*happy mother’s day. i hope your day is filled with creepy babies and handmade goodness*
Tag Archives: love
bump day
yesterday, i got to peek at the person who makes this belly swell and round. it was my first and only ultrasound of this pregnancy. this baby has done a beautiful job growing. but i’m glad that i don’t need an ultrasound everyday to know that. i have a daily reminder and it’s there every time i look down.
i love this baby and i love this motherly body. i love this belly swell. bring it on, baby. round me out.
weekending
all the frustration from last weekend over arrested productivity melted away this weekend. it’s hard not to feel enthused about a weekend that begins with donuts. and it’s hard not to feel productive during a weekend that you’re hosting such helpful visitors. my parents are such a support and a help to my growing family. i was very thankful and happy to have them visit us this weekend. months ago, when we had just moved into a new house and i subsequently found out i was growing a person, i felt a little at loss at how i was going to pull everything together.
and to be truthful, it’s not all together but it’s getting there. i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. and i’m feeling like we MIGHT just have a good deal of life progress completed before we settle down to meet this new human. i’m not quite ready but i’m feeling confident that i will be soon. which is more than i can say for when i was expecting darla.
i remember mike and i having a conversation on the way to the hospital for my birthing time with d and discussing how we hoped it was a false alarm. we were not ready. there are days that i’m still not ready for the force that is Darla in my life but this moment in time feels…bear with me for this analogy… like the effects of a shot of warm liquor*. it spreads through you reaching to the tips of your toes and fingers slowly until you’re warm all over and you have this calmness that says “this is right and this is good.” that’s what the conclusion of this weekend feels like. i’m feeling right and i’m feeling good.
and i wouldn’t be in this mentality if it weren’t for all the helpers and support i have in my life. my parents, my husbeau, neighbors and friends and even my little helper that helped {somewhat, sometimes} getting projects accomplished this weekend. my weekend even consisted of helpers i’d never met before since i attended the birth without fear meet-up on saturday. it was an inspiring day and it helped me put a finger on some of the things i’m working through with this pregnancy.
oh gawd. you know you’re in your 3os when you are looking back at your weekend and are excited about the gardening and painting instead of the parties and the concerts.
but it was fulfilling and it was progress and i am thankful. and i am in my 30s. so this is right and this is good.
*ok, so disclaimer: i haven’t had a shot of warm liquor in YEARS. a more accurate description of this would be what it used to feel like when my body could tolerate that lifestyle more. a shot of warm liquor would probably feel A LOT different now, not nearly as poetic. in case i forgot to mention this…i’m in my 30s now.
our week
low lighting gave our pictures this week that fuzzy look, which is ok because that’s how our week felt. anyone else have a fuzzy week?
normal life rolls on out and the magic is in the small stuff: washing up and organizing saved baby items, visiting the market with my girl for a waffle reward as a stimulus after i’d been out late at a birth, watching darla take on the pottery wheel. you can see that girl means business. i think my favorite little life detail is in that second photo up there. the ever so slight arch in darla’s eyebrow as she takes in the enormity of her donut. i wasn’t going to include this last photo of myself {that darla took} until i noticed that i, too, have that slight arch of my eyebrow present in that image.
that might be the most important thing that happened in my week. even though much grander life events took place this week, transitions and births and responsibilities, that small shared trait trumps them all. there’s little in life so poetic as the slight arching of a woman’s brow. those few centimeters can mean the difference between living and existing.
*i’m sending out my gratitude for the living that took place this week
…and for the existing.
i hope you had a good one. all my best for your weekend.*
our week
a
small
collection
of moments
from our week.
in my journal this week i wrote a list of the things i want my life to be about:
love. beauty. passion. gratitude. and the human spirit.
i think we did pretty ok getting that all in there.
