thursday.

dreams in my head...

this ikea rug. will i ever stop loving gray? or gray and white together?

wood floors. i'll take a huge house too, but actually, i'd be fine in a tiny apartment if it had wood floors...

every single thing from the anthro kitchen section. and i guess a nice big kitchen with white shelves and cabinets to put it all... and while we're at it a good range. 

 

and while we're at it,  maybe a cute suit for summer... (and a body to fit into it)

gray. again. i can't help it. i don't know if i'll ever love another.

we'll just call today Thirsty Thursday.

anyways, somebody's waking up from a 3 hour nap, so it's back to reality.

jealousy

right when ellis was born, just before they handed him to me

today i am jealous of everybody who is pregnant.
yeah, that's ridiculous. i was just that barely over a month ago. and i already want to be again. not really the first months (though, i hate to admit, i had the easiest pregnancy, no morning sickness or heartburn or varicose veins or anything like that), or even the middle ones that are fun cause people can see you are pregnant but you feel great. no, i just want the last month, the anticipation, the huge self that you roll through space and the bit of you that enters a room before your face and the anticipation of labor.


is that crazy? labor. the only part i want to do again. labor and birth and give me that newborn and let me feel how he's the same temperature as me and how soft he is. and then, if you don't mind, put him back in there and let me do it again. my labor was horrible. ok, not horrible. it was horribly painful and i was painfully not there in my head (thanks ambien that was given to me right before contractions started, so i didn't actually ever get to sleep). i want a do over. and another newborn.


i hate admitting to others that i've had an easier time with this whole mothering thing. you are supposed to be bruised and battered! unsure of what you are doing and calling for help throughout the day! exhausted (i admit to a day here and there where i say something mean or can't stay awake to drive my portion of a roadtrip) and emotional. breastfeeding is supposed to be hard, hormones are supposed to be all over the place. i don't know, maybe heavenly father knew that i needed this first one to go this well, or  i wouldn't have another before damon was a doctor. cause i am also jealous of those people who have babies and their husbands are home every night at 5 and don't have to study in the back room or on weekends, who can go on trips together when they want to. who don't have to look forward to summer (2 more months!) before husband can help at night (ellis, i hope you are sleeping through the night by then) and play during the day. anyways. i've had it easy. besides labor, it's been a dream and even labor was a dream through all it's pain and grogginess and people and hospital.


this morning i read CJane's last birth story- well, only part 4. Part 4! can you imagine? if my birth story had 4 parts it would go like this: 1: barfing 2: roaming and the jacuzzi that provided no relief 3: crying and taking the Lord's name (but not really, i really wanted Him to help me out there) and 4: hating how many doctors and nurses were in my room and a little boy.


her story, though, is great. her second birth was at home (the first in a hospital, with an epidural) and i love reading the similarities that all women must have while going through that journey.  the 'i can't do this anymore' that every woman says right before it's time to push (yeah, i said it, over and over and over). you watch, you'll say it. the part about trying to surrender, but feeling like you are being tortured, about meeting new people while you are totally vulnerable and probably naked. CJane and i had almost the exact same moment:


"Suzanne's assistant Mary arrived. I said, "Hi Mary nice to meet you," and then I grunted my way through a contraction. I thought it was funny at the time. How many people do you meet for the first time while in a birthing tub, in your final stages of labor and totally naked?"


a student nurse came in while i was in the jacuzzi. they introduced her to me, i don't remember her name, but i remember saying (crying) 'hi' and then thinking, 'i'm totally naked and i don't know you but you are going to spray water on my back, so thanks i guess'. funny huh? labor must be the universal condition for women.


the intensity of contractions, your body feeling like it's splitting in two, feeling a crowning head with your hand (strangest feeling ever) and then a baby. and then it's over and gone and your baby starts growing and before you know it he's almost 5 weeks old and starting to smile at you. 


and you start wanting to do it again. and start being insanely jealous of anyone who is nearing the end of pregnancy. you start needing the excitement, the anticipation, the pain and the whole miserable joyful thing. and you want to become one of those women- the ones who are pregnant a ridiculously short amount of time after your baby is born, i mean, he doesn't even sit up, and she's having another one!?! two in diapers? two still nursing?? what kind of crazy woman...


i want it to be me. damon, can i have another now? if CJane is having another, i think it's perfectly acceptable.

and, an hour later.

of course. he literally had no poop in the middle or back of the diaper, it was all in the front/out the front. 

