11.30.2009

getting along famously: part un

two weekends ago i had some awesome opportunities to meet some of my favorite favorites. first, jesse had been at the national youth workers' convention all weekend but obviously couldn't go on sunday morning due to church. i gave him a good old fashioned "sucks for you, but that sounded lame as hell anyway." he then told me how bummed he was to be missing out because the speaker was donald miller (aka our favorite jesus writer) and david crowder band (aka one of our top 3 jesus musicians) was doing the worship.
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so i skipped church, took the ticket and went in jesse's place. it was really awesome. for some reason even though all the people there have the exact same job as my husband and probably share more similar beliefs with me than some of my best friends, for some reason i just saw them all as crazy right-wing nerds and stuck to myself the whole time. (if you're gonna judge, i figure a blanket judgement is the way to go).
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i typically hate concerts because the musicians that i love because of their cd's decide that while playing live they will make their songs sound as different as humanly possible from the recorded versions and still be called the same song. my brother will probably disown me for saying that since he is mr. "going to shows" and hearing phish play a 14 minute version of a 4 minute song. luckily david crowder band live sounds exactly like their cd's. i know that i am weird and most people wouldn't pay money to see a group sound exactly like the cd they already bought, but this time i didn't pay money. so it was like listening to my cd's really loud and with special lights. DC is the goatiest of men but he is quite the singer/songwriter. the only thing that would have been better was if i didn't have Clappy McForgetthewords enthusiastically belting out every bar of every song directly behind me.
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donald spoke about his newest book, "a million miles in a thousand years." it was the last stop for him on his 65 city book tour and he was going home to portland right after talking to us. after he spoke, donald was signing books and talking to folks so i got in line. as i was getting closer, one of his helper dudes came up the line and said they were super late for their flight and that we needed to have books and cameras ready and limit our conversation. this was alarming to me since i was already having trouble coming up with a lead-off sentence to say to this semi-famous, totally-adored (by me) stranger to make him realize how cool i am and how i just knew we would be best buddies if only there was more time even without the time constraint.
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i made it to the front and naturally made a huge dork of myself as is standard practice in my life (i have had hangin' with mr. cooper flee, running, from my presence, gabrielle reece make fun of me to my face and have actually invited billy joel to come to one of my volleyball games). i did manage to squeak out something about his most recent book blowing my mind. it's all about making the story you are living a good one. i read it about a month after posting this about my story sucking lately and it was like he managed to 100% NAIL what i had been trying to squeeze out of my own heart with about 437 times the eloquence and depth.
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if you like donald or nienie or me i HIGHLY recommend buying it in the next 11 seconds. i promise it's not lame christian writing. that's the thing i love about old don (we are tight now), he writes about his own life and things intrinsic to the human experience/heart that really make you just think. he never jams jesus down your throat but instead just says, here's how it was for me and here's some stuff straight out of the bible and here's some things about life and they just all fit together and make you go, um YES! i think most of his books would be highly enjoyable even to someone who didn't believe in jesus because he's so honest and witty and self-deprecating. he's the literary equivalent of classical music for me: easy and enjoyable and beautiful and relaxing to listen to casually, but with tons of depth that can be unpacked if you examine closer or put some real thought into the music. somehow he is still single. ladies, wake up!
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love him! his jacket was suede and oh so soft. i may have hugged him twice and rubbed his back while this was being taken. i am a CREEPER!

11.26.2009

11.25.2009

they're communicating!

judah goes to preschool from 9-1 every day. the preschool director is one of only 4 staff members at our church. jesse is another one. her name is kristy and we love her for lots of reasons. here are several, 1: she is awesome. 2: she gives us 70% of judah's wardrobe through awesome hand me downs that her son outgrows. 3: she is a faithful blog commenter. 4: her kids rock. for example, drew is her youngest and he is in judah's class. he is 16 months old (judah is young for his grade, ha) and he is judah's favorite friend at school. maybe drew really likes judah because he recognizes everything that judah wears and it takes him back to the simpler times of his babyhood. regardless.
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i have never seen judah and drew interact because jesse picks up and drops off the bug at school so i can get 40 hours a week in and reap our fantastic insurance coverage. however, last night was the church thanksgiving potluck and we set up the buds in highchairs facing each other. i was dubious because it was close to meltdown town time for both of them, but i was FLOORED. judah watched drew's every move and was getting positively rocked into giggle fits. i have literally never seen judah laugh this hard or this long. the video doesn't even capture the full extent of the laughs they were having.
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we told kristy and her hubs joey that they better raise drew right because judah already wants to be just like him and watches his every move. it is a little distressing that the funniest thing judah has ever seen is another baby swatting at the food he's being fed. that doesn't bode well for us. drew knew we were trying to get judah to laugh, he wasn't just being rowdy for the hell of it. thanks chases, we love yall!
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when tabloids write about their bromance they will call them "drudah"
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***announcements! 1: today is judah's 6 month bday, aka half birthday! 2: his first tooth is now palpable and visible! 3: we may not be blogging much over the break; there wont be much time leftover if i am to fully dedicate myself to gaining back the 11 pounds i have lost on WW so far!***

