Itty Bitty Baby

New Year, New Home...UPDATED

2010-04-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

...Homepage, that is!

That's right folks...it's been a nice run here on Blogger, but alas, methinks my blogging needs might be better met elsewhere...Téa's 1st birthday seemed like as good a time as any to make a fresh start in a new location...on a Mac website. I know, I know...not as hip, but it's just SO much more convenient when you are dealing primarily with videos and pictures as opposed to text. It's the only way I have a fighting chance of keeping things up to date.

So, here's the new site:

www.ittybittybaby.net

This Blogger site will remain up so all the content here will still be available for revisiting, just in case a walk down memory lane strikes your fancy. But for those of you ready to--*sigh*--take the next step with me, follow the link, update your bookmarks, and prepare to embark on the next chapter of life with my itty bitty baby...I hope you'll come along with us!

UPDATE: After some deliberation, I decided to password protect the new site. If you would like to be given the username and password, email me at...

hokuclements@mac.com

...and I will pass it along if you are family or friend. Basically I just don't want some person who just happens upon my site to be able to have full access to all my pictures and videos of me and my family in case...you know...they're weird. Thanks!

My 1st Year of Motherhood: Becoming a Small Time Keeper

2010-03-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

(A few days before I delivered Téa)

(Meeting her for the first time)

(Téa and I today)

So I'm sitting in Téa's pediatrician's exam room in preparation for her 9 month check up and vaccinations...you know, running over my mental checklist of questions, trying to keep Téa occupied, the usual ped's office shenanigans...when the normally quite reserved Dr. A bursts jovially through the door and announces: "Well look at what we've got here!...An almost 1 year old on our hands!!! Congratulations, Mom, on making it this far!" Let me tell you, the streets of Beijing probably came to a standstill wondering "what the heck was that?" as the deafening thud of my jaw hitting the linoleum reverberated through the earth's core. Up until that point, my daughter's life was just a series of days and weeks and months, measured more in milestones and firsts and sleep hours and feeding times than anything else, a collection of pages whipping off the calendar or ripping out of the Book of My Life Since Becoming a Mom at breakneck speed...pages whose most dazzling contents most often included: "Just getting by today, thanks for asking." (And to be honest that is probably stating it rather generously).

There I was, innocently whiling away the minutes being the Mom of a some-month-or-other-old baby just moments before, only to be thrown to the ground by the sudden arrival of a rude and ruddy boulder into the calm and feathery softness of my blissful moment-by-moment life like a piece of falling sky: The Year. Somewhere in the midst of it all I had forgotten they still existed. And now, the first was upon me.

My inner Chicken Little panicked. Shouldn't I be skinnier by now!? Where has this year gone!? How could it have snuck up on me so completely!?

And the million dollar question: Now that is was almost over, had I truly made the most of my first year with Téa?

Everyone from my best friends to my family to complete strangers had routinely come up to me and told me "Enjoy it, they grow up so fast!"...and a part of me had always wanted to roll my eyes...it felt like that useless chestnut of yore from my pregnancy days: "Sleep now!" (Why thank you for that sage advice, Unsolicitedadvicegiver. I was, up until you made that comment, the very last person on the earth who didn't realize that having a baby means that I will not be able to sleep as much as I used to! Thank you for enlightening me. Now that you've mentioned it I will definitely be more diligent about storing up lots of sleep hours along with my pet unicorn in the Rainbow Fairyland Sleep Bank!!!). But now, with that Year notch quickly approaching, I was haunted by the fear that perhaps I had written off that chorus of admonishments a little too quickly.

And now, it was too late.

To be honest, since becoming a Mom, the Year had all but disappeared from my mental vernacular...we Mom's know that early motherhood is all about having a firm and focused grasp on the smaller increments of time. Take the month for example. We know exactly what stage they represent, how long or short they can feel, what the hidden meaning behind each one might be (Month 6? Teething. Month 8? Crawling. Month 3? Mom maybe getting a little more sleep. Month 1? Mom not sleeping at all.) In fact, months can feel like years in and of themselves after the week-speak of pregnancy, when just a handful of days can mean fingernails and hair, eyes and limbs and neural pathways, working lungs and a fully developed heart, the possibility of life outside the womb or the certainty of death. And forget about it once you deliver your baby! Days become formless hazy eternities...The sun and moon trading places in the sky becomes absolutely meaningless because the sleep that used to separate the two becomes a snatched rarity rather than a regular activity, and the only light you can see rising and setting anywhere anymore is your baby (whether she be the blinding, grating, migraine-causing kind or the soft, warm, peeking-majestically-through-the-clouds-and-making-you-melt-with-joy kind).

When you are a mom, frankly, every moment matters. We know that one hour of pushing can feel like 7, thirty minutes of sleep in 24 hours can refresh you enough to get by, that one second leaving your child unattended could lead to ____(insert your worst fear)____, that 5 minutes of listening to your baby cry can feel so much like 20 you would bet a hundred dollars on it without blinking, that in one afternoon your child can learn and master a skill that will be used and built upon for their entire life, and that in one hour (with practice!) you can complete the same amount of cleaning, chores, and household tasks that once--in the luxurious laziness of a former life--took you an entire day. We Moms know all about the importance of the Month, the Week, the Day, the Minute, the Hour, the Second, and (yes, even you...) the Millisecond....We are the Small Time Keepers. We deal in moments.

For me, the freedom--nay, the requirement--of taking on a more narrow life focus that motherhood has afforded me has been downright therapeutic (therapeutic like a vigorous salt scrub that leaves you a little tender and smarting afterwards, but also leaves you with skin and an outlook on life that are decidedly smooth). For a former perfectionist/self-destructionist/suffocating-under-the-weight-of-a-lifetime-of-expectations-ist, Motherhood was just what I needed to bring me back down to the earth and get me grounded in the "now" of my everyday life. It helped me to finally get out from under the "should"s and "could"s that have hung over me almost to the point of smothering me all my life--the anchor of a troubling past and the pull of an unattainable future. There was always a past to live down and a future to live up to, but never a present to live in...it kept my eyes perpetually trained outward and my heart in bondage, suspended in the shapeless, now-less purgatory between dreams and regrets...like an abandoned astronaut lost in Big Time Space...starving to death and running out of oxygen...literally reaching for the stars, yet missing out on the life that wizzed by under my feet and out of my reach.

But this year brought a new freedom and purpose and direction and worldview to my frazzled rabbit hole of a life. The new overwhelming love I felt for Téa opened my heart enough for me to be reticent to the Lord's plan for a new restored me...plans that began with shedding some light into those dark cobwebbed corners I'd been avoiding and woman-ing up to dealing with what's been hiding there. What I found by turns challenged me, threatened me, shook me, encouraged me, surprised me, and empowered me....truly, It boiled me down to the essence of who and what I really am, for better of for worse. Much of what I found there, at the heart of that stripped down, de-belled and de-whistled me, had been buried long enough to render itself unrecognizable...almost new. So in that way, Téa's birth marked a rebirth for me as well...a beginning of a journey back to a home I had long forgotten but am slowly but surely beginning to remember as I walk the rooms and explore the object I find there. Hello there long-forgotten me....it's nice to see you again!

And then, there's Téa. Ahhhhh, my Téa! When I look at her I feel so grateful...that I should have the privilege of being the mother of this sweet and snuggly little spitfire is just beyond me! What a revelation she has been each day...so small and curious and trusting. I think of her holding on to our coffee table for balance and swaying to the music (whether it be in her mind or actually playing), crawling all over the house with her little diaper butt in the air, spouting jibberish as earnestly and casually as if she were telling me about the weather...the unabashedly joyful look that comes over her face when I come to get her from her crib after her nap, the calm that comes over her whole body when she's nursing, the way her little arm hooks around mine when I carry her on my hip...The feel of her tiny hands resting on my arms when I'm reading her a story, the way words like "Up" and "Book" and "Owl" (Aaaahwooooooo!") sound on her lips when they are brand new, the way she squeals with happiness when I walk into the room and how something as innocuous as an old mascara tube or a rubber spoon can turn into the most engaging toy in her hands....and I realize I have never loved anything in this world as much as I love that little girl!

Not only do I feel grateful that I get to be her Mom, I also feel grateful that the Lord saw fit to dig into my life so generously...to give me a chance to really enjoy her and be present with her...to be able to let go of that lost-in-space life and get grounded in the down and dirty "now" of each moment we have together.

In that way, I feel like I can close the book on this first year with Téa with a light heart...with that inner Chicken Little of mine mollified that though that piece of sky has officially and undeniably arrived, it is a good and welcome arrival. Let each new boulder fall, each year come and go...at this moment in my life, I am content knowing that I have done my best to live in every feathery "now" that came before this boulder touched down in my moment-by-moment, Small Time world, and that--God willing--I will continue to learn how to live in every delicious "now" that will follow.

Month 12 Pics and Milesones

2010-03-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

(Waiting at Cafe Mimosa)

Month 12 Pics

(You will notice that the pics don't include her actual Birthday day...I decided to do those separately in the interest of getting her 12 month pics up in a sort-of timely fashion. Coming soon though, I promise...)

Yes indeed, folks. We have made it to the one year mark (relatively) unscathed! I have a post going up after this one that is all about the emotional aspects of what this first year of Mommy-hood has been...a post that took so ridiculously long to put together and was so rambling and disjointed that I almost scrapped it a hundred times, but--lucky you!--I finally slapped all those scattered and mismatched thoughts together into something at least moderately cohesive so my meandering, convoluted, and overwrought 2 cents will finally be on display for all three of you remaining readers to half-heartedly skim over! Don't say I never did anything nice for you. :)

As for this post, I just wanted to take stock a bit and mention a few highlights of Téa's developmental life at the one year mark:

Téa is still crawling and cruising and not walking, though she often absentmindedly takes her hands off of whatever she is holding on to and ends up standing unassisted for a while before realizing what she was doing and promptly sitting on her bottom. She is very sturdy and could definitely walk if she wanted to, but she knows she can get around much faster crawling. Mommy and Daddy are certainly not complaining! She can take her time. :)

She is down to one nap. She sometimes takes two, but that is extremely rare and usually only happens if she woke up really early in the morning or woke up midway through her usual 2 hour nap for some reason or another.

She is jabber-talking a mile a minute, and at the year mark Jer and I could pick out the following words:

Up (Her first word. She also says "Uppa uppa uppa" while doing the "all done"/"all pau" sign, so we aren't sure if she is trying to say "all pau" or if she is just saying "Up" over and over while doing the "all pau" sign)
Dada (this could have been her first word...we aren't sure if she was just saying consonants or if she knew to whome she was referring)
Dog (when we ask her what the dog says she makes the most adorable little barking noise! I have to get that on video...)
Puppy (PAAAApeee!)
Owl (Aaaahwoooo!)
Book (Boooooowh!)
Hi (this word comes out sounding like a high pitched "hush!")
Bird ("Burr!")
Chicken (This word comes out sounding like "chk")
Kick (this just sounds like she's making an exaggerated "k" sound, but she actually kicks when she does it, so we know that's what she's saying.)

Still no "Mama" or "Mommy" of any kind, though she does refer to my boobs and the contents therein as Mummumms...somehow I don't think that counts.

She is also really into animals and animal sounds. She tries to roar and tweet and bark...it's the cutest ever.

She has 8 teeth (all in the front) and eats everything in sight, except for Avocado and Squash. She can be finicky about Banana too. But she loves yogurt, brown rice, beans, tofu, chicken, salmon, sweet potatoes, greens, tomato soup, garlic bread, and--of course--cheerios.

She is down to 3-4 nursing sessions a day...once in the morning, once for her nap, another possible on for that elusive second nap, and once at night. Yes, she is still nursing to sleep, and though I have no idea how I'm going to break that habit when the time comes, I am enjoying it now while it lasts.

She is capable of drinking from a sippy cup, but I still give her her water in a bottle because I noticed that sippy-cups = biting whilst nursing, which = blood and pain and an unhappy mommy. So we are sticking with the bottle for awhile.

She is showing an interest in eating with utensils and sometimes refuses to eat unless she gets to help guide the spoon in her mouth. She knows to extend her arms through each arm hole when I put on her shirts to switch whatever she's holding to the hand not going through the arm hole. She also knows how to twist her arms around her carseat straps to help me get her in and out of the car.

At her one year checkup she was still 98th percentile for height and in the 70's for weight. You can definitely see that she is very tall...she is almost as tall as Desmond who is almost 2!

Her favorite games are being chased and tickled, unpacking and repacking bins and boxes, unstacking and restacking her mini buckets, and riding in her little cart (see video). She also loves books...she wakes up from her nap and points to her bookshelf and says "Booook!" almost every day...she even turns the pages all by herself. She also loves to eat any and everything a baby isn't supposed to eat. Books, boxes, DVDs, iPhones, remote controls...I even catch her laying prostrate on the ground gnawing on the baseboards...no joke. And I may have caught her chewing on the firewood once or twice as well. Embarrassing but true.

That covers the developmental stuff. Also this month--a first for mommy and baby, albeit under sad circumstances...We flew to Vegas to visit my Grandma Swallie by ourselves! (and yes, it was as crazy and stressful as it sounds) Unfortunately, it was to say goodbye...she was dying, and though I had gone there hoping to introduce her to Téa before she passed, she was unconscious by the time I got there and died the day after. :( To top it all off, Téa was so miserable without Jer, she was an absolute terror the entire time. It was nice to spend time with my Mom and I ended up getting to introduce Téa to most of my Swallie family which was great, but it was such a bummer because it worked out that Téa just wasn't going to last long enough for me to stay for the funeral so I had to miss it. :( At any rate, I got to sing a few songs into Grandma's ear and Téa was in the room squealing away, so I'm hoping Grandma got to hear that we were there and perhaps meet Téa in her own way before she passed.

On a lighter note, this was also Téa's first Valentines Day, which Jer and I celebrated with a tasty brunch at Cafe Mimosa. It brought me back to last Valentines Day when I was hoping against hope that Téa would be born that day so she could be a Love Day baby (and also so I could get her OUT already!), but little did I know it would be almost 2 weeks past my due date before she'd see fit to grace the world with her presence.

OKAY! WHEW!!! Well I think that covers most of it. ONE YEAR!!! We made it! Thank you for coming along with us on this crazy journey. Stay tuned for pics from her actual Birthday day, coming soon...in the meantime, take care and love to you all!!!

One down....

Happy 1st Birthday Téa!!!

2010-02-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

Month 11

2010-02-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

(CHEEEEEESE!!!!!)

(Our happy family)

(Bathtime cuteness)

(digging for gold)

(The cousins snuggle up during one of their many visits this month)

Month 11 Pics and Videos

This month actually officially began Christmas Day, so these pics effectively begin the day after Christmas.

Jer and I totally fell prey to the styrofoam airplane...you know the one that guy in the mall was whipping around like nothing leading up to Christmas? We made the mistake of standing too long next to him, which led to him engaging us in his little spiel, which led to us being totally shocked at the fact that it was only $15 (WHAT?!?!?! ONLY $15 FOR MOLDED STYROFOAM THAT PROBABLY COST 3 CENTS TO MAKE???), which led to us deciding we HAD to have one cause it looks SO easy and fun, which led to us being up-sold on the decorative tape (read: electric tape), which led to us having our little day with the plane in the park that you see in the pics. Turns out it's really not that easy to fly, as evidenced by the videos. In the end, it was worth it for the laughs, though I doubt it'll be much more than a dust collector in our garage for awhile.

Also this month, Jer and I took a trip up to Pasadena to visit with Kaimana and Colin and Desmond for a little post-Christmas togetherness. The kids were absolutely adorable together as always and as evidenced by the pictures, and the boys got to try out their new matching child-toting hiking backpacks Christmas presents while Kai and Colin took us on a walking tour of downtown Pasedena. It was such a great visit we could barely stand to leave and ended up staying way beyond our planned pre-traffic departure time. Instead we hung out through dinner and as a result had to wing it a bit with Téa's bedtime routine...Téa took her first big-girl bath in Desmonds tub, and also was transfered for the first time from the car seat to the crib after bedtime. I am extremely happy to report that with a little transitional nursing, it all went off without a hitch. This was a huge revelation for us, because it makes more frequent visits with Kai and Colin a possibility since we now get so much more hours of hang time for all the driving.

This month also marked the first time in Téa's life that I have been left alone overnight with the baby...Jer had a trade show in Vegas for 3 days and 2 nights. I was so nervous and thought I would be totally overwhelmed, but actually, when all was said and done, I was pleasantly surprised to find that when faced with a challenge of even this magnitude, I was able to rise to the occasion. I didn't realize how much I could get done when I knew it was all on me to do it...and conversely, I didn't realize how much time I waste on a daily basis because I know Jer will be home later to help out. :) The day before Jer got home, I worked out twice (a run at Salt Creek and then Malin's workout class at Pines Park), came home and made dinner for Téa and I while also putting together a pot pie for our friends the Schenkenbergers who just had a new baby, set the high chair up in the bathroom and literally took a shower and fed Téa at the same time, then took the pot pie out a delivered it, then headed home and did Téa's bedtime routine (usually Jer's job) all by myself, then cleaned the whole house before finally passing out. It was very empowering, I must say. Any doubts I had about my ability to stand on my own two feet and be a great Mom were completely alleviated, which was huge because before that, I was feeling very much dependent upon Jer for certain things, which was messing with my head and my confidence and authority as a Mom.

The most fun part of Jer being away was the first night, when Kaimana graciously agreed to come down to spend the night at the house with me for a grown-up slumber party! Her being there was totally indispensable...not only because she was a second set of hands with the kiddos, but also for moral support during that first 24 hours that Jer was gone...not to mention a little much needed girl time. We had such a great time girl-ing and sister-ing out, we've decided the boys need to do a trip once or twice a year so we can do it more often! After day two (crazy multi-tasking day) and night two, I headed up to her place the morning of day three of Jer-lessness, where the kiddos got to play again (they were really getting used to each other by this point) before I headed back to meet up with Jer at last!

All in all I definitely came away from those few days without Jer with so much respect for single Moms...and also with a new appreciation for Jer. Nothing like a little absence to make the heart grow fonder. :)

This month was a big one for me for yet another reason not depicted in the photos...I had my first writing session since I gave up my music after becoming pregnant...I got a chance to write with Jim and an amazing and talented artist he is working with named Jackie Thon (yes, that Jackie Thon)...I was really nervous that somehow my songwriting muscle would be too atrophied to be effective, and though I did have to shake some cobwebs off, all in all I was pleasantly surprised that things flowed pretty naturally despite my long hiatus from all things music. It helps that Jim and I still have an natural repore from our months of partnership and that Jackie is a really warm and fun personality, and just a damn good songwriter. At any rate, the whole episode gave me hope for my future in music, however and whenever that might take shape. A big thank you to Kaimana for being my day care...I wouldn't have done it if I had had to leave Téa in Dana Point...I'm getting better about leaving her with people but I'm definitely not there yet!

Last but not least, this month was the month Téa said her first word (besides Dada, which she said but we weren't sure if it was really with comprehension of what the word meant or if it was just her forming the consonant)....it was January 16th. I was feeding her in her high chair, and at the end of every meal, I say and do the signs for "all done" and "up" before picking her up. She has been doing "all done" for awhile, but has never done "up". I said "All done? Up?" and she said "Up!" clear as day while doing the all done sign--like she had been saying it her whole life! I serously almost cried I was so proud of her! :) The whole rest of the day everything was "Up! Up! Up!"...She even crawled up to me and grabbed onto my leg and said "Up!"...it was such a special moment for me because I felt even more so than with the signs that she was really beginning her ability to communicate with me about what she wants and is thinking about in that little mind of hers...there have been so many more words since then, but that was the first. UP!

Everything else in the pics is pretty self explanatory...there are a lot of videos in this album so you might need a little more time to get through all the content, but there are some pretty cute ones in there. Enjoy!

Téa's First Christmas

2010-01-27T22:08:00.000-08:00

(Téa has a quiet moment after the Christmas carnage with her favorite toy of the morning)

(A Christmas cutie!)

Our Christmas this year was a refreshingly low-key affair...In truth, I was feeling pretty grinch-y leading up to it...Jer was doing insanely long hours at work getting ready to close out the year and besides feeling totally lonely and blah from missing him, I was finding zero motivation to get out of the house to do any shopping with Téa in tow...God bless her, but she has made shopping a much less enjoyable experience for me in general, let alone during the most notoriously crazy and crowded time of the year. So I was definitely having a bah humbug kind of a season.

Besides feeling a tad more anti the Consumerist's Christmas than usual, I was also feeling especially anti-tradition-for-tradition's-sake...Jer and I had long ago decided to nix Santa Claus from our family's holiday vernacular, but now I was calling everything to the stand and putting it on trial...why do a tree? Why red and green? Why anything that didn't point directly back to Jesus?...it's his birthday party isn't it? I think that with Téa in the picture now, I felt inspired by my responsibility as a parent of my own family to lay the proper groundwork for our future traditions...and I didn't want a remodel, I wanted to tear everything down and pick up each piece of rubble to inspect it for soundness before I put it back into the plans for my Christmas Tradition House, if you will. I wanted to make sure I could look Téa in the face someday and cohesively and intelligently explain why we did and didn't do things at Christmas time, rather than having to have that hem and haw moment of, "Well, that's just the way we've always done it"...I didn't want to be a hypocrite, teaching her not to get caught up in the world's way of doing things if it didn't line up with scripture in other aspects of her life, yet keeping traditions rooted in absolutely nothing having to do with Christ on what is supposed to be a holiday commemorating and celebrating his coming to earth.

Over thinking it? Probably. But on the other hand, I feel like when it comes to spiritual traditions in general it's a good idea to stay mentally on your toes a bit about the why in keeping the traditions we do...or risk falling into the trap of going through the motions. Cause who wants to end up like the Pharisees who had all the doing right but none of the heart behind their actions, or the dissonant clanging of cymbals devoid of that maker-of-all-things-sweet-sounding--you know, Love--as in 1st Corinthians 13? Not me.

At any rate, these were the things banging around my brain this holiday season as I holed up in my house missing Jer and avoiding shopping and just generally feeling pretty sorry for myself. :) I do feel like I got it out of my system a little bit, and also (and probably most overwhelmingly) like I've got at least a few more years before I really need to have my crap together. So at any rate, that was sort of what made up my down-time leading up to Christmas day. That and stressing about the fact that I didn't get any Christmas cards done for Téa's first Christmas and what kind of a mom does that make meeeeee????? But that's another story. (Short version: I got over it.)

But then, as Christmas Day was just days away, the ghost of Ebinezer Scrooch began to lift his chains from my dis-spirited heart, and I started to get excited. The day before Christmas Eve I went out and did all my Christmas shopping...I stuffed the stockings, I went to the awesome boutique toy store up the street and got a bunch of toys for Téa (by the by, this will be my first stop every year heretofore when I am feeling low on Christmas spirit...nothing like retro looking wooden toys with bows on them peeking through the windows and Christmas music playing while you shop to make you feel like something out of a classic Christmas movie of old...consumerism be damned!), I picked up some wrapping paper from a friend's house and wrapped the presents...and it finally started to feel like Christmas.

Our Christmas morning was exactly what I hoped it would be, just our little family of three getting a chance to enjoy one of the rare times each year when being together and focusing on loving each other is all there is to do. And I think it helped me understand the why behind the consumerism...its the act of seeking out the perfect gift to surprise the person you love. Probably fairly obvious to everyone else but me, but sometimes you just gotta go through it all again to fully understand. Seeing Téa playing in the wrapping paper and getting to know her new toys and the look of surprise and delight on Jer's face at all of his new toys made understand...and it made me thank God all over again for giving me such wonderful gifts in these people to share my life with and be a family with. Sigh. God Bless us everyone, Tiny Tim!

