I keep meaning to blog, I do. But there’s so much love to catch up on.
There’s a lot of laughter.
And some horseplay.
We’re eating like kings and queens.
And sometimes we even grab a nap.
Thank you, God, for bringing us home to Texas. Thank you for our family.
In late 2008, I was more than thrilled to pack up the few things hurricane Ike had left us and skedaddle up north to Kansas City. I was ready for an adventure with my new husband in the place he had always thought of as home.
Moving from a small Texas coastal town to a medium-sized Midwestern city was a bigger culture shock than I’d expected. I stuck out like a loud, drawling sore thumb, for sure.
But it was fun – braving the snow, learning my way around the city, and enjoying the comforts of living within driving distance of five different Target stores, a BBQ joint on every corner and more Starbucks than you could shake a latte at.
But when we made the decision to come here, we didn’t count on a few things. One, that we’d have a kid. Two, that we’d have two kids. And three, that we’d miss that mosquito-infested, hurricane-threatened, refinery-stenched Texas town and all the crazy people in it so much. So much that it was physically painful at times.
But oh yeah, that all happened.
And despite the wonderful friendships we’d built and the quiet existence we’d carved out in our little Heartland home, we felt that we needed to find a way back to the Lone Star State.
Well friends, after more than a year of trying, God opened a door for us to do so. Today my husband accepted a job offer that will put us right smack dab in the middle of things back home in Texas. Tonight he tendered his resignation with a company that has provided for us since the beginning – a company he’s been with since before we met.
It wasn’t easy for him to do that, and it won’t be easy to say goodbye to those we love here in the city. We’ve got two weeks to get packed and get gone, and we’re a bittersweet mixture of excitement and sadness.
But we’re sure of this, I know. We are SO prayed up on this. We are ready for the next adventure and we know there’s a whole crowd of folks waiting on pins and needles for us to get on home.
Texas, we’ll see y’all soon.
I still haven’t gotten a chance to write Mouse’s birth story, because every time I would try to sit down and put that beautiful day into words I was reminded of this big dark cloud that has been hanging over our heads.
When Mouse was a week old, we received a call from his pediatrician telling us that he’d had an abnormal test result from his newborn screening.
In all 50 states, hospitals are required to collect blood samples from a heel stick shortly after a baby is born. This blood is then tested for a whole host of disorders like PKU, hypothyroidism and MCADD, only to name a few.
Our son’s test had been flagged for high IRT levels – meaning he could have cystic fibrosis, a deadly inherited chronic disorder that could destroy his lungs and leave him unable to process nutrients.
Our second reaction to this news (our first being immediate and fervent prayer) was to learn everything we could about the disease. We’re information junkies, but this wasn’t knowledge we really wanted to have.
Nevertheless, while we waited a week for an appointment to have true diagnostic test done (and another week for those test results) we read all we could find about CF.
Early symptoms of the disease include failure to thrive, coughing and wheezing, stool issues and salty-tasting sweat. So we weighed our baby every few days before his morning feeding. We trembled at each sneeze and cough, inspected every diaper. And yes, we licked the baby. A lot.
And while his sneezes seemed normal, his poop perfectly formed and his weight gain impressive (27 ounces in two weeks), we worried that maybe he did taste a little bit salty.
When it came time to have his chloride sweat test performed, we made the nerve-wracking trek to the children’s hospital. There, the technician strapped electrodes to our baby’s arm and applied an electric current to stimulate his sweat glands, then wrapped a spot on each arm with gauze and plastic. I had to hold him still for this, shushing him through his grunts and cries of protest.
That in itself was a supremely shitty experience, but it had to be done so I put on my calm mom face and did it as my husband sat close by, white as a ghost and looking like he’d like to vomit. Later, as the days ticked by so slowly while we waited for test results, we took turns consoling each other.
That’s one of my favorite things about our marriage – the unspoken agreement that we are forbidden from collectively losing our shit in times of crisis. We have to take turns. Somebody has to be the badass at all times.
We were, thankfully, one of the lucky ones this time. Our son tested negative for cystic fibrosis. But I know too much now, and I can’t just go back to being oblivious to this disease.
While it once proved fatal for children early on, cystic fibrosis is now much more manageable. The average life span for a person with CF reaches into the late 30s. There is no cure, but science is working on it, folks, and with our help I believe that in my son’s lifetime there will be.