11.24.2009

my excuse

no wonder i'm late to work every day

11.23.2009

potluck

our friendswhoarelikefamily potluck on friday went off perfectly. it was the 4th year (wow!) we have done it and i would say this the best year. even though we were sad to be missing some BFF's and perennial favorites (jacksons, tisons, fortunatos, bryans, arrowoods, brazells, dukes') we had great food and perfect fall weather. i think the house was more packed out than ever before, maybe 40-50 people in our teenie house. what really made it great for me though was finally answering "yes" when people asked if they could help me. i was still running around stupidly busy but i wasn't secretly hating everyone else for having so much fun while i was; i was actually having fun too. next year i will try to actually eat a whole plate. this time i had a square of fried turkey skin (heaven) and a few casserolie morsels before realizing i had missed my true hunger window and wasn't even into the deliciousness laid out before me. so i pretty much just had wine all night. i did have enough foresight to greedily ravage the leftovers and sock away everything the mob had left behind into our tupperware so i got to enjoy the meal again on saturday and sunday.


2 things i would like a redo of are: 1) judah knew something weird was going on and didn't want to sleep in the bathtub like we had planned so i would have put him in his crib like always and not have bothered with the alternate setup. he decided to wake up and cry just as jesse was getting everyone quiet to pray. so judah made a dramatic appearance. if i was one of the guests i would have said, "oh, they totally planned it like that to show off their baby...after telling everyone else not to bring theirs. what jerks." but it wasn't too bad. we put him in his room and gave him an extra bottle and he went back without a peep. even when half the males at the party decided to simultaneously scream as loud as they could at the conclusion to the hawks game. i was horrified to see jesse yelling with the rest of them. i went pretty nuts and may have spewed some invective. i think my quote was, "jesse david dukes, you have a tiny baby sleeping down the hall! these guys all have ignorance as an excuse, you have none!" and violently hurled a pillow at his face from across the room. ah, the holidays.
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and the 2nd redo would be that sweet lesley finch couldn't come to the party but still sent her sweet potato casserole. (above and beyond!) well, it came refrigerated because she cooked it way before so i popped it in the microwave to get it nice and warm. the entire party i thought i heard something beeping and i finally realized it was the microwave so i hit cancel without even opening the door or wondering why that might be happening. later that night, during the cleanup i happened to open it and find the yummy casserole sitting there untouched! that was what the beeping had been, the reminder that i had cooked something! luckily we have 2 more potluck events to attend so i am putting lesley's efforts to good use. promise that wasn't my plan all along.
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distance winners: the kiesshauers who came from acworth via motorcar and the fuhmans who came from miami on a plane (though not just for the potluck like the kiess's).
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veteran awards: we are pretty sure these are the only people to come every year-elliot hunt, jason tatum and kristen schloegel.
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food favorite (voted on by the panel of "just me"): schloegel's pumpkin orgasmo. it is AMAZING! kudos to her starving boyfriend for making the trip from atlanta while starving and having to hold it in his lap and smell its deliciousness without scooping out a single bite with his hands as i would have done.
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blog favorite, lena, was (wo)manning the camera for the evening and she was, shall we say, thorough. so i am just posting a teaser collage and you can see the rest of the pics here


(click to enlarge)

11.20.2009

also...

in other bloggy news, another of my favorite bloggity mom's, MckMama is coming to atlanta and having a get together. she's the one with the awesome post on marriage that i wrote about here. if you are around town on sunday at 3 and want to go to let me know and i will forward you the info. you don't have to pay, talk, or do anything. just show up and hang out with me! there will be lots of folks there so you could probably just eat and socialize and no one would pay any attention to you (i know that's a promise that would appeal to me).

