Oliver's Story.

 I cannot remember all the details of your birth, but I do remember the feeling that
surrounded your arrival. It was so very fast, so very sweet, and the closest I have been
to heaven. It was the beginning of life and the moment I became a mother to a son.

On the night you were born, I went to bed wondering, and I awoke knowing.
You were coming fast.
So quickly I could hardly grasp what was happening. A light was turned on,
but I do not remember doing it. Our house filled with hurried bodies, but I can't
recall when they arrived. I know that I was begging you to just come, while wishing
for a break and a breath. The labor happened quickly, full of long moments that seemed
unending and continuous. "Slow down" my mind whispered as my heart screamed "Hurry up!!"

Prayers were fervently and furiously spoken, the intensity of each drawn out second was overwhelming. And God was there, sweet one. On the night you were born, His presence
was so very near and He was with me. He was with you, too, whispering one last dream
into your heart before you entered this world.

And, in less than two hours, there you were. A boy child, all small
and chubby and quietly staring. You felt at home on my chest as I stared back
at my son. I already knew you by heart. There is no greater moment. I could relive
it unendingly in my mind, and each detail is purely precious. Your lake blue eyes
reflected a similar feeling I shared with your sister, and my heart will never forget.

Your father named you Oliver Steven. Because we had a promise from
God that you would be peaceful. And because your Grandpa Steve is one of the
greatest men to ever live and there is no one we would rather you be like.

On the night you were born my world shifted and my heart grew even bigger.
I had known you were coming, but I never realized what I was missing
until I could not imagine my world without you in it.

Dear little Oliver, you are a promise and a prayer that was answered.
On the night you were born, our family became one step closer to complete.

 Note: It's been quite a while since I posted last, and it will probably be a while before I do again.
This is like a journal of my life, and I wanted to record it here before I forgot.

Our Love Story - Part Four

(Hooray!)

 I am at a very happy place in my life. This past weekend my parents and my Granny stopped by for a visit. It was so special to see the culmination of generations of loving and growing and giving. That "someday" when I'll be holding grandbabies of my own seems so far off, and yet I know it will be here quicker than I could prepare for. 

Each phase of life brings such sweetness. I've witnessed my parents grow older and simultaneously grow happier.

It's such a funny thought, to think I could ever be happier than I am right now. 

And yet,

watching Daddy sing to Rosemary,

seeing Granny soak up Rosie smiles,

and silently feeling the joy of Mom as she is surrounded by those she loves…

I have proof that happiness grows…

and grows and grows.

Babies.

 

 (Timmy and older brother Kyle, 1985)

Timmy's older brother recently gave him this photo of the two of them in 1985. It is one of the few baby pictures I have of him, and when I look at his chubby, grinning face, I feel like I'm looking right at Rosemary. They have the same face shape, the same eyes, and that same adorable smirk.

(Me and my older sister Liz, 1988)

Tim says he wants Rosemary to look just like me, but I'm definitely in favor of her looking more like Timmy. 


I love my two blue-eyed babes. 

Shades for Rosemary.

Rosemary got herself some pretty cool shades today at Target. She's all ready to soak up some Hawaiian sunshine. 

This is her current face. She sucks her bottom lip and looks so darn adorable I can hardly stand it.

Oh, and our teething crisis is finally starting to pay off. The tiniest little nubbin of a tooth is poking through – her bottom left eye tooth. Which seems like a pretty hilarious first tooth. She's going to look like a baby dinosaur. 

Ohmygoodness.

Cra-zy.

 Last week was cra-zy, with an emphasis on crazy. 

Fun times involved hours of complete hysteria and inconsolable tears, waking up in the middle of the night to more tears, not-under-any-circumstances taking a nap, and a serious meltdown in the backseat during a longest-hour-of-my-life car ride.

Teething makes everyone in our house cry.

More (seriously) fun times included…

…getting an entire new Rosemary wardrobe of gorgeous dresses, shoes, tights, and sweaters from a dear friend whose baby girl was incredibly well-dressed. (See above picture. Yes, I sort her clothes by color.)

… visiting my parents.

… giving Rosemary her first drink from a cup.

… getting the second season DVD of Downton Abbey in the mail.

Here's to a new week full of fun.

Five.

 

At five months, Rosemary is getting a tooth or two. (And our normally cheerful girly has been such a little fuss-pants that I have accomplished just about zero of everything in the past six days.)

