Ah, Christmas 2008. How I wish we'd gotten better acquainted.
It's not that I wasn't filled with the spirit. I loved our Christmas tree, loved shopping for Luke and Kara, loved all the Dean's eggnog I consumed (for Baby Brother's sake, of course). But between settling into the new house, getting ready for Kara's party, and physically feeling less than my best, it always seemed like there wasn't enough time to celebrate the way I wanted. Our tree went up in the second week of December, about the same time we started our shopping. We didn't pull out our holiday music until three days before Christmas because our CDs are stashed in a Tupperware bin in our closet and we were too lazy to dig them out. (Not that we were without the appropriate tunes, thanks to DISH Network, which dedicated several satellite radio stations to the cause.) Presents were wrapped on Christmas Eve, and a few naked ones still sit in our room, since I don't know when I'll be seeing my family. My enormous belly kept me from wearing or receiving any cute holiday pjs, and even my annual viewing of A Very Brady Christmas got lost in the shuffle. On the up side, we did manage to see It's a Wonderful Life, a tradition that fell through the cracks last year while Luke and I navigated through our first week of parenthood. It's one of my very favorite movies, and there's nothing I enjoy more than watching George Bailey and Mary Hatch dance their way into the high school swimming pool. That there, people, is what you call ROMANCE.
But it was still a great Christmas. A tree filled with ornaments and surrounded by presents is always a heartwarming scene, but there's something even more magical when that tree has ornaments bearing your daughter's face and gifts with her name on it. Some from Mom and Dad, and some from Santa (which, by the way, was something of an issue, as Luke wasn't raised to be a Santa person and I was. In the end, we decided that the books and handmade toys would come from us, and the stocking stuffers and plastic goodies would be credited to the fat guy in the red suit. Anyone's guess as to how it'll play out next year. What do you St. Nickers do in your house?).
I really do love seeing colorful packages under the tree.
At one year, Kara's still too little to understand Christmas, but she's certainly been impressed by our Christmas tree, and she was even more taken aback to see all the babies it sprouted overnight.
The cloth book and CD made up the contents of Kara's stocking, and she would've been perfectly happy just playing with those for the rest of the day. Luke and I had to "gently persuade" her to give the other presents a chance.
Kara wasn't interested in the wrapping paper at all. We had to open each gift until she was able to comprehend that something was inside, and that that something was for HER. Element of Surprise, see you next year.
Sizing up one of her new bath toys.
Daddy, I don't care what's inside that cool snowman paper, I simply must become well-versed in my colors right this very minute.
Such a Mommy turn-on.
OK, a slight interest in the wrapping paper (and a sweet kiss from Daddy).
When I was a kid, I loved organizing my stash and taking pictures of it under the tree. How could I not do it for my baby? At first glance, it doesn't seem like much, but then I remember that Kara's barely twelve months old and this STILL ran us a hundred smackers and there are plenty of children who would pray to get even half this. Middle-class Americans, we are a spoiled lot, yes?
Anyway, that was our Christmas. A bit rushed in the prep work but relaxing overall, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Kara may not remember it, but Luke and I will always cherish this particular year, where we had the short-lived, amazing opportunity to enjoy being a quaint little family of three.
How was your Christmas? Seriously, I want to know.
Despite the huge change we'll be experiencing in six weeks, things finally feel like they're becoming more manageable in the Frema-Useless Clutter household. Except for our bedroom (currently the latest catch-all room), our home is finally in order, my work load doesn't feel quite as overwhelming, and we are all set for Christmas. Hopefully this means you'll see me around here more often, because I really missing interacting with you all. And the house post I've been promising for thirty-seven years will go up after the New Year so it doesn't get lost in the holiday shuffle.
This past weekend, my family engaged in two noteworthy events, the first and most unexpected one being a visit from my sister Ryan and her husband Jason, who decided to fly in from Germany and surprise everyone for Christmas. Not only that, but they drove the three and a half hours it takes to get here from Chicago because they knew Luke and I were wanting to stay close to home. Even though we TOTALLy would have made the trip to see them because hello, GERMANY.