11.19.2009

once upon a time

this is close to heaven for me. flaming orange trees and my two favorite boys. reading awesome (nerdy) books in 70 degree weather on a big quilt in peachtree city while enjoying subway for minimal points (in heaven this would be cheese fries and piles of fried turkey skin instead) we won't discuss the fact that there were golf carts whizzing by 5 feet away from us on one side and highway 54 twenty feet on the other side.


i finally decided to play with picasa collages and boy am i glad i did. LOVE it. i am thinking you will see much more of these in the future. you can click to enlarge it
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also: tonight is our 4th annual turkey fry and potluck food bonanza that we have every year for our college friends. this is the only event that i host in my house and we LOVE it. i usually stress and plan and clean every inch of the house weeks in advance. but this year, with the bug, that wasn't even possible. it feels AWESOME! judah will be asleep the whole time (in the bathtub that we are turning into a crib to keep him far from the noise). WW points, farewell!

shepherds, tuxes, tootsie rolls and life partners

jesse was in yet another wedding this past weekend. the last of his 3 freshman year roommates , stevo, married the gorgeous miss maggie smyth in atlanta on saturday. fun facts:
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the roomies at our house the night before the rehearsal (from left: kellen, stevo, lukas, jesse). at one point they had the dream of moving to new zealand and be shepherds after college. i crushed this dream by mercilessly besotting jesse's heart and stealing him away to marriage.

#1: the 4 roommates (jesse, kellen, lukas, stevo) got married in the same order that they were born in. all four of the roommates have been in all of each others' weddings over the past 3+ years and only one was in absentia.

#2: stevo and maggie met on the catwalk of the georgia dome rafters during the peach bowl while raining down parachuting chick-fil-a cows on the spectators. so cool!

#3: we ate breakfast with the couple (and met maggie for the first time) on 4/25, back when they were only BF/GF and before jesse and i even got to the car afterward we looked at each other and said, “he is totally going to marry her.” and then an hour later stevo proposed! with pieces of our shared meal still in his stomach (and judah still in mine).
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since we had the rehearsal dinner and the wedding to attend we decided to leave judah with the grandukes on friday and then take him to the wedding on saturday. this turned out to be dumb, yet fun. It was INCREDIBLY nerve-wracking during the ceremony because judah was falling into a nap right then and the little guy likes to give goodbye shouts/screeches/warbles to consciousness as he falls asleep. i am now officially a member of the back row mom’s club. at the slightest peep i ran out to the foyer (or is it called a vestibule?) and booty-tapped him into full submission. he was honestly great and didn't ruin a single vow despite my nervousness.

when we got the the reception the scary part was over and he could be as loud as he wanted. but, oops, the reception started at 7 which is his bedtime so we needed everyone else to be silent while he slept. unlikely. amazingly the little man was perfection again; being adorable for the first hour and flirting with everyone and then he passed out for the final 2 hours. here are some pics.

naturally, we lead things off with a picture of elliot and lena who judah may or may not know as "dad and mom" if he reads this blog at all. elliot is from hawaii and likes to give the hang loose signal as a tribute to his homeland...mmm, no. elliot is armenian/tennesseean (armenisseean?) and was letting judah teethe on his pinky. this is adorable. lena and elliot held him during all of dinner so jesse and i amazingly got to eat. don't think they were doing it to help us though, they are obsessed with judah and steal him from us at every opportunity.
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then judah hit the wall. luckily the dance floor was hopping by this point so there was constant loud noise and music which is faves for the bug to sleep in (for realsie). elliot held judah a good 30 minutes beyond the point that we figured out that judah had peed through his diaper, pants and elliot's shirt (and possibly necktie) what a snuggle trooper.

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when you have on a polo with a popped collar you can get away with overt friskiness such as this. judah had his hand down lena's dress for a good 45 minutes. he may or may not have actually been asleep.
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judah stayed peacefully asleep for many a lap-pass. yes that IS a purple tux jesse is rocking. and i bought a jewel-toned complement (<---lee vincent, notice!) of a dress. we're such gems!

