2005 to the summer of 2006

my cousin invited me to church and introduced me to his friends. looking back, i was embarrassing and obnoxious...i would not have introduced me to anyone. i even got invited to movie nights and various other things. i went. i liked my new friends, but i wasn't serious about church or pursuing christianity.

i went to church with my grandparents - the same place where my cousin went - on some sunday mornings. i was sure to go on the sunday before christmas, and i had to wear my red sweater (i still have it, i still love it, and i still wear it at christmas, fyi).

meanwhile, i kept living my life however i wanted. i became less selfish by some miracle from God and spent more time with my family and took school and work seriously but didn't find my meaning in it (though i did have a lot of fun with both since it was all photography). i wanted to get married eventually but had no prospects, so i spent a lot of time going on awkward first dates (and sometimes second, third, and fourth) and wishing i hadn't. (don't feel bad, there's comedy in it. i could probably write a series on that. ha.)

i continued to develop those newer friendships and sort of went to church, sometimes. it was a very legalistic thing still - i went, but there was nothing really going on in my heart. i was far from living my life the way that i should have been. little bits and pieces come back to me, but it was a blur that last semester. i worked hard on my portfolio and job applications and in may of 2006, i graduated college (round one...). i finally decided after just a couple more first dates that i could be single for a while.

and of course, after that sentence, you had to know that some other stupid boy would come strolling into my life by way of a friend request on myspace (classy, i know) because he saw me in church wearing a red sweater at christmas. (and of course, after all these mentions of stupid boys, you're beginning to figure out who also had a tendency to be rather dense.)

;)

was it 2005?

i think it must have been.

when i was six years old, i decided i wanted to get baptized. in the church i grew up in, nobody said "get saved." it just wasn't the way we said it. whether or not i did the deciding is up for debate, as you will see as the story eventually unfolds (i'm still reformed, but it's really hard to tell and i lean toward "i decided" in this case - you'll see why).

this, of course, was not 2005. this was, i think, in very early 1991. so my parents and i talked to the preacher, and i still remember the talk. we discussed "no turning back," and that my life was now headed in a new direction. pretty deep for a six-year-old, but it seemed simple enough to me. of course, i didn't understand the depth of it (i still don't now, and nobody fully does). but it wasn't as simple as i thought.

i was a legalistic child. i mostly did what i was told except for fighting with my brother. i knew right from wrong and by the time i was a teenager i was convinced i was an authority on it. i knew what was expected of me from the words in the Bible, and so that's what i tried to do.

i remember tugs at my heart, crying, thinking there was something more when i was around 13, and again when i was around 15 or 16. i didn't really know what to do about it, but it was incredibly upsetting and i couldn't figure it out, so i just waited for it to "get quiet" and went on like i had been.

one high school graduation, several bad relationships, and a few years of college later, i found myself with low self-esteem, bad habits, and a lot of idols. i remember sobbing on a bench in the communications building to a friend over a stupid boy, going days without really talking to my family, and drowning myself in work and school, among other things.

finishing out the last year of my first degree, i wound up in a history class that i didn't even mean to take. i wanted the second part of western civ, and in my ignorance i took the first. it was a terrible class (the teacher told us that the united states had better never go up against iran or we would lose - i'm not even kidding), but in that class i sat by my cousin, who i didn't know before then except that we were distantly related, and we became very good friends. i remember talking to him about my life, and i'm pretty sure about yet another stupid boy.

he brought me a bible with smiley post-it notes inside marking the verses that he thought would help. it was an orange new testament, pocket-sized.

i'd read the verses before, but unlike before, i hadn't been following my Bible laws to keep me from needing to read those verses. (legalism is like that, you know.) too bad that at that point, i didn't really want to read them, and i didn't think i needed to anyway. i was just going through a normal phase of bad habits and i'd grow out of it and just be a christian again. later.

that was 2005.

friend

ten years ago, it had a totally different meaning. a friend was someone you spent time with, understood, cared about, and just generally lived life with, and who did those things for you, too.

now 'friend' has gone from noun to verb, and ironically, the verb form requires much less action.

add as friend. click. done. you have friended someone.

we all have more "friends" than ever.

but it would be so awkward if in real life when someone said something we agreed with, we just stood there and gave them a thumbs up. you definitely would not want to go around poking people (get your mind out of the gutter if it went there, though you don't want to be doing that either).