After a great morning and a lazy afternoon, we got ourselves all gussied up and ready for Christmas night with Jer's side of the family, the Marshall clan. Thankfully, Grandma Gloria's house and Marshall ground zero is right down the street, so it was very low stress for us. We had a great time mingling with our extended family, showing off Téa's super cute outfit (thank you GungGung!) and new tricks--she was clapping, putting her arms up, pointing to her nose, mouth and eyes (thank you "You're Baby Can Read!")--and headed home in good spirits.

So all in all, Téa's first Christmas was a success. Plus, I got a Wii, which, really...I mean...awesome! The gift that just keeps on giving. :) But seriously folks...well, seriously nothing...I guess that's the full report! Follow the link below to see the pics, and stay tuned for Month 11, coming soon to a blog near you! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Téa's First Christmas Pics

Desmond's Owl

2010-01-27T12:09:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd just go ahead and put a pic up of this little guy I made for Desmond for Christmas...

I actually like him so much better than the pink floral one I did for Téa way back when...I like the solid color with the patterned "wings". I was thinking I might recreate a version for Téa that could be the "Daddy Owl" to the pink one's "Mommy" and then maybe make a baby one too. Where I expect to find the time to do that I have absolutely no idea (When Auntie Liz was in town she watched Téa for an entire afternoon and evening while I sewed this little guy up). We'll see! :)

Month 10: Thanksgiving up until Christmas

2010-01-23T16:18:00.000-08:00

(Enjoying her second taste Thanksgiving Turkey at the Ho family Thanksgiving)

(Snuggling with Grandma TuTu at the Marshall Family Thanksgiving a few days before)

(Snuggling up to Daddy through downtown Santa Cruz)

(Posing with PoPo at the Christmas Tree lot)

This month was so jam packed, I ended up having to break it up into 2 separate galleries!

The month started with Thanksgiving, which we celebrated on the day with Jer's family at Jer's Mom's house in Orange. It was Téa's very first time having roasted turkey and I dare say she was quite the fan. :) That weekend we had our Ho family Thanksgiving which we've been doing here at our apartment for the last few years. Auntie Liz just happened to be in town, which was awesome! Even our cousin Tianna and our family friend Uncle Hershey got to come down from LA to join us! Usually I cook the meal, but because I had my hands pretty full with Téa this year, we did it pot luck style, which was fun because everyone got to feel like they were a part of it. Things got a bit--shall we say--cozy at our tiny apartment with all those people, but it was still a wonderful time and a delicious meal had by all.

Just a few days later, Jer and I took our annual trip up to Santa Cruz to attend the Western States Retreat, a conference where friends from all over come to reconnect and talk about Jesus and what he's been doing in all of our lives...For Jer and I it's always been a must-not-miss trip because we always come away with a much needed fresh perspective on our faith to take us through the year. This year we had two of our best-friend couples there with us from Dana Point, Chris and Devon Pritchett and Jon and Anna Eshleman, so it was even that much more awesome. We knew it was going to be a challenge taking Téa with us and sleeping with her in the same room and traveling on a plane and getting her down for naps, etc. etc. etc., but we just decided to go for it! We've sort of taken the "you never know until you try!" approach with Téa thus far and it has seemed to serve us pretty well. We survived, at any rate...and Téa did really well. She is such a champ and has such a good natured disposition, it really was a breeze compared to what it could have been.

Then, my Mom came out to visit from Hawaii! She only got to come out for a short while, but any time I can get, I'll take.

Auntie Liz left just a few days before Christmas, and then it was upon us! Christmas Day was officially the first day of Téa's 11th Month (actually both Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day this year marked the beginning of Téa's 10th and 11th months respectively...pretty cool), so I will post that separately.

So that should give you an overview...hope you enjoy the pics!

Month 10: Part 1 - Thanksgiving through Western States

Month 10: Part 2 - After Western States up until Christmas

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

2009-12-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

I thought having a baby was going to somehow be the one magical impetis compelling enough to get me motivated and focused enough to actually send out Christmas cards for the first time in my life...turns out I had the focus and motivation, but not the time or organization. Couldn't even get this posted in time. But then I thought, SURELY I would get some manner of card done in time for the New Year. Nope. So, alas, this is the most I've managed...a late post on my ill-tended blog.

Oh well.

Nonetheless...

...Merry belated Christmas from the Clements Family!!! Hope your season was merry and bright and filled with the love of Christ who came to live among us, die for us, and love us all.

And Happy New Year too!!! May 2010 be blessed by our good God, and filled with the joy, peace, and love that comes from a life lived in Him!

Oatmeal Surprise

2009-12-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

This morning, I woke up, put a clean pair of pants on, made myself some oatmeal, and sat down at my dining room table to eat it. Téa immediately crawled over and stood up on my leg and started opening her mouth like she wanted a bite. I was feeling generous so I gave her one...and she proceeded to spit it out into her hand and wipe it all over my clean pants...and then attempted to eat it off of my pants.

Ahhh, Motherhood.

Téa's Redone Room Tour

2009-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

So, Téa's room has been a total labor of love for me. Putting it together kept me sane during the intense nesting stage of my pregnancy (read: my entire pregnancy), and the time spent in that room since Téa's birth has been both insanely traumatic (WHY WON'T SHE SLEEP?!?!?!) to overwhelmingly wonderful (her falling asleep in my arms, snuggly breastfeeding, coming in each morning first to a bitty burrito tucked in the corner and now to a smiling face peeking over the crib railing). I love everything about it, from the peaceful calm I feel whenever I walk in to the way that it smells to the way the light shines in through the window.

Before Téa's arrival and early in her life, I had a pretty calm and muted color palate with a few colorful accents mixed in, which sort of reflected the phase she was in...mellow, inquisitive, always observing but not necessarily comprehending...a blank slate with occasional flashes of personality. So naturally, as Téa has begun to grow and change and develop and blossom, I felt that nesting urge tickling the back of my creative consciousness once again, and I started thinking of new ways to not only spice up the room to match my mothering mood but also to give my wide-awake, full-of-personality, into-everything, giving-me-a-run-for-my-money baby girl a more colorful and stimulating room to call her own.

The first thing I did was hit up Ikea, that oasis of design-on-a-dime awesomeness, that sly Swedish wonderland where value and style intersect, that purveyor of super cute things both cheaply made and--most importantly--cheaply sold, where I got the colorful stripey rug and that nifty orange lamp on the side table. Then I got all crafty mama on myself and made that pennant flag banner to spruce up the white curtains. They were so easy and fun to make...

...I made another banner for above her changing table nook. Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned these before in a previous post, but my oh-so-crafty friend Sarah had made Téa these little hooks that are shaped like a flower and a butterfly and I decided I needed some not-quite-dirty-clothes and towel-drying storage near Téa's changing table, so I decided to put them up in her tree where they would not only be incognito while not in use, but also sort of nod to the idea of Téa's clothes being hung in the tree. You can see them in use behind the rocker on the left. Also new, I got colorful patterned cushions for my rocker to replace the plain tan ones it came with! These are not only prettier, they are much gushier and more comfortable.

Part of my urge to refresh her room also had to do with the fact that I was noticing certain elements not working quite like they should. I needed more space here, more storage there. I came up with the idea of putting some hanging sweater storage in place of a single diaper stacker and filling it with all of her utility items--bibs, washcloths, diapers, towels, etc.-- and subsequently saved myself a ton of much needed space in her dresser drawers for that stylish wardrobe of hers!

This is just a side view of the room. I thinned out the pillows and stuffed animals on her couch to take away some of the cluttered feeling the room was starting to have and I put them in bins next to her crib which you can see a picture or two down.

Every morning when Téa wakes up, she reaches up at the chandelier and smiles, and it has sort of been our routine to lift her up to it so she can touch it. After that, we take her over to the changing table to change her diaper and she reaches up toward the flags and we hold her up so she can touch those too. At any rate, I took the picture below to remind me of that so I don't forget.

The one remaining unfinished element of Téa's room that I can't quite crack the code on is the blank wall behind her crib. Part of me likes it that way, another part of me feels like something is missing. I'm waiting for inspiration to strike. Until then, note the bins filled with the baby blankets and stuffed animals...she likes to unload them every once and awhile, just to chew on each of them a little and remind them of who they belong to.

Téa checking out the colors...when I first got the rug, she used to pick at the lines with her fingers, as if she could peel them off...so cute how her little mind works! She also went bonkers over those tassles on the ends.

Well, I hope you like my little tour! My more pics and updates for Month 10 coming soon, and also Christmas!

Month 9: Pics, Milestones, and Firsts

2009-12-27T20:32:00.000-08:00

A happy girl getting ready for our walk at Salt Creek Beach

Our Baby Bee on her first Halloween!

I know, I know. It is a little bit beyond ridiculous that I am just now posting her Halloween pics when we just celebrated Christmas, but nonetheless...HERE are the pics for Month 9!

There are a few videos in the pic gallery...The first one is of her eating cheerios out of her new snack tray thingy I gerry rigged from some other stroller's extras kit (I was that desperate). The second video is Téa trying to climb up the baby gate and talking to the camera. The third video is Téa climbing some steps for the first time at my friend Malin's house...we only caught her tackling the last step on video but she climbed the whole thing! The fourth video is a good view of her pulling herself up to standing on the baby gate.

Milestones and Firsts:

Téa started pulling herself up to standing on everything...We got a baby gate to keep her out of the kitchen, and it turned out to be the perfect stand-up practice tool! She started doing it late one afternoon, and the next day, she did it all day long until she had perfected it. There are some videos in the gallery, as I mentioned above.
She started imitating consonants...b-b-b-b, ma, ma ma, ma, da, da, da, da, etc. If Jer or I did one, she would do it back!
She started waving **occasionally** when we said "hi Téa!" or "wave Téa!".
She started giving kisses when we'd say "honi honi", which is "kiss" in Hawaiian. She also started giving little love bites, biting my shirt on the shoulder or arm when she was feeling snuggly...I don't know where she picked that up from, but it's pretty darn cute. :)
This month she really seemed to start grasping the signs I do with her consistently--more, eat, all done, up. She can do "all done" and "more" though she performs them only sporadically, but it was during this month that she starting responding to my signs knowingly.
she cut her fifth tooth
she got roseola! THAT was scary. Her fever was getting so high I had to dunk her in a tepid bath every 4 hours to bring it back down. After 3 days of fever-fighting hell her temperature finally came down and she broke out in the tell-tale rash...just in time for Halloween! It was almost faded when we were trick or treating, but you can see a little bit of the rash on her cheeks in the pictures.
she crawled up stairs for the first time...see the video in the gallery.
She tried to feed me for the first time...a cheerio. :) She has repeated this adorable gesture only rarely since, I'm sad to say, but it's always a treat even if the cheerio doesn't taste all that great!
A not so awesome habit: dropping food over edge of her tray just to watch it fall.
This month we started playing a game where we crawl after her and chase her around the house and then tickle her when I catch her..I sort of got into the habit of playing it with her at the end of the night leading up into dinnertime and bathtime. One night, I was sitting on the computer while she played with her toys when all of a sudden she crawled up, squwaked to get my attention, gave me a mischievious look and then started crawling away squealing like she does when I'm chasing her! It was the first time she initiated playing a game with me, so that was a pretty awesome first.
EVERYTHING is going in her mouth, even now. I am constantly digging inside her mouth to pull out some piece of paper or plastic or leaf or onion skin or WHATEVER before she chokes. which leads me to my next point...
We had our first choking scare this month. Thank the Lord I got to her immediately and she was fine, and without reliving the awful ordeal let it suffice to say that it involved a cracker and me digging my finger halfway down her trachea to fish it out...shudder.
Also not so awesome this month...Téa managed to pull the high chair onto her face, and then not more than a few days later, she pulled our gigantic industrial sized ironing board down so it pinned her under it (aside: why we have an industrial sized ironing board, I have no idea). She actually had a black eye for a day or two. And of course the Ironing Board Incident took place within 24 hours of the Choking Incident, so...yeah...not my proudest week. Needless to say, we reset our baby-proofing bar higher theretofore.

I think that covers it! I have some new pics of some changes I made to her room this month coming soon, and Month 10 pics hot those pics heels.

Hope you enjoy!

Month 8 Pics, Milestones, and Firsts

2009-11-09T23:01:00.000-08:00

Queen of the pumkin patch

Get your Téa pic fix here!

A little back story on the pics: This month began with Mom and Wendell (aka Gung Gung and Po Po) coming out to visit us from Hawaii. There a few mini videos mixed in with the pics...the first was taken right after Téa learned to pick things up with her thumb and first finger...my Mom started training her right after she got into town, and Téa picked it up almost immediately, the little smartypants. :) Wendell marched us straight out to the grocery store to stock up on her first boxes of puffs and cheerios, and she has not looked back since...she is a little cheerio-scarfer now! This small development opened up a whole new world to me... Suddenly, she could feed and occupy herself at the table so I could get a bite or two in before my food was cold! I repeat: I am eating hot meals again, people!!! Amazing I tell you.

The second video is of Téa shopping with Mom and I at Target. It was just so cute, I had to throw it in. She thinks riding in a shopping cart is the biggest treat! The third video is of my sister Kaimana's son Desmond...I'll let that video speak for itself. :)

This was a packed month, so I'll lay out the different activities you'll see in the pics so you know what you're looking at:

Desmond, Kaimi and Po Po visiting mine and Téa's favorite special park for the first time
Mom, Téa, and I taking our first trip to Pasadena to visit Kaimana and Desmond
Téa's first trip to the pumpkin patch with the Schenkenbergers
Abby Pritchett's birthday party
Jackson Schenkenbergers birthday party

The biggest development from this month: Téa started crawling! A day or two before Mom and Wendell got here, she went from taking just a few random crawl-steps to covering some serious ground. This, plus her learning to feed herself felt like a whole new world to me (cue Ariel cavorting in her Cave of Wonders serenading her dinglehopper...that's how I felt). It's funny because I thought I was going to be totally overwhelmed and envisioned myself chasing after Téa and pulling away from dangerous situations all day, but it has been almost the opposite...instead, her becoming just that much more independent was like a huge weight off of my shoulders. I just baby-proofed a little area of my house that I block off and surround her with a pile of toys, and voila!...I am sitting calmly at my dining room table with a cup of tea...BLOGGING no less!!! Miracle upon miracles!

In fact, this month marked the beginning of what has been my favorite stage with Téa thus far. She is independent enough where she can entertain herself and can explore her world a bit more, but she's still my sweet snuggly baby who wants to be near me and held for extended periods of time. She can ride in shopping carts but still likes her baby carrier, she can snack on the go and isn't reliant on a strict nursing schedule even though I still get to have my cozy nursing times a few times a day, she can eat off of my plate a little bit more, but the food I bring for her from home is still pre-packaged and ultra-portable. I feel like I get the best of all worlds with Téa at this stage...the only problem is that I don't want it to end!

Beyond all of that, I just love how inquisitive she is at this stage...everything around her is so wonder-inducing and exciting...you can see her starting to understand a little bit more of what Jer and I are trying to say to her, as well as her ability to influence the world around her. She is still my part-of-me baby, but she is a little bit more of a third person presence in our family. I love that. I know I will cherish this time so much and I am trying not to take it for granted and to soak in every moment.

So let's get to the list below so I make sure I'm not missing anything:

Milestones and Firsts:

Crawling!
Picking up and eating food with thumb and first finger
Delved deeper into solid food: Chicken, cheerios.
Started doing what I thought was the "more" sign, but then sort of stopped when I started being less disciplined about it. She still knows what it means and has done it sort of sporadically, but it isn't a consistent part of her vocabulary yet.
Started to respond and modify her behavior to my saying "no"...she was squealing in a restaurant, and I started telling her "no, we have to be quiet", and after a few times she actually started squealing at a volume that matched my voice! She is so smart. :)
First time at the pumpkin patch!
I'm pretty sure that this is neither a "milestone" nor a "first", but it must be noted that this month Jer and I discovered the power of Téa's love for balloons. It is like a magical orb that keeps her calm and happy for an entire day in the stroller. Jer and I were actually taking about getting a helium machine for .5 seconds. :)

Okay well, I think that covers it. More soon!

Month 7 Pictures!

2009-10-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here they are...

Enjoy!

The Rest of Month 6 - After Hawaii

2009-09-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics...

Enjoy!

Additional milestones from after we got home from Hawaii:

Sat in a shopping cart for the first time (Trader Joes)
tried bananas and a sippy cup with breastmilk for the first time...didn't like either

Her hand-eye coordination and control really started to improve around this time as well...she began to be able to grab things with a steady hand and a good grip and even pass things from hand to hand.

Month 6: Milestones and Firsts

2009-09-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

(Téa having poi, her first bite of solid food, at Ono's Hawaiian Food in Hawaii)

In Hawaii:

First time flying on a plane (Hawaiian Air, to Hawaii)...she did so amazingly great. I prayed so hard that she would not object to nursing during takeoff and landing because she was just starting to get to that point where she would get really distracted by strange noises and not want to nurse. God was merciful and answered my prayers...she nursed and napped right through both the ascent and descent, and her ears weren't even fazed by the changes in pressure!
First time in a big girl car seat (Thank you Mom and Wendell for buying us one!)
First time meeting Grandma Aunty!
First time sitting up unassisted (the day we flew in!...by the end of the trip, she was a pro)
First time sleeping in Pack and Play
Started consistently napping without swaddle
First time submerged in ocean (Kaimana Beach)
First time having solid food - Poi (= couldn't get enough), then rice cereal (= literally gagged and spit it out)
First time sitting in a high chair
cut both bottom front teeth without so much as a single peep

After we got home from Hawaii:

Started seriously teething and stopped sleeping through the night...and by that I mean she was waking up every 1/2 hour-hour from 1:30AM on until 6AM. "Miserable" does not begin to describe what all of us were. We felt like we were dying. We would end this month on a desperate note, but by next month things would begin to improve.
Started leaving one arm out of her swaddle at night (which didn't help with the sleeping, but she was breaking out of it and waking herself up as it was, so we didn't really have a choice as far as the timing went--when it rains it pours) :)
First time trying avocado (not her favorite but she doesn't hate it)

Month 5 Pics

2009-09-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally gotten around to organizing her pics from Month 5...And do you know what that means? Until the 25th of this month when I will have to start in on Month 7, we are UP TO DATE PEOPLE. I don't know if you know this, but this is kind of a big deal. :)

This month ends (to the day) with us leaving for Hawaii, to give you an idea of where in Téa's timeline these pictures fall. The Video link below is for a video we took of Téa the night before we left for Hawaii. We took it on our new camera which does HD video, and, unfortunately, it is such a huge file it will probably take forever to load up for you to view it. My recommendation is to click the link, double check that the video is starting to load, and then go about your day for an hour or so before coming back to view it. I think it's pretty worth it, but you know...I'm extremely biased. :) I just hope it works. Good luck and God speed!

Links:

Pictures

Video

I've listed some of the milestones and firsts in the captions on the pictures, but I want to try to get in the habit of doing a quick list of what happened each month. Not promising consistency here, just the attempt therof. :) Here goes:

Milestones and Firsts this month:

Had her first fever :(
First Fourth of July!
Started to nap without her swaddle
Wore sunscreen for the first time
Sat in her stroller like a big girl (without the infant seat attachment or without laying flat on her back...actually sitting up and strapped in)
Finally able to get a grip on the toys in her rainforest while laying on her back
First time touching the ocean - just her toes, at San Onofre Beach
First time rolling over purposely

Favorite pastime this month: "Jumping" in Mommy and Daddy's laps.

Alrighty folks...Enjoy!

Téa's First Trip to Hawaii!!!

2009-09-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

I finally got these pics organized and narrowed down!

Click this link to view them.

Enjoy!

Time Management and the "S" Word

2009-09-20T21:09:00.001-07:00

(Téa at our picnic park)

Time management.

As you can see from veritable ghost-town this blog has become, I have not quite mastered it in the wake of new motherhood.

At this point in my daughter's and my life together I imagined myself sitting calmly at my dining room table with a cup of tea, surrounded by an immaculate house, thank you cards written and sent, phone calls returned, emails responded to, Téa's latest pictures sorted and posted, and me proofreading and putting the finishing touches on my weekly (ha!) blog installment...all while Téa played peacefully on the floor beside me. Trees swaying in the canyon...birds chirping...sun shining...everything right with the world.

Instead, I have an email box full to the brim with unanswered messages--220 (220!!!) to be exact. I have a voicemail box that is so full of unchecked messages I am almost out of space (which is quite and accomplishment on an iPhone). I have a list at least 20 deep of people I need to write Thank You cards to...some in response to gifts given all the way back during my stay at the hospital delivering Téa. I am two months behind on her pictures with too many to sort through to have any real hope of getting them organized any time soon. I haven't blogged in an age. I am lucky to sleep, shower, or sit, let alone have a cup of tea...I am lucky to throw a load of laundry in, let alone fold the pile that's been sitting on my couch for a week...lucky to catch a quiet moment to appreciate my surroundings, let alone pay any heed to the trees or birds or sun.

No, I am not the mother I dreamed I'd be. And throughout my arduous journey down into the bowels of motherhood this is the conclusion I've come to: I don't think the mother I dreamed I'd be is anything more than a fantasy. It's funny to me now, thinking of all the Moms I looked up to before I became one myself...I really believed that they were as put together as they appeared on the outside! Sure, some really are more organized than others, but really--and let's be honest ladies!--NOBODY can do it ALL. The fact is, in order for us Moms to successfully juggle our responsibilities to our husbands, children, friends, gift-giving benefactors, email penpals, dogs, cats, laundry machines, kitchen sinks, and--finally!-- ourselves, something unpleasant is required. That's right folks, there's no way around it...it's the big bad "S" word: Sacrifice.

In my former life as a non-Mom, that dirty "S" word would be equivalent to another even dirtier "F" word..."Failure" (ha, gotcha). How could I let something slip through the cracks!?!?!? In my former life as a whip wielding perfectionist, such flagrant laziness would never be permitted on my watch. But motherhood has changed me...it has taught me that sometimes, you just have better things to do. I play with my daughter instead of answering emails. We have leisurely picnics in the park when I should be writing those thank you cards. I take a snuggle nap with Téa when I should be returning a phone call or two. As a mother, I've learned to see the word "Sacrifice" in less sinister terms...now, I see it as a choice. I choose to use words like "laid back" rather than "flakey". I choose to be less available to the world to be more present with my daughter. I choose to be okay with not being able to do it all. I've officially taken my name out of the running for the title of SuperMom...let the Moms that have a chance battle it out! I am content to watch the carnage from the safety of the bleachers. No, folks, I am no longer deceived by the fantasy of the do it all Mom. I will lay down the dream of being everything to everyone so I can give everything to the people that matter most: My husband and my Téa and--finally!--me.

Now, people see me with my daughter and they say to me: "Oh, you're such a calm mother!" and "Oh, it's looks like you are a natural at this honey!" and "Wow look how happy your daughter is, you are such a good mother!"...they can't see how many emails I've yet to check, let alone respond to...or how many thank you cards I've yet to write...or how many months its been since I've sorted a single picture or written a single word in the blog that was supposed to document my daughter's life. All they see is a happy baby girl and a smiling Mommy and the sun shining, the birds chirping, the trees swaying, and everything right with the world.