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judah woke merrily from his slumber for a bit so we decided to put on his tux (bib) that our pastor's family had given us for a critical photo op before stuffing him in his jammies and heading home.
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formal fam



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with the happy couple. judah was in pj's (aka, rice costume) riding in my black "evening sling". he also took his first turn on the dance floor minutes later to the song, "tootsie roll" which he took as a request and promptly made one for us in his pants. you're right judah, it ain't a butterfly, its the tootsie roll. and my bangs gave up the greasy ghost and went up into my go-to pouf at this point.
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*somehow i don't have a picture to document it, but for both nights my date was kellen's beautiful wife, kaycee. as you may know, being the wife/GF of a wedding party member can be lonely. for the wedding she became my life partner and co-mommy of judah. she was AWESOME. she carried the diaper bag, made trips to retrieve things from the car, got us food, held the bug and pretty much kept me from becoming a big weeping puddle of stress and control-top lycra. we had really great not-awkward or stalky conversation (a new feature of my relationship with her) during our 3-4 hours of total commuting that somehow survived the moment when i realized that, despite kellen and jesse being only 3 months apart, kaycee is 5 years younger than me! she hasn't even had her wisdom teeth out! i have known her for 3 or 4 years i think and somehow never realized this until i was close enough to 30 to feel ancient by this fact. despite being damnably youthful she was my saving grace. thank you kaycee! if things don't work out with kellen and some GA legislation changes...

11.18.2009

a drop in the bucket

here's one more reason why i love jesse so much: we have the exact same sense of humor. for instance, on saturday i was diligently entering my weight watchers points into the computer while jesse was feeding our 2 beastly dogs, chopper and clifford, in the back yard. i heard him come back inside and kind of realized in the back of my mind and out of the corner of my eye that he was standing in the living room. i didn't think anything of it and then i realized he hadn't said anything or moved in a few minutes. so i look up and this is what i see:


except he wasn't smiling. he was just standing there with that stranger in his arms, both of them staring at me. this was alarming on several levels. first off, our dogs are humongous and have the destructive capability of a category 4 tropical depression; therefore, they do NOT come in the house, so seeing dog of any kind inside was strange. secondly, i have never seen this animal in my life, so having it go from nonexistent in my worldview to present in the arms of my husband in my living room was somewhat surreal. thirdly, i didn't know if this beast was friend or foe. one of my instant thoughts was that jesse had finally turned against me like a pod-person and was going to turn this creature loose to eliminate me. i definitely had a "fight or flight" moment of shock. i picked flight. i jumped up off the couch and ran the other way part laughing hysterically part crying a little bit out of fear and confusion and weired-outness.

then i realized what was happening and how funny it was that jesse had just stood there for several minutes holding a dog and waiting for me to look up and react. she turned out to be really sweet, her name was macey and she lives 2 houses down from us according to her collar. apparently jesse found her chatting with our dogs through their fence and she seemed amiable so he decided to pick her up and bring her in our house for a laugh. turns out that is just my style and i have cracked up several times since then just remembering him over there with that dog while i ignored him, patiently waiting as the hilarity potential grew and grew. what a guy.

11.17.2009

timbaland

as in tiiiimberrrrr.
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judah has been sitting up unassisted for longer and longer periods. he first did this at 4 months for 5 or 10 seconds, but could only do it while he was 100% still and staring at the same object. since then he is able to do it while reaching for things, playing, throwing himself off balance, but he still falls over hilariously often.
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we have decided it's time to not catch him when he tips over...as long as he's on something relatively soft. gravity doesn't coddle, and neither do we in this instance. here he is last week showing his tenuous grip on mastery of this particular skill.

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pimping it, upright style. read the shirt, chicas...for the next 20 years
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you would think that picking this up would stabilize him, but he actually pulled it right out from under himself, resulting in...
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hahahaha mid-air and he still looks right into the camera. that's right, baby zoolander, get the shot

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luckily he has LOTS of fun on his back eating his socks and speaking pterodactyl.
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in other athletically developmental news: there is none. our attempts to get judah to crawl by putting him on his tummy all the time are thwarted by his rapid rolling back over. however we know the bug can commute, even if we don't see how. we put him on the floor and leave the room for a few minutes and when we come back he is 4 feet off his blanket. so we know he has some form of locomotion down but we have no clue if it's army crawl, inchworm, barrel roll or if he just gets up and walks. we'll let you know if he ever deigns to show us.