At five months, Rosemary likes to be naked and to chew on everything. She loves sweet potatoes, but seems to dislike peas. Her cheeks are so chubby I think they actually impair her vision somewhat, and she weighs just under sixteen pounds. She is already wearing some size 12 month clothes. Oh-my-goodness. 

I think her eyes are going to stay a soft sparkley blue, and her bald patches are starting to get new growth of significantly lighter hair.

Her grandpa calls her Raspberry.

My favorite part of the day is getting her out of her crib in the morning. She still sleeps through the night and goes to bed without problems. She loves Sophie the giraffe and she likes to hang out on her tummy.

So far, going gluten-free hasn't seemed to help her too much, but I have noticed that not eating gluten results in extreme weight loss (in me, not her), so we're all happy.

Happy because we choose to be,

happy because there's no good reason not to be.

Happy because five months with Rosemary
is pretty amazing.

Baby Quilt - Finally Finished!

This is the quilt that I started nine months ago…

This is the quilt I finished yesterday…

This is the quilt I made for Baby Love.

Good news:

She loves it!

Bad news:
Sweet potato spit-up stains pretty quilts.

Some Things, on a Monday.

1. Tim is definitely, obviously, certainly Rosemary's favorite person. Her whole face lights up when he walks into the room. I think that, because I haven't left her sweet little side for more than a couple hours since she was born and we always, without fail, have a feeding rendezvous every three hours or less (except during the night)… I have kind of become just an everyday part of the scenery of her life. Good old, always-there MOM, that's me. So Tim is her favorite, and in truth I can't blame her, and we both await his arrival home each night with eager expectation.

2. Our tickets to Hawaii have been purchased. The thought of Hawaii kind of cancels out any negative thought that exists. Baby crying inconsolably because she can't figure out how to roll the other direction? Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii.

3. As if I wasn't already socially awkward enough with my crazy diet… I'm gluten free now too. It is with great reluctance that I have given up gluten. Rosemary has had a lot of congestion and a rash that won't disappear since she was born, and the doctor thinks it might be a gluten intolerance. That's kind of the conclusion he came to by default, since the most common food issues with babies come from either meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, or gluten, and gluten is the only one of those five things I eat. So you're wondering what gluten-free vegans eat. The answer? Vegetables, vegetables, nuts, some fruit, vegetables, and rice cakes. After one week of this, I'm starving. 

5. Our part-time worker decided to go back to school (the nerve!), so now Timmy is back to working six days a week. (Thank goodness we are closed on Sunday.) This has been a devastating blow to the morale of our home. But, my friends, there is hope on the horizon. Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii.

6. I showed my risk-loving husband and similarly cra-zy little sister this video, in an attempt to prove once and for all that bungee jumping is insane. Instead of the "ohmygosh, I'm never bungee jumping again!!!" response I was smugly expecting, they both excitedly stated, "See?! She lived! I told you it was safe." Ummm, guys… when a survival story includes the word "miraculous", SAFE cannot be an additional adjective used in its description.

7. I've fully embraced winter hibernation. Pajamas, fireplace, and baby snuggles are my only ammo against the winter blues that three snowstorms in one week brings. Oh, that and…  

Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii.

Oh, how we roll…

Yesterday morning I informed my daughter that it was high time she start rolling over. Seriously. She did it - ONCE - and then decided she was content being a stationary little log and never tried it ever again. 

So we settled on the living room floor for a little BBC (Baby Boot Camp). For half an hour I helped (forced) her to "practice" rolling from her tummy to her back. I told her of all the wonderful things rolling could accomplish. 

She went stiff as a board and squawked at me like a baby birdy until I finally gave up.

Two hours later she was chilling on her back, contentedly sucking her fingers and cooing. And I was all like, "Whatever, baby. It's your loss." 

I took my eyes off her for one teensy second, only to turn around and find her on her stomach looking at me as if to say,

"That's right, Mom.
This is how I roll."

I promptly flipped her back and watched her do it again,

and again

and again.

Baby girl went from a stationary log to a rolling-over pro in the space of three hours.

Her technique is hilarious (and definitely not how I was trying to teach her). She curls herself up in a little ball and then shoots her legs out like a ninja. She really is her father's daughter.

We have a tiny rolling ninja in the house. I'm pretty sure that once she figures out how to roll from tummy to back, our lives will never be the same.