* i hope you enjoy a lovely weekend *
getting reconnected
until this past week of glorious weather i had no idea how essential being out of doors would be for me to feel connected to this pregnancy.
being outside has always been an essential part of my well-being, i think. i remember choosing hours of play outside over television or indoor play. in my motherhood, i’ve tried to get darla outside and into the wild as much as possible. i feel more at peace outside and my brain functions differently than when i’m cooped up inside.
beginning this pregnancy at the start of this very long, harsh winter was pretty rough on me. darla was a january baby born in a slightly warmer climate so i was out and about for the first 2 trimesters with her and still pretty active during the last trimester, heck we even walked down to the Obama inauguration 2 weeks before I was due. it seemed a little more normal to have lots of activity in early pregnancy and to hunker down a bit more during the last stretch. having the opposite happen with this pregnancy has not been easy.
i don’t function so well indoors. i get a little crazed about organization and overwhelmed by how many items are in our household. i have it in my heart hopes that i’ll move to a warmer climate someday that allows for outdoor adventure year round. but let’s bring it back to the fact that this week has shifted me back into focus for preparing for this birth.
so we’ve been out every day since it’s been possible. i can say without a doubt that sunshine, fresh air and green living things are going to be quite necessary for me to bring this baby into this world. and now i’m feeling oh so happy to be having a summer baby.
i’ve gotten my mocs out on walks. alone. it seems essential to my spiritual being to spend time alone in nature. i think it’s always been part of my personal faith practices to spend time alone in the wilderness, contemplating the small habitats of the tiny creatures juxtaposed to the vastness of the earth and the heavens. it’s important to my spiritual being to feel connected to it all. i just find that hard to do cooped up inside walls.
i feel it all coming together and it feels good. the reawakening of the earth is resonating deep inside me and i feel more connected now than ever before. how wonderful it was to feel this life quicken and grow inside me just as the earth started to do the same. how wonderful to feel this baby gain strength and see my belly bloom just as the blossoms appear in our world. and i can only imagine how wonderful it will feel to have life burst forth at just about the time when all life in the northern hemisphere is at its peak.
i’m so thankful that the world within me is connected to the world without me.
my daughter is my hero
girl crush moment:
this girl is my hero. she’s so fearless and fun. she’s easily the person having the best time everywhere she goes. she doesn’t know a stranger. she dresses up in her girliest outfit and then hunts all over the house to find her “light sabers” to stuff in her purse because she “doesn’t go anywhere without them.” she knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to go for it. she puts together the best outfits. she’s smart and she’s funny. and she’s punny! she’s determined and affectionate. she’s helpful and enthusiastic. she’s creative. she’s independent but loves being part of a team.
in short, she’s all the things i want to be when i grow up.
what i feel about this age + stage is that i realize mike and i may have very little to do with how great this person is. when they are young you feel this overwhelming weight of how they’re going to turn out. and then, even though it seems like you do a million things wrong along the way, they turn out to be these amazing little people who are just so cool. i pray i’ll remember this with our second person and just CTFO about everything other than love and fun.
i hope you all have a kid hero.
that was the wrong thing to say
the past couple years of my life have really opened my eyes to just how often people, myself being my most studied person in this hypothesis, say the wrong thing.
because the problem is in the saying.
i’ve always been a loquacious being. i talk too much most of the time. it took me a really long time, about 30 years, to learn that what most people need is for someone to listen. birth work has really helped me work on this skill. i have to say that it’s improved my marriage, my ability to help women in pregnancy and it’s starting to seep into other areas of my life as well.
my confession is that i’ve been attending a support group for almost 2 years now. in a good support group a member is able to share his or her thoughts, feelings, current life troubles and other members simply listen. no one tries to solve your problems for you. no one offers you advice. no one even really comments about what you’ve shared. people simply listen. being in this environment for the past couple of years has really helped me examine how i behave as an active listener to fellow humans.
i’ve found that when i feel pulled the most to open my mouth to give the world my answers is when i need to quiet down the most. more often than not, those are the times there is something going on that i really need to hear. i just have to listen deeper.
because when someone is depressed they don’t want to hear your advice about how they should fix it. they want you to listen. in the listening you are saying “i’m sorry you’re going through this but i’ll be here for you anyway.” when someone is sharing a past traumatic experience they don’t want you to offer your opinion on how to process that life event. they want you to listen. because by sharing and retelling their life they are slowly doing the work of healing. what people really want is the dignity to work through something on their own with friends by their side. it’s powerful to come to realizations on one’s own. it’s more powerful to do that while a friend’s hand rests gently and quietly on your back. sometimes we don’t know all the things we know until we have to tell them to another human being.
