Roman Craig, born Monday July 14th 2014 at 10:04 PM.
8lbs even and 23″ long
First I thought you were going to kill me and then you gave me life. This is love unimaginable.
Meeting you at last.
Category Archives: Motherhood + Children
Waiting.
Today I did something I never do: I finished a cup of coffee. I make myself a cup every day and always get a sip or two but the rest ends up being poured down the sink at the end of the day after I’ve been too busy or distracted to drink it.
But today is different. Today is quiet.
Today is a day in between the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Our baby was due on Wednesday but decided not to come. So we wait. Wednesday was also my last day at work. I say “at” work purposely because I do realize it was not my last day “of” work—I have plenty of mommy friends who might feel the need to correct me should I not clarify :]
On Wednesday I hurried around the office tying up the loose ends of my work, moving through the stacks of paperwork and filing I had not yet done. The day ended in a flurry with blue ink smeared all over my left hand from filling out form after form. I still feel like there’s so much I didn’t get done but my time there is up and there really is nothing left to do but move on.
Yesterday I was busy at home, again rushing through projects and a mile long to-do list of things I want finished before bringing home baby. I didn’t feel good and thought for sure the baby was going to come so I hurried trying to beat his arrival with a clean house.
Well, today the house is clean and my crazy list is done but our baby is quite opinionated already and still hasn’t decided to come.
So, for the first time in a long time, I find myself with a quiet day and nothing to do. There is no work schedule or to-do list. Everything is done and today I simply sit and wait. This may very well be the last day I have nothing to do for oh, the next 25ish years so I’m trying to savor it and do what I love—tap out words and sip strong coffee for starters.
I have lots of sister-in-laws and most of them have reminded me lately to enjoy these last days before the baby comes because nothing will ever be the same after he does. I’m sure they’re right and yet it’s a strange thing trying to sit calmly and quietly while you wait for your whole life to change.
Today is a quiet day.
Perhaps I’ll have another cup of coffee, tap out a few more words. Certainly I’ll take a nap.
Soon this baby, this stubborn baby who right now is kicking and jabbing me and making my belly bounce around in the morning sun, he will be in my arms. He will need me constantly—to feed him, to hold him, to change his diapers and clothes, and to comfort him as he wakes up in this strange new world. I will be busy, tired, and probably overwhelmed.
So today I am quiet. Today I am waiting—standing between the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Savoring life as it is; looking forward to life as it will be.
See you on the other side.
—Kari
Learning to Fly
A momma bird decided to build her nest and raise her flock of five fuzzy birds in the rafters of our new house. We check in on them each time we’re at the house and have watched them progress from eggs, to little fuzz balls curled up asleep, to little fuzz balls peaking curiously over the nest and showing off their big yellow beaks. I about die from the cuteness and hope our own baby bird has a fuzzy head of hair like theirs.
Darren is holding off siding that part of the house until the baby birds have left the nest because he doesn’t want to hurt them. His heart is as deep and wide as the sea and I love the glimpses I get of the father he will be in the thoughtfulness he has for all living things.
When Darren isn’t melting my heart caring for baby birds, he is terrifying me doing guy stuff like this—wiring the house by standing on a chair…on two planks…over the stairway…after he ripped two fingers open doing other such nonsense. He is excellent training for a man child.
{Darren’s first Father’s Day card—it perfectly describes everything I love about him}
Speaking of baby birds, ours is almost here–we’re three weeks out from game day, or so we hope.
This is my belly; it’s gigantic. I don’t know how many weeks along I was in this picture and I don’t think it really matters anymore. The other day an old man in the grocery store commented on my belly and wanted to know when I’m due. I told him next month and he said, “Oh, you’re not big enough to have a baby next month.” Well done old man, well done; there’s a reason you’ve lived so long ;]
This is baby’s spot in our room until we move and have a nursery. I have a little canopied area set up by our bed with his bassinette—I call it his “baby throne” because that’s what it looks like to me with the canopy and lights and fanfare :]
What a bunch of rambling this post is; sorry. I leave you with some favorite lines from Victor Hugo:
“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.”
As I think about having this baby in the next few weeks, I often recount these lines and think I know how the birds feel when they must leap from the nest and find their wings. I hope I can fly.
Room to Grow
We are working on our 8th month of baby building with 7ish more weeks to go until his expected arrival.
For now our little family looks like this—a couple of cute sleepy heads who just wouldn’t get up this morning :]
Darren is wearing himself out working on the house remodel…and the cat, well the cat’s just lazy…and he’s in my spot :]
I love them though—actually, they’re my favorites and sometimes it’s hard to believe there will be any room left in my heart to love anything else. But I’m guessing I’ll find room to love this baby. Just like my body amazes me with the way it stretches and grows to make room so my heart will stretch and grow too. Love is like that—it builds and stretches and grows and there is always room for the possibility of more if we‘re willing to be stretched and changed a little {or a lot} along the way.
Bump.