so why do we carry the facebook friend principle into our "real lives?" why is the value essential to true friendships not placed there? why is it easier to click "like" than to actually speak to someone?

i should probably say that i am a friender. if i have met you once during the current facebook era, you are or have been my "friend." i may not even recognize you if i saw you in person again, but i will add you on facebook. that's just how i am. i think it seems like the friendly thing to do.

it's also a great way to keep track of people from the past or who live far away - for example, friends from high school that you might not see, but you get to watch their kids grow up in their photo albums and read about what is going on in their lives.

but the problem occurs, i think, when there are people that you clearly should be living life with as friends, and instead, you occasionally "like" a post or creep on their page.

i think it's probably something a lot of us find ourselves doing, either out of habit or on purpose, or both.

just something i've been thinking about. now i'm wondering who will be the one who just stands there and gives me a thumbs up when i'm talking.

27.

it's my "golden year" - so they say. i don't really know what that means except that my age and the day of the month are the same. maybe i will win the lottery or strike oil.

anyway, i woke up to little baby noises and peeked into sam's bassinet and he was waking up, all wrapped up in his sheet, cooing and being happy. we "talked" for a minute, and then justin came in from the living room. i'd heard him making noise in the kitchen. i picked up my literal bundle of joy and went to the kitchen with him to find a mixing bowl with eggs in it and a box of dark chocolate fudge cake mix. :)

justin finished the cake and sam and i chatted on the couch until it was time for him to eat.

that's pretty much my morning aside from folding laundry with justin and drinking coffee.

while we folded laundry i asked, "do you remember what i wanted for my birthday last year?" he said he didn't. i said, "it was the same thing i wanted for any present for anything."

"a baby," he replied, "yeah, i almost used that to get off the hook for getting you something." (har har. he didn't really - he got me a very pretty fossil watch that i just lovvve.)

i never dreamed i would be 27 before i'd get that gift (a baby, not a watch...), but God is sovereign and sam is only the person he is because we had to wait for him, and we sure do love the person he is. :)

onto another thing:
birthday deals.

i googled this a few days ago and got a few blogs with pretty great lists of things you can get on your birthday. some of the deals were not in our area, but you may want to do a search for those if you will be out of town on your birthday.

the best deal as far as dinner? sign up for the houlihan's email list and they will send you a coupon for a FREE entree up to $15 for your birthday. that beats out dessert and a song, let me tell you.

lonestar sent one for a free appetizer with purchase of an entree, and dairy queen sent one for a free blizzard with the purchase of a medium blizzard. old navy sent $15 off of $50. swag bucks gave me 50 swag bucks.

alrighty, off to other things...like eating cake.

happy!

i accidentally took this very short video when i had the camera set on video instead of a photo setting.

he. is. fabulous.

<3

the last 6 weeks (almost)

our lives have changed quite a bit in the last six weeks. coming home from the hospital felt overwhelming at first, almost crushing. i remember justin and i looking at each other a little helplessly and wondering aloud why we didn't stay another night at the hospital where we would have at least had some backup with the nurses being there.

but, they let us go, and we went because neither of us were sleeping well there with beeping monitors, blood pressure checks, and those irritating leg things that keep you from getting blood clots continually inflating and deflating. we just wanted to go home.

and they actually let us take sam home with us. let me tell you that as a first time parent, being entrusted with a baby *does* seem like a small miracle. so there we were, just the two of us, trying to take care of a baby. initially it felt like we would never get used to it.

we got huggies diapers, which happen to have "wetness indicator" lines, and they constantly indicated wetness, which resulted in constant changing.

we religiously fed him every 2-3 hours, setting alarms to wake up in the night to feed him.

at first, recovering from the c-section, i was on medication that knocked me out, so i slept through any alarms or crying. poor justin - but he did his nightly single dad gig well until i was able to get off of the medicine. then he still had to wake me up (i still insist the evening before that he wake me if it is my turn and i'm not awake) because i was sleeping so well NOT being 39 weeks pregnant!

we swaddled. well, justin swaddled. he still swaddles much better than me. what is so hard about wrapping a baby up tight, i don't know, but i'm not as good at it.