magic

I'm here you guys!! Well, if here is a futon
covered in red sheets smack dab in provo, utah, then yes, that is where I am.  5 inches away from my baby son- my 1 month old baby son's face. He's in dreamland, mouth all hanging open and breathing baby breath into my face. And I've been studying him for half an hour now. He has a piece of fuzz on his pink little eyelid, but i'll leave that well enough alone, and also the little boogie in the right nostril there. Yes, that can wait till later too. I wonder what his hands are looking like under the cover, like I forgot what they were like since the last time I maybe stuffed them in my mouth. Weird? It's innevitable. Have a kid. You automatically want to stick another person's hands and feet in your mouth like some psychotic. And I wonder what his little legs are lookin' like too, dressed up in their baby legs legging thingies, the cute blue and brown and green stripes, the ones that push a little blob of fat thigh over the top edge... But I don't dare unwrap him and risk waking him up and then he'll take away that serene wide open mouth with it's shallow little breath. So I will just have to wait till he wakes up, and then I can study him as a wide eyed one month old. Sigh. It's quite the routine, this nonstop inquiry into his little blob of a self.

I need another one. I need to give birth again and ache when I pick him up and drudge throuugh the night feedings and look at those baby acnes again- and I'm still doing just that. It's so good I need to be doing it twice simultaneously.

a boy and his dad...

first dad does his hair and dresses him up in a 'shirt' that we got our puppy 9 months ago... and still have... and since it fits ellis so well, why not?

and just hangin' out...

you're funny, dad

and kinda strange

i'm trying to make a fatter baby. he's up a pound since birth.

so sweet

i love his little arms... sometimes i wanna chew on them, they're like little hot wings... new-mom -induced cannibalism. 

In which the newborn didn't sleep.

A little peeky peek at some pictures i finally uploaded and am going through.  Unfortunately, Ellis doesn't really go for the whole "newborns sleep 16-18 hours a day" thing, and he isn't really napping much during the day at all.  Soooo, these have flown by the wayside, along with doing an actual real newborn shoot.  I can't get him to sleep and then stay asleep while I undress/pose him. I think daylight savings time will help though, cause he usually starts his 3 hour sleep stretches around 5 or 6 at night, and now that the sun will still be at a decent place in the sky, it may just work.  So tonight, before the Bachelor finale (squeee!!!) we'll  try to take some more.  He's about a week past the latest-i'd-like-to-take-newborn-pictures deadline, but we'll see if we can get somethin'.

This one was taken when he was about 5 days old.

Graphic Contents.

Ahh, so innocent and sweet looking....

You'd never guess the horrible and disgusting and gruesome things that this guy can create/inflict upon the naive. 

Yesterday after laying him down and walking around/cleaning up for about half an hour, I look down and see something nasty attatched to my shirt.  It looked a little something like this:

Yeah, his nasty cord stump had fallen off and attached itself straight unto my bosom. Damon got home right then and when I handed Ellis to him, it fell on the floor. I asked him if he wanted to keep it as a keepsake... He picked it up and threw it away.

This morning (most mornings), Ellis got a little... constipated.  And I mean he was having a hard time there, for about 2 hours. It was starting to get sad to watch, and he was getting more and more upset.  Thank goodness for babycenter.com and baby books, there's no need to even consult an expert anymore.  There are numerous suggestions on how to relieve constipation in babies- let's just say that I picked the one that seemed like it would offer the quickest and most effective relief.  And it came to pass that I made the right choice.  The wrong choice was in not preparing for the immediate effect, and the manner in which the relief came.  Let's just say it looked almost exactly like this:

It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Clothes, pillow cases, sheets, everything in the nearby vicinity.  And then, to top it off, after we stepped out of the shower and I wrapped a robe around us, he peed on us. 

Glad to know all my late nights and made-to-order Chef role is appreciated. 

Good thing he looks so sweet...

Very Serious Matters.

1. Happy Birthday!!!  It's my mom's birthday today and we wanted to give her a blog shout out!  She's off in Rome with her fiance- yeah, rough life huh?  We hope she's having an awesome time and are glad we got to spend the last week with her in Iowa and Texas!

2.  We are going home tomorrow!  So excited to be back in our place and with Damon and to get back to our little routine.

3.  Ellis is now sleeping 3 yes 3 hours at a time at night!!  Hallelujah! That means we are only using about 4 diapers a night instead of 8-ish.

4.  Sorry to all the friends I haven't called back- if I'm not feeding or changing or staring at Ellis, my brain is mushy and I don't remember to do anything.  I promise I want to talk to you though!  And I love you for calling!

Ok, we're out!

Hey Dad

We miss you!

We're having a good time though- I'm being held constantly and still gettin' my meals every 2 hours on demand, and getting to sleep with mom in bed. It's a pretty good situation...