They showed up on our doorstep late in the morning and didn't leave until the evening. It was a wonderful visit, and especially nice to have them all to ourselves.
Since Jason's spent a lot of Kara's life on army duty in Iraq, she spent a lot of the visit sizing him up. Here you can see her weighing the pros and cons of remaining where she is or tackling her auntie.
Apparently, it was an easy choice.
Don't worry, Uncle Jason, Kara still loves you. See? She's totally letting you mack on her toys.
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The second event happened on Sunday, when Luke made a batch of banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (from scratch!) in honor of Kara's birthday. With five days of wellness under her belt, it was finally time for her to enjoy her first rite of passage as a one-year-old. The recipe for the cupcakes came from a homemade baby food cookbook Luke really likes, so now I'm almost glad her first major experience with sugar was something a little more healthful than the grocery-store cake we bought for her party. Not that there's anything wrong with ready-made goodness--if the task were up to me, I would've just gone back to Marsh. What can I say? June Cleaver's got nothing on me.
Anyway, at first, Kara was unimpressed.
This concoction is offensive to my delicate baby senses. I banish it from my sight forever!
What's a girl supposed to do with this crap? Maybe there are instructions in the creamy white stuff?
You mean this is FOOD? Food I'm allowed to EAT? Why didn't you say so?
I don't care if there's frosting on my forehead, I must approach this substance with all the care my index and middle fingers can provide.
Say! I like green eggs and ham cupcakes!
(Don't you feel like you're looking at a twenty-one-year-old who just had her first taste of beer?)
I'm saving some for later, and I'm putting it right HERE.
Where, oh, where is my squishy little baby? Perhaps this young girl can tell me.
How can I begin to describe what it means to be this baby's mother? The joy she brings me every day? How proud I am of all she's accomplished these last twelve months? I can't. There are no words.
Instead, I remember little things.
Month One
Kara makes her way into the world via c-section, all 11 pounds, 4 ounces, and 22 1/2 inches of her. Her father and I instantly fall in love.
After the initial afterglow, those first few weeks were just about survival. I slept when I could, ate when I could, showered when I could, and snuggled my precious new baby every chance I got--half the time in hysterics. I remember talking to my mother the night we came home from the hospital, sobbing because Luke had to get my pain meds from Walgreens and I was terrified to be alone with her. Listening to Celine Dion's Miracle CD was equally tear-inducing because hot damn, did that woman know what she was talking about, and when singing "The Pie Song" as I rocked her to sleep, sometimes I got so choked up I couldn't finish the words. I could only hum.
My biggest challenge at this point by far was nursing. Despite putting her on the breast every two to three hours that first week and then pumping religiously for the next three, I failed to get more than an ounce or two from each boob. By the end of the month, she was mostly on formula, and I was mostly at peace with my decision.
Fun fact: Kara was so big at birth that she only wore one newborn diaper, the one the nurses fastened to her right after she was delivered.
Month Two
Slowly, Luke and I were getting into the swing of things, though I was terrible about abiding by the "Sleep when the baby sleeps" rule. I was too busy trying to clean the apartment, update Kara's baby book, and find the time to shower. Afraid of letting her cry for even a second, I only washed up when she was asleep and the bassinet was placed squarely in the middle of the bathroom.
It was around this time I figured out that Kara and I could play together, so we did. I started reading books to her (Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? was her favorite--she loved the animal sounds), showing her blocks, and being more aggressive with tummy time. We danced to Fisher-Price and Baby Einstein CDs in the living room. We also napped on the couch in the afternoons--some of the best times of my life. She would stay asleep on me for hours while I watched soaps, ignored the snow falling outside, and breathed in her new baby smell.