we got peed on - probably daily. that commercial where the baby's pee comes out with the force and distance of water from a fire hose is pretty accurate. somehow he always needed to pee in the short window of time it takes to wipe and swap diapers. this is because, i think, he peed every 30 seconds. if he didn't pee during the change, his diaper was no more fastened and the wetness indicator changed colors.

the worst, though, was when the diaper was "mid-fasten" and his 30 seconds had elapsed. at some point, we gave up on the changing pad cover - wiping the plastic is easier than washing the cover - and we gave sam a lot of "baths."

i put baths in quotations because you're not supposed to submerge a baby's healing belly button (or boy parts, for that matter), so we did the warm washcloth bath. he hated it and cried through most of it until he got wrapped up in the hooded towel.

he started out a smiley baby, and no, he didn't have gas. he would grin in his sleep when you rubbed his hair, and sometimes he would even giggle and smile - i said he was dreaming of his momma.

if you have never had a newborn, i must say that all of this seems to take over your life - from cooing at your most-gorgeous-baby-you've-ever-seen to feeding to changing, and then you wake up at 11 am after taking a nap you didn't mean to take...it is definitely a blur.

and then somehow, there's a routine. the baby is more predictable, and you know his cries (and grunts and whimpers and coos) and what they mean, and the wetness indicator says his diaper is actually STILL dry!

we are actually on our second box of non-huggies (which work just as well). he gets changed when he needs it and there's no wetness indicator glaring at us. he doesn't do the 30 second pee anymore either, so we get peed on a whole lot less. however, if you have a little boy, do remember to "point it down" during re-diapering, or you might get a wet surprise right out of the top of the diaper. (i also decided it was time to bump up to a size 1 - tear, tear, he's getting bigger - because he was able to pee out the side of his diaper. i swear it was like there was no diaper at all.)

we no longer set an alarm to feed him. they told us to do this at the hospital, and maybe initially a baby who has lost weight needs it to get back to birth weight, but after a few weeks i think it's the dumbest thing a sleep-deprived parent could do. he wakes us up when he wants to eat and it's usually more like five hours instead of three, which is glorious. he eats while staring at either us or the light, whichever he finds most interesting at the time, and he usually still keeps those hands by his face.

we stopped swaddling because he wanted to sleep in his swing for a brief period of time, but we went back to swaddling. if you have an infant who will tolerate it, don't stop swaddling. he didn't sleep as well without his arms being trapped where he couldn't smack himself in the face or knock his pacifier out. when he's wrapped up he looks like a little worm or something in a cocoon, and it makes me giggle every time.

he now lovvvvvvvvves baths. i love giving him baths because he is just so stinking content and he just looks around quietly with his big beautiful eyes...sigh. don't even get me started on that soft brown hair. anyway, he loves baths now that they are actual baths and he can stay warm and happy.

and do yourself a favor - get hooded towels. you don't really need them to effectively dry a baby, no, but they are so cute that i feel like i might die of the cuteness, and that cuteness is a fun experience for every parent.

and baby lotion. oh baby lotion. the smell of a clean baby is something close to heaven.

also close to heaven - getting a smile in response to just being MOM. be still, my heart. he coos and "talks" to us about whatever is on his baby mind. i just love it.

i also love watching justin be a daddy. at first, it was so busy, we felt like we didn't even have a marriage, so to speak. but every day it got a little more normal, and then better than what had been "normal" for our lives - the new normal of being husband and wife AND dad and mom.

oh, and calvin is getting along just fine. he likes sam, but we aren't sure he knows he is a person or if he thinks sam is either an animal or a toy. he does not like for us to sit sam on him, and he will run away if we try. (yes, i pester my dog.)

so we are a happy little family. we are so thankful that God has blessed us with sam.

our july 13

i began fasting at midnight the morning of july 13, doctor's orders. we went to bed, me large, uncomfortable, and pregnant. we got up that morning, i don't even remember what time, and got ready to leave for the hospital. justin pulled into the circle drive by the automatic doors at the registration desk and let me out and then parked the car. they sent us right to labor and delivery. it was 10 am.

they took us into the triage room, which was full by the end of the morning with myself and two other moms waiting to have babies. i got hooked up to the standard machines, baby's heartbeat and movements, mom's belly (i did have a few small contractions), and an iv of something to replenish my fluids. they did a quick ultrasound to make sure sam was still breech. he was.