11.16.2009

checkmate

judah felt a bit warm on sunday night so we stuck a thermometer up his butt and found out that he had a fever of 101.4. he didn't really have any other symptoms and was bee-bopping around like his sprightly normal self, if a bit on the well-done side. so we figured it was one of the fevers that can sometimes go along with teething. we aren't bad parents, we just aren't prone to freaking out about things like this and didn't even call the doctor [brag: aren't we SO laid back?]. kids over 6 months are good to go unless its over 103 or accompanied by other bad symptoms [annoying: unsolicited medical advice]. regardless, you aren't supposed to take your kids to preschool unless they have been fever-free sans medication for 24 hours. SO we figured i would go to work while jesse kept him and then i'd come home a bit early and jesse could go get his work done. except we remembered that letter we got in the mail a few weeks back. today jesse had to be a:
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reading the book of law (not blindfolded, unlike true lady justice)
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dun-dun-dun...plot twist! that's right. playing the role of the rural juror (say that aloud) at coweta's superior court and receiving $50 a day and a work excuse was my civic-minded albeit legally-bound hubby. so checkmate for me taking care of the bug all day. goody for me my work is amazing so i was able to go in at 6am before jesse left and snag my laptop to being home and work while judah napped. however i was not able to do a regularly scheduled blog post. ironically this is still turning into one. quid pro quo, madame justice system (that's a thing, right?)
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luckily, jesse wasn't selected to be on a trial. i had advised him to dress like an idiot and talk like a zealot to avoid selection...sorry democracy, the bug had a fever, extreme measures were necessary. after sitting around for a few hours with the other prospective jurors, they let them all go when they found out there weren't any superior trials coming in today so jesse didn't get a chance to play his most radical, yet truthful and oath-bound version of himself. i have never had jury duty and i was intrigued by jesse's experience, even though he got just the smallest of tastes of what it would really be like. i can remember being 7 or 8 years old going to court with my dad while he was on a jury for a fatal car accident one time, but i mostly just colored like the tiniest of courtroom sketch artists. have any of y'all ever been on a jury?
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***update: my dad just called to tell me that i made that right up. he was never on such a jury, but he was a witness in the accident (i was with him when it happened...coloring), but i wasn't even in court with him when he testified. congratulate me on my first work of pure fiction! at least it was based on a true story***

11.13.2009

duking it out

cousin bella investigates. these two are gonna be best buds; they're only 18 months apart.

. bad grandaddy!...birthday cool whip/ice cream (from yet another bday meal that was partially for me). this would turn into chocolate sauce-giving a little later. and a stained onesie. thats what grandparents are for: love, spoiling and messes, love it!
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SO cute. with grams cracking up at grandaddy and daddy across the room (look at that quad definition!)

11.12.2009

13 months

i meant to do this at its one year mark, but somehow got really confused with the dates and so now it's a little bit more. so 13 months ago this week we laid eyes on the bug for the first time ever. he was actually more bug-like at that moment, before he even was the bug yet, than ever since. he was 1 cm long and pretty much just a 5 week old clump of cells (they calculate gestation based on your last period, 2 weeks before conception, so even though i was 7 weeks pregnant, he was only 5 weeks "old")
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this first trip to the OB portion of my OBGYN also came with the added bonus of experiencing an INTERNAL ultrasound. naturally i was mortified by the whole process, but it was a good initiation into the world of pregnancy/childbirth. a world filled with stirrups, lube, bright lights and the probing fingers and eyes of many health care professionals whose names i will never know. g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s.
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since this was our first child, and since this embryo looked nothing like an actual baby, this moment wasn't super emotional for us. i was VERY relieved that there was only one baby (jesse was a little disappointed...wtf!) and glad that everything that could look good at 7 weeks and 1 day pregnant did look good. pretty much we just saw this image and got our due date (which of course i had already used the interwebs to calculate for me, so it was just confirmation that 6/1 was the day). he was too tiny to listen to the heartbeat yet, too new for us to even wrap our minds around the idea that this was becoming a baby. our baby. i remember thinking i was a bad mom for not crying with joy or something, but i just couldn't really get there. he was just a bean:
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the first ever photo of judah. the ball a the top of the picture is not his head, its the yolk sac. he doesn't have it anymore.
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no, the cool thing with this ultrasound didn't happen that day. it happened about a month after judah was born. my hormones were back under control, my entire repro' zone was back in one piece, we were learning each others' schedules and routines and i felt like we were hitting our stride with the little guy. there was much less, "holy shit, we're supposed to keep this creature alive using only our SKILLS...we have no skills!!!" and much more, "sweet moses, we are in love with this little man more than we ever thought possible."
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one month ex-utero

