Naptime

Some days I wish someone would strap me to their chest and carry me around all day.

Seasons...

I heard a boy band sing a song once about how people change like the seasons. I liked the band so much I married one of them. :)

I have had some experiences as of late that remind me how much people can change. Namely, how I am one of those people.

There are a lot of things that come with the territory of mommy-hood that aren’t in the manual anywhere. Things like not showering regularly, forgetting where the gym is since it’s been so long, how hard it is to break old patterns of dysfunction, sacrificing pretty much everything, putting baby first, learning to be selfless and nurturing—and doing all this with less sleep than a tortured CIA prisoner.

I realized it had been 5 months of not leaving the house, trying to hold down a full-time job, plan a trip for everyone ELSE to go to Africa, and taking care of my new full-time bundle of screaming joy, that I was starting to feel like one of those prisoners. I needed a breath of fresh air—a new perspective. After all, it was finally spring and we somehow made it through the toughest winter of my life.

So, of course, I chose the booming metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska for my get-away. I went to visit Ronda, one of those friends that makes your life have meaning. We originally met back in Uruguay—riding bikes in dresses, where our biggest struggles included “snakes,” warm carbonated water on hot days, washing clothes in a cement bucket by hand and doing our best to avoid the ever-present head of lice. Ah, those were the good old days. It was also the place we made a pact that we would continue to dream and not let life get in the way.

Every once in a while, it’s good to re-connect with those kinds of friends. You never have make excuses or talk about boring stuff like the weather. Plus, Ronda has 4 kids and I needed to see that babies do grow up and learn to dress themselves. They also don’t have to be carried constantly in the Bjorn until they are 9. That was a relief!

Ronda and I are definitely in different seasons right now. She came home from Uruguay and quickly embarked on a life of marriage and family. It took me over a decade to get on the same wagon, so now I’m eating her dust and realizing why it’s probably smart to start having babies when you are 25, not 35. At least the staying up all night part.

It’s interesting to note the change in seasons. I’m no longer the single world traveler, saving planet earth from illiteracy and dependency on hand outs. I’m the frazzled mommy who can’t even find her pre-pregnancy clothes because they are somewhere in bags in the garage and probably don’t fit anyway. I don’t use soap with chemicals or perfumes on my precious baby’s skin. I’m the crazy vegetarian lady who eats foods like Quinoa and Kamut—and I didn’t even have my baby in a hospital. Yeah, I guess seasons do change.

Lucy got her first 2 bottom teeth while we were in Nebraska. Watching her struggle and suffer with something so challenging and painful kind of brought everything full circle for me. We are always changing…from the time we are teething babies to the time we are adults who think we have life figured out. The seasons remind us that the only thing constant in our lives is change.

I loved watching Ronda be a mom. Cooking whole foods that her family devoured, spending time jumping on the tramp and sharing popcorn treats that made the neighbor kids wish they had a mom like that. We talked of life, seasons, and how those will always be evolving. All we really need to focus on is getting through each day, realizing that a shower is indeed a luxury and not a necessity, and the best thing we can do for our kids is to empower them to be all they can. Valiant spirits need valiant moms. I’m grateful for this season to be learning how.

Grandpas

There’s something about the look on Grandpa’s face when he sees his little granddaughter. Maybe it’s that he can hand her back to her mom when she barfs, cries or needs a diaper change. Maybe it’s feeling like a proud parent—that he raised his baby well enough to now enjoy a new generation of posterity. Maybe it’s just something between dads and little girls. Any way you look at it, I thought this picture said it all. Happy Father's Day to 2 wonderful dads who now get to be the best grandpas ever.

Daddy’s Little Girl

In light of Father's Day this week, I was thinking about dad's and their little girls. It's interesting to me how I can spend the entire day with our sweet baby—changing her, feeding her every 3 hours on the dot, giving her baths when the blow outs amount to the “Are You For Real” magnitude (see previous post), and wearing her on my chest from sun up until bedtime. I don’t want to embarrass her, but little Lucy has kind of been packing on the pounds lately, so carrying her almost 20 lbs. of love all day is quite the sacrifice for mom.

Regardless of how many books I read to her, how many times we practice rolling over on the living room floor, or how many daily outfits we both go through due to barf and drool, as soon as dad walks in the door with his typical greeting of “Hi, Bug!” little Lucy’s face lights up. Her dimple gets so deep you could lose your whole finger in it! She coos, throws her head back and laughs and giggles like I have never seen. I try the same thing and get the “oh, is that you again? Can you please get out of the way so I can look at dad…” reaction.

Daddy’s girl. Hmmm. So, this is what they mean when they say that motherhood is a thankless job. I get it. I really have no room to complain, though, because it's no secret that I'm a true blue daddy's girl too.

I will admit that seeing my 2 favorite babies laughing together is definitely a sweet, sweet payoff. I'm sure a lucky mama.







p.s. i took these photos when lucy was only 3 days old…she was starting to get jaundice and needed some sunlight, but we had been in a heavy snowstorm since her birth. on the third day, almost like a miracle, the clouds broke and the sun peeked through our windows for about 30 minutes. russ hurriedly undressed the baby and stood with her for the whole 30 minutes in front of the window, which is all our sweet babe needed. isn't this the most beautiful sight ever?

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Winter this year started late and went a little longer that I think it was technically allowed. No one ever called me to ask if it was ok, so I tried my hardest to make the best of it.

Thankfully, my dear friend Kieffer is always game for a good adventure. She’s usually the one who calls me to make sure I get out of the house every once in a while.