Back when I thought I had a bump at 18 weeks and couldn’t wait to document it…and my actual bump at 31 weeks :]
The baby gave me a fright today. I always feel him moving, all the time, every day. Then this morning after I had gotten ready for work and was ready to leave I noticed I hadn’t felt him at all since I got up. I rubbed my belly trying to rouse and wake him and told myself not to worry.
Darren came over and told me how beautiful he thinks my bump is and I told him I couldn’t feel the baby moving. Of course it’s nothing, we agreed; he’d start bouncing around as soon as I ate breakfast I said. So I ate and I sat in the car riding to work with my hands resting on my belly waiting for those reassuring little kicks and flutters. Nothing.
It’s such a small thing, all those little movements, I hardly even think about it sometimes. But it feels like I can’t move or breathe when he is still and I can’t feel his life inside of me. Darren and I sat silently in the car the whole way to work and I fought back tears when Darren asked me again if I could feel him yet and the answer was still no. I asked God to watch over our baby and begged that I could please feel him move, that I could know he’s still okay.
And then there was a little flutter. A little push here and a strong kick there. Our lazy little guy woke up and his movement set our hearts at peace again.
Today I’m celebrating my bump and the bundle of life that moves and grows within. So many people I love have lost babies, babies they dearly loved and wanted. Being pregnant is both one of the most exciting and most terrifying things I have ever done and I don’t ever want to take for granted a single flutter or kick of our little son; sometimes that’s all you get, sometimes that’s all the life you ever get to know. I can’t wait to hold him on the outside but for now I’m holding him close on the inside–cherishing his life and movement and the incredible peace and joy he brings with every one of his little ninja moves.
He is worth it, you know. Giving life is always worth it.
Four Generations
Yesterday was the first day of my third trimester and I got to spend it with the two most influential women in my life–my mom and grandma.
Three generations holding onto the next. This baby has no idea how many hands and hearts are holding him already.
Don’t Tell My Mom
Hey guys, this is the baby. Mom is distracted so I decided to sneak a few words in on her blog—nobody tell okay? Okay. So guess what? I’m a boy! Mom thought for sure she would get a girl. She grew up with five brothers so she thought she was done with boys for a while but here I am. It’s okay though; she tells me every day that she loves me…even if I’m another crazy boy :]
I’m getting really big now—I’m 6 months old! And mom can’t hide her baby bump anymore either. The other day she saw some people she hadn’t seen in a while and they were like, “Whoa! What’s that!?” So I must be pretty obvious.
When I’m not practicing my ninja Olympic skills, I spend most of my time trying to grow hair. I don’t want to be born bald because then I guess I would have to wear a hat, you know? Besides, I keep hearing about this cat that lives in my house and he wears a very fancy orange stripe fur suit….and I don’t want to be bald next to him!
Mom has been trying to wean herself off caffeine because she’s worried I’ll be born loving the stuff and she doesn’t want me to start out as some kind of back alley caffeine junkie. Let me tell you, it’s been pretty rough! I like coffee and I don’t like it when mommy says we can’t have it anymore. Mom does let me eat some of my favorite foods though. Right now I mostly love bread covered in peanut butter and Nutella…oh, and lots of fresh fruit too! Yummy.
Last week mommy convinced daddy to let her help him with a bondfire at the house they’re building. Daddy didn’t think it was a good idea but mommy is pretty persuasive. Well it was very muddy and icy and rainy and really terrible gross. Mommy had to buy rainboots just to walk in the yard and haul the brush to the fire. She was having a grand time and I was getting bounced around wondering what on earth her problem is with just staying inside. Well anyway, there was this big puddle of water near the bond fire and mommy decided to stand in it for a minute but you won’t believe it—she got stuck! She looked so funny there with her rain boots and her big baby belly just stuck in the mud. She kept calling for daddy but he was on the roof and couldn’t hear her. I love mommy but I laughed because it was her crazy idea to haul me around in the mud so she sort of deserved it :] And she did eventually get out so it’s okay. Also, she promised not to do anything like that again.
Mommy and daddy can’t seem to decide on my name. Which is silly because I already chose my name; they’ll see. Mommy really wanted to name me Henry David after Thoreau but daddy said no. Mommy keeps trying to convince daddy that he’s just like Thoreau so really I would be named after him…in a way…but daddy still said no. They are silly those two. Last night mommy told daddy they absolutely must decide on my name so she got out the big book of baby names and said they would go through it together–and then she fell asleep two seconds later while daddy looked. Mommy hates baby name books; she thinks they’re boring.
At night I kick mom a lot, just because I’m bored and stuff…sometimes mommy wakes up and she’s like, what on earth are you doing in there? But I just get real still and quiet and act like I don’t know what she means that way she thinks she dreamt it up.
Mommy and daddy have been busy getting everything ready for me and their house is getting really crowded with all kinds of baby stuff. But I don’t care about all that fancy baby stuff. I just want to go outside and roll around town in my stroller and see everything. This summer after I get here, me and mommy are going to go to Walden Pond and the ocean together. Mommy said sometimes we’ll go to the farmer’s market and sometimes we’ll go for a walk in the woods if I’m being good. And sometimes we’ll go see daddy at work and bring him coffee and everybody will be so excited to see me because they’ve been watching me grow all along and can’t wait to meet me–I get stage fright just thinking about it!