i had kept the hard copy of this ultrasound in the way-back of my daily planner. i hadn't really looked at it since before our 16 week ultrasound told us he was a boy and gave us much better photos to look at.
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well i was thumbing through a month after birth and the page flipped open and i saw this first ultrasound. i was overcome. it was like a physical reaction; like someone slapped me across the face with a big fat hand full of love.
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in the instant of my eyes falling on that very first picture i realized that that tiny little pod--that was pretty much just an invited parasite back at 7 weeks--and whom i felt no attachment to (beyond the umbilical cord) WAS my judah! even back then! that little group of cells that had only existed for 4-5 weeks was 100% the same little guy as this son that i love so much. that the adorable, fully functional, snuggly baby laying beside me had 8 months earlier been a 1 centimeter long black and white blob. i cannot really describe how powerful this process was, to go back and retroactively love that little embryo so much. to realize the miracle of it all.
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i knew intellectually that i had a tiny organism growing inside of me and that it was freaking amazing. that, starting from scratch and using 2 sets of blueprints, a person was going to be created using only what it found in my body as the building blocks. i knew this and i cared about the little thing and hoped and wondered at it all and tried to stay in awe of the process. but i had no frame of reference for anything other than the biological miracle of humanufacturing a little stranger.
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but to look back and realize the journey my little guy took, from bean to bug was downright flooring, and i couldn't get there until i knew just what the little bug was actually going to mean to me here on the outside. it was all of a sudden understanding that an oak tree that provides shade and food and shelter, and contains such power and might and beauty, all that the oak tree would and could ever become was once contained in the tiny seed of an acorn. what a mind job. it makes me respect seeds and the promise they contain. (i promise this isn't a veiled attempt at an abortion post).
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a to-scale comparison (i used a ruler and my screen) of 2 pictures taken of judah on october 15th
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i know that now when i see the early ultrasounds of any of our future children that i WILL be moved and emotional. i will know that mr./miss teeny mcblobbins in the photo is really a tiny grain that will grow into so much and give me so much. that there are undiscovered pieces of my own heart bound up in that little acorn, places and depths of love that i could never know or access on my own. and i will know how cool it is that all this love and hope that is in me was once a tiny acorn that had invaded my mom. and back and back and back all the way back to the one who knew me as a far off descendant of the first speck and DID realize what i would become and loved me madly even then and authored this story that i find myself in.

11.11.2009

there's a bug in my meal

judah flipped his "busy" switch sometime in mid-september. this means whenever he is awake and alert and not being a hungry, shrieking, little harpy, he wants to be "into" things. we are now that family at a restaurant that has the kid in a lap at the table and a 2 foot radius of cleared table space in front of him.
. cheers!
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it seems his singular purpose in life is to acquire any object within reach, no matter how sharp, poisonous, or aflame, and experience it with his most trusted of sensory organs: his gaping maw of toothbudding droolery. if you had asked me a few months back what percentage of nouns i'd be okay with my infant putting in his mouth i would have said, hmmm maybe 10%. turns out its actually more like .0001%. you see, aside from the general nastiness or safety hazard of most things within his grasp, i hadn't factored in the wild brandishing that also goes on with any and all objects en route to the mouth. judah wields these like a drunken pirate and comes perilously close to eyes, vital organs and brain access points before he brings them in for a landing between his gums. for instance, a spoon: i am ok with judah gnawing on a spoon at a restaurant. i am significantly less okay with him scooping out his eyeball and part of his frontal lobe to do so.
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judah doesn't want a little brother any time soon, so he contrives to dump this sub-zero beverage right in daddy's lap, neutralizing any and all future threats.
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so now all plates, condiments, glasses, silverware, table decor and food get shoved away out of the bug's chubby little 8-inch reach. our tables look like tiny atomic bomb testing facilities with a crater of oblivion surrounded by a perimeter of culinary fallout. somehow we make it work and get more than our share of cholesterol, sodium and saturated fat. what can we say, we are living the dream.
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all eating must be accomplished at breakneck speed while the bug's back is turned. this is an effective strategy that has the unavoidable, and not entirely undesirable, side effect of meat juice in my and judah's hair.
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pacified on several different levels: sucking merrily on half-sour pickles at ted's.
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yes, camera's are interesting but when you try to put one in your mouth, they exhibit an interesting defense mechanism of retinal assault. (i swear he doesn't really look like this).
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one thing he can play with: a sheathed straw. and of course he immediately fashions it into an ersatz middle finger and shoot us the bird. since he lacks the digital dexterity to form anything besides a fist right now its pretty smart of him to use a prosthetic to communicate his tiny feelings.
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so if you see us out at a restaurant and the bug is with us, do us a favor and come feed us our meals...cause we can't reach our forks.