Cystic fibrosis is a sneaky little recessive disorder. More than 10 million Americans are symptomless carriers of the defective gene. It’s not something that can be predicted by family history – and it will strike one in every 3,500 live births in America.
Next month is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month and I’d like to begin now doing my part to help fight this disease. I encourage you to read more here, and if you feel called, to join me in donating here.
The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is in the business of adding tomorrows, and I hope you will join me in helping them.
We couldn’t get this one to fit IN the basket anymore though…
March 14, 7:56 a.m.
7 lbs, 14 oz
19.5 inches
Baby Boy Bump #1 vs Baby Boy Bump #2, same shirt, same pants, same gestational length.
On the left, my first son. I gained about 40 lbs and he came out at 8 lbs, 10 0z, 21 inches long. The doctors kept insisting he was going to be 10 lbs. Whoops.
On the right, my second son. I’ve gained 20 lbs exaclty and the doctors think he’s measuring about 7.5 lbs, but probably just as long. So what do you think?
Winner gets a bottle of my encapsulated placenta pills!
JUST KIDDING.
How about a placenta bear instead?***
***I’m sorry if you didn’t realize this thing existed. It’s so creepy, I know. Really, I’m sorry.
When you have a baby, it can be overwhelming to face the piles of stuff you suddenly accumulate. Diapers, pacifiers, bottles – you can (and will) fill up every nook and cranny of your house with this stuff.
Over time though, you require less and less. Piece by piece the baby junk disappears, replaced by more toys than you ever thought you could fit in your living room. Teensy bodysuits give way to t-shirts that were just WAY TOO BIG when you bought them off the clearance rack a year ago, but now strain to cover your kid’s belly, bulging with chocolate milk and chicken nuggets…and a gallon of ketchup.
But one thing remains. Once you’ve discovered the awesomeness of having baby wipes around at all times, you’ll never let them go.
I never put much thought into the existence of baby wipes until I had the baby, of course. Now I’m not sure how I lived without them.
They’re stashed in my purse.
They peek out of shelves in the bathroom.
They’re always easily accessible for my toddler to grab one so he can “yipe my nose.”
I hoard stacks of them in closets and pantries and go to great pains to ensure I never run out of them.
Since I have so many uses for them and they touch all manner of body parts (and even sometimes furniture – I’ll admit to using them for a quick dust here and there) I like my wipes to free of anything smelly. They need to be big enough and thick enough to do some damage to gross messes. Most importantly, they need to be gentle so my eczema-prone husband and son won’t poof up into giant rashy monsters after using them.
Seventh Generation fulfills my needs with a great product, their Free & Clear wipe, available in stashable 64-count packs as well as 256-count mega-packs that combine gentle, cloth-like performance with the thickness you need to wipe away little (and big) messes. They are free of alcohol, dyes, synthetic fragrances, parabens and phthalates.
These wipes have been redesigned with 70% reduced plastic use through the use of plant materials and are larger, thicker and softer than their earlier version.
We’re expecting a new baby anytime now (You hear that, baby? ANY. TIME. NOW.) and would love to celebrate that by giving away a free 64-count pack of Seventh Generation Free & Clear Baby Wipes to one lucky reader!
To enter, leave a comment with your best baby tip. The giveaway will end Friday, March 15th at 11:59 Central. The winner will be chosen via Random.org. Please allow 4-6 weeks for fulfillment of the prize. This giveaway is open to US residents 18 and older only, please.
I was provided this product for review by Seventh Generation. While I have been compensated by both Seventh Generation and The Motherhood, all opinions are my own. As if you doubted that.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Alina, comment #7! Send me your mailing address and Seventh Generation will have those wipes headed your way!
This morning I’m sitting on the couch, looking like a Buddha in yoga pants and a maternity t-shirt, humbly contemplating the blessings of true friendship that I have.
Friends from back home in Texas who, even four years after I abandoned them to the storms and mosquitoes, still regularly keep in touch and send gifts to my boys. Friends from all over the Internet, some of whom I’ve never met, who care for my family and are helping welcome our new son.
I have one friend who sends me morning text messages checking up on me when she somehow just knows it’s going to be a rough morning. I have another who sends me silly Facebook messages and keeps me laughing.