Fun fact: It was around week eight that Kara transitioned from the bassinet to the crib and Luke and I actively implemented a loose bedtime routine. It was also about the time we discovered Lost as a way to feel connected to the outside world.Thanks, Charlie whoops, wrong show Jack.
Month Three
I think this is when Kara was finally able to go longer than two hours during the day without a bottle, making it much easier to travel. By this time we'd been up north to visit family at least twice, taking for granted that she would fall asleep for the majority of the car ride. (Those were the days!) She's also rolled over, smiled, and made me regret I ever agreed to be a working mom. My official return date was March 5. I cried the whole weekend before and even the weekend after because I went to dinner with some local blog buddies and couldn't get over how awful it felt to be spending even MORE time away from my baby.
Fun fact: I reinstitute Weight Loss Wednesday under the guise that I'm serious about shedding the last few sixteen pounds of baby weight. Except that I can't stop eating cookies. Silly Frema.
Month Four
Turns out the whole going-back-to-work thing isn't going so well. I break down on the Internet and take a vacation from personal blogging to get my act together. Kara fills in and steals the show. She also stops sleeping, finding it more desirable to wake up two to four times every other night for the next few weeks. And that's just at night--her nap time is STILL completely unpredictable. Good times.
Fun fact: I join Weight Watchers online because I'm actually serious about shedding the last few sixteen pounds of baby weight. And I lose four of them! Too bad I'm about to get knocked up!
Month Five
Kara is sitting up with style and also sleeping through the night again (for the most part). She enjoys her first baby-sitting experiences with each set of grandparents as Luke and I celebrate our second wedding anniversary and attend my ten-year high school reunion in Chicago. We see Dan and Samantha's new house and decide to plant roots in central Indiana, going against our original plan to move closer to Chicago. We introduce Kara to rice cereal but after a week of non-cooperation decide it's not worth the hassle. We pledge to try again next month.
Fun fact: The Great Aunt Flo Watch of 2008 begins. Luke buys a pregnancy test for me at a Walgreens in Merrillville but refers to it as a birth detection kit. The clerks are understandably confused. The pastor who married us is understandably amused.
Month Six
Kara is crawling! Thus, it's not long before Luke and I are disassembling our coffee table to minimize opportunities for scary head trauma.We're also getting out of the house more to explore local surroundings--parks, the zoo, walking trails--and we have a ball. We even buy one of those cute backpack carriers because we're so sure we'll be spending the summer tromping through Indy's various greenways. Except not so much, because pregnant Frema is in the throes of the first trimester. Sorry, family.
We try cereal again, this time with success. Also bananas, which she doesn't like much at this point, but soon it'll become one of her favorite foods. Naptime is still a struggle but it's getting better, though I'm too afraid to try and put her down myself. I always make Luke do it because I'm afraid of screwing up their routine.
Fun fact: Kara continues to surpass the growth charts, hitting the scales at 21 pounds and 11 ounces and measuring 28 ¾ inches long. She barely fits in her Chicco infant seat anymore.
Month Seven
Kara wows us all with her level of concentration when it comes to "reading" her books. She loves to stand at our sliding glass door and watch people come in and out of our apartment building--even moreso their pets. We spend lots of time feeding the ducks that camp out at our retention pond because I still feel too crappy to do much else. I orchestrate my first successful nap.
Fun fact: This is the month Luke and I make our beloved "Oopsie!" video.
Month Eight
I'm starting to feel better, so Luke and I make a trip to Kentucky to visit friends. We also add a bazillion trips up north and get lazy on our drives home, attempting to feed Kara in the car to make better time. This only works a couple of times before she demands to eat her fruits and vegetables outside the confines of her car seat--for one trip, she screamed so loudly that Luke and I were forced to get off the highway and pull into an abandoned gas station (just one of three!) to finish dinner and change her diaper in the back of the Cobalt. That wasn't nerve-wracking at all!
Fun fact: Kara is more agreeable to holding her own bottle, though she picks and chooses when she wants to comply.