And you know what? So do I. Because even in the midst of my dirty house with my list of unwritten letters and my proverbial pile of ignored emails growing daily and my formerly living blog coughing and wheezing on life support in the corner, the proof is in the pudding. A happy baby. A calm mommy. A love-filled marriage. The trees go on swaying, even when my house is an immovable mess. The birds go on chirping, even when my end of the phone is silent. The sun shines, even when there is no ray of hope for my email inbox.

The difference is that now--because of some well chosen sacrifices--I can finally enjoy it all.

Okay, let's try that again...

2009-07-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

So apparently the links to the pics in the last post didn't actually go to the photos...so I'm trying again!

Here goes:

Week 13

Month 4

Hope this works this time cause I'm just warning you...the cuteness is going to melt your brains right out of you skull. (It's a good thing...trust me...)

Week 13, Month 4, and the Update

2009-07-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm back.

I do apologize for the delay. I've been wanting to update you all* (*all = whoever's left) on the new developments here in Téa-land, but the Little Miss has been keeping me quite busy as of late...her low-maintenance all-I-do-is-sleep-all-day phase is nothing but a distant memory, let me tell you!!! She wants to stand in your lap! Now she wants to bounce while standing in your lap! Now she wants to talk to you while standing in your lap and...oh wait!...she wants to poo while standing in your lap! Yes indeed, my arms are going to be the first thing on my body to get back into shape. Her days of laying down and playing peacefully under her rainforest--or laying down doing ANYTHING for that matter--are over...the second you even think about laying her in a horizontal position she is heaving her head and legs up into a little baby sit-up (a "boat" pose, if you will, yoga aficionados), grunting and groaning and turning red until you finally stand her up again. For awhile, she refused to recline quietly in her stroller because of this...she is still too little to support herself sitting up, so she has to lay down or semi-recline, and OMG did she start having MELTDOWNS. Like, shrieking, screaming, echoing-through-the-fitting-room-while-I-am-innocently-trying-on-clothes-at-H&M meltdowns. At any rate, now, because it allows her to stand for long periods of time (without depending on my constantly sore arms), her new favorite toy is her exersaucer...it's the new rainforest y'all. All the cool kids are doin' it. :) I mean she will stand and jump and play and push buttons in that thing until her feet are so sweaty she can't even get traction to stand up anymore. I got her a johnny jump up because I thought she might like to really bounce in it, but as you will see in the pictures later, she hated it. Maybe that's a toy for a little further down the line...

She has definitely started the teething process...she is drooling and sucking on her hand almost constantly (she officially rejected pacifiers and bottles long ago). She eats a lot during the day (like, every 2 hours or so), but sleeps from 8:30pm till 6am with relative consistency now (she went from 9pm to 8:30am for the first time the night before our Anniversary!), so I can't complain...I'll take the frequent feeding over night waking any day! I've had to bite the bullet and force myself to get used to feeding her in public because of it, but now that we've gotten the hang of it, it's really not so bad. Mostly I just feel bad for other people because I think it makes them uncomfortable. Oh well. :) She did go through a phase where she refused to eat unless we were laying down (how ironic is that, since otherwise she couldn't STAND being laid down???) which made public feeding impossible...she just refused to eat when we were out and about. But now, thankfully, that has passed and she is deigning to be held in a cradle hold to eat from time to time. :) She has started reaching up and touching my face when she's eating which is really sweet...I swear, when we are done breastfeeding I am going to be so sad...I am one of those Moms who just loves it. So snuggly!

We've discovered she is really ticklish...her neck, her underarms, her chest, her waist, her tummy...she'll collapse into giggle fits just getting her diaper changed. She gets hiccups sometimes when she gets the giggles though, which is sort of sad. Jer is the best at getting her to do it...but for some reason she stops as soon as she sees a camera, so capturing it on video has been more challenging than I anticipated. :)

She is very aware of her surroundings now...so expressive and animated! She's (usually) great in public...restaurants, the mall, etc...she's a total cruiser and (usually) goes with the flow. She is pretty good with other people...she doesn't mind being passed around and held by new faces, but I think she is starting to realize that her and I are actually two separate people, because she always has her eyes locked on me and doesn't like me to be out of her sight or my voice out of her earshot.

As of her doctor's visit last week, she is 95th percentile for her height and weight...I kind of suspected she was even bigger for her size than the 90th percentile she was before since she's wearing 9-12 month clothes in most brands already and she's only 4 months old! That means she's wearing clothes for babies over twice her age! It's just crazy how fast she is growing...it's almost before our eyes.

She rolled over a bunch of times that one day but she has never done it again...I'm sure she'll get around to it eventually, but for now, she can't be bothered...Jer still hasn't ever seen it in person, which is sad, but I know he will soon. I could swear she is starting to reach for me when she wants me to pick her up...don't know if it's my imagination...but I'm just gonna go on believing that's exactly what she's doing cause I just love it so much!

And as for me, the days of my being unsure or insecure about being a Mom are (thankfully) long gone...we are in full swing now and not looking back! The Lord had been trying to get me there for awhile, and it was through a conversation with a dear friend of mine at church that it finally all came together (thanks miss Julie!), and now I finally feel like I've settled comfortably into my new Mommy skin. I've got a good grasp on Téa's little personality and what works and what doesn't work for us, and I am finally over the feeling that I need to make excuses for the things that I do differently than other moms, which has made all the difference. Not that things have been perfect, but I know now that the only people I need to answer to for the way I raise my daughter are my husband and the Lord Himself. Now, life is simple and beautiful. Téa is such a joy...and even though it is a challenge sometimes to get through the day, there isn't a night gone by that I haven't laid in bed thinking about her little face and missed it until the morning.

Jer and I are giddy with happiness...our love for each other grows stronger along with our love for Téa each day. We are more grateful for his owning his own business now than ever...He gets to see so much more of her than I'm sure most Dad's do. Jer is a super-involved Dad and duper-helpful partner in raising Téa...it has been so much fun. We literally cannot believe how beautiful and joyful and happy and full of love our lives are...the good Lord has given us a bright light in Téa indeed. We are grateful to God for her every day.

Yes, life is good.

And life just got a little better for me because I FINALLY got up to date on our pictures!!! YAY!!!! Ugh, I have been stressing about it for weeks. In the end, I was so far behind I just decided to start going by month...and so, below, you will see the last week before her 4th month began (week 13), and then the start of the monthly pic updates, Month 4. As fate would have it, this just so happened to be a packed month...Mom and Wendell were in town, then we had our 10 Year Anniversary and Jer's first Father's Day on the same day (!) for which Jer decided to whisk us away to San Diego for 2 nights in a super luxury hotel (the US Grant...gorgeous) in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter. Then, on the way back to Dana Point, we stopped by Encinitas to visit Kboy and Patrice and hang with them in their new apartment.

Jer got us a new camera for our anniversary (so much for no gifts...why do we even pretend to make that rule when it always gets broken???)...a Cannon Rebel Tli that takes HD video! So you can expect a lot better pics and video in the future.

OKAY. Well I think that covers it. Get your pic fix below:

Week 13

Month 4

I'll check in with you again soon!

Love to you all*. :)

Giggles and Rolling Over

2009-06-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

Guess what everyone? Téa rolled over for the first time today!!!!!!! I just plopped her down for some tummy time like I usually do and she sort of fell to the side, looked confused for a second, gave a little kick, and just flopped over! She looked a little bewildered by it all, but started smiling when I made a big deal out of it...and boy did I: I actually cried tears of pride. :) Ahhh, motherhood. It's the simple things...

She did it, like, 7 more times within the next 5 minutes...she was popping over so fast I could barely get the camera on and filming before she would be on her back, but I managed to catch it on video. It's kind of funny cause my excitement over her rolling over actually lasts longer than the rolling over itself, but hey...

And also, she's been giggling for a little while now (the first time she did it was on the 12th of May)...it used to be sort of a rare occurrence and at the most unexpected times, but in just the last few days it's been a lot easier to get her to do it. I figured out when I was changing her diaper and putting on her pants for the day that her waist right above her little buns is ticklish, and so is her neck and her chest. I have a video from right around when she first started doing it that I'm posting below...I want to get one of her doing it now, and as soon as I do I'll post that one as well. Her little laugh is getting so hearty! But in this video it's still sort of small and squeaky. Totally adorable though! I also took most of the video with the camera right next to the part of her rainforest mat that plays the noises and I didn't figure out that I should turn it off until midway through, so, kind of bummer, but you can still hear the giggles, so...enjoy!

Weeks 11 and 12

2009-06-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

So I am finally getting around to pictures again...I am going to quit doing weekly updates and start going by month because I just don't have the time to commit to doing anything on a weekly basis anymore! Girlfriend is on the go!!! However, here are weeks 11 and 12 for your viewing pleasure...

Week 11

Week 12

Enjoy the unbearable cuteness that is my daughter... :)

Happy Birthday to Me

2009-06-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

Today, I am 28 years old. Which, I'm ashamed to say, came as quite a surprise...this may be the first year ever that I almost forgot about my own birthday! With my whole world wrapped up in a certain little Téa lady, it's difficult to remember to get out of my pajamas each day, so the unfortunate fact of my being older somehow (conveniently) slipped my mind.

This same time last year, I was already pregnant though I didn't know it, and Jer and I were cavorting around London on our way to visit our best friends Troy and Malin in Sweden, talking about all the things we would do "when we come back here next year for our ten year anniversary"--mainly that trip to Italy we've been wanting to do our whole lives but could never justify (as most of you know, our anniversary is eleven days after my birthday, so if we do a trip we usually lump those two celebrations together). Today, according to our grand plans, I should be on my way to Italy for the trip of a lifetime, the adventure Jer and I have always dreamed of taking together...not sitting in my house, writing this blog, debating internally the pros and cons of extended daytime pajama wear.

But what's funny about all of that is that I just can't bring myself to be sad about it. I mean, Italy sounds great and all, and it certainly would be lovely to while away my birthday at a charming cafe in some skinny jeans and flats and oversized sunglasses sipping CAPpuCCIno (get it? That's me trying to write an italian accent), while Jer and I plot which breathtaking sight we'd like to take in first. However, now, as I recall that vision to mind as it was conceived there beside the river Thames one long year ago, there is something major missing...something that makes that picture considerably less appealing. You guessed it: Little Miss Téa.

The truth is, life just isn't complete anymore without her...In my vision, Jer and I are as we once were, lost in each other, with no concerns beyond which new and exciting experience we might add to the annuls of our years of happiness together. Which is all well and good, and believe me, that innocent and joyful mindset certainly had and will continue in some shape and form to have a time and place in our lives. But looking back, I realize that we truly imagined that that was the be all and end all of life. We couldn't imagine anything better or more...anything that might make us happier than loving each other and living our lives like one giant love party!!! And now with the benefit of knowing all we were missing out on, it all seems unsatisfyingly shallow. Where is the smiling face of my little sunshine? The sound of her little voice lustily forming vowels or dissolving into belly-jiggling giggles? Where is the pride of seeing her wrap her little hands around a toy for the first time, or the excitement of seeing her *almost* roll over? Where is that swell of love in my heart when I see her for the first time in the morning, or when she makes her "I love you" face at me, or when she lights up and reaches out her hands when I walk into the room?

Without those things, my life just isn't complete anymore.

So there may have been an adventure waiting for me...there may have been glamorous locales and beautiful sights and exciting new memories to make in a foreign land. In some other life in some alternate universe, I could have been in a place quite different than I am right now. But that life is a life I would never trade for the one I'm living now--glamorous as I am blogging at my dining room table in my pajamas while my baby naps in a room down the hall. This adventure--the adventure of parenthood--is as exciting and beautiful and breathtaking and wonder-inducing as any a plane could transport me to. It is more than enough to make for a very happy birthday indeed...without a doubt, the happiest I've had to date.

So Happy Birthday to me. It's not what I thought it would be, but--like everything the Lord has cooked up for me this year since He so rudely interrupted my plans for my life--it's better than I imagined.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go snuggle my birthday present. :)

Weeks 8, 9, and 10

2009-05-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

Okay...better late than never I always say (if for no other reason than to reaffirm it's truth so I don't have to feel bad for the shamefully large percentage of tasks in my life that end up under the "late" category). And, also--as they say (it's "they" this time because I'm too impatient to ever say this phrase...)--good things come to those who wait. So, all you wait-ers...your good thing has come. It's Téa picture sharing time!

Below are the pics for:

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Behold the wonder and perfection that is my Téalohi. :) Hope you likey.

Téa's Stanky Leg

2009-05-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

This video is from week 7 when we were at Troy and Malin's house and just started getting goofy with Téa...for those of you not privy to the "stanky leg" phenomenon, just go ahead and type it into YouTube's search bar or click this link. Troy and Malin's kids actually have a stanky leg video on YouTube you can check out here. :) At any rate...check Téa shakin' it below. There are two because the first memory card on our camera ran out and we had to switch it over to the back up memory...I tried to get them into my iMovie program to edit them together but I couldn't figure it out (ummm, Steve Jobs...what the heck?!?!?!). The second one is kind of long, but I figured I'd post them both anyway cause they both have good stuff in them. Enjoy!

Credits: Troy is the puppet master, Jer was video taping, and that's Malin and I giggling like hyenas in the background. :)

Mother's Day

2009-05-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day.

What more appropriate time to reflect on these last few months than today?

Along the way there have been so many things I wanted to write about...all the small things that make up the broad strokes of my transformation into a mother. Countless blog ideas have entered my brain, only to flit away before having the chance to be fleshed out. Alas, in the throes of the brutal chewing up and spitting out of everything you are and everything you thought you knew that is first-time-parenthood it's impossible to catalogue the nuances. It's a sad irony that at the moment you meet the love of your life, when the need to remember is most urgent and each tiny moment seems important to savor, you are thrown into such a sleep-deprived survival-oriented whirlwind that all your memories are reduced to bleary-eyed half-recollections, tiny snippets and snapshots that blur so completely at the edges that you can barely make them out.

And yet, there are things that are remembered--or rather, impossible to forget: The wonder and triumph I felt the first time I saw her face, the shock of how beautiful she was (aren't babies supposed to be sort of squishy when they come out?) and her adorable squeaky little cry, the way she smelled, her open and alert eyes...the desperate love that coursed through my veins and awakened a new place in my heart and soul that was made for and waiting all this time just to love her.

So many emotions...the limits of which were stretched beyond their former breaking point and then stretched again! Pain, Exhaustion, Worry, Doubt, Fear, Need, Longing, Desire, Helplessness, Hope...and LOVE! Love with a capital L!!! Love that takes over every other thing and compels you. Love that drags you out of bed even when the sick, heavy, shakiness of sleep deprivation threatens to suffocate you, covering you like a blanket of chain mail. Love that makes you want to crawl out of your skin when you hear her little voice crying and don't know how to comfort her. Love that renders your formerly clear grasp of reality and the meaning of life utterly moot and throws the formerly well-ordered deck of cards that is your existence into a frenzied game of fifty-two-pick up.

Motherhood, at first, seems something to survive. It is a horrifying mistake, or an unbearable failure, or a brutal test of endurance. It is diapers and worry and crying (by both Mommy and baby) and fear and sleep deprivation (did I mention SLEEP DEPRIVATION???) and doubt. Nothing is the way you thought it would be, nothing will ever be the same again, and it seems impossible to believe that motherhood will ever be a thing that brings you joy or happiness or fulfillment. No, in the early weeks of motherhood, you have all but given up on those things--you mourn for the life you lived before, knowing things will never be the same. And to mourn is appropriate response because it is a sort of death...death to your self, your comforts, your freedom, your marriage as you've known it, your me-centered life.

But then--as with of all of our faithful God's works in the human experience--out of the ashes of that death, an infinitely better and more beautiful life begins to emerge. Somewhere along the way, the cosmic how-I-see-my-life scales tip imperceptibly from What Has Been Lost to What Has Been Gained, and a new normal...a new you begins to shape. You answer a cry with the correct response on the first try...you get sort of used to the lack of sleep thing...you change your first diaper without getting half it's contents on you or obscure parts of your baby. And then it hits you...I am getting better at this! Then one day, your baby smiles at you and you are sure it is actually at you and not in response to a oncoming bowel movement, and you feel it: Joy. She hears your voice and starts to coo: Happiness. She is inconsolable until she feels your arms around her or until you offer her food from your own body: Fulfillment. And suddenly, everything you have been through, everything that is still to come, seems worth it. Suddenly, you see that little ray of light at the end of the dark, seemingly interminable tunnel that has been your life as a new parent, and you begin to understand just how much more there is to look forward to.

And oh how much there is to look forward to! What a privilege it is to mother such a sweet, snuggly, beautiful, animated, curious, and determined child as my Téalohi! With her crinkly-nosed smile and her sweet squeaky voice and her delicious smelling super-soft skin...her love of being snuggled at night before bed and her indignation at being held in a cradle hold and the contented, trusting way she looks up at me when I lay her down to sleep...her long limbed beauty and her subtly olive-toned skin and her long fluttering eyelashes and her kissable little bow lips. I can't wait to hear her little voice form their first words, to see what she goes for when she can finally move around on her own, to watch her learn to make choices and put two and two together and accomplish something she has been working to master. I can't believe my good fortune that for the rest of my life--on this earth and in the eternity to come--I was given the gift of being her Mom.

Today, on the single day of the year that is purposefully set aside to acknowledge and celebrate the women who raise, nurture, guide, and love humankind--today, as I am counted among them for the first time--I feel that I am somewhere in the middle of my journey through that dark tunnel of early motherhood...still making my way out, stumbling along slowly but surely, but always closer to the light. Téa fills my days with more love and joy and happiness and fulfillment than I ever believed I could feel, and yet there is an element of my daily life that remains unsettled, that feels foreign, that must be survived. Perhaps that is something that will never change. Each new day will bring new challenges--though not as elemental as those we face as very new parents, I'm sure they will feel just as dire in the moment! I say let them come. Because after what we've been through together--this little Clements family of ours--I know firsthand that there is nothing we cannot make it through. How do I know? Because we have already been through and survived things that we would have never believed possible...and we are okay. We are joyful. We are happy. We are fulfilled. Our darkest foreseeable hour is behind us. And that pinprick of light in the distance grows brighter each day.

Again...so much more I wish I could write about. But seeing as though it has taken me until now (almost 11 weeks!) to formulate just these simple paragraphs, I think I'd better quit while there's an end in sight.

So Happy Mother's Day, all you Moms out there. May you walk in the light of the joy, happiness, fulfillment and Love that only a mother can feel, and may God richly bless you and your families today and every day.

Week 7

2009-05-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

Two words: Pitifully late.

Here are the pics. Catching up...

A visit from the Easter Bunny...

2009-04-14T14:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks Grandma PoPo for the awesome outfit!

Week 6

2009-04-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

Alrighty...here are the pics from week 6.

Also, they had a service at the hospital where you can get your baby's picture taken on the way out...here are those pics. That gorgeous quilt she's laying on was hand made(!) by my dear friend Abby, and the adorable outfit was a Christmas present from Bill and Missy! How cute does she look!?!?! It's crazy how small she was...I miss her being that little, but I'm also so excited to watch her grow! She is smiling all the time now at everything and coos back at me when I talk to her...I'll have to take a video of her doing it sometime. She is so expressive! I feel like God blessed me with the most awesome baby there ever was!...though I am fairly certain almost every mom on the planet feels the same way about their child. (Too bad they are all wrong cause Téa's the very most awesome) :)

We are definitely getting the hang of things now. She is down to one feeding a night, which keeps getting later and later, which means more and more uninterrupted sleep for mommy!...I think she'll cut it out naturally very soon. We are getting into a nice and easy little routine, the predictability of which makes for a happy baby--which in turn also makes for a happy mommy. :) I'm still struggling to find the motivation to get out of the house when Jer isn't with me...it takes so much more effort and timing than it used to and I already had trouble getting motivated before! Of course I'm always glad I did it once I do...it's the act of preparing to leave that's the chore. But like everything else, I'm sure the more I do it, the easier it will be.

Below is a goofy little video Jer and I took one night before bed...she started to make her "I'm about to poo" face, so--of course--we busted out the video camera. :) We didn't actually get the poo on video, but there are some good Téa smiles in there. Enjoy!

Week 5

2009-04-13T12:08:00.001-07:00

So late, I know! She's almost 7 weeks already! But here are the week 5 pics nonetheless.

Enjoy!

Week 4

2009-03-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get these pics up as fast as I can each week...somehow I am getting further and further behind! What do I have a newborn baby or something??? :)

I guess she's not as NEW newborn as I feel like she is (or wish she would stay) anymore...she's already a month!!! On Wednesday, she'll be a month and one week!!!!!!! I can't believe I have a one month old daughter. CRAZY.

And in reality, as much as it breaks my heart to see these precious moments slip by, I really am somehow simultaneously excited to watch her grow and see her little personality come out and get to know her better and better. So bittersweet...I am sure it is an emotion I will be feeling much more of throughout the remainder of my life, now that I am a parent. I am a parent. Wow. I wonder when that is going to stop being totally weird to me.

This week, she started doing a 6-7 hour stretch from feeding start time to feeding start time (so, if her last feeding is at 10ish, she sleeps until about 4 or 5 am) so, even though by the time she is actually done eating and in bed and I actually fall asleep I lose an hour or two, that is still a pretty luxurious stretch of sleep for the mom of a one month old! She is such a good baby...and we serve a merciful God...you know "help Téa sleep through the night" is in my prayers every night, and HALLELUJAH they are being answered in the affirmative!!!

Gotta go feed the babe, but...

Here are the new pics from this week.

Also this week: Téa met her Great GREAT Grandma, Memo! Here are pics from that awesomely momentous occasion.

Also, two videos this week:

The first one is a little snippet from when Auntie Crystal came over to hang out with and help Mommy for the day...we had a blast and I learned a ton of experienced-Mom nuggets that are now totally part of my routine (did you know running your finger down the bridge of your baby's nose makes them close their eyes? Neither did I!!! I use that one nightly...). Anyways, Crystal was showing me how babies sort of reflexively copy your face...I honestly don't know how it works, but the result is that when she started sticking her tongue out at Téa, she started concentrating really hard and then sticking her little tongue out too! We still play this game all the time and Téa loves it...her little arms and legs start kicking like crazy!!! Behold, my super smart and adorable baby:

This second video was taken at night when we had Téa laying on her changing table waiting to see if she would poo one more time before we changed her diaper for bed. She was so smiley and using her cute little coo-ey voice, so I whipped out the camera. The second half of the video is pretty uneventful and I don't know how to edit it down, but it's not too long. She is smiling so much more now and is making all kinds of cute non-crying noises (even though her cry is pretty cute too). The most frequent comment I get from people who find out how old she is is "Wow! she's so alert!"...I feel pretty blessed to have such a little personality for my daughter...I know she is going to be fun--and a challenge!--to raise, but I am totally enjoying it so far.

Week 3

2009-03-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

Okay...here's more pics. Things are getting a little less crazy around here, and by that I mean we have gone from "hopelessly in over our heads" to "completely in over our heads" on the Parental Skill-o-Meter. This week, Téa is smiling more, adding cooing and "aahing" (SO adorable!!!) to her limited and largely cry-based vocabulary, and actually starting to look like she fits her newborn clothes. At the pediatrician this week, she went from 7lbs, 4oz to 7lbs, 14oz!!! This makes mommy happy since it is my sole responsibility to nourish her...the fact that I am successfully fulfilling the most basic mom-duty there is makes me very happy...add the fact that I am successfully changing her diapers on a (very) regular basis and that means two out of three of her most primal needs are being met with success! Things are looking up! :)

Here are pics from this week. FYI...they are downloadable if you so desire. And below is a video taken on the the exact day she turned 3 weeks old...the 18th, that I call "Stretchy Stretchy". It is by far my favorite video so far...I wish it didn't cut off right when it did because she was just about to make a cute noise but the memory card ran out! Alas...I wish I cold capture it all so I'll never forget all those little things. Not enough memory cards in the world to capture all of her awesomeness!!! Enjoy!