And I have this friend who, even though she juggles four kids, a yard full of dogs, a household and her own successful, busy blog, still took an entire Sunday out of her schedule to shop for and prep a freezer full of meals for my family and me.
Superwoman here, she’s working on running 500 miles this year. She’s mastered a gluten-free lifestyle for herself and her family. Her birthday parties are epic. And she can turn a cart full of groceries into nearly a month’s worth of meals in one afternoon.
Yesterday after a tasty brunch we hit up a few stores for supplies. Greta was kind enough to refrain from making fun of me as I huffed and puffed and grunted my way down the aisles. I had chosen eight or nine different casserole recipes that used groups of similar ingredients and spent about $150 on food and pans – not bad for a dozen dinners (that will yield plenty of leftovers)!
When we got to the house, Greta roasted the chicken, browned the ground meat and boiled the pasta, all while looking cute in her coordinated pink apron/shoes/phone combo. I sat in a chair at the table, ate chocolate and whined about my pelvis.
Over a period of about three hours, we assembled a variety of baked chicken pasta dishes, a couple of Mexican-inspired tortilla bakes, and one very badass macaroni and cheese. There’s some greek chicken pasta in there, some pizza pasta, an enchilada casserole that I’m using all of my willpower to avoid cooking RIGHT NOW and a tater tot casserole that will be my guilty pleasure one day.
My kitchen was a glorious wreck through much of the process, although it cleaned up right quick when we finished. Looking back, the whole experience was an absolute blast and I look forward to being able pay it forward and do this for another mom one day. In the meantime, I plan to make “Freezer Cooking Day” a new tradition around here.
If you’re interested in giving freezer cooking a try, you just need about an hour on the Internet, some good organizational skills, a great friend to help out and one afternoon a month.
I hope to show off some of these meals on Fridays after the baby is born – you know, once I can form coherent sentences again. In the meantime, check out a few resources if you’d like to get started on your own freezer stash!
Yeah, ok, so not really. When the OB asked how I was feeling today, I told him I felt like an irritable, sore gummy bear. And it’s true! I have very little patience. My pelvis is coming apart in places. My belly is so big I can’t reach my feet to tie my own shoes and I’ve officially got two chins.
So here we are, nine months and twenty pounds into our pregnancy. My rings still fit but just barely. I haven’t been able to breathe out of my nose for at least the last three months. I am SO. OVER. IT.
But damn, my hair looks good. So there’s that. (I took this pic this morning. If you compare it to the one I took a couple weeks ago, it looks just about the same, which kind of cracks me up. I have A LOT of purple maternity shirts, yes?)
And the little guy seems happy to bake away in there. He measures up around the 77th percentile now, a sizeable jump from the 47th percentile last month. According to the ultrasound, he looks a lot like Homer Simpson – which totally explains the cravings for donuts and beer.
Anyway, now that we’ve gotten our twin blizzards out of the way and my husband is officially forbidden to travel anymore, I do declare that we are ready to have this baby. Not that the declaration influences him one way or the other, of course. I think he’ s perfectly content to continue harassing my rib cage.
But really, Baby Homer, anytime is fine. Mom and Dad are ready to meet you. Big Brother is beginning to think Mom is lying about there being a baby in her belly. Aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins are looking forward to tickling your toes and snuggling you – and several of them are even flying all the way up here to do so!
Your friends from all over the world, the ones who read this blog and comment and keep your mom sane through everything, they’re ready to see you too. They’re ready for Mom to stop whining about being pregnant and just post baby pictures already, dammit. They’ve even sent gifts for you – outfits and toys and this beautiful, handmade blanket from sweet Jennifer who writes Just Jennifer and lets mom sit at her lunch table on Twitter from time to time.
You are already so loved. See you soon.
I find that when you can’t overcome or prevent something, it’s best to just give yourself over to it fully.
We woke up this morning to snow that was just beginning to fall. Over three hours, we accumulated about seven inches and it’s still falling. The gnomes were not impressed.
Neither was the dog.
At first the kid was less than thrilled.
But wait, this is kind of cool.
Nah, Daddy, I got it.
Ok, that’s enough. Pick me up now!
Final verdict? I think it’s safe to say that while our son is genetically identical to his father in appearance, he’s totally Texan deep down in his blood like his mama and is not a fan of this cold, wet, sticky mess!