11.10.2009

waste not

why, yes, yes i did find this adorable onesie about 5 days after halloween and staged a picture like it was 10/30 or something. but do you think i'll remember that when i look back at this picture years from now? i have no shame postdating judah's outfits. in fact, my biggest fear is that somehow we will waste any outfit that we have bought, been given, or has been handed down to us. and these time-sensitive outfits of "my first thanksgiving/st. patrick's day/ramadan" make me super nervous. i go through the special basket of these every few weeks to make sure some holiday hasn't come and gone without a special onesie, bib or hat to mark the occasion. yet somehow i missed 2 halloween outfits.
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appropriately spooky...in november
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i buy clothes a year or more ahead in size when they go on clearance so we have tons stored in bins in the attic for future wearing. i am so nervous judah will be 4 and i'll stumble upon a gold mine of 77kids (american eagle kids clothing line...ADORE!) stuff in two year sizes that we completely forgot to ever dress him in. if this happens enough times, i will have another kid just to fill up all the clothes and not waste any. well, for that reason and all the love.

11.09.2009

the tortoise and the hair

get it? my glasses are tortoise shell frames. and here's the new haircut. the overwhelming majority of voters wanted side swiper bangs, so i delivered because i am just that much of a pushover. actually i wanted them pretty bad myself, the only thing really holding me back was that i hate hair in my face and side bangs are long enough to get in your eyes almost by definition. BUT since i have my new glasses, i can tuck the bangs behind the corner of the lens and they hold them back pretty well until they grow enough to blend with the other hair. i really like the cut and i LOVE the color. i am so happy to be out of 1 year old roots shamefest.
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it took 4 hours and more than several dollars to accomplish this revival, but i am so happy i finally did it. the girl who did it was the same one who did it last november and she was proud that her cut and color had lasted so long without absolutely HAVING to be updated. she said ideally every 9 months is enough and would avoid fried hair syndrome. fantastic, that's probably how often i will have 4 spare hours and it will give me enough time to save up the cost again too!
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judah played golf with daddy (buckled in the cart this time...dont get me started on what happened when i found out he was just sitting the carseat in the cart the 2 times before) while i had my hairathon, so major props to them for letting me go. there's still no way in hellfire i am going to be a hair down daily type of girl, but this should get my average back up to once a week at least...up from once a month since judah was born.
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turns out that the trick for keeping degreased bangs doesn't work...i'm not sure it ever did since the frustration i was feeling late sunday was very familiar. the fruffle (ruffle+fluff) maneuver only keeps them separated for about 5 minutes until they congeal again. the best solution i have is baby power or makeup powder dusted in there. this works for blondies more than darkies because the white of the powder, although you could by some black lady makeup powder...that would work.
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a toss of my new bangs to you all!

11.06.2009

we got a teether

judah's two bottom teeth are about to break through any minute now. i imagine this event will be heralded by the kind of wriggle...pop! noise that accompanies a cartoon carrot being pulled from the earth. he has been a champ for the last 2 months since they started forming/coming in/terrorizing him. this last week has been extra rough.

telltale signs of teething: mom has in earplugs to guard against the wailing going on 3 inches from her cochlea, baby is drooling and gnawing on his fist while rubbing is head back and forth against mom's shoulder, mom has a furrowed brow and frazzled locks.


we are sad and frazzled. we are sadzzled.


ahhhh baby motrin


when i was pregnant we would try to imagine our baby's face and what he would look like. i didn't have a beautiful enough imagination to even be able to picture a face that i could love this much. my cardiac grinchometer just 'sploded. now there's unconditional love all over my keyboard.

