Three Things

Three completely unrelated random things I'm blogging about today:

1) Michael Paul continues to find hilarious and neat things to do with Keziah when he is watching her. In the past couple of weeks he decided to introduce her to all her stuffed animals. She has a ton. And she has really gotten into all her toys lately. It was fun to see how she has a lovey from almost everyone in the family - a blue dog from Aunt JuJu, a giraffe from Aunt Tiffany, a TN titan mascott T-Rac from CiCi, and a little lamb from Grandmama just to name a few. And of course there's Kermit from Daddy.

So with all the animals in the crib with her, what did she pick? Mommy's stuffed giraffe of course!

Also recently, Michael Paul decided it was time to put the headphones on Keziah. They were of course way to big but it made for some hilarious pictures. One of Michael Paul's favorite pictures of himself as a child is with these huge white headphones on listening to music. He couldn't have been more than 4 years old in the picture. But already he was showing his music obsession.

2) I think I have found my absolute most favorite cloth diaper. It is the envibum! The diaper itself is both an all-in-one and a pocket, but I have not even had to stuff the pocket yet (it is really thirsty by itself). And it dries really fast for an all-in-one! It always washes clean. It has NO synthetic fibers - only organic cotton and other natural materials. It is a one-size diaper with no snaps (imagine that!) And the best part: the outer shell is made of plush minky material. It's a wonderfully fluffy and super soft diaper.

The envibum company was started by a stay-at-home mom who made these for her children. As she was praying one day, the Lord told her to make and sell her diapers to other moms. So she did. She is committed to only using made in the USA materials. And she always tithes $2 from every diaper purchased. The color of the diaper indicates a different organization she is supporting. My favorite is the pink diaper because with its purchase I helped support Crisis Pregnancy Centers. My cloth diapering followers: Please check out their website www.envibum.com

3) My hair has gone to the birds - literally. So I have been losing a considerable amount of hair since Keziah was born. This is completely normal. But when you have super thick, coarse, and curly hair like me, well it is extra annoying. There is hair everywhere in our house. And now I have all this new growth coming in. Suffice it to say I have had a bad hair day everyday for weeks now. So I started contemplating a hair cut - which I swore to myself I was not going to do. I know this is completely a pride issue, but it just seems so cliche to me for new moms to cut their hair all off. I have known too many women who have long gorgeous hair and as soon as they have a baby they go get a "mommy cut." I was determined to keep my long hair after Keziah was born. But after a month of bad hair days I started to rethink my position. Michael Paul was of course against the cut. He likes long hair too. And I still always think about my Dad when it comes to my hair. He has this thing about women should have long hair (it is Biblical after all). I had hair past my waist most of my childhood. So I am going round and round about this for days and finally decide to make Michael Paul trim it a bit. So yesterday we go out on the deck and he admits he has never cut hair. How hard can it be- you just cut straight across. Yeah well, he didn't realize that if you grab all the hair in your hand and pull back on it stretching it and then cut it all off in one cut, it will bounce back a whole lot shorter than you intended. So now I am stuck with this way too short hair cut for a few months until it grows back. It just seems wrong to have hair shorter than your husband! Anyway, here's me and Keziah on the computer yesterday right after the hair cutting mistake. I'm really glad it grows fast!

Wonder and Awe

I've been thinking a lot lately about wonder and awe and worship. This time last year I was pregnant. I didn't know it yet - and that is what has gotten me thinking. I keep having thoughts like, "wow, one year ago this baby in front of me was a tiny tiny little baby growing inside me." My heart races and I get some butterflies in my tummy. There are no words for these feelings. I just stare at her in awe and wonder and this always leads me to worshiping God.

I feel as though I missed some of those moments of awe as a result of not finding out about our pregnancy until I was 10 weeks along. And then it took another few weeks to get over the shock and actually believe it. I remember telling people in the very beginning and they would be confused because I didn't seem all that excited. It was because I was still in shock. It really took several weeks for the truth of it all to seem real to me ... and then I was excited - overwhelmingly so. But by then I had missed my whole first trimester of emotions. So now, in some weird way, I am going through them one year later.

Around the beginning of this month, it occurred to me that exactly one year ago, Keziah was a little clump of cells rapidly multiplying. Last week it occurred to me that exactly one year ago, her little heart beat for the first time. And now she is this little baby who is quickly becoming not so little. It really gets me in a state of awe.

I'm a little guilty of trying to 'reduce God to math'. I like explanations. I like theology and doctrine. I'm guilty of trying to reduce all the wonder of God into little catechisms and supporting scriptures. But I've been doing that less and less lately. I've discovered something. One look at my daughter and I feel as though my soul is going to burst out of me in worship.

There's a place for theology - perhaps a very small place. But for now, I'm enjoying God in a whole new way. I'm enjoying wonder and awe. I'm enjoying worshiping God for things I just can't get my head around.

Good Bye Dixie Carter

Growing up in Jackson, TN provided the unique possibility that any given day, you might run into Dixie Carter at a resaurant or movie theatre and then have something to brag about at school the next day.