Week 2

2009-03-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

Okie Doke...so here are some pics from Week 2...part of me can't believe its only been two weeks and the other part of me can't believe it's only been two weeks. I wish I could say we were getting the hang of things, but that'd be a lie. We are doing better every day, but I still feel overwhelmed and inept and incompetitent almost constantly. Jer is starting to have to go back to work...he's been gone most of today, and let me just tell you, I am not prepared to be home alone with this baby!!!!!!!! I'm noticing that this is a theme with parenthood: whether you are prepared or not, things are going to happen anyway. So we are getting by. I am positive I have already given her ample reason to mean it when she tells me she hates my guts at 13 years old...so I guess that's one thing I'll be prepared for. :)

Please keep us in prayer...we are working on getting into an eating groove with Téa...I know it will be better for all of us if we can find some semblance of a schedule in that department. Also, pray for Jer and I...we miss eachother like crazy and we are both dreading his needing to go back to work full time.

That's all the time I got...hope you enjoy the pics...and I promise sometime soon I'll get around to filling you in on the whole labor and delivery saga, and also more details on what early life with Téa has been like.

Till then...

Week 1

2009-03-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it's happened. She's here and suddenly every cliche you've ever heard is true...My heart has broken a thousand times with the love I feel for her...She is the most perfect thing God has ever created in the history of the universe...She is the reason I'm on this planet with a life to live in the first place. I could go on and on. But unfortunately, I can't right now because I need to sleep. Who knew that there would ever be a time in my life when minutes of sleep were being counted and hoarded and snatched at like a luxury? You hear it all a thousand times from a thousand different sources...but such is life: you just can't know what something will actually be like until you've been through it yourself.

I promise I will fill you all in with all the details as soon as we get a little surer footing and more rest...But for now, here are some pics of Téa's first week, and below is a little video to brighten your day...it was taken during the wee hours a few nights ago (it's all running together)...if you listen closely, you'll hear 3--*ahem*--explosions...and that doesn't even count the really big one that happened before I got to the camera...

Tealohi Jordan Clements

2009-02-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

Hi. My name is Tealohi Jordan Clements. You can call me Téa. I was born on Feb. 25, 2009 at 5:38am. I came out "sunny-side-up", which was fun, but it took a lot longer for me to come out. My mommy had to PUSH for 3 whole hours. Next time, I'd opt for tummy down.

At first everything was really bright, so I threw out a few screams to let everyone know, 1. I'M HERE, and 2. IT IS BRIGHT!!!. My daddy was kind enough to block out the light for me (see photo below).

The next few days were kind of a blur -- lots of milk, sleep, swaddling, and crying. My mommy and daddy are still trying to figure me out, but they are doing the best they can. To make up for their lack of knowledge they say, "I love you Téa" all the time.

All in all, so far so good. I can't wait to meet you all. Until then, keep me and mommy and daddy in your prayers.

check you later.

Love,
Téa

***

Daddy shielding Téa from the bright lights...

Hello world!

The Scoop

2009-02-23T13:06:00.001-08:00

(This pic was taken yesterday evening, one week past my due date.)

So sorry to be getting to this so late...precious little time for blogging lately!

Here's the scoop...at my appointment last Friday, nothing had really changed...Thankfully, Téa is still totally thriving in utero, but I still wasn't showing any signs of going into labor and she was still in the same non-dropped position...which is obviously completely abnormal. Why hasn't she dropped? At this point, it's more likely that there is something preventing that than not, which means she might not do it on her own. Dr. James (cue the gushing accolades) said that though I will no doubt go into labor at some point, he really didn't want to wait too long and run the risk of Téa's health starting to deteriorate...waiting around for Téa to start showing signs of being post-term (malnourishment, loss of protective vernix coating on skin, "inhaling" of meconium which could lead to a lung infection) didn't sit right with me and Jer either. So rather than pushing it, he felt that 10 days was a good amount of time to wait...7 days is the "standard of care", but because Téa is still healthy and Dr. James knows I wanted to try to have a natural birth, he said he'd let me go to 10 days.

However, 10 days would be this Wednesday, which is my Mom's birthday! So we asked if we could pick another day. The only other day this week was Tuesday...and though we know there is no real guarantee that she'll actually be out by midnight Tuesday, at least we gave her a shot at having her own birthday!

Dr. James did tell me that if I wasn't responding to the pitocin, he wouldn't let me go as long as the average inductee, knowing how high she is and weighing the possibility that she may be too big. So things might end in a C-section sooner than later, but at least I'll have the option to try to deliver her without one.

Jer and I have struggled with this information over the last couple days...just trying to wrap our minds around it more than anything, and making sure we were doing the right thing. But in the end, we both feel really great about it. Dr. James is very supportive of natural birth and is not the kind of doctor who would suggest something like this unless he really felt it was the right thing to do, so we have to trust that. Plus, the thought of risking Téa going post-term makes me totally sick...why when I can give her a totally healthy head start by taking some action? According to all available science, my due date has been right on for February 15th from day one so we can say with as much accuracy as possible that she is in fact late...plus, she's definitely big enough where there is no risk that we are doing this too soon! I have been researching a lot about c-sections, so I feel much less frightened by that prospect, and though I know induction is much more intense than normal labor, I know if I can make it without an epidural it will also make my labor that much faster!

All things considered, I am completely at peace with the decision to induce and possibly get a c-section because I feel like I am doing the right thing for my baby. Now, being faced with all these changes of plan I realize that ultimately, my desire for a natural birth was under natural circumstances...if everything had gone normally, I would have wanted to be able to do it without drugs and as educated about what happens during labor and delivery as possible. However, under these non-normal circumstances (a very un-dropped, very late and very big baby!), I feel--with a few days to mentally readjust--like I can embrace this turn of events honestly...sure, there are new things to fear and new experiences to anticipate, but at the end of the day, all roads lead to me being with Téa at last and that, my friends, is all I care about right now! My little love in my arms! Our life together beginning! When I think of her, my heart leaps past all of the fear and the questions and the dread and cuts it off at the pass. As long as I have my Téa in my arms healthy, safe, and sound, I know I won't care how she got here.

So, tonight, I go in to the doctor's to have a minor preparatory procedure done that should help get my cervix softening and dilated to 3 cm by the morning. Tomorrow, I am up and at the hospital by 7am, and as soon as I am all checked in and situated, they're going to start me on the pitocin.

So, please my friends...pray for us. First and foremost, for a Téa's health and that she would do well during the stress of her labor and delivery. And please pray the same for me, and that I would have the courage to face whatever might come...the pain, the fear, the physical and emotional strain. And please pray for Jer, that he would have a clear mind and a courageous heart to be a support to me in the midst of watching me go through everything I'll be going through. Most of all, just pray that the Lord would hold our little family in His hands, and that we would feel His presence with us, and that the enemy could not get to us there. Thank you all for sticking with me all this time and for being so supportive and thoughtful and caring and loving that at times it has brought me to tears! Your walking with me through this pregnancy has made every step of this crazy, beautiful, miraculous, strange, soul-stretching journey that much easier to face!...thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Pics of our little one and the tale of her arrival to follow!

Love you all.

San Francisco and the C word (No, Not THAT C Word!)

2009-02-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

Alrighty...well, my Mom and Step-Dad have been in town over the past week so I have been too busy to get to my blog for any amount of time...(I also just postdated a very quick due date post here...the blog wouldn't be complete without it!)...but they are out smoking cigars on my patio at the moment, so I figured I'd better take a quick stab at filling you in on the details of what went on this past Friday at my OB appointment...my next OB appointment is tomorrow and I want to get you guys filled in before I have a whole new set of info to deluge you with!

SO...I head in for my weekly check-up with Dr. James, my OB. It would be totally remiss of me to not take a moment, after uttering the words "Dr. James", to gush briefly over how "amazing" of a doctor he is, because that seems to be what anybody (pre-pregnancy patients, women whose babies he's delivered whether by natural birth or C-Section, even the nurses I've spoken to during the hospital tours...I mean anybody) I talk to who knows of him does when I mention who my OB is. And, really, he is pretty awesome...He has been very respectful of Jer and I the whole time, he talks to you like a person not an idiot, he never pushes an agenda and always takes his time explaining everything to you that you want to know and never makes you feel rushed...both Jer and I feel really great about him and I feel very safe in his medical care. He still uses words like "incredible" and "amazing" when he talks about the birth process, which to me, gets him a lot of gold stars in my book.

At any rate (I'm already digressing!), there I am at my appointment with Dr. James. This time because it's my "birthday weekend", I am ushered into a new room where Téa is given a non-stress test. The results of this test are "perfect". I could have told them my baby was perfect beforehand, but... :)

Then, he does an ultrasound to double check that the baby is still head down and also to make sure that there is still enough amniotic fluid. I was actually really afraid she was in a posterior position (where she is facing out rather than toward my spine) because that would have ostensibly meant a much longer, more painful labor and delivery for me, but we got the good news that she is in a totally normal position for normal labor (her back is up against my tummy on the right side...which explains why my left side is frequently karate chopped by sharp little baby parts and my right side usually just feels sort of pushed on). As for the amniotic fluid, she has "plenty". So great news on both counts.

Then, he does a pelvic exam....and after some uncomfortable poking and prodding, he literally laughs (not mockingly...in disbelief...but still not exactly the response you are hoping for after you've been examined at a doctor's appointment...) and says..."I do a lot of pelvic exams, and I swear to you, if I hadn't seen that your baby was head down in the ultrasound just a second ago, I would have told you that she is in the breech position. She is so high...I mean, she is so high." To which I replied dumbly, "but I could have sworn I felt her drop!" At which point he laughed again and said, "that's funny because, I mean, your baby is in San Francisco."

Oh, and I hadn't dilated a centimeter. Dagger.

He went on to explain that, though it may be entirely possible that she could still drop and I could still go into labor naturally and everything could go totally smoothly, the fact that she hasn't dropped by this point could be an indicator that she isn't going to fit...He said that if the baby hasn't engaged in the pelvis by now, there's usually a reason.

Also working against us is the timing factor...the "standard of care" is to not let pregnancies go longer than a week past the due date without inducing, though Dr. James says he recommends something around the 10 day mark. He also said that he hates inducing because "it really isn't good for anyone"...and for someone who isn't at all dilated--not to mention carrying a completely un-engaged baby--the failure rate is very high.

He wouldn't even say the C word (again, not that C word...the one that starts with "C" and ends with "section") in front of me because he knows I'm "little miss Bradley" (his nickname, not mine...), but obviously, if her size really is the issue, that is the only option. And if the induction doesn't work, it's that C word again.

He saw my wheels turning and putting it all together, and I started asking a million questions about c-sections in rapid fire succession, but he put on the brakes...he stressed that anything could happen and that there is still a good chance I could go into labor totally naturally and everything would be fine...but the way things were going (or not going), we had to start talking about the possibility of induction and alternative scenarios. He told me not to stress about it...that we'll just put another appointment on the books for next Friday (aka, tomorrow...) and we'll reassess from there.

SO...here I am, on the eve of that appointment. The news I get tomorrow will determine many things...if Téa isn't thriving anymore, that opens up one door...if I am still showing no sign whatsoever of going into labor, that will open up another door...if I am showing some signs of going into labor, that opens up yet another door...and exactly what those signs are is another issue. And who knows what other unforeseen scenarios may arise? At this point, I am prepared for anything. The way I see it, whatever option gets me my baby the healthiest and safest is the way I'll go for. So, we shall see what we shall see.

I am going to go get ready for bed now...but if you get a chance, please say a quick little prayer for us and for tomorrow...for Téa's health and safety, for mine and Jer's sanity, and for wisdom and clarity when we speak to the doctor. Thank you all for all of your loving words and support...I am hanging by an emotional thread at all times these days, and every little word of encouragement is like a tall drink of water (ice cold, of course) on a hot day. :)

More soon!

Moment of Unabashed Self-Pity Number 9,004...

2009-02-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

...So I had this whole post going that I was getting ready to put up on my due date, which was yesterday (of course, no Téa yet), which was going to explain all about how the doctor basically told me on Friday that my daughter doesn't even look close to coming out anytime soon (To make a long story short...you know how I thought I'd dropped? Yeah, NO. In fact she is so high up there he would have sworn to me if he hadn't seen the ultrasound that she was breech, and he's thinking that maybe she is just too big to fit through my pelvis...Total. Dagger.) but never got a chance to post it before...joy of joys!...I accidentally spilled Jer's glass of red wine all over my not even a year old and and totally non-backed up computer. Yeah. LAME. I am on my Mom's compy now. I'm going to the apple store tomorrow, but somehow I don't think the warranty covers clutzy stupidity. I'm hoping my keyboard cover prevented ALL my data from being lost...we shall see.

I'm not going to filter here because you all are my friends and I think I can be honest with you...I am getting pretty irritated. I mean, I thought I was going to go into the birth of my daughter totally rested and happy and calm and peaceful like I was up until about a week and a half ago. Now I'm totally irritated...which doesn't exactly get me started out on the right foot for the weeks (or more like months) of sleep deprivation, poopy diapers, and un-controllable crying jags (for both baby and mommy) that are about to be my everyday existence. I mean, spilling wine on your computer is, like, the most pointless accident known to mankind and it has to happen NOW...right when I'm at my most uncomfortable and trying with all my might to hold on to a good attitude and be positive and when I'm just getting over a massive cold that laid me out against my will for a whole week and right after finding out my baby is probably too big to fit through my pelvis. I mean, I know there are a thousand more awful things that could be happening and that in the grand scheme, a slightly elevated case of the sniffles and some photos and music being lost is not the end of the world. And neither is being at the end of your pregnancy...every single woman who makes it to their 40th week goes through it...and I have a totally healthy baby inside of me! So why am I complaining? I don't know. I am being such a baby and I know it. Will somebody give me back my sanity? WILL SOMEBODY JUST GIVE ME MY BABY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?!?!?

Turns out, I need to reevaluate how I "trust God", because turns out, I was just sort of trusting Him to make things go my way. I see now (duh, Hoku) that this is not really the way it works. As if I know better than Him the best timing and the best way my baby should be born! I probably needed to catch that cold so I didn't get it after the baby was born and pass it along to her! Maybe my computer was harboring some demon spawn that could only be eradicated by being drowned in red wine! (okay, well the last one probably isn't true...) What the heck do I know? I am the created. He is the Creator. He is the Author and Finisher...I am the authored and in-need-of-finishing. I just need to relax and get a grip. It's gonna be what it's gonna be. And whatever it is, it'll be right...that is if I don't start meddling and get all in the way of God's plans. GET A GRIP, HOKU!!!

Wait. Trust. Wait. Trust.

Ugh.

Okay fine.

**Sigh.**

Okay. Moment of Unabashed Self-Pity Number 9,004, officially over. Thank you again for indulging me. Sheesh.

But I did hear that castor oil actually kind of works...

...Just kidding. :)

OUR DUE DATE!!!

2009-02-15T12:03:00.000-08:00

"It's hard to say for sure how big your baby will be, but the average newborn weighs about 7 1/2 pounds (a small pumpkin) and is about 20 inches long. His skull bones are not yet fused, which allows them to overlap a bit if it's a snug fit through the birth canal during labor. This so-called "molding" is the reason your baby's noggin may look a little conehead-ish after birth. Rest assured — it's normal and temporary."

Moment of Unabashed Self-Pity Number 8,452...

2009-02-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

...I caught a cold. Seriously? A cold? Right now?!?!?! I feel like stomping my feet and throwing a tantrum and yelling "no fair".

Okay. Moment of self-pity over.

Thanks for indulging me. (Again).

Week 39!!!

2009-02-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

You know what this means...just one week till my due date.

This week, I am asking for your prayers: Jeremy is on the verge of catching a cold and he NEEDS to, a) not catch it, or b) be over it before Téa comes, because newborns and colds don't mix. So please, if you have a moment, pray that the Lord would protect Jer from this sickness and/or let it pass and have Jer be well again before Téa is born. Thank you so much...I know we are in the Lord's hands and that he will pick the perfect time for Téa to be born and he knows what's going on with Jer's body, so we are just committing ourselves to His care and trusting that it will all work out! The Lord works all things together for good, so we will see how He decides to play it out and trust that it will be good, bt your prayers would be so greatly appreciated...

On a more humorous (sort of) note...what do you think just HAPPENED to pop up out of nowhere when I only have ONE WEEK TO GO??????? A little group of stretch marks. Yup. Right above the unrecognizable and inverted remains of my formerly cute (sort of) belly button. How lame is that? There is something just so ironic about making it this far unscathed and then having all your hopes of a stretch-mark free pregnancy dashed right as you are at the most self-pity-prone part of your pregnancy. And so close! It's like being tripped right as you're about to cross the finish line at the end of a long, arduous, Olympic race after running the whole thing feeling great and then having to cross the finish line with skinned knees in disgrace.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little melodramatic (...or a lot). Thank you for indulging me...moment of self-pity, officially done.

And now, here's what Baby Center's update had to say...

"Your baby's waiting to greet the world! She continues to build a layer of fat to help control her body temperature after birth, but it's likely she already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. (Boys tend to be slightly heavier than girls.) The outer layers of her skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath."

I'll keep you updated! Baby's coming soon...

The Top 21 Things I Would Tell Myself If I Could Go Back in Time (You know, like on LOST but without the nosebleeds and the constant threat of death).

2009-02-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

Well, folks...I'm officially just a little over a week from my due date, so I figured I'd take a little moment to pause and reflect on all that has transpired these past 9 months, as well as pay a little homage to Lost's UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING new time-travel-centric season (I won't even bother "spoiler alerting" you on that one because, a) any Lost-watcher worth their salt would have seen that coming and, b) if you aren't caught up yet, that's you're own fault, people).

I know that in theory, mixing those two objectives doesn't sound like a very awesome idea, and maybe it's not (after all, time travel on Lost is not really a benign or pleasant thing and is often accompanied by nosebleeds and the constant threat of death...thus the extended title of this post), but since you are my long-suffering blog-buddy, you will probably keep reading out of curiousity. And though I don't want to exploit that, I'll admit right now that I sort of am. :)

Just kidding.

Really all this means is that I'm writing this list as though I was speaking to my past self. Which really, is a fruitless excersize, since I wouldn't have listened to/believed myself anyways.

So, now that we've established that this is not only a fruitless exercise, but also a pretty strange idea and a blatant exploitation of your long-suffering friendship...here's my list! :)

(you all are too good to me.)

***

The Top 21 Things I Would Tell Myself If I Could Go Back in Time (You know, like on LOST but without the nosebleeds and the constant threat of death)...

21. You will look in the mirror one day at your gigantic belly in wonderment and say to yourself (or even to other people) "There is no way I could get any bigger than I am right now"...but you will be wrong. You can get bigger and you will. And so will you butt. And your thighs. And anything else that has started to grow since you became pregnant.

20. In the beginning of your pregnancy you will be all irritated that nobody is commenting on your pregnant belly because you will think it is so totally and obviously huge. It isn't. You don't know the meaning of huge until you're standing in front of the mirror staring at your gigantic belly in wonderment saying to yourself "there is no way I could get any bigger than I am right now"...

19. Don't look for sympathy for your being "fat" when you're pregnant. Apparently being pregnant precludes you from classifying your extra pounds as "fat". Even when you are carrying them in places your growing baby has nothing to do with. Or when there are 50 of them and your baby only weighs about 6 and a half.

18. Oh yeah...by the way--don't panic!--but you will be gaining 50 pounds. Sorry.

17. You may have always fantasized about being that pregnant girl that everyone praised up and down for "looking exactly the same but you just swallowed a basketball!" or for being "all belly!" or for being "the cutest pregnant woman I've ever seen!". The truth is, it doesn't matter...because whether they mean it or not, you won't believe a single one of them. In your head they will all be liars. And you will never know for sure if they really are or not. So let it go...even though it's almost impossible to believe at the moment, you will not be pregnant forever.

16. At some point in your second trimester it will suddenly become almost impossible to believe that you will not be pregnant forever. Or that you will ever see your feet again. Or that you will ever be able to wear any of your old clothes again. But I hear it ends. So we'll see. I'll get back to you on that in a week or so...

15. Reading all of those baby-centric books all at once may seem like a good and responsible thing to do, but trust me when I say that it's not. You will burn out and need an escape and will end up obsessed with a book series skewed toward teenagers that centers around a dreamy vampire boy and a human every-girl falling in love...Even though...it is a pretty awesome series. Oh you know what?...what the heck. Burn out. Those Twilight books are freakin' awesome.

14. You are not "just looking" or "checking to see if anything is on sale" so don't lie to yourself...if you walk into that baby clothing store, you will buy some of it, on sale or no. Baby clothing is absolutely and unequivocally irresistible. It is Pregnant Lady Kryptonite. So don't even walk in the store unless you don't mind spending money. Just don't.

13. You may hate having to clear out and downsize your office and spend a whole Saturday cleaning out your garage and the abject frustration of having to shove your life into random corners of your already-too-small-home to make room for baby...but once you do it, you'll be so grateful to be rid of all that useless crap you were storing and you won't miss any of it...and there is nothing you'll love more in the weeks prior to her birth than sitting in your baby's ready-and-waiting and all-her-own room.

12. Go ahead and buy those size Small maternity jeans, but buy them cheap...you will need a second pair in Large before you hit your halfway point. And if you are going to buy tees, buy dark colors: Turns out Humungous Belly + Inability to Pull Up to the Table = Long Way for Food to Travel from Plate to Mouth. It doesn't always make it.

11. You've always heard pregnancy is a "miracle" and thought that people meant it like some cheesy worn-out cliche you embroider on some pillow...you were wrong. Pregnancy is a miracle, as in a freakin' real-live miracle, people...because there is nothing normal, commonplace, or non-miraculous about anything that happens to you, from day one to D-day...no matter how often it happens and no matter how scientifically explainable it is. Pregnancy makes turning water into wine and healing lepers look like child's play. If being pregnant doesn't make people believe in God, I honestly don't know what will. So...take heed...it may not look true embroidered next to all those flowers and hearts and kittens and stuffed with all of that polyester batting, but it is.

10. Keep that Brita in your fridge locked and loaded, because if there is anything your pregnancy will teach you, it's this: It's never too cold for a tall glass of ice cold water. Not when you're shivering in your home during a record-cold-winter with a broken heater, not when you're out on a walk in the whipping wind with a too-thin jacket, not even when you still have goosebumps and your throat is still numb from the last glass of ice cold water you just finished guzzling. In fact, you will come to believe that there is never a time when ice cold water is not delicious and appropriate to drink. And it will be true. In fact, ice cold water is the best drink on all of planet earth. Period.

9. On that note, heads up: it will be a record-cold winter and your heater will be broken. Get on your lame-a$$ property managers and start the process of getting it fixed now. Cause it will take them months to get on it and you will be COLD. (Even more so because you won't be able to resist ice cold water). Oh...and when you go on that walk, bring the heavy jacket. The wind will pick up.