and that’s the kind of listener i want to be. i don’t want to be the person with all the answers. i want to be the sounding board that gets to quietly observe my friends discover the answers on their own. i want to listen with my heart and not my head. my head is that busy place with thoughts criss-crossing and hurdling over one another. my heart is that quiet place. my heart is still and peaceful and sure. i want to listen with my heart. and i want that from others as well.
this girl
i feel that the blog has been pretty pregnancy-centric lately. After 4 years of this space being devoted almost entirely to darla-doings i’m sure it’s a bit weird that i’ve not included much about her on here as of late.
just to be clear, she’s still my main girl, my mostly companion.
what can i say about this girl? she’s still running around my life as crazy as ever. but i have a good feeling about the spacing of these two children. D is really into helping and doing at this stage. she has a new chore-helper chart that she has really taken on with gusto. she likes feeling like part of the team and she is always willing to provide a hand if i need it. and boy am i going to need it here in a few months.
but mostly she is just so wildly independent. sometimes it can feel like hours have gone by where i haven’t seen her bc she’s got some project going on for herself. i spend a lot of time wondering if this next babe is going to be as independent as his/her sister. hard to say. darla’s that way partly by nature and partly because mike and i try to take a firm parenting stance that we will help her with the things that she actually needs help with {all sharp objects} but not the things she can absolutely do for herself {like put on her socks and shoes. or wipe her own butt.} because doing things for her is ultimately very unhelpful, right? she’s not afraid to try to figure something out for herself, which i admire and hope she keeps. and she frequently tells us that she knows everything before it even happens so she has all the answers in life. ha.
well, y’all, wish me luck with that independence with this second one comes along. please send good vibes that it will be a helpful thing and not a headache thing, like darla taking a nursing session as an opportunity to try to ride her bike down the street by herself for the first time. or to cut her hair by herself…which is coming up a lot in talks lately. even though that wouldn’t be the worse thing in the world and i would kinda like to let her just rock whatever haircut she thinks looks best on her. anyway, please just send good vibes that her independent involvement with sharp and cutting objects is minimal when my attention has to be divided.
but i think all is going to be well because she’s my little bud. she’s my main girl.
and she’s going off to school come fall anyway so momma has a break. but that’s a story for another post.
Bun in the {L}oven
think you know what this picture means? other than that i need to give the inside of our oven door a scrub down?
Well, it only seems appropriate that on this day of love i disclose to the webiverse that this summer we’re going to have a new little wrucker to love on.
i gots a bun in my loven oven!
yeah, i just called it a loven oven and what’s more is i’ve used that term with clients before. i am nothing if not tactful and professional.
do you guys know what this means? this gets to turn into a pregnancy blog! the internet needs more of them! there aren’t enough out there.
but in all seriousness, i do plan on documenting this pregnancy here. now that i do birth work it’s been quite a different experience for me. it’s been a good one. it’s put me back in the shoes of my clients, reminding me what this simultaneous state of power and vulnerability feels like. to put it bluntly i’ve had to put my money where my mouth is. i am experiencing again how hard it can be as a woman in our society to trust in my body. i am experiencing the overwhelming amounts of information out there that requires sifting through to discover the best, informed plan for my family.
i’m reminded of what it feels like for a tiny human to be an acrobat inside you and to feel ferociously determined to protect and provide for that person with each nudge and kick.
so, we’re on our way to becoming a family of four. darla has BIG plans for her and this new babe. we told her on her 5th birthday and she was absolutely the sweetest to me. when she got her bike for her birthday she said “but where are we going to put the baby seat?” which filled me with fear of what i’m going to have to intercept down the road {bike pun!} and happiness that she sees toting a baby on her bike as normal, since that is what she experienced.
well, happy valentine’s day to all. sending you love vibes to you and yours from the growing ours.
momjeanz 