in all a good day. By the way, I entitled this post FTW because I posted the story of the ipod on my Facebook and someone responded, "Mac FTW." I had to google FTW because I had no idea what that meant. I'm a nerd.

The loves of Everett's life- 8 months

Daddy.

food.

Dog toys instead of little boy toys (yum)

Mama


LIFE.

I am in constant amazement of this little man. He is so happy! For a couple days last week he was kind of grumpy (teething, growing, sick, it's pretty much a crap shoot at this stage of his life) but ever since then he wakes up with a huge smile on his face and goes to bed just the same. We keep telling him, "gosh you are in a good mood today," but then we realize this is the boy we know and love, we just forgot during the grumpy days...so it's kind of like having our baby back.

He is crawling up a storm, pulls himself up to standing, and has even taken a view "cruising" steps. For those non fluent in baby terminology (I seriously learned this term 3 days ago), that's when a baby can walk while holding on to something. It feels like he is gaining a new "trick" everyday, and I'm just waiting for the day when I look over and he is walking on his own. I find myself saying "When Everett was little..." and am reminded by whoever I'm talking too that he still is little. But in my mind this is little




So compared to that he is basically a thirty year old man. The scary thing is that before I know it he really will be!

not taking pictures of myself is my fave

I hate pictures of myself. Now that we are in the age of digital technology there is this horrible option to take a picture and then immediately after look at it (who invented this? I need names). While most people run up to the picture taker after seeing the flash and click to make sure they look OK or to just see how cute they all are, I never do. I NEVER do. Because I know that I won't like what I see. I will only see a double chin or a weird smile or how one of my eyes kinds of droops down more than the other one or something else very particular about myself that maybe no one else sees but is glaringly obvious to me.

Now that I have a baby this issue has come to my attention even more. I pretty much have the camera out every second I am with him. I probably have 1000 pictures of his new little life but only about 4 with me in them. Some of that is because usually it's just the two of us and I'm not really good at the selfie. Also, I always feel a little awkward when my husband and I are together and we are doing something fun and I say "Hey babe, take a picture of me." This is probably an extension of the aforementioned insecurity. However, the biggest reason there are only 4 pictures of me is because I really don't want to see what I look like. Most of the time I can convince myself I look a certain way and pictures always kind of slap me in the face with reality.

Here is an example of this. This was Ev's first adventure on a slide. He looks adorable, of course. The sun is shining. We are together and both smiling and there is so much love just screaming out of this picture. But my first thought when I saw it was, "too bad I'm not wearing something a little cuter, wow my hair is messy, nice double chin Sara...etc, etc."

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE! The rational side of me knows this.


Facebook and blogs have perpetuated this problem. How is everyone else so perfect? These are the questions I ask myself. How are their houses so cute, and their husbands so fashionable, and how are they always wearing heels even on laundry day? Also, how is everyone so good at photography and so freakin' photogenic? Why is everyone constantly on vacation, or on road trips, or moving into new beautiful houses? And why are there kids always in clean shirts and they don't have any boogers on their faces or eye crusties. How do they all have the energy to get all dolled up for date nights when all I want to do is get take out and be able to wear my sweatpants???

I could go on but I won't. I know that the internet is not reality. We are all guilty of painting our lives with the nicest brushes, the prettiest colors. I know this isn't going to change, because really, would I want to read or look at a blog where the woman was always complaining about her crappy life and posting picture after picture of herself in her ratty sweatpants collection? Probably not. So the cure is not the internet changing, the cure is for me to embrace my own life, my own face. To not get so caught up in wishing I was perfect and being able to look at the positives more and the negatives less.

I'm certainly not writing this so everyone can tell me how pretty they think I am. I'm writing this because I don't want to let this be my reality. I want Everett and any other children we might have to be able to look at pictures of this time in their lives and see how much love we have for them, to see how happy we were (hopefully still are!) and young we looked and be able to laugh at our funny clothes. I don't want my dumb insecurities to rob them of that. So this is a reminder to myself to get over myself.

on being a stay at home mom

I work full time. I have had a job since I was thirteen years old. Yes, thirteen. My parents owned an ice cream shop and I worked there. I was so small that when I scooped people's ice cream I literally had to climb up and hang inside of the freezer in order to reach the tubs. It was probably quite odd looking.