Yes, you can give him a message. You do take shorthand, don't you? Good, we take it in the South too. Anyway, just tell him that I have been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouch for the fact the we do eat a lot of things down here... and we've certainly all had our share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten enough fried chicken to feed a third world country - not to mention barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and... yes... if I were being perfectly candid, I would have to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know - during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But... speaking for myself and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past, and we will surely eat many things in the future, but - God as my witness - we have never, I repeat, never eaten dirt!

-Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women

Thanks for all the laughs, Dixie! You always made me proud to be a southerner!

Keziah Update (in pictures)

Keziah has had many fun adventures in the last few weeks. For all my friends and family far away who love pictures, this post is for you! ;o)

(In case you didn't know, you can always click on the picture to see it full size)

Two weeks ago on Palm Sunday, Keziah was dedicated in church. This was taken after the ceremony. It's a 4 generations picture!

Keziah has 5 living great-grand-parents! She met the two on my side that weekend. The shot above is with her Aunt JuJu, her grandmother, Ci-Ci, and her great-grand-mother, Memaw. That's four generations of oldest daughters! My grandmother was the oldest of two girls, my mom the oldest of three girls, myself (oldest by 7 minutes of two girls), and now Keziah, oldest of ?. We seem to breed girls in my family!

The shot below is of four generations on my Dad's side. That's her Grandaddy and my Dad's mom, her Granny.

Keziah got her first piece of baby bling to wear for her dedication and Easter Sunday.

Michael Paul is an excellent Daddy and husband. He is really good about giving me some alone time and playing with Keziah when I need a break. Of course I never know what he is going to do - it is always something crazy - like the "What's in the Guitar Case?" video. This week he decided she needed to have pigtails in her hair. He had lots of fun playing with her very little bit of hair and taking pictures of her.

And he is a 'baby-wearing' Dad! Keziah fell asleep in the snugglie on Daddy and he grabbed this pic. (I told him to support her head after the pic was taken!) Of course there's me on the sofa with my macky-mac (probably blogging) enjoying me-time.

We had our first big outdoor adventure. We went rock-climbing at Sunset Rock. Keziah just barely fits in the Kelty Backpack but we made it work. We had fun introducing her to family adventuring! She tolerated the hike down ok but was glad to get out of the backpack. It was really hot!

And of course Daddy thinks it's never too early to start teaching her things. Here she is learning to rock climb with Mommy!

Easter Sunday: Her first Easter dress was one of mine that my mom saved all these years.

We went in the Johnny-Jump-Up for the first time. She's not quite strong enough to jump, but she did enjoy standing up and trying to walk a bit in it.

There's nothing like a nap after playing outside on a hot day!

A New Perspective

Every now and then something happens that completely changes your perspective. I had one of those moments last weekend. But first I should rewind and share some background info.

When I was doing all my research about birth (and I did A LOT of it) I stumbled across this article called "Babies are Conscious". It was one of those articles that really made me think. For those of you who don't want to click on the link and read the whole article, its thesis is basically that babies are capable of a whole lot more than we originally thought. Even in the womb, they have very developed nervous systems, they feel things, make decisions, have definite personalities and remember things. And the most interesting thing to me - they remember their births.

A few months ago, there was an article in Mothering magazine that claimed the exact same thing - that babies do in fact remember their births and many things that happen to them in infancy. The best time to ask them is when they are toddlers and have just started talking. If you look into it you can find fascinating stories of what babies said when their moms asked them "how did you get here?" The story in Mothering told of a little boy who said he came into the world because he got tired of this big rock pressing on his head. His mom had a large uterine fibroid that was doing just that! I've also read stories of babies talking about 'lots of tight hugs' (contractions) and babies born by c-sections talking about their 'zippers being unzipped'.

I am convinced that there is a lot more cognition going on in babies than we really give them credit for.

So last weekend when I was visiting with my family, my twin Julie and I started talking about memories and recounting our earliest ones. I was talking about how much I remembered from the week my sister spent in the hospital when we were about three years old. It was the first time I had ever spent extended time away from my twin and as a three year old it was pretty traumatic. I remember everything from that week. Then I started telling the story of how I remembered mom running across the street with me and leaving me at the neighbors' house so they could take Julie to the hospital. I told of how I sat in the floor and our neighbors Cliff and Jane kept talking to me but they wouldn't tell me what was going on. I described the scene so perfectly, my mom who was listening to this conversation about hit the floor in shock. She told me I was describing exactly what happened when Julie was taken to the hospital after slicing her upper lip open and needed stitches when we were nine months old. I had confused the two memories but my mom reminded me that when we were three my dad stayed home with me and she took Julie to the hospital with my grandparents. The only time I was dropped off at the neighbors by myself was when they rushed Julie to the hospital at nine months old.

It is not just that I realize I have a memory of being nine months old - it's what I remember about that day that amazes me. I remember sitting on the floor at my neighbors. I remember looking up at them and they were talking to me in baby talk. I remember thinking (with all the arrogance a teenager might have) that they were complete idiots. I remember feeling incredibly frustrated because I knew something had happened to my sister but they wouldn't tell me what. I remember being scared to death that my parents and my sister weren't coming back and here these people were smiling and babbling at me like nothing was wrong and all I wanted was for them to tell me what was going on. I remember these thoughts and feelings as if they happened yesterday. And I was nine months old. It makes sense now why I remember being so frustrated - I couldn't talk. I couldn't ask them what I wanted to know. But I was fully capable of understanding everything that was said and fully capable of forming thoughts and questions in my head.