A Coversation: About French

Me: I wish we could teach Rosemary a foreign language.
I know some French. Let's say something in French. 

Timmy: Ok!

Me: Bonjour je m'appelle Becki. Je suis magique.

Timmy: … TRIANGLE!

I learned some basic French before we went on our honeymoon to Paris. I basically knew how to say, "My name is Becki. This is my husband, Tim. We are newlyweds. It is so magical. If I eat dairy I die."

And I could only remember it if I said each phrase in that exact order,
so needless to say I didn't have very many meaningful French conversations.

And I think it is obvious from the above conversation that Timmy knows ZERO French.

So I guess Rosemary won't be bilingual, but…

she has a Daddy that will always make her laugh.

(so who needs French?)

Chiropractors & Belly Laughs

 

We all barely survived last week. Rosemary had her first cold, followed by an ear infection. But we had no idea that was the reason she could never, ever, not-for-a-second, be put down in her crib. We had 48 hours of hysterical crying all night long before a friend of mine mentioned it might be her ears that were bothering her.

And then it was like, 

"Oh gosh, why didn't we think of that?!"

One trip to the chiropractor and she was a bazillion times better. We spent the rest of the week putting garlic oil in her ears and she has once again returned to her normal nightly schedule of blessed SLEEP for ten hours straight. Whew.

Which brings me to a couple points. Firstly, every baby should go to the chiropractor. We love ours. We started taking Rosemary about a month ago and he completely cured her car-crying problem. (She would crycrycry EVERY time we got into the car.) Turns out there is a lot of air pressure in cars and it's pretty common for baby's ears to hurt when driving. No more car cries for Rosemary (seriously!). He also saw that her range of motion was restricted and has solved that problem as well and now Rosemary can completely turn her head both directions. (We had thought she just preferred to look a certain way.) And while talking with our chiropractor he mentioned that chiropractors can help with many common baby issues, like colic, digestive issues, acid reflux… the list goes on. So, please take your baby to the chiropractor.

Second point. You don't need to use antibiotics to cure an ear infection. Garlic oil does the trick, and the less we use antibiotics, the better.

It's been so wonderful to have Rosemary back to her normal, happy self. This weekend she gave us her first belly laugh, thanks to her silly friend Elizabeth who Rose is clearly in love with. 

Baby belly laughs now top the list of best things ever.

Four Months.

Four months finds us with

one baby with an ear infection
(who hasn't slept in 48 hours)

two sick parents

three very, very, very sleepy house inhabitants

and four months of happy memories
(to keep us sane in moments of pure despair.)

Some Thoughts. And an iPhone.

1. I convinced Timmy to give me one of my Christmas presents early. He got me an iPhone. All I really wanted for Christmas was an iPhone, and it's just as amazing as I thought it would be. I'm so spoiled! After he gave it to me he wanted to lock it up in our safe so that I couldn't play with it until Christmas. ... That did not happen.

 (Trying out my new iPhone camera.)

2. Here's a site that lists some amazing free font finds:

http://www.goinghometoroost.com/?s=free+fonts&x=0&y=0

3. We decided to get Rosemary three presents for Christmas. Something to read, something to wear, and something to play with. (It turned into quite a few somethingS to wear, because baby girl clothes are hard to resist.) This is a tradition we plan to continue. It represents the three gifts Jesus received and I think it's such a wonderful idea. (I can't take the credit for it, I've heard it several places this year.)

4. When I mentioned that we were planning Rosemary's first vacation, you didn't think we would be going anywhere other than Hawaii, did you?? From March 3-13 we will be soaking up sunshine on beautiful beaches. I can't wait for Rose to meet the Pacific Ocean! And the best part is that my parents are going to be coming with us! Dream vacation come true!

(Snuggle time with Dad.)

5. We bought bunnies for Christmas presents for some of our family this year. Gospel for Asia has an amazing "Christmas Catalog" where you can buy anything from bunnies to camels to water purifiers for an Asian family. We went with bunnies because not only are they adorable, they can feed an entire family and provide them with a stable income (from selling bunny babies). I designed some cute little cards to let our family members know about their special gift.

6. New favorite blog here:
http://www.travelingtriplets.com/

7. My brother in law, Caleb, is an amazing musician. He is giving us a CD of Christmas songs he recorded for Christmas. I know this because he told me and gave us a sneak preview last night. When he's famous, I want to be his graphic designer.

http://www.myspace.com/colormehonest

8. Apple Wellness is, finally, getting a real website. And it's going to be awesome. Stay tuned for this awesomeness to go live sometime in January.