When Cory and I got married it was never really a discussion as to whether or not I would stay home with our children. His mom worked, my mom worked, of course I would work. Then, we started trying to have a baby. A feeling started creeping up inside of me, I think it was dread. You see, I always knew I wanted to be a mommy. But from the minute that desire turned into the reality of trying for a baby and then ultimately getting pregnant, I fell instantly and indescribably in love with our unborn child. I became a mother, I think, with that first pregnancy test (the first of many pregnancy tests as I've talked about before). When my heart became a mother's heart, that feeling creeping up and eventually filling me was the absolute knowledge that I wanted to be home with my children. That there was no way I would be able to leave them everyday, all day. I tried so hard to swallow that feeling, to tell it (very sternly with my new mommy voice that matched my new mommy heart) where it could go. But it didn't go there. It stayed inside of me and filled up my chest and made it feel heavy and tight. I knew that for us there wasn't an option. My husband works at a church and neither one of us have trust funds or have ever won the lottery so two incomes were completely necessary. I spent my pregnancy praying for this new desire in me to either go away or that God would show us how it would be possible to be an option.

When Everett came into the world I actually had a lot of peace about going back to work. I think when you know something isn't a choice you just kind of have to suck it up. The desire in me didn't go away, I just put it to the side and let God work in that area, waiting on Him to provide, or not provide, options.

The first month being back at work was pretty brutal. I knew it was where I was supposed to be and I actually really love my job so the days at work were not that hard, but every night and every morning was a struggle to fit everything in that I needed to get done, when all I actually wanted to do was hold him and look at him and smell him. However, one can not just sit around smelling thier baby. There is food to cook, a house to look after, a husband to spend time with and make a priority. You know, all those really small easy things.

After that month I started going in the MAD direction. I was MAD at God. I was MAD at my friends who got to stay home with their babies. I was MAD at myself for making choices with our money that led us to a place where we didn't have any choices. Obviously I also spent a lot of time being mad...along with the cleaning...and the smelling...and the holding.

It's been about 5 months since I returned to work. I'm not saying that I am glad that I am a working mom, but I do see little glimpses of blessings among the days of struggle and juggling Everett around from me, to my husband, to the babysitter (who we love by the way), and exhaustion. Mostly, I think that being a working mom makes me grateful for the time I spend with my son. I can genuinely say that I enjoy almost every minute I am with him. He brings me joy and he gives me renewed energy every time I am around him. And if I'm honest with myself, I don't think I would be able to say that if I was with him 24/7.

I also think my husband has the opportunity to have a relationship with Everett that I don't think he would have if I was the main caregiver. We share parenting, completely, and it has brought me to a place of even deeper appreciation for the husband that chose me, if that was even possible.

I'm not saying that everyday I skip around giddy and happy. I spend a lot of my day getting really excited about going to sleep later. I also am not trying to discount the blessings of the stay at home mom. I know that they love their children and that their husbands love their children. I am just speaking of my experience, and trying to find the good where I can.

Eventually I know that I am going to be able to stay home. In the meantime, I'm trying to learn to care less about how clean my house is, or not feel bad if we have Pho for dinner 2 days in a row. And mostly I'm just trying to not put myself in autopilot and try to breeze through this time of life and wait until I'm a stay at home mom. It is ENOUGH that God made me a mom, and I'm trying my best to remember that.

Oh, and I go home to this face everyday, what do I have to complain about??

Tuesdays With Sara

We just got back from vacation, we don't have any food in the house, all three of us have the death flu, I'm wearing sweatpants, and I wish I was napping. Let's just leave it at that and move on to the book discussion, yes?

First things first...I copied this image from a website entitled "Doula Right Thing." That is awesome in and of itself (my husband and I had a conversation about whether or not you would write that "in and of itself" or "inandofitself," he thought it might be all one word. Anyone know so I don't have to google? Also, anyone know why the heck two people would actually care enough to talk about it?)

But I digress. The real awesomeness I came here to talk about what this book. I came across "Baby Catcher" when I was obsessively researching labor. It came up in a library topic search I did one day and I like memoirs and I obviously like labor so I picked it up and was not disappointed. There are so many books about natural childbirth but most of them are how-to guides that include a lot of techniques and awkward looking pictures of men with long hair and cut-off jean shorts laying next to naked women squatting but not a lot of heart. This book is very different. It is basically the birth stories of hundreds of women through the eyes of a Certified Nurse Midwife and catalogs all the many different types of births she was a part of throughout her career. I think there is a story for almost every different kind of birth you can imagine, some beautiful and others heartbreaking. I loved reading this while I was pregnant because it made me feel so empowered. It made me realize that millions of women have birthed their babies naturally. And not all of them would consider themselves abnormally strong or brave or special in their normal life. But something about the miracle of birth gave them the ability to do it and reading their stories made me think that if they could, then certainly I could to.

This recommendation is somewhat limited because I don't think anyone who isn't pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant would want to read it. But for those of you who fall into these two categories it's a must read.

*Disclaimer- there are a couple of stories in which the end result is quite tragic and sad. If you are someone who is trying to avoid thinking about the worst case scenario when it comes to labor maybe you should avoid it. But for me, I think knowing everything that could go wrong made me feel more prepared. Anyway, I thought a proper warning was only fair.