Month Nine
My inner circle experiences a baby boom as Samantha delivers my nephew Danny and Molly gives birth to Marin. Meanwhile, Kara is babbling, cruising along furniture, and finally settling into a regular nap schedule. She's also more apt to go to bed drowsy but awake with minimal fussing, probably thanks to Bunny, her trusty bedtime companion. Her menu includes big girl snacks like Cheerios and Gerber puffs despite STILL not having any teeth. She remains ever the trooper as Luke and I bounce from house to house to house with our real estate agent. She finally enjoys her nightly baths. She still uses a pacifier, but mostly for naptime and bed.
Fun fact: Kara finally ditches her infant seat and upgrades to a convertible. Britax in my car, Graco in Luke's (a hand-me-down from my brother- and sister-in-law, bless them, those things are EXPENSIVE). She seems a lot more comfortable in the car now, though the Britax doesn't lean back as far as the Graco, so her feet are pushed up against the back seat. No surprise, seeing as she's about 30 inches tall. Her weight is beginning to level out at close to 25 pounds.
Month Ten
Big changes here: We move into the new house, Kara's two front teeth finally make an appearance, and we deal with the blasted time change. All of these factors likely play a role in Kara's once-again inability to sleep through the night; she cries out and wakes up at least once every night just about the whole month. Where before we were able to comfort her with reassuring back pats and soft words, now we resort to rocking her back to sleep because we know she's had a lot of change to deal with and what the hell, it works. Also, my belly is so big that it's too hard for me to lean over and reach her. It usually takes a while for her to find a comfortable spot against my chest, and she's probably cursing Baby Brother for being all up in her business, but we make do.
Fun fact: Pointing! Oh, the pointing! Especially at "the baby in the mirror."
Month Eleven
Kara's officially walking in no time, thanks to all the new space we've acquired with the new house. She's doing it so well, in fact, it's hard to remember she hasn't been doing it all the time. I have to travel for work for the first time in three years, which means spending the night (actually, three nights) away from Kara for the first time since she's been born. The anticipation was worse than the actual trip, but I'll take a rough night with my baby any day over an "easy" night without her.
No longer the passive book enthusiast, Kara has decided to start bringing the books to us, which equals a lot of repetition. (But hey, who doesn't like reading about Halloween and Thanksgiving in the beginning of December?) She also falls in love with the Curious George stuffed doll I bought for Luke a few Christmases ago. All you have to do is say, "Kara, where's George?" and if she doesn't run off to get him, she at least looks around to determine his location.
Her two bottom teeth are poking through, and she's chewing on her hands like crazy. She's got little red marks all over her fingers from them being in her mouth so much.
She's more affectionate than ever, holding faces to give kisses, running into hugs, and rushing to pat my big old belly when I come home from work. I love the way she reaches out to people, even those she doesn't know that well.
Fun fact: Good Lord, does this baby like to dance. She'll bounce up and down and shake her hands around at random times, sometimes to music, sometimes not.
Month Twelve
Our girl turns one year old. We still can't believe how blessed we are to have her in our lives.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. We love you more than you will ever know.
Why must each of my pregnancies include a trip to the ER?
Last October, I was thirty-three weeks along with Kara, and dehydration had brought on irregular (and very painful) contractions. On Saturday, I was thirty-one weeks along with Baby Brother, but once again it was Kara who inspired a trip to the hospital. Twenty minutes after lunch and about an hour and a half before the start of her first birthday party, she threw up her lunch in the much the same manner that Linda Blair spewed pea soup all over her bedroom. I think. I never saw The Exorcist. Still, though, I can say with confidence that watching my daughter regurgitate spring vegetables all over herself was probably a lot scarier.