Kieffer and I actually met back in the big city of Rexburg, ID our freshman year of college when pterodactyls still roamed the earth. She lived a couple of doors down from me, but I really hadn’t met her yet. One night where the overwhelming load of homework topped with homesickness was about to do me in, I heard a knock at my door. There stood Kieffer, dressed like a beggar in tattered clothing, blacked out front teeth, ratted out hair with leaves in it, and black charcoal smeared all over her face. She was holding a swaddled Cabbage Patch doll and a tin can as she said in her best British accent, “A penny for the little one?” What? A penny for the…who are you? It was so hard to tell if she was being serious or not because she never broke character. Even when I noticed the doll and started laughing out loud, she stood there with that blasted can and kept repeating “A penny for the little one?” I grabbed some spare change to get her off my doorstep, but had a good laugh when I learned that she ordered pizza with all the money she raised with that stunt. Kieffer and I soon became fast friends, playing pranks on roommates that still make me cry, we were that funny.

Kieffer also shares my love of snowshoeing. We snowshoed all last season, even packing around our friend Karen's twins while I was 3 months pregnant. Something interesting about me is that there are few things I love more than snowshoeing. I think it is the only reason winter was invented. It is so much fun, I even bought a pair of "top of the line" snowshoes for my husband, when I was as single as they come. It was part of my visualizing that one day I would actually have a husband and together we would go snowshoeing. Pretty hefty expectations, I know. Well, I did get me a good husband, but the snowshoeing part wasn't exactly as I saw it in my head. Either there was too much work to be done or maybe I just wore him down after a year of asking…who knows.

Russ was a good sport to accompany Kieffer and I for Lucy’s first snowshoeing expedition. We zipped our little 2 month old snow bunny in her purple snowsuit, strapped her in the Bjorn, wrapped a blanket around her and then tried to zip her inside my coat. Yeah, she was plenty warm.


We had a nice time enjoying the snow in such beautiful surroundings, just 15 minutes from our house. We are so lucky.

We built Lucy’s first snowman and I realized that on days like this, I guess winter isn’t all that bad...

Thunder Thighs---Bringing Them Back!

Sometimes I have to set Lucy down and slowly back away, counting to 10, because I feel like I’m going to kiss her too hard. I mean, when did thighs like this ever stop being the most scrumptiously beautifully yummiest things on earth?! I’ve been trying to bring back the notion that big thighs are beautiful, but Lucy totally beat me to it.

Are You For Real?

I first uttered that phrase as a sort of knee-jerk reflex a few years ago at work. We had just spent a sizeable amount of charitable cash to get a feel-good rendition of “America the Beautiful” into movie theatres across the US in a post-911 response to the fact that America was still about brotherhood. In haste, we threw together a popular music version that was donated to us on the fly as well as some beautiful stock images that spoke of America the Beautiful. It was, in my opinion, a brilliant way to “react” to what had happened to our great country.

So many people helped us on that project…it happened virtually overnight and was on screens across the land of the free before we could even order our buttered popcorn. Our first phone call was from one of the theatre owners in California. Of course, we smiled, kicked our feet up on the desk, and expected to hear stories of how her patrons loved our spot and how it was the perfect answer to such a troubled time in our nation.

To our horror, she mentioned the scores of people who were boycotting her theatres because of our spot. She talked of hate mail, threats, you name it…her patrons were up in arms because of our so-called message of hope. My boss, Gary, had the look of “I’m sorry, your house burned down and you lost everything…oh, and you didn’t have insurance? Yeah, that’s too bad, sir.” He was pale and began pacing back and forth in his office. I knew we were toast. But what happened? For crying out loud, it was AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, people!! All she said was “Everyone is just angry because how on earth could you leave God out at a time like this?” What? Left God out? Really?

Gary and I ran to the closest VCR (remember those?) to replay the spot that we had watched at least 10,000 times before we shipped it out. Guilty as charged. In trying to edit the spot down to 30 seconds, one of our editors cut the line “God shed His grace on Thee” and went straight to “…and crown Thy good with brotherhood” which was also a very timely message. We missed it. Indeed.

It was never our intent to “leave God out” at such a difficult time, so we re-cut the spot, spent way too much money to re-do the whole thing, and had to show up with our tail between our legs to our chairman to apologize.

We waited. No calls meant that we had done a good thing and we could, at last, celebrate our attempt to make America great.

When the phone rang and the “President of the Atheists Organization of America” was on the other end of the line, I was sort of in disbelief. He told me how great it was to go to the theatre and finally connect with an organization that left God out of things. It was the best thing he had seen in years and he was thrilled to support anything we did. Then he went back to the movies a couple days later…and there it was. God was back. He was calling to tell me we should have left it alone the first time. I wanted to start laughing because I was SURE this was my dad disguising his voice or someone playing a twisted prank on me after hearing the turmoil we had just endured. I didn’t know what to say. In my desperate search for the right thing, all that popped out of my mouth, unfiltered, was “Are You For Real?” I’ll never live that down. It echoed through the office at the perfect time when no one was speaking, but everyone was listening. Yes, I said it out loud…and now it’s secretly being made into bumper stickers in China. I’m sure of it.

So the long introduction to this latest post is that I had a similar moment a short while ago. Sweet little Lucy, always a dimpled smile, created such a powerful explosion that when I tried to undress her, it was the only phrase that echoed out of my mouth as I stood there in disbelief. Are You For Real?



Oh, and yes. She was.