Uh oh, I think mommy is on to me…I better get off here before I get caught! I’ll write more soon!
Love, the baby.
P.S. Don’t tell mom. You never saw me. Okay? Okay.
Fingerprints
I didn’t know until this week how our fingerprints are formed but apparently the amniotic fluid flowing around our fingers in the womb creates the waves and patterns that leave every single person with their own unique prints.
Isn’t it sort of amazing that we are forever marked and identified by the distinctive way we were carried around in our mother’s womb?
It makes me think about God and the way he flows and moves in our lives, leaving his fingerprints all over us. It makes me think about how his prints are unique to every individual life and how no two people are marked exactly the same way by his touch.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5 {NIV}
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” Psalm 139:13-18 {ESV}
His fingerprints are everywhere—touching, shaping, and forming all things; and we are but clay, forever marked by the unique prints of the master potter’s hands.
On Becoming a Mother: It’s Okay to Change
The thing that scares me the most about having a baby is the idea of change. There are things about my life I love and don’t want to change—and it scares me to think that they will.
The other day I thought about writing myself a letter as a way of looking back after the baby is born and reminding myself of who I was before I became a mom. I wanted to remind myself of who I am and what I value. I was afraid of getting swallowed up in motherhood and losing myself completely. I wanted that letter to remind me who I was so I could make sure I hadn’t changed.
But I didn’t write that letter.
Because I realized instead that it’s okay to change.
Even though I don’t want to lose myself when I become a mother, I also don’t want to fight and resist the changes that can and should be born in me during this time.
Pregnancy is changing me; it’s changing my heart and my soul and my body—and that’s okay. How could I possibly bring another life into this world—through my own body—without being transformed in the process?
What I realized when I thought about writing that letter is this:
Change is okay.
Change is good.
Change is not something to fight or resist or run away from.
All the best things that have happened in my life have required that change be born in me. If I were to hold onto who I am, to who I was—I would still be a child, immature and incapable. Change moves me forward and helps me grow into who I am able to be.
So yes, becoming a mother still scares me and I still wonder in what ways I will be different on the other side of this journey. I still don’t want to lose myself completely along the way. But I’m not afraid to change. I’m not afraid to grow. I’m ready to let pregnancy and motherhood birth new life not only in the child I’m carrying, but also in me—in my own soul and spirit as it stretches, grows, and changes right along with my body.
There is this story in the Bible, a parable used to illustrate a bigger idea, about how a seed must be buried, torn open, and essentially—die—before new life can sprout up out of that seed {John 12:24}. The seed is useless if it stays the same, if it doesn’t give itself up and allow new life to spring from it. And I think right now I’m that seed. New life can only be born from me if I’m willing to be buried, torn open, and die to myself a little bit. It sounds really bad for the seed, but think of the blossoms and the life that springs from that giving up and giving out of oneself. It’s really quite beautiful and spiritual.
So it’s true—I will not be the girl I am today when I reach the other side of this journey. I will be a mother. I will have brought life into this world. New life will have been born in me. And everything will be different after that.
And that’s okay.
The Baby Wrote a Blog Post
So you know how I’m building a baby, right? Right. So Baby thinks it should be a contributor to my blog and I’m all like,
“I don’t know kid. Can you even talk yet?”
And baby’s like,
“Oh yaaaa I can talk…I’m made from your genes so EVERYBODY knows I can taaalk.”
And I’m like,
“Fine, whatever, I’ll give you a trial run.”
So let me introduce you to The Baby:
- Baby thinks it’s hilarious that no one knows whether he/she is a boy or girl. I told him/her we’ll know soon so stop laughing but baby thinks he/she will just curl up in a tight little ball and face the wrong way so we can’t find out. We shall see kid, we shall see.
- Baby loves cheeseburgers and fries. Or at least I want cheeseburgers and fries every day for every meal and I’m blaming the baby for that. Also, I don’t actually eat cheeseburgers and fries every day for every meal…I just want to.
- Baby absolutely will not let momma sleep through the night unless she walks a couple of miles right before bed. Momma is worried about whether or not this pattern will continue after sassy-pants baby is born? 8[
- Baby knows all the lyrics to Mumford & Sons because momma plays them all day at work. Start them early; start them right.
- Baby has daddy’s sense of humor…like we need two of them around her… ;]
- Baby doesn’t mind coffee; he/she told me so.
- Baby makes mommy look like a ridicules klutz and laughs about it because everyone thinks it’s her fault not baby’s….Daddy’s sense of humor, remember?
- Baby does not like it when that sassy orange cat that lives with mommy and daddy decides to walk on mommy’s belly. Baby doesn’t like being poked by cat paws and thinks a lot about pulling the orange cat’s tail but mommy says it’s not allowed.
- Other than writing, baby likes to eat, sleep, and grow. His/her schedule is quite full right now but he/she is always looking for new projects and adventures.
So there you go, that’s the baby I’m building. Further posts from said baby are pending momma’s review.
Also, here’s what I look like so far with this sassy baby in tow:
Outside Air 