8. Everyone tells you that pregnancy makes you a magnet for unsolicited advice...unfortunately, this is true. This will be really irritating...until you realize you aren't obligated to follow any of it. In fact, listening to the world's advice on how you should raise/deliver/feed/change/schedule/not schedule/wake/sleep/pick up/put down/etc./etc./etc. your baby is a fast-track to understanding one of the principle cornerstones of motherhood: Everybody does it different. And so will you...by the end, you'll have your own plan. So don't panic...some people actually have some decent advice (emphasis on some). So smile, nod, and listen with a large grain of salt.

7. Your baby punching your guts out will never stop being cute and even endearing, even when it's excruciating.

6. Sleeping on your left side comfortably seems impossible at first, but with the right configuration of pillows, you will get the hang of it eventually. Sort of. (Hint: try 5 instead of 4.)

5. Time and comfort during pregnancy are relative: The amount you have of each will always seem wrong to you somehow. And forget about the last couple weeks. There are depths of impatience and discomfort you have not even begun to understand.

4. The way your husband's face will light up when he gets to feel his daughter through your belly will make places in your heart you never knew existed fall in love with him all over again.

3. It is possible for your heart to ache missing someone you've never met.

2. You get nine months not because God needs any amount of time to actually form or create your baby...it's so that he has the time He needs to reform and recreate you.

And finally...

1. Lost is really mind-blowingly great this season. Oh, and--hot tip: It centers on Time Travel.

***

Happy Friday!

The Lake of Fire and The Waiting Game

2009-02-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

(38 weeks)

Her room is ready, save a decorative detail or two. Her name is picked out. Little diapers are stacked up by her changing table and little clothes fill the drawers of her dresser. I have a car seat to bring her home in and I have blankets to wrap her in for the journey and a bassinet to lay her in once she's home. Her bed is made and waiting with a comfy mattress pad and clean sheets. Hers, mine, and Jer's bags for the hospital and are packed and zipped, our pre-admission forms are filled out and filed away there in preparation for our harried arrival, and the house is clean and ready to be left for a few days while she comes into the world.

The car is always kept at at least half a tank, the car seat base is strapped in and secured...we even have an emergency set of blankets and towels in case I end up having to deliver on the side of the road. Our classes have been completed. Our books have been read. I know all there is to know about breastfeeding and vaccines and swaddling and the Bradley Method that can be known without experiencing it first hand. I even braved a La Leche League Meeting (all I have to say about that is...whoa.) Our loved ones travel plans and hotels are booked. Even our camera is charged and waiting by the front door.

Indeed, all the world lies in wait here in our little slice of Cheltam Way...this empty apartment hums with the promise of a new life waiting to join our blissful little love nest and completely overturn our routine comings and goings...my belly moves and rolls with the ripples of little feet and little fists, the appendages of a little body that is strong enough to survive outside me...a heart that will pump its own blood and lungs that will breathe air all on their own. Indeed, the world she will come into is ready for her...and she, in turn, is ready for the world.

All that remains is the answer to this question:

Why isn't she freakin' here yet?!?!?!?!?!

Yes, my friends, we have officially reached that part of my pregnancy...the last of the emotional and psychological fires all pregnant women must pass through (before the BIG fire of labor and delivery, at least)...the part where time seems to grind to a halt and enduring just a single moment more of being pregnant seems like the greatest test of our entire long-suffering and piteous existences...the part where I--like all women at this point in the waiting game that has been our pregnancy--start getting really antsy.

It all started last Thursday. Jer woke me up just as he was leaving for work instead of getting me up to have breakfast with him, which made me sad right away and sort of got me going on the wrong foot. Also, I had nothing on the calendar that day...strike two. And then there was the mild-to-moderately destructive decision to turn on the TV...which led to the categorically "severely destructive" decision to watch "Birth Day", which I have avoided like the plague since I got pregnant because I knew how scary it would be to have all of those risky pregnancies and deliveries stored up in my brain when I was going through it myself.

Turns out it's a dangerous show for a completely different set of reasons: The women's faces! One second they are twisted in utter agony and exhaustion, and then the second they saw their babies faces...even when they weren't even all the way out yet...all the pain just disappeared from their faces instantly...it was like you could see the moment at which they fell in love. It was beautiful and touching and not the least bit scary. It made me ache with longing for the sight of my little Tealohi's face.

I sobbed on my couch for at least 15 whole minutes after the show was over.

That's when I decided I needed to leave...I threw on some clothes (sneakers of course), hopped in my car and headed out to "run some errands"...and subsequently spent the entire day on my feet (which I paid for dearly later, sneakers or no) and got nothing done (because I didn't actually have any errands left to run...I just went to the places where I usually have errands to do hoping something would hit me...nothing did) and got more irritated than I was before I left the house.

And to top it all off, at the end of my miserable day, when I was at the end of my physical and emotional rope, what do you think I just happened to happen upon? A tiny newborn baby...he was all wrapped up in a little blanket on his Daddy's shoulder, just three days old, waiting outside the dressing rooms at Mimi Maternity (what his Mom was doing at Mimi Maternity three days after giving birth I'll never know). The combination of seeing that little bitty baby and being completely overwhelmed by a dressing room full of ill-fitting maternity bras (hint: fluorescent dressing room lighting + my body at 9 months pregnant = depression) made me long for my Téa anew and hate that I was still stuck being pregnant so much I practically fled from the store.

Friday, I did okay.

But Saturday...sheesh. Here's Jer and I, on what could be one of our final days--if not the final day--alone together with nothing on the schedule but pure, unadulterated lovey-dovey time...and how do I spend the day? An emotional wreck. I can't decide if I'm angry or sad or what...I'm just...UGH...and poor Jer is just trying to figure out what to do and say that isn't going to make me, a) feel worse...b) get angry...c) start crying...or d) start ranting about how I'm so confused I don't know whether I'm angry or want to start crying.

We went for a long walk at Salt Creek Beach....we walked down the big hill, all the way down to the far end of Salt Creek by the cliffs, back the opposite way and across the jetty to Strands, all the way down to the end of Strands, all the way up the massive set of stairs they just put in at the end of Strands, back down, back across Strands, and back up the big hill to the parking lot. I thought if there's any walk that would have gotten labor going, that would have been it...but it didn't. I went to bed as upset and confused as I started out the day.

The next morning, I woke up in so much pain we had to skip church so I could sleep it off--my whole back and shoulders and arm on the left side was seizing up mercilessly. I've been telling everyone at church in response to their asking me "When's the baby due?": "Just ___ weeks left...When you don't see us one Sunday, you'll know why!"...those words mocked me now...the reason "why" was because I was having a meltdown the day before and had pushed myself too hard trying to "walk the baby out". I spent the entire day in agony with Jeremy selflessly massaging me and feeding me bananas (you know...potassium) and refilling my water glass before I wised up and started band-aid-ing Power Balance chips to my extra sore and spazzy muscles. (All I have to say is...WOW. Night and day. Those things really freakin' work even though I have no real idea how. I knew that before, but now I REALLY know. They are coming with me to the delivery room for sure).

At any rate, today, I am happy to report that I am having a better day...a good day, even. Today, the cleanliness of my apartment does not mock me...the peacefulness of our little canyon doesn't make me feel lonely. The cheery chirping of the birds that have made their home there, the occasional whistle of the train down in San Juan, the whooshing sound of the trees in the warm breeze...they make me feel calm and grateful today, rather than irritated and self-pitying. Today, I find rest in the shadow of my Father's wing, who has asked of me and every other woman since Eve who has carried a new life inside of her through to these uncomfortable and awkward final weeks, "Wait for Me...Trust Me". Today, that request seems to be one that I can honor...one that I can answer with a "behold, your maidservant" rather than with a fist clenched at the sky and a mistrustful "why?" in my heart.

After all, what contribution have I made to this pregnancy--to the forming of this new life inside of me--that has qualified me to know when the hour and day should be that she should be born?

Sure, I've eaten as healthily as I could stand, exercised as much as I was willing, educated myself as much as I was able...I've checked off every baby-necessity and hospital packing list, and done everything a good little first-time-Mom-to-be should to prepare for their child. But have I formed a single hair on her head? Have I knit together just one small piece of her personality? Have I had a single thing to do with the fact that she is healthy and whole inside of me, thriving and ready for life outside the life support system my body has provided these last nine months?

Sure, I've lent my DNA and my body to the cause, but what have I done? Had she not been healthy...had she not thrived...would there have been anything I could have done to heal her? Had my body rejected her, would there have been anything I could have done to reverse it? Had I been one of those chosen to bear the burden of struggling to get pregnant at all, would there have been anything I could have done to change it?

The answer is a resounding no.

In truth, all I've really been asked to do this entire time is to wait and trust. My body knew how to grow to make room for her all on its own. She was knit together and formed without consultation with me. Even the desire to make room for her, to get things ready for her, to nest, was an instinct that arose within me outside of my control. The love I feel for her is not something I willed into being, and nor, I suspect, will the overwhelming love and mothering instincts that will overpower me upon her birth. All that has been asked of me each day is to surrender...to let go and let God, as it were...to give myself over to the most amazing commonplace miracle He has given humans the privilege to participate in...and only women! Whoever looks at Christianity as a faith that has placed women in the inferior position would do well to think of pregnancy and childbirth. That God's most precious creation should take root in us--in me--and be brought forth into the world through our blood, sweat, and tears!...That we should be the vessels in which God sees fit to form His most precious and beautiful works of art!...that we should take part in the ongoing creation story!...the story that began so many years ago with the forming of a dust creature and a soul being breathed into it...the story that will end, just as my pregnancy will, with the Lord Himself saying "It's time", and no sooner.

Jer and I have talked often lately of this feeling of being in limbo, with one foot in the world and the life we've known and one foot in the unknown and intangible new life that awaits us as parents...it is inevitable now--was inevitable from the moment Téa was conceived. It's been a long, slow walk from the people we were--content in our self-sufficient couple-hood, struggling to imagine how parenthood would fit into our lives--to the people we are now...happy parents-to-be who can't imagine or remember life without Téa on the way but also have no real idea what it will really mean to have her here. It's bittersweet. We long for a person we've never met...miss her...love her. And yet we know her arrival will change everything and overturn the spontaneous, carefree life we've loved all these years. We'll go without sleep, without freedom, without showers, without alone time...and yet, somehow we look forward to it? It's strange place to be, suspended here between lives.

And then, the harrowing feat that separates those lives: The lake of fire all pregnant women must pass through...labor and delivery. I feel as though I'm standing on the edge of a very high cliff with the knowledge that I will fall, but with no knowledge whatsoever of when the time I begin my decent will be...it's the knowing while not knowing when that gets me. That the whooshing wind in my ears and the pull of my stomach being left behind and the earth leaving my feet will be my only indication...that is what puts me on this edge and keeps me there, wondering and waiting, struggling to keep my hands at my side and my heart open when it's all I can do to keep from balling them into fists and yelling "why?" in self-pity.

On second thought, though, the lake of fire seems to be the more accurate analogy. Because you know there will be pain, but you don't know what it will feel like until it's come upon you. And you know it will be long, but you don't know exactly how long it will take you to get to the other side. Standing on the edge of such an overwhelming spectacle is bound to make even the steeliest set of nerves quake and the most trusting heart uneasy with our Lord's encouragement that we be "anxious for nothing".

I suspect that anxiousness does have its place in all of this waiting, though. What else would make us women look forward to interminable hours of torturous pain, if not relief from the torturous pain of waiting on that cliff or on the edge of that lake of fire, not knowing when?

But remembering the faces of those women on "Birth Day", I think I know what that something else would be: it's the chance to see our longed-for little one with our own eyes...to experience love at first sight (the second time, for me!)...to begin the lifelong process of unwrapping this little gift our Good God has formed and created and made with love and joy and care just for us...to hold the little hands and feet that you've been feeling through your skin and cradle the little body that has been developing and growing to maturity inside of you while you waited and trusted, waited and trusted, waited and trusted as best you could. I think that would have been enough, were my flesh strong enough to withstand the siren song of anxiousness and self-pity. The promise of my little Tealohi on the other side would have been enough, I'm sure, to see me through that lake of fire without losing heart.

However, fleshly being that I am, I suspect I will be battling those fleshly emotions until the day I finally feel the first flames of that lake lapping at my heels, fight though I may to "let tomorrow worry about itself" and "be anxious for nothing" as my Father commands.

Today, however, is a good day...today, it seems possible to wait...to trust...to say in earnest, "behold your maidservant". Today, all I can feel is overwhelming gratitude. For my healthy little Téa-love inside of me, for the beauty and joy and love my life is filled with every day and for the quiet peacefulness of this suspended moment in time...the warmth and blissful happiness of my marriage...the coming of this little half-him/half-me that will teach us new depths of what it means to love even as it draws us into deeper love for each other and for our--her--Creator.

And so, I wait. I trust. Today it is easier to do. I know tomorrow, it may not be. And that each day between now and "It's time" will be more of a test...more of a struggle to stay calm...to find peace in the canyon birds and trees and joy in my heart's excited expectation and to see hope rather than emptiness in my clean and ready-for-a-new-life home.

Wait. Trust. Wait. Trust.

Today, that is something I can do.

38 Weeks!!!

2009-02-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

"Your baby has really plumped up. She weighs about 6.8 pounds and she's over 19 1/2 inches long (like a leek). She has a firm grasp, which you'll soon be able to test when you hold her hand for the first time! Her organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb. Wondering what color your baby's eyes will be? You may not be able to tell right away. If she's born with brown eyes, they'll likely stay brown. If she's born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time she's 9 months old. That's because a child's irises (the colored part of the eye) may gain more pigment in the months after she's born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. (Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.)"

De Quervain's Tenosynovitis

2009-01-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

...apparantly, this is what I have.

I noticed my right wrist really hurting me about a week ago out of the blue. A few days later, it was still really hurting and getting worse, and that's when I noticed a hard bump...like a growth on my wrist bone...poking out. I made an appointment with an ortho, and this morning I was told I had De Quervia-whatta-vitis, which is basically a calcium growth on the tendon to my thumb. (It's name makes it sound fancier than it is). :)

The bad news is, it hurts and there's nothing I can do about it until after the baby's born. The good news is, it is easily treatable with a steroid shot, and there's even a pretty great chance it will go away on it's own once all the crazy hormones that accompany pregnancy die down. I guess it's brought on by an increase in hormones and pretty common during pregnancy...I have to wear a brace to sleep at night (geek alert!), but other than that it's just business as usual and strict orders not to let it prevent me from doing anything I usually would with the baby, especially breast-feeding.

At any rate, no real reason to mention it except that it's a part of the story of my pregnancy. I'll let you know if it starts sprouting tentacles or something...

Tummy Talk

2009-01-27T17:05:00.000-08:00

Jer's always talking to Téa and I just happened to have the camera nearby the other day...

A Tree for Téa

2009-01-27T16:45:00.000-08:00

Jer and I really wanted to do something cool on the blank wall you see right when you walk into Téa's room, and I was sort of obsessed with the idea of a tree of some kind...maybe it had something to do with the owl thing...you know, owls are birds and birds live in trees?...who knows. But as many of you may or may not know, when I get obsessed with something there's no hope for any other course of action, and all the more since I'm now hormonally charged and nesting-impulse-driven as well. Triple whammy. The walls were defenseless against me. :)

I almost painted a mural myself...but then we realized that if I did, we'd get way more attached to this place than we already are, and we want to try to move to a bigger place in the next 6 months to a year...so we nixed that idea. So I went online and did a little research and--voila!--found these cool wall decals in the Land of Nod catalog. Not only is it a tree which is exactly what I wanted...and not only was it totally design-your-own so I got to have fun arranging it rather than having it be one static design...but it's also easily removable and reusable, so I can take it all with me to the next place we move to! Incredible. Here's the finished product...

I'm thinking I'll paint some scripture in the top left-hand corner. I'll post pics if I get to it...

37 Weeks!!!

2009-01-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

It's true...another week has passed. Isn't time supposed to be going by slower right about now? I feel like it is FLYING. But that's not a bad thing...the sooner if goes the sooner I get to hold my Téa!!!

This week's Baby Center update wasn't very eventful. I guess that's probably because nothing eventful is really happening anymore!...it's just the waiting game now. At any rate...

"Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, her lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz."

I just had my weekly appointment with Troy Wenger, sport and prenatal massage therapist extraordinaire, and he predicted that he'd see me one more Tuesday before I deliver...he thought maybe even sooner. We'll see if his prediction is right...

And so we wait...

Téa's Room

2009-01-23T18:07:00.002-08:00

I put up some pics of Téa's room using my mobile me account. I hate that it won't let me write captions...that is the problem with all these photo hosting sites and I'm trying to find one that will let me. I kind of used the titles to do mini descriptions...it's the best I can do for now, so please, enjoy them here at your leisure. :) The last pic is of a $400+ swedish import bassinet/stroller in perfect condition that we found on craigslist for just $75! Score!!!

Have a great weekend...

36 Weeks!!!

2009-01-23T16:42:00.000-08:00

(This is me this morning, still in my pajamas...I woke up wide awake at 5:15am for some strange reason...Jer joined me at 8:30 and snapped this pic.)

We have arrived, folks: This is the week in which I will no longer be stopped from going into labor. This is happening people. I've got a totally-prepared-for-life-outside-me baby living inside of me right now, which, I've gotta say, is pretty crazy.

We learned at the Ultrasound that she was already head down, but this week I felt Téa drop. All of a sudden, I started feeling her movements much lower than usual and--if this is even possible--started having to pee more often. I also noticed that my belly profile had changed, and that the top of my belly wasn't digging into my underwire anymore. I know some women don't even notice it happening, but for me, it was such a big difference, I actually thought for a few hours last night that I might be going into labor (turns out the weird cramping was probably just the contents of my intestines trying to figure out how to bypass the newly-encroaching baby head pressing into it...I saw my doctor today and he said I wasn't in the least bit dilated.)

Also this week...I had my first ever Really Uncomfortable Moment in Pregnancy. Last Saturday, Jer and I decided we were going to wake up early and attack our over-stuffed junk-heap of a garage once and for all. Great plan, right? Wrong. Turns out 9-Months-Pregnant Lady + cold concrete garage floor for hours on end = PAIN. I'm pretty sure something got inflamed and pinched some key nerves pertaining to my feet, because for a solid 4-5 days afterwards my feet were constantly asleep, and the accompanying "pins and needles" feeling felt more akin to "tiny knives and shards of glass" boring into my feet with every step. I was couch bound. My back is still hurting. My feet still fall asleep if I go without resting for too long. It was a disaster (but our garage sure looks freakin' awesome!!!). Jer made me admit out loud that the ninth month of pregnancy is not a time for garage heroism and made me promise that I would heretofore take advantage of my aforementioned advanced pregnant state to relax, guilt free. Also an activity I learned to do, guilt free?: Ask for massages from Jer. :) (Well...he asked for it!)

Also, this week is the second week in a row I've been waking up naturally at 8:30am, which, if you know me at all, will come as a humungous shock. It certainly shocked me! :) And when I say I wake up naturally at 8:30, I mean that 8:30 feels like I've slept in, people. I start tossing and turning at 7:30. I am also officially hardly able to keep my eyes open at 10pm and in bed nightly before midnight. CRAZY. I know, I know--where is the real Hoku and what have you done with her?--I wish I knew. But in all honesty, I think it has more to do with the fact that I'm not sleeping very soundly as it is with all the peeing and acid-refluxing and left-siding...I feel in a way like the difficulty sleeping during pregnancy is sort of your body's natural way of preparing you for the utter deprivation to come. :) Surprisingly, I am really enjoying being a morning person...Jer and I are getting totally addicted to our new-found time together in the mornings. We actually get to sit and have breakfast and a hot drink together before he leaves for work, which makes a humungous difference somehow for the both of us. Sometimes we even catch the sunrise, which is such a treat from our apartment...here is a pic I got the other morning:

It's so beautiful, it's bound to make those early mornings with Téa just a bit more bearable...

Alright, well, enough about me...Here is what is going on with Téa:

"Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement."

Home stretch people...I'm officially 37 weeks on Sunday!

Let the Fill In Begin...

2009-01-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

Alas, alas, my faithful blog readers! (What's left of you, that is...) I am much afeared I have let you all down. Right around the beginning of my third trimester it hit me: I've been spending more time blogging about the baby than actually preparing for her arrival! Her room was a total mess, I hadn't done any shopping, and I was losing mobility by the day! Suddenly I was staring down the barrel of a gun on a timer with the time running out...which is an awful analogy, but you get the picture. My friends...I panicked. So I stopped writing about all things baby and starting attacking my list of to do's. Now, her room is done, everything is in order, the house is ready, the last of the items I've ordered for her are arriving in the mail, and all is right with the world. I even have my bags packed for the hospital! And so, now, I am free to snuggle back into my favorite writing spot on the couch, pour myself a cup of tea, and write to my heart's content, guilt free. :)

And so I was thinking I would take this moment to attempt filling you all in. However, there is so much filling in to do, I have decided I need to limit myself to a few sentences per event or this post will be my longest yet...and I know nobody is excited about me setting that record, however faithful to this blog ye may be. :)

So here goes...let the fill in begin...

***

First, a bit of blog business: I feel I should mention that I am working on a separate photo site to act as a sort of companion to this blog...The plain fact is that the picture-sharing options available on Blogger may be nice for posts with a smaller volume of pictures, but anything more than a handful and it becomes a serious time-suck. I know once Téa comes along, my need for a more functional picture sharing site will increase considerably, since all y'all will be clamoring to feast your eyes upon her beauty and perfection. :) I'll be including links from here that you can click through onto the photo site. I'm almost done getting the rest of our Babymoon pics up (yeah...remember that way back in October?...), and then I'll be moving on to...

My Non-Couples, Girls Only, Traditional Baby Shower:

Malin planned the whole thing (with some help pulling it off from Mrs. Abby Wallace) and hosted it at her house, which was the fulfillment of a long standing dibs that Malin had placed years before Téa was even a twinkle in mine or Jeremy's eye. Malin, more than anyone, has been the most (*ahem*) vocal in her excited anticipation of our having children, so it was only fitting that she be the one to throw the party celebrating her imminent arrival. It was absolutely beautiful and everything I ever hoped it would be and so much fun...I spent the entire shower feeling completely overwhelmed...all that love and generosity toward me and my little girl to come was almost too much to take in!!! I am still so humbled and grateful when I think about it...the Lord has truly blessed Jer and I will great friends and little Téa with a community of people who already love her so much! Thank you to all you ladies who came and Abby for helping Malin achieve her master plan and a special super thanks to Auntie Malin herself for being the best friend and Auntie a girl could ever ask for and for giving me the shower of my dreams.

Okay, that was longer than it should have been. Heretofore abbreviating.

Hosting our first Shoreline Small Group:

Jer and I hosted a "young married" small group at our house on Tuesday nights which started in mid-September and ended right before Christmas. We'd never even been to a small group, but we both felt sort of called to try it out when they mentioned they were looking for hosts in church. Only three other couples signed up and none of us knew each other particularly well or (in the case of one of the couples) at all before the group started, but the Lord bonded us all together almost immediately and showed up every week and we ended up with a tight knit group who managed to forge true bonds of friendship. Even though our time as a small group is over, we all still keep in close touch.