So after this enlightening conversation with my mom, I kept reflecting on how complex my thoughts and emotions were at nine months old. I kept looking at Keziah and wondering what she was thinking. Later that night, Keziah had a melt down - one of those scream and cry sessions where nothing seems to console her. She wasn't hungry or wet - what could be wrong? With my new perspective, I paused and thought about her day, put myself in her shoes. I suddenly realized that here she was three days away from home in a strange environment meeting a ton of new people every day and she was probably wondering what was going on and why we weren't going home. So I took her down to my parent's laundry room (I was doing diaper laundry at the time), I sat her on the dryer, looked her straight in the eye and talked to her like she was 10 years old - fully capable of understanding everything I had to say. I told her I understood exactly how she was feeling. I told her we would be leaving in the morning. I told her everything that was going to happen this evening and in the morning and how tonight was her last night in the pack-n-play and that tomorrow everything would be back to normal. She sat there, stopped crying, looked me straight in the eye and listened to everything I said. After that, she was back to her happy self, went to bed with no fussing and was a perfect angel the next day.

So now I find myself talking to my daughter more like a cognitive adult and less like a baby. When she cries, I no longer go through the baby list (hungry? wet? burped? cold?) I now ask myself, is she confused? frustrated? Does she want to know something I haven't told her? Is she wondering why I am doing such and such? I know she is listening and I know she is understanding.

And as soon as she starts talking, I will be asking her about her birth, about her memories. Those of you reading this who have toddlers - ask them how they got here. Ask them about being a baby. I am curious what they might answer.

Traditions, Ceremonies, and Placentas

Yes, you did read that title correctly. This past weekend, we traveled to west TN so Keziah could finally meet the rest of my side of the family. While we were there, she celebrated her 3 month birthday and was dedicated in church. But the most exciting thing for me this weekend was the placenta planting ceremony!

One year ago, what we thought was impossible, became possible. God created a little baby and placed her in my womb. For nine months she grew in safety. All her needs were met through a little miracle called a placenta.

Maybe it is because I had years to contemplate all I would miss if I never got pregnant and only received children through adoption. But I became really passionate about all the little things surrounding pregnancy. I marveled at my growing belly, at every little kick and hiccup, at her fast heartbeat. I was fasciated by every little change in my body. I still tear up in wonder and awe when I reflect on my birthing experience. Each contraction was a little miracle. These days I am still marveling at the miracle of breast-feeding. I take none of these little things for granted. And yes, I got real excited about my placenta.

I got really passionate about placentas toward the end of my pregnancy. I had been researching the benefits of delayed cord clamping vs active management of third stage labor and deciding what would be best for me and my baby. Ultimately, I wanted my baby to stay attached to the placenta as long as possible so she could keep getting the rich oxygenated blood from it as she transitioned to breathing on her own. Thankfully this is common midwifery practice. Hospitals and OB's usually see things a little different - opting to clamp the cord immediately so as to 'manage things' rather than let it be a natural process. Even though I delivered my placenta just a few minutes after her, she remained attached to it for a good half hour.

After Keziah was given her newborn exam, my midwives said it was time to examine my placenta. How exciting, I thought! And I got all into it. I played with the sac and saw where my water had broken.

The vessels on a placenta always make a tree-like pattern, so it is appropriately called the 'tree of life'.

I was simply in awe of this huge blob of tissue that fed my baby for nine months. I was fascinated. My reaction was to praise God for such a cool design. I couldn't bear the thought of just throwing out my placenta. It was NOT garbage or medical waste! I asked my midwife what she was going to do with it and she said, "I'll put it in your fridge in case you decide you want to eat it." Yeah ....um... ok. I was NOT planning to eat my placenta! But apparently every other mammal on the planet eats their placenta after giving birth! And in other cultures, this is not considered taboo or gross. The placenta has many nutrients that help replenish the mother's system after all that work of birthing! It is rich in iron and has been shown to help the mom recover quickly. Now I am a pretty natural, 'crunchy' kinda girl but I just had no desire to do the eating thing.

So what was I to do? I started researching other cultural traditions and ceremonies for placentas. Native Hawaiians and some Native Americans believe the placenta is alive and part of the baby so they plant it under a new tree. The tree grows along side the child. I LOVED this tradition. So this weekend, our placenta came out of the freezer and was planted under a pink dogwood tree in my parents' backyard. They got a special bench for underneath the tree. I am excited to watch the tree grow alongside Keziah. I feel as though I have kept my placenta alive.

Would You Like a Cup of Baby?

A friend of ours in our small group is an artist (sculpture) and art professor at UTC and as a result has a lot of cool pieces in his house. One of my favorites is this oversized teacup and saucer. So we took these adorable baby pics last night at small group. I had to stay in the photo to support her because she can't sit up by herself yet. But they are adorable anyway. Definitely some of my favorites so far!