9. My favorite time of day is morning. Rosemary looks so sweet with sleepy eyes.

 (Sleepy Rose.)

10. Rose is 25 inches long now and over 14 pounds. Everyone who sees her comments, "She's so BIG! I mean, HEALTHY!" Nobody can say that vegan babies aren't healthy. *smile*

Our Sugarplum Fairy.

Cozy Car Seat Cover.

Now that it's freezing cold outside, we like to keep Rose cozy as we travel. At first we were just throwing a blanket over her car seat as we raced inside. But the wind kept blowing it around and our poor little dear would often end up with a gust of cold air disturbing her little cocoon of warmth.

And so our car seat blanket was invented. I bought some pretty fabric and gathered some pretty scraps and quickly assembled a quilt using 8.5 inch squares. I made it long enough to cover the length and width of the car seat. I used quilt batting for the middle, a pink sheet for the backing, and quilted it together using the "stitch in the ditch" technique of quilting in the seams. My favorite part is the white binding and rounded corners. 

And then I added the magic tabs. These clip onto the handles of the car seat, ensuring the blanket doesn't fly away with even the gustiest of breezes. 

According to Tim, this has revolutionized our lives.

I'm not sure about that, but it has made carrying her around outside less of a balancing act. And it comes off easily to become a quilt to lay her on when we're out and about.

Fun Random Fact: The pink floral fabric is from a house dress that the lady I was named after wore. Beatrice Curtis. She was like a grandma to me, and I think it is really special to have a part of her in my baby girl's quilt.

Loving Rosemary.

Rose gets kissed on her cheeks a thousand times every day. Every time we pick her up we whisper sweet lovey thoughts in her perfect little ears. She is surrounded, immersed, and saturated in pure adoration. We are very good at loving Rosemary.

 

And, last night a new milestone was celebrated. 

Rosemary rolled over.

Pet Peeve.

Me: It drives me cra-zy when Rosemary cries
and immediately someone asks me if she is hungry.

Tim: Oh? Does that happen a lot?

Me: YES.

(Cue... random lady in Target.)

Rosemary: Waaaaah!

Lady: Oh! *looks at me sideways and says in a singsong voice*
Mommy, she must be hungry!

Me: …

It really, really bothers me when people assume that anytime Rose makes a peep of noise, she's hungry. I can't help but feel that they're expecting me to hug them gleefully and say something along the lines of "WOW! Thank you so much! I knew there was something she needed… Hungry, right? Whew. I'm glad you let me know."

I KNOW when my baby is hungry, and I also know when she's crying because she hates her car seat, or because she's hot, or because she's sleepy, or because she's just being whiny…

 

On the other hand, I know that the people who ask are only doing so out of love/interest and are definitely not intentionally trying to irritate me. I think that in order for something to qualify as a pet peeve, it has to annoy you for no good reason.

Three.

Weight:

 Birth // 7lb. 9oz.

Now // 14lb. 2oz.

Height:

Birth // 20.5 inches

Now // 25.5 inches

Our little rosebud is three months old.

We are enjoying brightly opened eyes and huge, gummy smiles.

Three month old babies are are jolly and wiggly and talkative. They grab at toys and tell you exactly what they're feeling through a language of grunts, giggles, coos, and (sometimes) wails. They blow bubbles and suck on fingers. Three month old babies are a little less like a newborn cocoon of sweet, mysterious warmth, and a lot more like a real little person.

The mystery is fading, and every day a new aspect
of her personality shines through.

I like this little person.

Christmas Card Photos…

… and Rosemary didn't like it much.

I made her a cute headband…

and she was all like,
"Why does this thing have to fall in my eyes, huh?"

 And then she cried. And cried.

and I tried to pull the
"it's my birthday, baby, please cooperate" card

but that card doesn't work nearly as well on babies as it does on husbands.
Either that or she was thinking,
"Your birthday was actually two days ago MOM."

My birthday, by the way, was magical. Between Mom and Dad, Rosemary, Rynn, and Timmy… I got spoiled all the way around. I love birthdays. And now I'm twenty-five, which feels pretty amazingly old and a good age to be a mom of a three-month-old baby.

And believe it or not, we also managed to get one magical family photo for our Christmas cards.

And it wasn't this one.