Leading Worship at the Shoreline:

What started out as a frantic phone call from the Shoreline looking for someone...anyone!...to fill in for the scheduled worship leader who had ended up in the ER with an infection (Jer and I always joke that we were the F string because we were literally the last people on their list: "NOBODY ELSE can do it! Can you?")...turned into somewhat of a regular gig leading worship on Sunday mornings at the Shoreline. We just led for the last time on the 10th of this month, at which point Jer insisted I go on maternity leave. :) I could go on and on and on about what a blessing this time was to me and Jer...for the strengthening of our marriage, for a good lesson in trust and humility and reliance on God, for rekindling our excitement about church again, for snapping us into a sleep schedule (*ahem*...5:30am wake up call anyone?)...but the most special part of it for me was knowing that little Téa was inside of me the whole time and a part of the whole experience. I just don't know if there is anything better than feeling your little daughter kicking along with you as you're worshipping the Lord!...I'll always cherish our time leading worship at the Shoreline as a family with Jer at my side and our little Tealohi in my belly... I think it will be special for Téa too, to hear that part of her story: how she worshipped the Lord with her Mommy and Daddy before she was even born.

Prenatal Massage Therapy:

I have been seeing a sports therapist, my friend from church, Troy Wenger, who comes to my house every Tuesday for some prenatal work...He has a technique that not only relieves much of the aches and pains associated with pregnancy, but also supposedly helps speed up labor...his record for the longest labor of all his pregnant clients is...wait for it...four hours. Yes, you read that right. Four hours. Malin saw him during all three of her pregnancies and she said she wouldn't do it again without him, and let me tell you, neither would I. Whether I have a short labor or not, he is worth every penny simply for the everyday relief he brings to the discomfort of pregnancy. I have had what I consider to be a very comfortable pregnancy and I definitely believe I owe much of that to my visits with Troy.

Bradley Classes:

Jer and I completed our Bradley Classes, which as most of you know, is the go-to method for people who want to try to give birth naturally. We took private lessons from a nice Christian woman named Nicki Ryan in her home in San Clemente. It was at different times horrifying (the videos...ugh...I don't think either of us will ever escape the visual of Porn-stachio rubbing down his wife in a far-too-sexual-for-childbirth way while the baby's head is visibly crowning...nope, definitely burned into our consciousnesses for all time) and extremely educational (who knew where all your innards went while the baby was taking up all that space? Now we do!)...but for Jer and I, it was probably the thing that made us feel most ready for labor and delivery. I am a "knowing is half the battle" kind of gal, so being educated about what's going to be happening to me and why is probably my best shot at not panicking...plus, now Jer knows as much as I do so he can be an educated support system and voice of reason when I'm fighting for my wits against the pain and stress of childbirth...so for that, I think our Bradley classes were, and will be, invaluable.

Change of Plans for Having Téa in Hawaii:

I'm sure many of you have guessed this by now, seeing as though--oh, you know--we aren't there and all. :) This was a super difficult decision for Jer and I, which essentially came down to money. Things just did not fall into place, which we really took as a sign...we prayed about it enough that we knew God would have opened up the doors if it was truly meant to be...and the things that didn't work out would have cost us so much extra money to make happen, we felt it was wiser to invest that money into Téa's future instead. Hawaii will always be a part of her, and Jer and I are committed to facilitating as much of a sense of "home" in Hawaii for her as possible...no matter where she happens to born. Now that we've accepted it, Jer and I are feeling pretty great about having her in California...it'll be nice to bring her home to our little apartment and our little life right away, and it will be much easier on Jer work wise...plus, Gung Gung and Po Po are flying out, as are (hopefully) Kea and Auntie Liz, so really, almost everyone on the immediate family and close friends list is accounted for and will be nearby...which makes us feel pretty grateful and content to settle in happily with plan B.

Readying the Room:

As I mentioned briefly, I sort of hit this point one day where I totally panicked because I realized I was completely UNprepared for Téa's suddenly imminent-seeming arrival. This panicked moment just happened to coincide with the receipt of a monumentally generous little paper gift from Gung Gung and Po Po in the mail. Also right around this time, I realized that the hundreds of thousands of American Express rewards points we had been saving up since the first year of our marriage could be redeemed for Pottery Barn Kids gift cards. Suffice to say--with some creative bargain hunting, lots of research, and countless hours logged at the Pottery Barn Kids counter while sales ladies rang up my purchases one at a time to make sure I never had to spend a dime out of pocket--Téa's room and all the essentials for her life-to-come came together in a matter of weeks to make what I promise you is the cutest little baby girl's room you ever did see (in my humble opinion). :) I just finished sewing the last of the pillows yesterday and just downloaded the pics I took into my compy this afternoon, so a picture post on that is soon to come. I do want to take a little moment to thank Mom and Wendell again for their generosity. I've never met a couple who more faithfully utilizes the monetary blessing the Lord has given them to turn right around and bless everybody else!...Thank you Gung Gung and Po Po, and may the Lord continue to bless you financially and in every other way possible!

Final Ultrasound:

We did get one last ultrasound--the reporting upon of which I am still waiting on account of one Mr. Jeremy Clements as he has the pictures at his office and has promised me he will scan them in. *Ahem*. So they are on their way. I will say in the meantime, the visit was fast and the pics weren't that great, so you aren't missing all that much. Téa is very strong and very healthy and very large (!), estimated to be 8 pounds at full term!!!...which makes me feel both grateful and horrified simultaneously. :) But God and I have talked about this at length so I am just going to trust Him like I told Him I would and not panic. I guess we'll know how that story ends in a few weeks from now...

Misc. Baby Preparation Activities:

You know...meeting with pediatricians, doing hospital tours and then pre-registering, packing our bags, going to my bi-monthly--and now weekly--OB visits (Jer hasn't missed a single one), changing my name, getting up to date on our accounting, getting JC battery ready to run without ol' JC for a little while, etc., etc., etc. It's the business and busywork behind a new life being brought into the world.

Also, we've been keeping our social calendar busy making sure we get a chance to hang out with all our friends as much as possible before Téa comes and we turn into house-bound zombies. This also doubles as a time to talk to our friends about their kids and what it was like for them, to watch them with their kids and expose ourselves to each individual style of parenting...which in turn gives Jer and I things to talk about, like what we are looking forward to/afraid of...what our expectations are...which parenting techniques we'd like to implement/avoid.

And most of all, Jer and I have been really trying to take advantage of the time we have left before Téa gets here to bond and connect and spend time together as a couple as much as possible. In these final weeks, our schedule is purposely more clear, we are early to bed and early to rise, we try to eat as many meals together as possible...we are drinking in the final moments of our carefree self-absorbed coupledom before we officially and inextricably become Mommy and Daddy to an actual residing-outside-my-uterus baby. We both look at it with a sort of bittersweet feeling, knowing we will miss our life together as it is and always has been, but also knowing that Téa is as much a part of our hearts now as if she had been with us all along, and that nothing could make us want a life without her now.

***

And now, lest I go on any longer than I already have, I'm cutting it off. Consider yourself up to date...with some details pending, of course. :) Onward and upward...just a few more weeks to go!...

35 Weeks!!!

2009-01-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

"Your baby doesn't have much room to maneuver now that she's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew melon)*. Because it's so snug in your womb, she isn't likely to be doing somersaults anymore, but the number of times she kicks should remain about the same. Her kidneys are fully developed now, and her liver can process some waste products. Most of her basic physical development is now complete — she'll spend the next few weeks putting on weight."

(*Actually, according to the most recent ultrasound, she is actually more like 5 and a half pounds. More on that as soon as I get the pics scanned in...)

...and apparently so will Mommy! I am getting to the point where I really hate being this heavy. UGH. Jer tried to take pics of me for this post and I almost clawed his eyes out because he was trying to make me smile and I think I look way fatter when I have to smile and also because I was so mad he was "taking too long snapping the picture". We settled on a shot that didn't include my face...so he got to keep his eyes. :)

Honestly though, I really REALLY can't complain. I have a super healthy, active, thriving baby inside of me when so many people I know and love have had trouble...I can get through a few more weeks of sausage ankles and fatigue.

This is a short one cause I need to head to bed, but I wanted to get something quick up for this week. Still truckin' along...

Ho No More (Sort of)...

2009-01-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

As of last Friday, the 9th of January...after more than 9 and a half years of marriage...and with just a few weeks to spare before our first baby is born...I officially became a Clements.

What was so disturbing about it was how easy it was to do...A little trip to the Social Security office, some paperwork, a long wait in line, and a 30 second conversation with a clerk, and--voila!--I've got a new name of my choosing. I could have changed by name to Bo Jangles if I'd wanted to. Luckily, I opted for Hoku Christian Ho Clements instead...which--despite the hilarious irony of my middle name (Christian Ho...hmmm...)--I think was a much better choice (though Mrs. Jangles does have a nice ring to it...). Somehow, letting go of the Ho altogether just didn't quite feel right, and my Dad had two middle names (Tai Loy), so I decided to rock it. Once a Ho, always a Ho, as the old saying goes (actually there's not an old saying...I just made that one up), Christian or otherwise.

So there it is folks! Update your address books!

Who? Who? It's Téa's Owl Buddy!

2009-01-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

You may or may not know about my obsession with owls: Well know you do. :) And as a result, it has been impossible not to incorporate just a few little owls into Téa's room decor. She will, after all, be inheriting my ever-growing owl-necklace collection, so she'd better develop a taste for them early. :) At any rate, I thought it'd be fun to post some pics of the little owl buddy I made for Téa...Enjoy!

The hardest part was stitching the freakin' face. Sheesh! What seemed in my mind to be a simple project got very complex very fast. But it was fun and I'm glad I did it.

Week 34!!!

2009-01-09T11:13:00.000-08:00

"Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. Her fat layers — which will help regulate her body temperature once she's born — are filling her out, making her rounder. Her skin is also smoother than ever. Her central nervous system is maturing and her lungs are continuing to mature as well. If you've been nervous about preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that babies born between 34 and 37 weeks who have no other health problems generally do fine. They may need a short stay in the neonatal nursery and may have a few short-term health issues, but in the long run, they usually do as well as full-term babies."

Nothing new to report symptoms-wise this week, except that I figured out what that rash I get on my legs after I shower is...it's something called PUPPP, which I guess is really common in pregos. Thankfully, I don't get as itchy as it says you can, which is a relief. I have a total phobia about rashes and skin conditions, which is ironic because somehow, I seem to get a lot of them...especially now. But hey...nothing like staring your phobia in the face night after night to get you over it, right? I've started rinsing my legs with cold water right before I get out of the shower--which is a major buzz kill because my hot shower at the end of the day is, like, my favorite thing ever--but it has definitely helped keep the rash under wraps.

It's strange because I feel like I have been pregnanct forever, but then sometimes it feels like its all going so fast...Both Jer and I feel really ready for her to be here, but it's still a little more than 5 whole weeks until my due date....which seems like its really soon all of a sudden. See how schizo I am?!? Sheesh. Anyways, it is really weird that all of this is going to be over in a few weeks because I don't even remember what it was like to not be pregnant. It sort of hit me the other day that I'm not going to be like this forever...that I will eventually go back to having my body all to myself...and I almost couldn't believe it. I still can't really comprehend it. What a crazy journey this has been! And it just leads into another, exponentially MORE crazy journey! Unbelievable.

Also, we had our last ultrasound yesterday...I'll have coverage and pics on that soon! All I'll say in the way of a teaser is that the weight the little blurb above says she is may not be (ahem) generous enough...(!)

Week 35 starts on Sunday...it's the home-stretch, baby!

The Sisterhood of the BRU and the Secret

2009-01-08T20:07:00.000-08:00

So I'm in Baby's R Us the day before yesterday to pick up some of the very last items on my list of baby necessities before Téa gets here, and of course I am not the only pregnant lady there...I'm actually pretty sure that every last person in that store was either a pregnant person or with a pregnant person (or an employee of Babies R Us). It actually sort of felt like a silent support group...no one said a word, but all of us were waddling around sporting sweats and/or ill-fitting maternity wear, sans make-up, devoid of any and all discernible vestiges of our former cuteness, and we were all exchanging knowing glances at each other, smiling with that long-suffering smile and slightly tipping our heads at eachother as we passed as if to say: "girlfriend, I feel your pain," or "sister, you just hang in there," or "don't let anybody bring you down, girlfriend, this is a safe place."

It was like escaping to a little bubble of reprieve from the outside world...because out "there"--outside the walls of that blessed retreat disguised as a retail store--we are simply ugly and fat and can't see our toes and don't remember what it was like to be able to feel good about the way we look. But within the walls of the great haven for Pregnant-Dom that is Babies R Us, we are the norm...we are all in the same boat...we belong.

At any rate...this has all been a tangent from what I really wanted to tell you all about. You see, amongst my sisters there at the BRU, I noticed something that sort of made me feel like I was the only one on the outside of a pretty major prego-lady secret: looking around that store, no matter what each woman had decided to put on that morning--be it the less put-together "sweats-wearing, hair-pulled-back, not-a-stitch-of-makeup" ensemble or the slightly more on-it, "maternity-jeans-and-mascara" look--almost everyone there...and I mean almost everyone...had one item of apparel in common: Running shoes. Now, maybe the sweats-wearers had an excuse, but the ones rocking the jeans-and-mascara? Of course none of those women would consider wearing running shoes with their jeans in their normal, long-forgotten pre-pregnancy Days-Of-Former-Glory. So the first thing I surmised was that this was a practice that they had all adopted at some point along the way out of necessity (or at least preference)...and the second thing I realized was that I was definitely one of the very most pregnant ladies there and yet I had somehow missed out on what appeared to be the Natural Progression of Pregnancy Footwear.

"Interesting," I thought.

I stored all of this away in my mind for the time being.

Fast forward to this morning...I had just come back from my walk with Malin. This is my second day in a row that I am "back on the horse" so to speak after a brief respite from my walking routine, so I am a little sore...especially my lower back and shoulders (as everyone who's ever been pregnant or has worn a 20 pound front pack for an extended period of time can attest). After a shower and a quick change into my maternity jeans-and-mascara look, I was on my way out the door to grab some sandwiches at Tudor and Spunky's (an awesome Dana Point deli whom's turkey-provolone-avocado sandwich on rye with two cans of Arizona iced tea is my new insatiable craving) and meet Jer at his office for lunch, when I pause at the door to ponder the contents of my shoe basket. And of course, my running shoes are sitting at the very top of the basket because I just wore them a few hours earlier.

"Interesting," I think.

But I reach for my cute little orange slip-on vans knock offs instead. I put them on.

It's at this point that I realize I've forgotten something I'd meant to bring, so I head back to my bedroom to grab it. Still wearing the shoes. Then I realize I need to switch the laundry, so I do it. Still wearing the shoes. I forgot that our Brita water filter is empty and decide I should fill it up real quick so the water can have time to cool before I get home again (biggest and most consistent craving of my pregnancy: cold water)...still wearing the shoes. I put the water back in the fridge. Still wearing the shoes. I head back to the front door to leave and I reach down to pick up my purse and other items coming with me for the day...still wearing the shoes...and I realize: my back freakin' hurts and these freakin' support-less shoes I'm wearing are helping in no way whatsoever. I glance one more time at my running shoes. I look in the mirror by my door at how cute my little orange vans knock offs are with my outfit. I decide to bite the bullet. So I leave the house and lock the door behind me....

...and I only made it halfway down the pathway to our car before I turned my pregnant a$ right back around, unlocked that door, and put on those running shoes.

You see, the secret was already out. Now that I knew about it, I couldn't just forget it. My sisters who had nodded to me and smiled those long-suffering, all knowing smiles had shown me. "You go girl", the seemed to say. "You just go on with your bad self."

And you know what? I did. And I was freakin' COMFORTABLE. I didn't even notice I had been hunching over in the cute shoes, but I was. I didn't realize how unsupported my feet and ankles had been against the harsh shock of the pavement, but they were. I didn't realize how far the cradling and cushioning of ones feet can go toward making ones whole body feel better...but lordy-loo, it does!

So I guess you could say that, today, I became one of them. I wore sneakers with jeans. I have indeed sunk to that level and committed the single greatest faux paux of feminine dressing: Comfort over Cuteness.

But seriously...What the heck!...What is the point of holding on to any of that anymore? I am 40 lbs. overweight and living out of one measley drawer full of ill-fitting clothing and my belly is the size of a barge and in a matter of weeks I will be attempting one of the single most inconceivable and challenging and life-altering tests of endurance and pain-tolerance known to humankind...what the heck do I care what shoes I am wearing along the way? I can't even see my feet anymore, for cryin' out loud.

And that's not the point anyways, is it?...After all, I am carrying another member of the human race inside of me...I am sustaining her and protecting her and letting her sap what she needs from me as she grows and then I will deliver her into this world and she will be her own little person with her own little soul and her own little heart and her own little mind and she will need me for everything from food and clothing to love and affection to helping her burp and wiping her butt and I will not sleep for months and I will not see a movie in the theaters again for maybe years and I will never be alone with my husband again without thinking of somebody else and I will somehow find room in my heart that is already overflowing with love for Jeremy for someone else that I will love even more than I imagined possible. This is a time for miraculous things coming to pass and surrendering to the amazing process that is becoming a vessel for one of the most baffling and awe-inspiring processes God has sanctioned for humankind to be able to perform.

What this is not a time for is being concerned with how ridiculous I look wearing jeans with running shoes.

This is a time to do what works...to follow the Natural Progression of Acceptable Footwear in Pregnant-Dom...to listen to the silent nods of encouragement from my "girlfriends" at the BRU and "not let anyone bring me down"--cause whether I'm in Babies R Us or not, I am a member of The Club, a resident of Pregnant-Town, USA, a sister in the Sisterhood of the Great State of Pregnant-Dom...I am a Mother to Be, so I am a walking excuse. I am that "safe place", with all my sisters silently cheering me on from afar.

"Sister, you just hang in there". You know I will.

"Girlfriend, I feel your pain". I know it, friend...I know it.

But you know where I don't feel pain anymore?

My feet.

Cause I'm in on the secret now...and there's no turning back.

Christmas Pics

2009-01-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are some pics from Christmas...

As I mentioned in my last Christmas post, our heater was not working this year and it just so happened to be one of the coldest winters Dana Point has ever seen! Our slumlord-landlord dragged his feet so long in approving the reparation of the problem, it was just last week that we finally got heat (of course, the Santa Ana's are blowing in now and we are looking at an 80 degree weekend...go figure). At any rate, on top of our apartment being without heating, our apartment is also incapable of retaining what little heat we could create because the windows are so old and have warped so badly that, literally, whatever temperature it is outside is going to be the temperature it is inside. Every single day we would wake up feeling like we were sleeping in an ice box, we would shiver out of bed and layer up in pants and sweaters and then we would go out into the even more freezing living room (the windows in the living room are the worst) to grab some breakfast. I would run the dryer and turn on the oven with the door open just to try to get some heat going. One morning, I woke up after Jer had already headed off to work...it was raining and the wind was blowing so hard straight into our house and I felt like I was actually standing outside. I put on my parka and uggs and drank hot tea and then finally decided to go to the grocery store because I knew it would be warmer than my home. That was also the day I decided to purchase a space heater which, I'll tell you, SAVED us. We were planning on returning it after the heating in our apartment had been fixed, but we grew so attached to it because it was like our own personal little sunshine in the middle of our cold, dark, ice-box apartment...we decided to keep it "just in case".

We drank a record amount of tea and also lit a lot of fires at night...(okay, that part was kind of cozy)...

Our beloved savior, the space heater...

Christmas morning, we purposely slept in as late as we wanted. We woke up to a beautiful day and our pretty tree...

...and paused to make faces in our ornaments...

Jer and I stopped exchanging presents a few years ago...we decided we'd rather take trips or agree on something to buy for "us" that we both really needed or wanted but didn't have an excuse to splurge for the rest of the year. This year, however, I saw something at Costco that I knew Jer needed...it's a single serving coffee machine that Mom and Wendell have in Hawaii called a Keurig that Jer literally does not stop talking about for weeks everytime we get home to California. I couldn't resist getting it for him, and when I told him I'd gotten him a present, he decided he wanted to get me one. After all, we weren't going anywhere and our purchasing focus was completely on Téa...so we exchanged gifts this year for the first time in many! I'll admit, it was pretty fun...I was getting all giddy and antsy the night before! At any rate, he loved his coffee machine and he got me a really pretty gold necklace with three joined discs that he wanted to get engraved with his, mine, and Téa's initials but he couldn't get it done in time...he also made me this amazing card that, I swear, was better than the necklace. I'm planning on getting the necklace engraved soon...(I'll post pics of it when it's done...).

Also under the tree that morning were these two boxes that said "to Téa's mommy" and "to Téa's daddy"...I mean, Jer had even raided my craft boxes to find the alphabet stamps to make these cards...how cute is that?

At any rate, inside were the onesies we'd bought at BabyGap a few days before...

Even though I had been there to purchase the onesies it was so fun to see a little gift "from Téa" under our tree. Jer is so good at coming up with sweet thoughtful things like that all the time...made me feel kind of like a chump for getting him a coffee maker. But I stopped feeling bad when I saw his face light up after taking his first sip of coffee... :)

That's all for Christmas, folks! Onward into the New Year!

Post-Christmas Wrap-Up/New Years

2008-12-31T16:09:00.000-08:00

(I was 33 weeks this Christmas and in this picture...More pictures to follow in a separate post...)

Well friends...I know you all have been weeping and gnashing your teeth and raising your fists to the heavens exclaiming "WHY!" in impatience while I have been otherwise occupied and deterred from my contributions to blogland...but peace, my children...weep no more...I have returned from my cyber-slumber with hope: (drum roll please...)

...a New Years Resolution to "blog more"!

Because we all know that the good 'ol fashioned New Years Resolution just may be the single most unbreakable, ironclad promise that can be made...

In all seriousness though, I do apologize. I have much to write about to catch you all up on, and I hope to get to it all very soon. But for now, I've got to start somewhere, and that somewhere is: With a bit about Christmas at the Cheltam Way Clements's (That's "Clements's" pronounced "Clements-es-es"...the first "es" referring to the fact that there is more than one Clements and then another "es" to illustrate our possession of Cheltam Way...get it? I know...we are talking ADVANCED English here peeps.)

At any rate...

Being that this was our last Christmas sans children...our last "adults only" Christmas, if you will...and also being that it was the first year in many that we haven't been in Hawaii for the holidays, Jer and I decided we would do our best to take advantage of our unfettered couple-hood and stationary location. We made plans to go to the Ramos House Christmas Eve, sleep in as late as we pleased, and take our time enjoying and focusing on each other Christmas morning.

I am happy to report we succeeded in two out of three...Our plans for a lingering breakfast at the Ramos House were unfortunately thwarted by a bout of sickness the night before Christmas Eve...but otherwise, mission accomplished on both remaining counts. We slept like we were training for an Olympic sport and took or sweet time 'round the tree Christmas morning being all googly and kissing and looking in each other's eyes and other gag-inducing things like that. We also had the chance to do something we haven't had a chance to do in as many years as we've been high-tailing it to HI for the holidays...hang with Jer's family Christmas day! Which was a treat for us and a good time had by all. :)

In general lately, Jer has been really purposeful about taking as much time off from work as he can to spend with me and to try to make the most of our final days of on-our-own-ness. But at Christmastime, he had a few days off where we got to spend the entire day together with no threat of responsibility looming on the horizon to dampen Jer's mood or distract him from the fun...so we would wake up late, grab a breakfast bagel in the harbor, or maybe bundle up and take a walk with some spiced Chai in the evenings. We would putter around all day and listen to Christmas music with the fireplace and the space heater roaring, trying to keep warm in our cold little house (the heating system in our apartment was out of commission up until today, which was inconvenient to say the least during the record chill of a winter we've had so far...but looking back--now that I'm not shivering in a snow jacket and Uggs in my own home--I guess it was kind of fun in a crazy way...). We used the better part of a $100 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory over two separate nights (in a row), and even saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on a total whim (we highly recommend it, by the way). We went for leisurely "Christmas shopping" walks in the last-minute hustle and bustle of the mall...but really, we just oohed and aahed and purchased more clothes for Téa (who's closet already rivals Heidi Klum's for sheer volume of content and high-stylin' cuteness).

