It's Tough to Be Tiny

If I'm posting irregularly (and the Grandmas would say "not nearly enough"), it's because sleep is the most valuable commodity around here these days. Often more valuable than blogging... even food and laundry... definitely housecleaning.

See that grumpy baby in the picture above? Needs a nap. Getting there? A little challenging sometimes. But he's learning. I know it'll get better.

So I'll tell you, gentle reader, the same thing I tell myself...

"It's not forever. It's just for now."

Bros

"Mom! He's touching me! Tell him to stop touching me!"

And So It Begins

My garden is getting away from me.

I went out and "found" my cucumber plants among all the weeds.





Aaaaand they're huge. Gigantic. Enormous. Much bigger than I would normally use. Grrr.

Shoulda been picked a week ago.

Sigh.

Pining

My Mom is now on her way back home and we miss her already. We've all been spoiled.




See? Evan misses his Grandma, too.

Exploitation

I've always enjoyed looking at creative newborn portraits-- soft and wrinkly new babies sweetly snuggled in little props. So I determined that now that I have a good camera (thanks to my brother), I would just have to try my hand at photographing my own baby.

So this morning when Evan was good and sleepy, Mom and I gathered our props and set to it. Mom did the baby-wrangling while I worked the camera. It was so fun. We laughed and giggled at his adorable sleepy expressions as the camera clicked away. We kept going until Evan ended the session with an, um, explosive outburst.

I selected a few of the 75 shots and did some post processing in Gimp to try to get that soft portrait feel. Can't say I'm all that good at it, but I'm happy with the results of my first try.

He Totally Is

"Handsome like Daddy"

(Though he also looks like the most adorable little old man ever!)

Into God's Kingdom

Our little Evan Timothy was baptized today!




His Grandma made a lovely cake to celebrate!

Newborn Daze

It's a beautiful evening outside with the air just cooled by a light sprinkle of rain. Perfect for some garden puttering. Part of me wants to go out and find some little jobs to do among my growing things, but the rest of me is more interested in another particular growing thing. I went out to the garden for a while this morning, and it felt good to connect with my garden for a few minutes, but I found myself very quickly tired.

I look forward to hopefully having some energy again in the near future (energy-- oh, how I miss it!), but for now, I'm also enjoying these sleepy newborn days. These days, where I have nothing more important to do than lie around and nurse and snuggle, are short, I know. Some day soon I'll have to get back to real life. Some day soon I'll have to get back into a routine for our little family. But for now, we're in a state of flux. Baby-gazing flux.

I don't have to think yet about the flow of my day or ordering it according to some predictable schedule. For now I can get lost in getting to know the newest member of our family. I'm just letting him get his days and nights straightened out and get good at nursing (and boy, does he like to practice that!).

There's something about newborns that seems to captivate every person who looks into their little faces. How is it that we could just gaze at a newborn for long periods of time and never grow bored of it? And that's what I get to do for now. Gaze.






In some ways I feel like life is frozen in time, just for me, and just so briefly. My thoughts are completely consumed with this new little person and I can't possibly focus on anything else. But I know that very soon Time will snap his fingers and the spell with be broken and life will resume it's galloping pace. I'll be swept up in it, too, and my little boys will grow up right in front of me.






And that's another thing. Boys. I have boys. Plural. Children. Kids. Boys.

It hasn't quite sunk in yet for me. We've been a one-child family for so long that I don't yet realize what it is to have children instead of a child.

And I love little boys. I love that Jonah has a brother. I love that they're brothers.

Everyone I know seemed to think that we should be having a girl this time, presumable because we have a boy already. Of course I would have been happy either way, but I secretly favored another boy. I like boys.

Do I sound all rosy and hazy and fuzzy and sweet? It's probably hormones. All I'm saying is that this part is good. I may be tired and sore, and the fussing of a tiny baby can be fatiguing. But it's a short time, and this time is good.

The Big Visit

MY siblings all came to MY house. All of them! (There are six... I have five brothers and one sister. And I'm the oldest, so I'm the boss.) And they were at. my. house. Seven years I've been married and living away, and I've never had my family at MY house. I loved having them here.

I also loved the fact that my new sweet little guy was present for this event (as we've been hoping for months) and he was, of course, the main attraction.






(Oh, and I loved the fact that I have a GREAT excuse to do nothing at all. I got to just soak it all up without having to do all the work of putting together a family gathering. My mom is awesome cuz she pretty much took care of it all.)

We made sure to fill the very short visit with lots of fun.




There was swashbuckling.







War wound showing...




Al fresco dining... (on MY porch! With MY new deck furniture! All my family, but minus Dad because he had to leave early to be back at work Monday, which we were very sad about.)




Baby gazing...





Baby snuggling...



Gymnastics...






Buggy riding...





Buggy driving...





Multi-tasking...