Luke and I took Kara to the hospital at the urging of our pediatrician's on-call nurse, who said that vomiting and tiredness (a symptom she displayed at lunchtime) were often signs of a head injury, a head injury I almost forgot to tell her about when I called after the first round of puke. Kara's hit her head on our end table dozens of times since she learned to walk, and the bump on her forehead was considerably smaller than ones she's had in the past. Her fall that morning was the furthest thing from my mind come afternoon. But paired with her behavior, it couldn't be ignored, so we ended up at one of the city's most popular children's hospitals, where she had her first CT scan to check for internal damage.
Being pregnant, I couldn't go in with Kara for the scan, for which I was equally distressed and relieved. I so wanted Momma to be the one to comfort her, but seeing her in a hospital gown was bad enough; I can't imagine what it would have been like to help restrain her so she could go through "the giant doughnut-hole of the scanner"--my husband's words, as he was the one who had to do the honors. She threw up again twice while we were there, once before the scan and once after, minutes after we were discharged with a clean report and the doctor's reassurance that we were most likely dealing with a virus that would run its course after a few days' time.
We came home three and a half hours later to a full house of party guests who couldn't wait to watch the birthday girl eat cake and open her presents. We had to skip the first part in case it upset her tummy, but we did sing "Happy Birthday" and go through all of her gifts, and soon after everyone was gone and Luke and I were finally allowed to collapse into each other's arms and sob over what a shitty day it turned out to be.
(For a longer recap, check out my Parents entry here.)
Things are almost better now, though Kara woke herself up to vomit on Sunday night, and a reintroduction to carrots caused her to throw up again this evening, so Luke and I are wondering if it's a good idea to go through with our plans for her actual birthday tomorrow, which involved a trip to the local children's museum and a meet-and-greet with Santa Claus. At least I have the day off so we can all be together.
I have more to say, but first! Pictures!
Before the drama:
Auntie Frema loving on baby Danny, my adorable nephew courtesy of my sister Samantha and brother-in-law Dan. They drove in from Chicago on Friday night to attend Kara's party. With Samantha's lips and Dan's eyes, he's the perfect combination of his parents.
Dan and Samantha steal our child for a picturesque family moment.
Her birthday outfit never stood a chance.
The show must go on.
Kara's beautiful cake. Luke and I were so Done we totally forgot to light our candle, just cut up slices and passed them around to our guests. (Without ice cream, even! For shame!) We had our pieces after dinner on Sunday. Poor Kara probably won't ever get hers, though Daddy has pledged to make special banana cupcakes once we're sure her stomach can handle it.
A unique set of party favors.
Kara enjoying her first popsicle--the only form in which Pedialyte was deemed even remotely acceptable.
Thankfully, being sick hasn't dampened Kara's spirits. Here she is playing with her babydoll stroller, a present from Grandma and Grandpa Dunscombe.
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Can you tell my heart isn't into this entry? Because my heart is SO not into this entry. I wanted my next post to be about my wonderful house that's finally in order or the photo shoot Luke, Kara, and I staged for our Christmas card or that we're finally at a point where we can start preparing for Baby Brother's arrival in seven weeks, MY GOD. The last thing I wanted to ramble on about was my baby being sick enough to abandon her first birthday party. But I have to, because even though I wrote about it for Parents, this is the site that promises to have a longer shelf life, and I already hate that so little of what I think about and do lately gets recorded here. It seems like every time I try to update, Kara wakes up or I'm nodding off at the computer or something something something. This is one Something I couldn't let pass me by.
Luckily, this post won't have the chance to bring me down for very long, because tomorrow is Kara's actual birthday, the day God officially brought her into our lives, and we all know that a blogger baby can't have a birthday without a video montage to mark the occasion. Not that I can take credit for it--Luke actually made an awesome clip to unveil at the party, but it's twenty-five minutes long, and I'm smart enough to know you all don't love my kid THAT much. Wonderful man that he is, he put together a shorter version for me to post on my blogs, so that will go live tomorrow (or today, depending on when you read this entry). I swear. I'm uploading it to YouTube right now.