Which brings me to the reason why this year wasn't exactly what we expected...you see, on those long "adults-only" romantic walks in the harbor? We talked about Téa. Lingering over those "adults-only" breakfast bagels? We talked about Téa. Hanging around the house? On our back-to-back dinner dates at the Cheesecake Factory? We talked about Téa. Benjamin Button made us think about Téa. The mall and the subsequent baby-shopping we couldn't resist doing there obviously made us think about Téa. At Jer's family party, all we did was talk about Téa. And even around the Christmas tree for Jer and my very last "adults-only" Christmas morning, all we could think about was how much fun it was going to be to have Téa with us next Christmas and how much we wished she was already here.

So really, what we realized was that the final "adults-only" Christmas for us Cheltam Way Clements' happened without us even knowing it...before Téa existence was even a blip on our radar. Because now that she's here--even if she's not technically here here--she's already a part of our little family. Baby already makes three. And we really just couldn't be more excited!

So this is the part where I am supposed to wrap things up with something poignant about the New Year...but--sorry to disappoint!--all I can really say is what Jer and I have been unable to resist saying for weeks and weeks on end...on walks and on dinner dates and around Christmas trees and over bagels and Chai's and at parties and at home and in the morning and in the afternoon and at night and seemingly every moment in between: We can't wait for Téa to be here. And this is the year that will bring her to us!

So, in that one-track-minded, broken-record-repetitive spirit...Happy New Year....it's the year Jer and I will become parents, it's the year we will learn the true meaning of terms like "sleep deprivation" and "the worst pain of your life" and "love like you've never imagined" first-hand and in greater measure than we've ever experienced, it's the year we will feel the most fear and the most joy we've ever known, and it's the year we will be pushed to the boundaries of our limits and beyond and the year we will learn more about ourselves and each other and what we're really made of than ever before.

But most of all, it's the year we will hold our little girl in our arms for the first time...our little Téa.

It's going to be an amazing year.

Week 33!!!

2008-12-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

"This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds (pick up a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark. She's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and her skeleton is hardening. The bones in her skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for her to fit through the birth canal. These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as her brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood."

This week I hit the 40lbs. mark in my weight gain! crazy and almost unbelievable to me...until I look in a mirror...

Téa is kicking me all day every day, which is great since I've now had a day or two of panic that she had stopped moving and have decided without a shadow of a doubt that whatever physical pain she may inflict on my body is nothing compared to the torment of worrying that she's not kicking because something is wrong with her. Also, she is so big now that she mainly just squirms and moves...she doesn't have the room anymore for her fists and feet to get much momentum.

I've gotten extremely immobile feeling and very tired and I can only eat in small increments because I feel unbearably full very fast...I eat a lot more often now, though. My heartburn/acid reflux has been a bit of a bear, but is managable with Tums. Also, I am having to pee ALL THE TIME...Téa is definitely running out of room in there, and subsequently, so is my bladder. Also, she likes to kick it quite regularly now, which doesn't exactly help either. :)

I am very stiff and very puffy in the ankles and feet, and still getting that weird rash thingy on my legs after my showers every night. My wardrobe has been reduced to one dresser drawer, and I am doing laundry every day trying to keep those outfits clean. I also have been having a pretty ridiculously difficult time getting to sleep, but I am starting to get my pillow configuration readjusted to the point where I can get some solid winks between the peeing and restlesness.

I also had one of my first little signs that labor is on the way...I don't want to get too graphic and attempting to explain to you what this first little sign is in any capacity would definitely cross that line, so suffice to say that things are going along as they should and that in a matter of weeks...WEEKS!...Téa should be making her way into the world.

CRAZY.

Needless to say, Jer and I are already the better part of packed for the hospital.

I know all of those symptoms sound like a laundry list of complaints, but honestly, I really feel like, if this is what they mean by the third trimester being uncomfortable, I'm feeling pretty a-okay. I am just really excited about her coming and also a bit blissed out on denial. :) I'm carrying her pretty low, which makes for easy breathing on my part, and she is healthy and kicking, which makes me so grateful and happy. I very much feel the sensation of being on a train I can't stop so I might as well enjoy the ride! Jer and I are bonding more and more every day over our excitement about her, and even though I feel like my love for him takes up all the love-space in my heart, I am excited for the new capacity to love Téa will help me discover. For now, all is right with the world. I just thank God for the great pregnancy I've had so far, for the health of our baby girl, and for the safest and quickest and most painless delivery possible when it finally happens!

That's it for this week...just a handful or so more to go!...

CRAZY.

Week 32!!!

2008-12-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Here we are...week 32. New this week?: Mama hit 40lbs! Which means, according to the update (below), I'll be looking at 50lbs total by the end of this thing. Crazy! I still feel pretty comfortable...the only rude awakening this week was when I went too long without eating and got too hungry, which led to me totally overindulging at the Cheesecake Factory, which led to me throwing it all back up when I just simply didn't have room for it all...the day before Christmas Eve no less! I am learning that, though my appetite is still in overdrive, I can't fit as much as I used to in a single sitting. Acid reflux is becoming a pretty common problem, so I keep tums nearby at all times.

My belly is really starting to take up some real estate! I can't believe it'll be getting bigger than this, even though I know it has to! I feel like a house. I am having some serious trouble reaching my feet, my back gets sore much faster if I'm not careful, and I've sure been surprised by how much I relied on resting things against my body when I picked up or moved things until I couldn't do it anymore!

As for our little Tealohi...she still very active and growing steadily. Thankfully she seems to be running out of room to kick me with the velocity she used to...she is reduced to poking and shifting and dragging rather than really kicking, which is much less painful for mommy. :)

Jer and I are just counting the days until she gets here...we can't wait to meet her and hold her and have her in our lives for real! It seems so soon, but also so far away...

At any rate, here's the update for this week!

"By now, your baby weighs 3.75 pounds (pick up a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth."

Christmas, Pregnancy, Love, Humanity, and Remembering Jesus on His Birthday

2008-12-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

Well folks...Christmas is officially upon us. And even though I try each year to see past the shopping and the trees and the Santas and the lights and the parties and the many other trappings that make up our modern Christmas routine--to pause and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas as all good Christians must do this time of year--I find that I have, yet again, fallen short. With Téa on the way, I have been a manic and (until now) unrepentant nest-a-holic...in just a few weeks time, her room has been transformed from a disorganized storage room/trash heap into a gorgeous girl-baby haven of love and pink and cuteness. More on that later, of course. The point is, I sort of woke up the other day and realized that Christmas was less than a week away. And then just a few days away. And now, I realize--sadly--that my dreams of spending my last adults-only Christmas snuggled up with Jer on the couch in front of the fire drinking cider and pausing for frequent bouts of thoughtful reflection toward The Reason for the Season will not come true. I have, yet again, fallen victim to it all, watching the season's meaning get buried alive under the tradition and consumerism of our modern-day Christmas ritual.

And who hasn't? In today's day and age--let's face it--Christmas really is about something else entirely...I'm sure you have been hearing many variations on this theme from the pulpits of your church these past December weeks. Like me, and like so many of us who strive to serve the Lord with our lives, we find ourselves, instead, squeezing Him into the ever-constricted blank spaces of our Christmas schedule, choosing to focus on the comfort and joy the touchable, tangible, and see-able elements of the season bring rather than the elusive, complex and largely un-graspable comfort to be found in the beginning of our Savior's fateful life on planet earth.

And who can blame us? What harm is there to be found in traditions that draw us nearer to our families, that encourage a giving spirit, that remind us to love and share and care and be thankful for one another? Who knows how the Lord Himself would have us celebrate His birthday?...perhaps there are elements to the way we celebrate Christmas here on earth that come close to what He would hope for.

I saw a skit at a church Christmas service when I was a young girl that depicted a birthday party, with everyone ignoring the person whose birthday they were supposedly celebrating while that person sat in the corner feeling sad and dejected by his friends...of course that sad dejected person was supposed to be Jesus. For some strange reason, that skit managed to burn itself into my subconscious, and since then I have often been wracked with guilt thinking of Jesus sitting alone in the corner of our living room on Christmas day, ignored and dejected, looking longingly on while we opened presents and smiled and hugged and thanked each other under the Christmas tree, oblivious to His presence.

But now, with motherhood looming larger than ever on the horizon, this morbid view of the Christmas ritual has (thankfully) changed. God is a Father, after all, and--the usual frustrations of parenthood aside--isn't a parent's greatest joy in life found in his or her children? A parent's desire to be celebrated on their birthday doesn't come from some sophomoric need to be included in the party fun or some egotistical yearning to be the center of attention as that skit depicted, it comes from a desire to see and experience the deliberate focus of their child's love...should that take on the form of a party that was thought out and planned in their honor, or a gift they took the time out and put the effort into choosing or (even better!) making with their hands just for them, or to get those extra birthday hugs and kisses lavished on them without having to steal them or feel them ended prematurely by a wiggly or too-cool kiddo-on-the-move.

In that way, perhaps we have failed our God and Father, jealous for our hearts as He has always claimed to be. And yet, perhaps our distracted love is somehow an acceptable second best...as a Parent who is guiding and molding and teaching His children to walk in love and compassion and generosity, wouldn't the Father find just a bit of satisfaction in the the way we actively love each other more this time of year, extend forgiveness more readily, and give without a thought for what we'll receive in return?

I'm sure there is a happy medium somewhere in the middle of it all...between the jealous God who yearns for our whole hearts with all of His and the forgotten God who waits in the corner of a million living rooms and on the other side of the door to a million hearts, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting for the turn in the lock that will reunite Him with another of His beloved. Only God Himself knows what He desires and requires from the hearts and lives of His people this time of year. And with only a few chapters of The Story's retelling and a still small voice to guide us through the bright and blaring and impossibly tangible sights and sounds and senses of the season, who knows how close the modern Christian ever comes to our Father's true desire.

What is unique about my journey through the season this year is the fact that I am pregnant...7 months pregnant to be exact. With just 8 weeks until my due date, the Christmas story has taken on quite a different dimension. Pregnancy is a blessed event, to be sure, but it's certainly no cake-walk. I think its safe to say that if Mary was asked to travel a full three-days journey on the back of a donkey in what certainly must have been her last trimester, only to deliver Jesus in a pile of hay surrounded by dirty animals and with only a emptied water trough to lay him in for the night (what kind of Mom-guilt must she have been feeling at that point!), God wasn't doing her any special favors just because she was carrying His son. In fact, He probably chose her out of all the other girls living in the world at that time because He knew she had the kind of faith that could take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.

I know we've heard it all before, but suddenly it's all so much more alive and real! I mean, think about it: Mary was young and poor and unmarried and pregnant in a culture where her growing belly would be a cause for incredible shame, not excited cooing from total strangers at the grocery store. I'm embarrassed to leave the house for an afternoon of errands without my fake, the-only-ring-that-still-fits-on-my-puffy-pregnant-ring-finger "wedding ring" in this totally permissive day and age...she must have been mortified to leave the house at all! She was poor...she must have been starving all the time, hungry enough for two and not having enough money or food to satisfy! This Christmas, I find myself wondering things I'd never thought of before: What did Mary crave with Jesus in her belly? Did she have mood swings too? Did she ever break down, awash in hormone-induced self-pity, and ask the Lord "why me?" after an especially bad bout with morning sickness? Did she ever look at her swelling feet with disgust or feel Jesus kick her so hard from inside her that she felt like she was getting pulverised from the inside out and wanted to yell at him to knock it off like I admittedly sometimes feel with Téa?

But most of all, how did she receive the fact that she had to travel a three days journey on the back of a donkey for the census that brought her to Bethlehem?...or the news that there was no room in the inn?...or the feeling of those first pangs of labor starting to hit as she settled into a lumpy and unsanitary pile of hay and animal junk? Was every pang of discomfort and frustration and mind-boggling circumstantial twist the Lord required of her throughout her pregnancy met with the same "Behold, the Lord's maidservant" humility she displayed in her conversation with Gabriel?

I tell you how I probably would have received it all: I probably would have thrown a fit. "Frickin' Joseph! You HAVE to be from BETHLEHEM of all places! I'll bet you and Augustus planned this whole thing just so we could be near your parents when Jesus is born!!! Alright, I'll fricking go...but I'm not going to like it and I'm not talking to you the WHOLE WAY!!!" or, "I'm sorry, did you say NO ROOM IN THE INN?!?!?...What kind of second-rate innkeeper are you???? Are you SERIOUS right now????? Do you SEE the belly!?!?!?!? Go find some skinny bitch in there and kick her out of her room because EXCUSE ME, I just rode halfway across the world on the back of a freakin' donkey and I'm tired and my legs are cramping and my back is killing me and I WILL sleep in a frickin' bed tonight so help me baby-in-my-belly!!!". I probably would have panicked and been sure that God had abandoned me. "No, that was NOT a contraction. Seriously God? NOW?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Do you SEE the cow poo two feet from my face right now? No my water did NOT just break! Is that REALLY a pool of amniotic fluid I am laying in right now, God, REALLY? You do realize I have nowhere else to sleep tonight but this now soggy pile of hay because YOU wouldn't MAKE room for me at the inn tonight? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME GOD! WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!?!?!?!".

Worst of all: I probably would have questioned if the child I carried truly was who the angel I had been visited by almost nine months prior had said he was. Sure, now we have the benefit of hindsight and a full view of the big picture and a clear understanding of the kind of king Jesus came to earth to be, but as a young Jewish girl awaiting the conquering savior of her faith's expectation, there had to be some moments of unsettling doubt across the silent expanse of those nine months...certainly in their decidedly unglamorous culmination. And with the impairment of hormone-clouded rationality and hyper-driven emotions on top of everything else...sheesh! I know I would have struggled to keep the faith.

And would anybody have blamed me? Would God?

And with that thought, we are back in the present, where I am forced to question again whether God would blame me for the way I celebrate Christmas.

And at the heart of the answer, however complex the gray areas shading it may be, is a resounding no. Because God isn't in the business of blaming...that is, in fact, the whole point of Christmas, isn't it? Jesus, after all, didn't begin His existence as the human we read about in the Bible or even the Word through whom the world was made that we read about in the first few lines of John. Jesus never "began" because He always was...an essential part of the whole of God Almighty, the great I AM. The inconceivable fact that this unknowable and unfathomable part of God Himself decided of His own free will to come inhabit the breathed-into-dust-flesh that He created--not years ago as our human time line suggests, but in the ever-present "now" of a timeless eternity (what utter and abject humility!!! We will never know the full extent of it until we see him in his true, glorified form!!! Maybe not even then!!!)--answers the question of whether or not God would blame me, or Mary, or anybody else in the sinful, doubting throes of their humanity:

No.

Because that humanity is exactly the depth to which He was willing to subject himself to rescue us from that blame. He came to us as we are...he subjected himself to the trappings of the very humanity that makes us the weak, faithless, easily distracted sinners that we are, and He overcame it for our sakes...only to, ultimately, feel the deepest depths of humanity's physical weakness at His life on earth's end: the pain of torture and death.

Jesus is not in the business of condemning us for our humanity. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." He understands our humanity as well as we do...He was, after all, not just fully God but also fully man. Not just that, but He made us the humans that we are, in all our complexities and subtleties--literally forming us in our mother's wombs--with all of our likes and dislikes, our victories and sinful predispositions, our fears and failures, all lined up in that ever-present and eternal "now"...none of it is a surprise or a disappointment the way our shortcomings were to our earthly fathers and mothers because, unlike them, He knew they would happen all along! He knows the limitations of humanity not just because he created them, but because he lived them. Does he want better for us? Yes. Does he require more of us. Yes. But does he blame us. No. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." While we were still wallowing in the throes and limitations of the ugliest and darkest parts of our humanity--in the figurative (and literal) space between the eating of the apple and the shedding of blood in the garden to make a literal and spiritual covering for our now naked sin-tainted bodies--Jesus loved us enough...not just to die for us, but to become one of us...to walk amongst us...to let us touch Him and kiss Him and hear Him speak words beyond our comprehension and wipe His feet with our hair. Let alone die for us...That He wasn't above mingling with us--literally clothing himself in our weakness--is more than I can even comprehend.

So this Christmas, as I think of Jesus and His birth in between my busy schedule of family gatherings and parties and present opening and carol singing, I'll think most of all about His love...and how, even as we ignore Him, He is over our shoulders, sharing in the joy of a gift given in love to someone else on His birthday...how--jealous though He may be for the hearts of the children He loves and sad though He may be to see us distracting ourselves from the true meaning of Christmas--He loves us just the same as the day He left His throne of glory to become on of us...how, even as mine or Mary's heart may sometimes find itself wavering in faith or stinging with bitterness for His asking too much of us or filled with questions as to whether or not we've been left alone in our greatest hour of need, God is right there with us...His arms reaching for us and begging us to trust Him, His eyes matching us tear for tear, His heart aching with the pain of perceived forsaken-ness, His body being broken by the children He loves more than His own life.

If Christmas is about anything, its about love and it's about humanity: Humanity, because it celebrates the utter miracle of our God encasing Himself within it, and Love because of the unfathomable measure of it required to compel our Great God to such selflessness and sacrifice.

May your Christmas be filled with plenty of love, and just enough humanity to turn your heart to the one and only God who can save you from it...the God who has lived it beside you all along.

Merry Christmas...Happy Birthday, Jesus...and God bless us, every one!

Week 29, 30, and 31!!!

2008-12-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

I know...I've been away from blogland for a long time...I know I'm not the only one whose schedule is going berserk this time of year so I know you can all commiserate! I missed 3 whole weeks of updates (as you can tell by the title) so I figured I'd just combine them all and give you all an overview of what Téa's been up to in the last few weeks! I actually have real live belly bump pics for the first two weeks too...

***

Week 29:

"Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. Her muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and her head is growing bigger to make room for her developing brain. To meet her increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because her bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day."

This week, I definitely started to feel some of my old first trimester symptoms return, as I've heard they are wont to do: Minor mood swings, a small decrease in energy. I also noticed that I was getting a temporary rash on my legs when I showered in too-hot-water (it fades once I cool off)...the saddest part about that is that I had to banish my super-scratchy but oh-so-wonderful washcloth (GmaPo you know what I mean!) from the showering festivities because it contributes to the problem, so my showers are, like, a good 40% less satisfying. (There's got to be a cricket playing a violin somewhere...) :)

But the three biggest issues that developed this week were that a) I hit the 25-pounds-over-my-pre-pregnancy-weight mark, and b) I noticed my ankles and hands starting to swell pretty drastically, and c) I noticed that my hands and legs would sometimes fall asleep and get all pins-and-needles-y for no reason at all...which kind of freaked my out. I was admonished by the doctor and my Bradley instructor to get serious about working out and eating healthy for the baby, and was told that I not only needed to eat more nutritious food for the vital formational weeks ahead, but that I also needed to get out for a minimum of 20 minutes a day and get my heart rate up and blood flowing. Also, no sitting or keeping my joints bent or crossing my limbs for long periods of time. So this week also marked the beginning of me attempting to get my butt into gear with my nutrition...yogurt and fruit instead of brownies! Green salad instead of french fries! Carrot sticks and red pepper slices for snacks rather than a whole bag of parmesan crisps!...though, I'll admit, it took me until the week after this one to really get serious about my daily exercise.

Also this week: My skin cleared up. How crazy is that? I wasn't expecting it at all and I am so grateful I could shed a tear. And even if it's doesn't last, it's just so nice to have this brief respite from the humiliating sons'a beeyotches and to remember what my face looked like without them! It's good to reclaim just one small corner of Dignity Square when so much of it has been surrendered to What-Happens-to-You-During-Pregnancy.

These following pics were taken--obviously--when we were putting up the Christmas lights on our tree. We didn't have a ton of time that night because we were headed to the Western States Retreat for the weekend the next morning and had spent the evening packing, but we really wanted to come home to a festive tree, so we decided we'd do lights and save the decorations for a night when we could take time having our little traditional tree-decorating-date-night. Captain Obvious just wants to point out HOW HUGE I AM!!! (And how stylish Jer is with his pants tucked into his socks). :)

***

Week 30:

"Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and she weighs almost 3 pounds (like a head of cabbage). A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds her, but that volume will decrease as she gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. Her eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after she's born, she'll keep her eyes closed for a good part of the day. When she does open them, she'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means she can only make out objects a few inches from her face. (Normal adult vision is 20/20.)"

This week, I got serious about my exercise. I stopped trying to be all awesome and drive down to some scenic location because I realized that I would never actually do it, and just starting walking out my front door and down the street about a mile and then back. It's a nice, 2 mile, hour-long walk, and it has improved my circulation by leaps and bounds...no more pins and needles, and definite decreased puffiness. I also started to feel a million times better about myself in general, which I didn't expect...I was really starting to get depressed about my weight, but those little endorphins really did the job and from about this week on, my pregnancy has felt less like a prison sentence in a foreign body and more like the wonderfully strange and miraculous time in my life that it is.

Also, Tealohi starting kicking like a CRAZY PERSON. It actually inflicts real pain on me now...especially since she has found this awesome spot right behind my belly button that feels like I'm being stabbed when she hits it...which is often. :) I am so happy to know she's healthy and strong, but sheesh! I was in the middle of listening to a sermon on our retreat the weekend I hit 30 weeks when she started in on my belly button and there I am in the second-to-front pew literally jumping and holding back yelps of pain...since then, it's sort of become her favorite place to jab. Not so awesome and it gets kind of old, but is it weird that I can't get mad at her about it and actually think it's kind of cute?

Here is a pic of us at Western States...my thigh looks bigger than Jer's waist in this picture...I really hope it doesn't look like that in real life...

***

Week 31:

"This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long. She weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. She can turn her head from side to side, and her arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath her skin. She's probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby's kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: All this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy."

I can't believe she's going to get bigger! On one hand I'm grateful because less room in my belly means less momentum for her kicks, but on the other hand, with D-Day and possible stretch marks looming on the horizon, I don't want her to get TOO big. I'm sure the Lord has it all worked out...He's the only One who would! (It's amazing how much there is to depend on Him for during pregnancy...It's like a master class in "Let go and let God"...).

The only kind of crazy thing to report is that Téa actually broke some blood vessels on my stomach with her kicking this week. How crazy is that? The little girl is STRONG. Again, this may be kind of strange and masochistic of me, but I am totally proud of her! :)

Also, lately she's been doing this thing where she will be kicking like she's trying to claw out of me with her bare hands one second, and then, the moment Jeremy gets his hand in place to feel her or says a word, she stops and goes completely quiet and calm. Turns out Jeremy isn't just a Dragon Whisperer, he's also a Baby Whisperer!!! I have to admit to being just the teensiest bit envious of him for this gift...I had a nightmare the other night that I had finally delivered her after hours of labor and there I am, all sweaty and bloody and exhausted in the hospital bed and they pick her up and lay her on my chest and all she does is cry and squirm and kick and try to get off of me, and then Jer comes over and picks her up, and she is just calm and happy immediately! And then the whole rest of the dream I just lay there, exhausted in the bed and wanting so bad to hold my baby, but every time he gave her back to me she cried and squirmed and reached back for him! How depressing is that! I know it won't happen, but still...that one haunted me for a few hours after I woke up.