General cuteness...





Horse riding...






Fishing...





Little brothers with facial hair...






And of course more baby love.



Oh, and we took pictures. A LOT of pictures. Three photographers documenting this rare get-together makes for a lot of pictures. But it may not happen again for a looong time, so we knew we had to make the best of it.



(If you're interested in more of our reunion, as well as baby pics, check out my Mom's and brother's blogs: Pie in the Sky and Ten Million Pixels.)

Baby Love

Announcing the Little Brother

He's here!

Evan Timothy!
8 lbs, 2 oz; 20 inches long
Born at 2:30 pm July 7

My heart is too full and my body too exhausted to write much now, but I'll probably gross you all out with all the details in the near future. I will tell you that he was born at home, in my bathroom, in an unusual malpresentation-- he was posterior (his back to my back), AND his neck was bent all the way back so that he came out literally face-first. THAT was rough. Right now, I think I could sleep for a week if my brain would shut off and let me. My mom got here a few hours after he was born and I get to be spoiled and cared for for the next two weeks.

For now, I'm off to more sleepy snuggling.

By the way, his name, Evan, means "God is gracious" and He certainly is.

Looking for the Funny

I am tired and achy and mopey. Months of unending back and hip aches are now steadily wearing down my morale. I know the end is in sight, but these days are the longest ever. All I can think about is how much I'd love to serve an eviction notice to the Little Inhabitant. I've also not been able to do anything. Physically, everything is difficult, and whatever I do undertake (with much left undone), I seem to screw up. In the last few days, I've botched batches of bread, yogurt, goat cheese, and creme brulee, to say nothing of supper each night.

I guess I'm just distracted and out of sorts. I'm not good at looking on the bright side, but I'm gonna make an effort in order to try not to be such a whiney blogger. (Ooops, I think I just failed in my first paragraph...)

~~~

Jonah likes to "play" with the baby, and I find this so endearing and hilarious that I'm so excited for them to play together as they grow up. He loves to feel the baby rolling around and wiggling, but he's always disappointed if the baby is not awake and active whenever he happens to put his hands on my belly (it's kinda surprising that ever happens, though, cuz this baby is wiggly!).

So his favorite "wake up the baby to play" trick? Blow a raspberry. He puts his hands on the upper part of my belly and blows a raspberry near my belly button and sure enough, every time, the baby stretches out and jumps around. Then Jonah giggles maniacally and does it again. They go on like this as long as I let them. (Not a big fan of the slobbery belly...) Of course I like to imagine that it's a delightful game for the baby as well as for Jonah, though in reality, s/he is probably just trying to figure out where that strange noise is coming from.


~~~


Jonah has a habit of playing with and breaking my hairclips. You know those plastic claw cips... they're kinda cheap and flimsy. Yes, I do leave them lying around where he can get them because I'm a slob that way, but he's also been known to go get one out of the "hair stuff basket" when he needs something to serve as a construction crane or whatever else. But it drives me nuts to be looking for my favorite clip and then find it in pieces and then have to wait a few weeks until I get to the store again to buy a new one and then spending more money on cheap plastic hairclips. So now there's a rule, "Absolutely No Playing With Mommy's Hair Clips".

This morning he had one, and Nathan told him he couldn't play with it. Jonah threw a fit, of course, but we stuck to our guns. After Daddy left for work, Jonah tried negotiating with me.

"I promise I will be careful and won't break it!" I reiterated to policy and told him not to ask again.

A few minutes later-- "When we rise from the dead can I play with it?"

"Um... what?"

"On the Last Day. Can I play with your hairclips then?"


~~~


And then there's this.




Someone gave Jonah some old containers of bubbles.




These things are older than me. Not much, but they are. This one says 1980 on it.

The little kids on the labels are cute and soooo dated-looking.

These are vintage bubbles, people.


Two things crack me up about these, though.




The big bottle has a little indented slot in the plastic with the words "Have adult cut here to make bank."

A bank? For reals? That is just... not what I would have thought of when I see a bottle of bubbles. After the bubbles are used up, you can drop pennies into it and for the next several years have an old plastic bubble bottle full of pennies floating around your house. Oh, just what I always wanted...

Maybe it was their way of recycling back then.

But they needed it to combat this:


"Chemtoy"

Yes, Chemtoy. Can you even think of a worse name for a toy company? I guess chemicals were cool waaay back then. Now with all our "green" companies and safety regulations, a name like "Chemtoy" would never fly. I'm sure the ingredients and plastic composition are exactly the same now as they were then, but the name? Aiee.

~~~

There. That's my list of Moderately Funny For Today. I feel slightly cheered, I think. Now maybe I'll be able to avoid crying into a cup of tea and can read Jonah a book, instead. Or take a nap.

Um, heard any good jokes lately? (I'll take distracting book recommendations as well...)