everything was going on time and as planned until about 45 minutes before my c section was about to start. a nurse came in and told me that a mom in labor had a baby in distress and that my c section would be bumped back an hour to do their c section and clean up the operating room. i didn't mind being bumped for that reason, but it gave me plenty more time to freak out and get hungrier. i was almost in physical pain from the anxiety - i'd never had a c section, didn't want a c section, and again, i was really, really hungry. around 12:30 or so, the nurse came in and told justin to get into his scrubs.

then it went pretty fast. she came back and told me it was time. we tied up the back of my gown and she held my iv bag. justin followed as we walked to the operating room. he had to sit out on a stool and wait while they did my spinal block.

the spinal block involved me sitting up on the operating table and sort of hunching over, slumping my shoulders, and "relaxing" while a guy in green scrubs stuck a needle into my spine. i write it in this tone so that you can sympathize a bit. i was just a little afraid. or maybe a lot. "ok a little pinch and that's the numbing," he said. then i had a shooting weird feeling down my left leg and i jumped a little. he asked which side i felt it on, then adjusted his needle. then they helped me lay down. it took less than a minute, probably.

they brought justin in and he sat by me and rubbed my hair and held my hand. i was still pretty afraid and he knew it.

"ok feel this cloth, it's cold. tell me when it stops feeling cold." in my head i thought, oh no, they are going to make me tell them when i am numb using only this. eventually it felt not-so-cold. meanwhile, some nurses made a giant barrier over my chest with blue material so i couldn't see the surgery. it wasn't just a short curtain, this thing went probably 2 1/2 feet up from my body.

dr. scheider said, "ok, do you feel this pinch?" i said, "i don't know...kinda." she said, "you're numb. i pinched so hard you'd want to smack me." i laughed. she said, "if you're laughing, you're numb."

the next word i heard, spoken quietly, was, "incision." it seemed like no time passed before someone said, "ok, you're going to feel some pressure, we're going to get this baby out." i looked at justin with wide eyes and squeezed his hand. it didn't hurt, i just felt pressure.

then someone said, "well happy birthday!" i looked at justin wide-eyed again with my mouth gaping. then i heard sam scream, a short little, "ba!" then another and another, until he was crying. and so was i. a nurse said, "time of birth, 1:19."

justin got up to take some pictures as i'd asked him to do as they weighed him and cleaned him off. he brought the camera to me and showed me, but i couldn't see it well enough to see what he looked like. then there he was, in a little hat, held next to me by the nurse. i kissed him and pulled him close to me to snuggle. in that moment i learned immediate love beyond what i knew i could feel for him even as i felt his kicks in the womb. he was healthy and good. i didn't know who he looked like. then they took him to finish up with footprints.

they gave him to justin to carry to the nursery to get his bath and get all of the other things done that they do to babies in hospital nurseries. they were putting me all back together. i had asked about keeping sam in there with me, but they acted like it wasn't ever done that way, so i just let them do their thing. i wanted him to get done in the nursery anyway.

finally someone got a hospital bed for me and they rolled me onto it on some kind of board, from what i could tell. i didn't have to do a whole lot in this process except lay there. they wheeled me down the hall to recovery. justin came back and held my hand and told me they were giving sam a bath. someone gave me medicine through the iv. i asked for sam after a while, but they said they weren't done yet. it was around 2:15.

they rolled me through the halls again, past the nursery and a crowd of my family waiting at the window to see sam. they pointed him out to me. i saw him but felt groggy. then they had justin push the lullaby button, which i was glad of, because i wanted to hear sam's lullaby. they rolled me into the hospital room and gave me a cup of ice chips. they were the best ice chips i'd ever had at that point.

by this time, the spinal had mostly worn off. i could move my legs, and i was quite loopy with whatever was going into and out of my system. my face started to itch. our families had come into the room and seth laughed at his sister looking like an addict withdrawing from something...itch itch itch.

FINALLY, around 3:00, they rolled sam's little cart in. i was so happy. they handed him to me, and everyone took pictures. then everyone left so i could feed him. our boy. i couldn't believe it.



yesterday we went to the doctor to get my staples out and pulled around in that same circle drive by the same automatic doors. it was 10 am. sam was in his car seat instead, and justin and i were kind of different people than we had been just one week before at that same time and place. we were officially dad and mom now, and though this is a blog, there really aren't words to tell you what that means - but it is good.