11.05.2009

she bangs?

i have a hair cut and highlights scheduled on saturday. the last time i had either i was not even out of my first trimester yet. thats right, its been almost exactly one entire year. i can't wait. my hair is so long and my roots so out of control that i dont even wear my hair down any more at all. like an unathletic tall girl, having long hair and wearing it in a messy bun all the time is such a waste.
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i have always watched the makeover shows where they put the chick 100% in the hands of the sylist, not even letting her request what she wants. obviously if you get on a show like this you have forfeited the right to request your own style and control must be given over to a professional who can tell you what would look best on you from a detached perspective. while i dont think i am that far gone, the style i ask for is always just a 6 months ago version of what i have now. long, with layers. but this time i might just ask the chick what she would do to me if she was tasked with making me look my best.
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my normal haircut...but my hair is about 8 inches longer now
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now i am definitely not saying that i am going to LET her do whatever it is, but i am more open this time that i ever have been. i mean, if worse comes to worst i can just shove it all up in a tangled messy bun...just like i do every day now.
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one thing i am considering is bangs. i did sidesy bangs right after getting married and i really liked them when i wore my hair down. but because i have oily-tending skin and hair they tended to congeal into four or five spider -fingery clumps over time rather than the light airy bangs that i start out the day with. if i sweat at all (and i DO) they get kind of plastered to my forehead. lena (who is in this blog WAY too much) taught me a good fluffing method for keeping them separated. plus i can always twist them back into a taco...which i do anyway now with my long front pieces.
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bangs. and ignore the fact that i am super skinny here. i doubt the stylist can transform me that much
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so the questions is, should i get bangs? i am putting a poll over on the sidebar for you to judge me anonymously. since yall betrayed me in the last poll and said judah looks like jesse, i might not trust you now though. (j/k, i am GLAD judah looks more like jesse). feel free to write-in votes in the comments section if you have a totally new hairstyle option to offer.

11.04.2009

ta-da!

sorry to make you wait so long. i hope the anticipation isn't going to dull the reaction to the actual costume. here's one more clue...it should be pretty obvious by this pic. this is the entire costume assembled and waiting for the bug to don it. (although no shame if you dont get it still, LOTS of people didn't get it in person, even when we were all in our ensembles, which is crushing when you go all out like we did.)

got it yet???



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he was SUSHI! salmon nigiri to be exact. judah is our favorite, so of course we had to make him a costume accordingly and sushi is definitely our favorite meal



judah is the rice nugget under the fish, which is held on by seaweed (which isnt always used, but we needed a belt and extra accoutrement).

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we have known judah was going to be sushi for a long time now. we were thinking we would do the parental thing and let ourselves off the hook for costumes since our kid is way cuter anyway. however, i realized we could make jesse and me full complimentary costumes for $0. so naturally, what goes along with sushi?

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a sushi chef and a bottle of soy sauce! (i am 50% mortified 50% delighted with myself)

jesse's costume: my bathrobe, flip flops, white pants, 2 old t-shirts for his headgear and to make the cleaver our knife sharpener rod thing and duct tape and cardboard

my costume: a red throw pillow, washrag and place mat for the cap and then every piece of brown clothing i own plus some masking tape and safety pins. the only reason i used danielle's wonderful bridesmaid's dress was to capture the outward flare of the bottle...although my birthing hips and ass would have been sufficient i think. i am pretty much naturally shaped like a soy sauce bottle--thick, stocky and bottom heavy.

before you starting thinking this was kind of morbid, us chopping up our child, the knife is only used on the fish, not the rice. the rice is lovingly hand-shaped.


of course we had to go eat sushi afterwards! here's judah looking smoochable with daddy at mr. fuji. plus a 1/16th model of me in my costume on the table.
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HAHAHAHAHA! i told you mommy was hungry! this picture frightens even me; the crazed glint in my eye, the terror on the bug's face. but i am 95% sure i would not eat judah if he was made of real sushi. (should have been more meticulous with the tape on the back side of the sushi...oops)

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total cost of all of our outfits: 60 cents for judahs green fabric. total amount of candy eaten by me and jesse: one fun size bag of swedish fish (1/2 a WW point). plus afterwards we went to the dukes' house and watched tech stomp vandy (eventually) in front of a lovely fire. halloween was a rousing success. and congratulations to mr. nathan phillips for correctly guessing the costume based only the raw materials. he was the only person that got it! 10 points to you!