In truth, (and depressing dreams aside), I'm really excited that the baby is feeling bonded and responding to her Daddy...and also kind of happy for Jer that he has one up on me in the baby-skills department for the moment. Cause when she comes out, I know I'm going to win by anatomical default for awhile...you know, since I'll literally be her walking food-wagon and personal on-call butt cleaner. And, really, she can squirm all she wants, but I am going to snuggle and kiss her until she can't help but love me. :)

At any rate, Jer and I finally feel the end approaching and are beside ourselves with excitement to meet her and have her in our lives. Her room is practically done and looking so cute, thanks to a large, generous, and unbelieveably gracious gift from Mom and Wendell...pictures to come in a future post!

Lots more to come, but that's all for now! Hope your Christmas season so far is merry and bright!

Me and Ma

2008-12-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

I missed getting a chance to post this on the actual day, but I did want to take a little page out of our blog to remember Ma Choy on the day of her burial (I've post-dated this). Here is a pic of us. Rest in peace, Ma...you are missed!

Our Co-Ed Baby Shower!

2008-12-03T12:11:00.001-08:00

It's catch up time folks. I've got a good handful of things I should have blogged about weeks ago that I need to get to before they disappear from the ittybittybaby annuls forever!!! I've had two baby showers and there has been no mention of them whatsoever! Pitiful. So here goes...better late than never I always say (otherwise...lets face it...everything with me would be "never")...

So...Baby shower number one was on November 9th, hosted by Mrs. Kaimana Farris!

Malin had already staked her claim to hosting a baby shower for me, like, just under a decade ago (literally...Malin has been waiting for this for a long time!) :), so I knew I was going to be having a traditional girls-only baby shower down in the OC with her. So when Kaimana graciously offered to throw me one as well, I thought it might be fun to do something up in her neck of the woods in LA so my LA/Santa Barbara friends could come get in on the baby love without driving hours upon hours on end. Also, I thought it might be fun to try something a little bit outside the box and do a co-ed shower...Jer did have a sort of crucial role in this baby coming about, after all, and I thought it might be fun to include him in some of the festivities.

I know, I know...usually couple's-showers are just about as fun for the boys as getting their guts ripped out Braveheart style (FREEDOM!!!)...but Jer and I had been to one at my friend (and blog idol) Raya and her hubby Forest's house for their son Baker and, a) it was largely the same crowd we were wanting to invite to our shower, and b) a great time was had by all (I swear!)...so we had hope. Plus, our LA and SB friends are the kinds of friends that are game for anything and can make a party out of nothing, so we knew that as long as we were all together, a good time would be had. Really, Jer and I just missed them all and wanted a chance to hang out...now that we no longer have our LA apartment and are firmly entrenched OC-ers, we don't see much of them and wanted to have one last hurrah before we were forced to hang up our party hats and don "we-are-now-parents-and-must-wear-grown-up-headwear" hats.

Kaimana and I plotted and planned and looked at schematics and boiled secret potions in beakers on bunson burners (or, emailed and talked on the phone a lot)...and finally decided to do the whole thing backyard-barbeque-style sans the barbeque: a laid back, non-structured atmosphere...beer...light food. We wracked our brains for activities that would be interesting to the boys as well as the girls, when...voila!...genius struck: a baby spin on kids-carnival activities! Bobbing for rubber duckies and pacifiers (rather than apples), eating donuts (chocolate, of course!) out of diapers (rather than off of strings), "pin the sperm on the egg" (rather than "pin the tail on the donkey"). The last major logistical item that remained was finding a location...Kaimana thought of asking Jim and Amy to host it at their house in Burbank, and when they graciously agreed, suddenly we had a shower.

I have to give a whole lot of thanks and credit to Kaimana, who planned the entire shower and all the activities with a four month old son in tow! She was incredible. And I also have to thank Jim and Amy for opening up their gorgemous home to us...without their hospitality, we would have had a lot of great ideas for a really fun shower and no place to throw it!

Mom and Wendell just happened to be on the continent and were staying in Dana Point visiting us (...a super fun trip that, alas, should really have been documented in a whole separate post...). Wendell had some friends in town from Mexico where they recently moved to plant a church (...The Godwins! We love you!...also should be a whole separate post...dang it!...) so he opted out of the festivities (I love Wendell like he was my real father, but just like my Dad, asking him to come to a baby shower is just a little beyond him, which I TOTALLY got...for him, it would be Braveheart.) :) Mom, however, was in...she knew Kaimana was going to need help with Desmond, and though activities like "Eat the 'Poo' Out of the Diaper" weren't exactly high on her list of priorities, she was excited to have some quality time with her grandson.

So the day of, we piled into the car and headed up to Jim and Amy's. When we got there, the CPK was being picked up by Colin (my favorite things: ceasar salad, sicilian and roasted garlic chicken pizzas), the beer and ice (courtesy of Jim and Dan) were in the coolers, the decorations were set up, and our friends (the aforementioned) Dan and Leanne were already there (having spent the night from SB like the troopers they are) and helping out! There was almost nothing left to do! Kaimana and her set up crew were champs.

It was Kaimana's genius idea to do the games like a relay race and add in a three-legged-race to the finish line at the end. If I don't mind saying so m'self, I think our shower had the funnest activities of any shower I've ever been to. Toot, toot! Yup, that's my horn. Sue me! But really, it's more Kaimana's horn, so you know, that makes it okay. :)

Kboy and Patrice drove up all the way from San Diego to be there...and were rewarded by winning the relay with the ever-manly Colin by their side. The prize was Pete's Coffee gift cards, which I'm sure are thoroughly emptied by now.

Raya, when not inspiring the crafting masses with her blog, also happens to be an amazing photographer, and she graciously came with her camera to serve as impromptu photographer for the day...she gave me the green light to post the link to them...

But before I do that, I have to take this moment to digress a bit and confess something to you all: On this blog, I don't usually post a picture of myself unless a) I look decently good, b) I've taken a second to edit out my zits, c) I can crop it to hide any unsightly bulges or unflattering angles. That's right folks...I am very much ashamed to say that I am a recovering Vain-a-holic. And because I HATE the fact that I am preoccupied with worrying about something as trivial as my looks when I have a healthy, perfect baby growing safely in my belly, I am going to just post Raya's amazing, awesome, professional-grade, too-gorgeous-for-my-shower pics as is without trying to steal them from her and airbrush my flaws out...even though I am having a bad hair day. So please friends, be forgiving.

Here is the link to Raya's pics...a thousand thanks again to Raya! I recommend using the slideshow feature. :)

I've posted a few **ahem** amateur pics that I managed to get below as well.

Jim and Dan walked up with the ice right as we were walking in...

Desmond with Po Po (did I explain that Po Po is "Grandma" is Chinese yet? Since Wendell is going to be "Gung Gung" which is Chinese for "Grandpa", mom is going to use the Chinese name too...how cute is that?).

A look of love adorable enough to melt the polar ice caps...

Dan and Leanne get frisky...

The "eggs" from "pin the sperm on the egg"...

Here's what it looked like with a sperm pinned on it...right now it's on proud display in Téa's room.

Fiore, staking his uncle claim...

Uncle K-boy spending some QT with Desmond...

Courtney and her hubby Ed, and Dan (Dan is everywhere on this post, isn't he? He's an in-the-mix kind of guy.)

Miss Paper Pony herself, with her love bug, Baker...

Po Po laying a smooch on Desmond...

Jim and Amy's dog Kimba looking like he's about to eat Baker...who looks likes like he is fishing for a beer...Daddy Forest taught him well. :) (Just kidding of course...don't call any child protection services!) In actuality, Kimba is after those rubber duckies because she thought they were her chew toys. All mom and I could find were these dressed up rubber duckies...a policeman, a cow, a pirate, etc...so I was able to bring home quite a fleet of awesome bath buddies for Téa...and Desmond got a pirate ducky. :) I loved that cow one in the bucket Baker is reaching into, but--alas--Kimba annihilated it before I could save it.

Jim and Jer apparently had the "poo" eating leg of the relay.

Amy getting some baby-practice feeding Baker...

Things kind of ended up going late...everybody just hung out and caught up until I was so starving I was ready to eat my hand off. Here's Kboy and Kea...

Kboy and Patrice yuckin' it up.

That night on our way home, as I said, I was so starving I was going into The Low-Blood-Sugar Danger-Zone I go into if I don't eat often enough where I basically start to kind of fall apart (trust me, you don't want to be around when it happens)...and I had to drive because Jer had been boozin' it up! So we made a quick stop at Starbucks where I downed one sandwich waiting for Kboy (who was following us home) to get out of the bathroom, and another within 5 minutes of hiting the freeway for the drive home. With blood-sugar order restored and the world once again on it's axis, I was able to survive until we met up with Wendell at Olamendi's (one of me and Jer's favorite Mexican places) for dinner...Kboy and Patrice stuck around and a great time was had by all!!!

Okay, that's it! I can't believe I got through that one! I can't believe you did!!! :) The next weekend was Malin's shower, so stay tuned for scoop on that...and hopefully it won't take me another month to get to it!!!

A Ho Thanksgiving

2008-12-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

(this is us trying--pretty unsuccessfully, if you ask me--to look relaxed while we wait for the timer to strike. More, less-awkward pics at the end of the post.) :)

Well, this Thanksgiving Eve I am sad to say that my attitude of gratitude was rudely interrupted...what started out as an overindulgence of chocolate chip cookies and a pointy little Téa heel in my ribs led to a feeling of not being able to get comfortable, which led to me starting to feel a little claustrophobic about her having enough room, which led to me "not feeling good", which led to me really "not feeling good", which led to me bowing unceremoniously to the porcelain god of Craptown, USA, projectile vomiting all of the aforementioned cookies--and then some--up and out into the wee hours.

Turns out, there's stomach flu bug stalking the the mean streets of the OC, and, that night, I was to be its unwitting victim.

And to top it off...maybe it was all of the strange noise and rumbling going on in there, or maybe it was just her usual M.O. and I don't know it cause I'm asleep, but for some reason, Téa thought it would be really fun to kick the crap out of my insides the whole time. Which I have to say, was one of the most surreal experiences ever. She is so strong now, her once fluttery little kicks are starting to feel more like punishing karate chops. Vomiting is always uncomfortable, but literally being mid-vomit when two sharp baby-body-parts slam simultaneously and repeatedly into your ribs and lower abdomen? In the over-tired fog of half-dreaming semi-consciousness that my brain had been reduced to by 4AM, I was starting to worry I was in some sort of alien movie or (for those of you who are closet Twilighters) the last half of Breaking Dawn--you know, where Bella is getting beaten to a bloody pulp from the inside out by her super strong vampire baby? (Anybody out there know what I'm talking about? Anybody? Beuller?...)

The next day, I was so exhausted and my stomach was still so shaky, I totally missed out on hanging with Jer's family, and spent the day sipping gatorade and chicken broth instead of downing plates full of turkey and sipping from the proverbial goblet of family fun and holiday cheer.

So, you know...not my best Thanksgiving ever.

Alas, I couldn't make up for the lost time with Jer's family (oh Marshalls and Clements, how I missed thee!)...but in the food department, I felt hope...my family and I have celebrated Thanksgiving on the following Saturday at my house for three-years running, and though I was slated to cook the entire meal (this is the last year that's happening...unless the family's going to pitch in and hire me a nanny), I wasn't the least bit sad about it.

You see, for the Ho family, Thanksgiving is The Holiday of All Holidays...it's bigger than Christmas. We are a family that LOVES FOOD. I explained the significance of food to the Hawaiian culture and my family in particular in one of my Hawaii posts...so take that knowledge, insert the one holiday a year that revolves completely around food, and then just imagine the utter gravity this holiday holds for us Ho's.

We have a traditional Thanksgiving meal with dishes that have become almost as much of an institution in our family as our family itself. There are 7 inalterable dishes that must be made...everything is made from scratch and with fresh ingedients. Subtracting one dish, altering one recipe...they'd drag the poor soul out into the streets and stone 'em alive.

We started doing it at my house because, one year, all my siblings had migrated to California and none of us could make it home to Hawaii, so I offered to host. Auntie Liz--who is the usual maker of The Meal--flew up and faxed me the recipes with the plan of coming over Friday to help me prep...but she ended up taking so long getting to me from LA where she was staying with her sister that Friday, I had pretty much done the majority of the prep myself, so I learned how to do the majority of the dishes that year. It was awesome having her here for the first two years, because she was able to give me some good pointers and show me how to bail myself out of some rookie mistakes. I learned a lot with her over my shoulder those first two years. But this year, she couldn't make it out...which made us all sad because of course we would miss her, but it made me extra sad for another reason...

...it meant I was flying solo **dun, dun, duuuun**.

Thankfully, things went off without a hitch...no stake burnings, lynchings, or stonings. I felt like I had everything pretty down...the recipes are very prep-intensive but not overly complicated. The biggest near-disaster I had was with the first course, the pumpkin soup, which I almost had to use **GASP!** canned pumpkin for, but Jer saved the day by calling every grocery store in our vicinity and then taking a gamble on a type of pumpkin I'd never used before...which did the job just perfectly.

This year, we were missing Kaimi and Colin (and Desmond!) along with Auntie Liz, so it was a smaller event...just Kboy, Patrice, and Kea were added to Jer and I...but we still had a great time. The cranberry spritzers flowed, plates were cleaned, and the Thanksgiving Beast in each of our stomachs was lulled safely back into hibernation for another year. All is right with the world once again.

And...once Kboy and Patrice had left the next day (Kea had to go Saturday night), once Jer and I had unloaded the last round of dishes from the dishwasher (we did five loads total before all the dishes were clean!), once the linens were in the wash and the house was back in order...Jer and I did something we've ALWAYS wanted to do...we went out and got our Christmas tree! We have ALWAYS wanted to get our Christmas tree on Sunday night so we can enjoy it for the maximum amount of time possible, but we always forget/get too exhausted/can't find a truck. But this year--knowing we are going to be spending Christmas in California for the first time in awhile (and that it would be our last Christmas without kids!), we knew we had to make it count--we borrowed Jer's grandma's truck and made it to the lot 15 minutes before it closed, where we found the most gorgemous healthy just-delivered Christmasy-smelling tree ever in the history of trees and brought it home and made it our very own. We didn't, however, get industrious enough to do decorations yet...Jer and I make a whole night out of decorating the tree with Christmas music and hot apple cider so we decided to save that for a night when we weren't running on fumes...but that is coming oh-so-soon!

Today, I am recovering...turns out, being on your feet for two days straight doesn't do awesome things for a pregnant woman in her third trimester's back and hips. I was literally bent over, limping yesterday...I felt like an old person, not a spry mom-to-be in the prime of life. Today, I am walking and doing yoga, and tomorrow, I have my weekly pregnancy massage from my friend and sports therapist Troy Wenger, so--though I feel like the Hunchback of Notredame right now--I know I'll feel good-as-new mañana.

Of course, no Thanksgiving post would be complete without at least one sappy paragraph about what I'm thankful for and why, and I'm a sucker for sap, so I will oblige: I'm grateful for Jer's family, who loves me enough to care more about my well-being than the fact that I was absent for one of the biggest holiday get-togethers of the year...I'm grateful for my family, whose unflappable love and sheer dedication to our traditions have kept us together even in the midst of some of the most fractured times our family has had to face...I'm grateful for my husband, whose dedication to finding me pumpkins for my pumpkin soup on Thanksgiving is only a shadow of the fierce dedication and love he has for me all year round...and of course, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the future love of our lives...our little Téa...

...even when she's literally kicking the vomit out of me.

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Christmas to come!

***

I always make Ramos House Bloody Marys for breakfast--complete with pickled beans and herb salad (if you haven't had one, you just haven't had a Bloody Mary yet)--Thanksgiving morning and serve them in my vintage "Don Ho at the Polynesian Palace" cups. Of course mine was non-alcoholic. Kboy's delighted comment was: "It's like an alcoholic salad!" Otherwise, our family fasts until mealtime, which is usually around 3pm-ish.

Kboy setting the table. Those pumpkin tureens are for the soup...how cute is that? They were my one splurge that first year it was at my house...

My loaded up plate...this is after the buttermilk-chive biscuits with herb butter and the pumpkin soup and the spinach and citrus salad, by the way. But you better believe me and Téa took it all down to Chinatown under our elbows, beeyotches!!! I was the Champion Eater of our family all my life until Kboy finally unseated me about 5 years ago. Well, with Téa on my side, I'm back baby!!! We took the crown this year, no contest.

Me, double gravy-ing and unashamed.

The giddy moments before the collective triptophan coma hit.

The last woman standing.

The carnage...

***

Jer and I later that night with our tree! It wasn't quite cold enough to need the beanie and the scarf, but I always have to bundle up to go to the Christmas tree lot or it just doesn't feel right. You can see the belly poking out from under the scarf...

3rd TRIMESTER!!!

2008-11-23T23:51:00.000-08:00

...And just like that, the home stretch is upon us!

Today is the first day of the third and final trimester of my pregnancy.

I have to admit I have been feeling it coming on--my belly is massive, my back is sore, my energy has taken nosedive--but I really can't complain. Frankly, I am just so excited she'll be here I can barely stand it! It seems like her kicks are getting stronger by the day and she is so responsive to Jer and my talking to her...Jer and I are almost sad without her...like we miss her before we've even met her. Her room is full of gifts and clothes and baby things but it feels so empty without her in it. :( I am almost grateful for the utter madness and rush that is the upcoming holiday season because I know things will feel much faster for us during a time in my pregnancy that I'm told usually drags. Hopefully it will make the wait more bearable.

Also, FYI, I revealed her name a few posts back...if you don't want to be spoiled, I suggest you read it...or at least scroll down to it...before reading any posts after this one. I'm going to start using it on the blog and don't want to ruin it for you!

Alrighty then...Third Trimester here we come!!! Onward and upward!...or in the case of my belly, outward. :) Here is the weekly update:

"By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world."

You know it's time to face the facts when...

2008-11-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

...the maternity jeans you've barely been able to squeeze past your hips for the past two weeks actually rip as you're trying to pull them on.

Ugh.

Rememebering Ma Choy

2008-11-22T23:36:00.000-08:00

This morning, Wendell's mother and my step-grandmother, Ma Choy, died in the hospital after suffering complications from pneumonia.

We've been losing bits and pieces of her slowly. It seems that, in old age, it's either your body or mind that fails you, and Ma was one of those who was both fortunate and unfortunate enough to lose her mind before her body finally gave out. She almost barely seemed to know she was disappearing...she was the happiest woman I've ever known, even in the midst of a group of people she no longer recognized. She was always happy to meet me, over and over again. :) "Oh, so beautiful!" She would say to me, each time. "What nice people!" she'd say when we'd help her in or out of the car or help her get situated at the dinner table. She was so sincere, so heartfelt every time, you couldn't help from smiling as you spoke to her, even when you were in the midst of explaining where we were going and why for the third time on a fifteen minute drive.

As time passed and her mind began to weaken further, you could see the smallest hint of far away confusion start to settle behind her eyes...like she was trying to figure out the answer to a riddle or see past a cloud that had settled over something she wished she could see...but her spirits were still high, her mood still joyful. Eventually that cloud seemed to loom larger and larger, until her brain had forgotten how to eat, how to stand...even the face of her own beloved son.

During the brief but best years of her life while I've known her, she was so full of gusto and joy in the Lord and gratitude for life...it was infectious...she was impossible not to love and enjoy being around. She is still legend amongst our friends who were in Hawaii for our wedding and came to church the following Sunday: She took every one of those boys to school on the CCI ping pong table. :) She always included my sister Kaimana and I as a part of her family, from day one...I know Wendell got much of his trademark generosity from his mother.

When she passed, I'm told it was peaceful...no struggle, no strain, no gasps for air or pain to endure...Wendell said he only would have known it happened because he was watching her heart monitor when it finally stopped. I like to think that she just slipped into sleep there in the hospital and woke up to her beloved Savior's hand stretched out to help her up, out of bed, into his arms at last.

If I could sum up Ma Choy in one word, it would be grateful. She didn't seem to take anything the Lord had given her for granted...And that grateful spirit made her the very most consistently and sincerely joyful person I've ever known. That is something I will take with me my whole life...the living, breathing lesson she was to me in what it takes to experience true joy in the Lord: a thanksgiving heart.

And now she is with Him! It is so easy to picture her there, her mind back to its former sharpness and her strength restored, her eyes wide and mouth filled with praise at all she has seen of her new eternal home, her grateful heart full to the brim in the presence of the Lord she has loved for so long.

And her sweet smile innocently drawing in the masses before she whips them at the ping pong table. :)

Rest in Peace Ma. You will be missed.

What's in a Name...

2008-11-22T12:12:00.000-08:00

Alrighty folks, moment of truth...

I know, I know...it seems to good to be true.

But this time it's for real kiddos...no fakesies...no false starts...no more suspense...

...her name WILL be revealed by the end of this post.

I know many of you have been waiting patiently (and many not so patiently) for this moment...and I have to admit that I'm feeling a bit of performance anxiety right about now. I really didn't mean for it to go unrevealed for this long, and now I feel like even if we'd managed to choose The Most Awesome and Universally Liked Name Ever in the History of the Whole Wide World it's destined to be a let down. Alas...I know nobody put me in this anticlimactic position but myself, so I take full responsibility for your disappointment...such is the tangled web I've woven.

But consider yourself warned. :)

Now, since you all have proven to be such expert wait-ers, I'm going to go ahead test your endurance for just a few paragraphs more so that I can have a chance to explain all about it so I don't just drop it on you all *blah* and un-prefaced. If you really want to scroll down and skip my long winded explanation, go ahead...your nerves have already endured so much strain and I am really long-winded so who could blame you? I promise I won't judge. :)

All the rest of you who REALLY care--haha, just kidding!--sit back, relax, pull up a chair...perhaps pour yourself a nice warm beverage... :) ...and enjoy the tale of how we chose our little one's new name.

*ahem*

It was a dark and stormy night...

Just kidding. :)

Seriously, here we go for reals...

***

Once upon a time, there was a couple who was having a baby girl and loved the name Aulani...

But as we are all now fully aware, that happy ending was not to be...it turned out "Aulani" didn't mean exactly what we thought it meant, and, without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that the difference between what it actually meant and what we wanted it to mean was enough to deter us from it despite our long time love affair with the name.

And so, after a brief mourning period, we headed dutifully back to the drawing board.

After much discussion, it turns out our criterion for her name loosely came down to five points:

1. We wanted her name to mean something.

2. We wanted that meaning to connect her to her Creator. We wanted the one word in the whole wide world most closely associated with her to also directly associate her with her Father in heaven.

3. We wanted use the opportunity of naming her to speak a blessing or a prayer over her--for her name to be like a charge or an encouragement she could carry with her throughout her life.

4. We wanted her name to have meaning to us--to nod toward what her arrival in our lives has made us feel and/or what it's meant to us. This idea originated with something that was special to mine and my Dad's relationship: He always said that the first time he looked into my eyes "the stars in your eyes melted my heart" and he was never the same, and that that was why he named me Hoku. I always cherished that--even more so now that he's gone--and I wanted to, if possible, give my daughter something similar to hold on to.

5. We thought it would be cool if her name was Hawaiian...in part because it's where I'm from and we want her to be connected to her heritage there, but also because it's where the love that created her was born...It's where Jer and I met and fell in love in the first place.

I'm sure we sound like maniacal, obsessed, over-analytical name-Nazis, but for some reason, for as long as Jer and I have been talking about having children, choosing meaningful names for them and taking that responsibility seriously has always been a burden on our hearts. We approach the responsibility of naming our children as powerful opportunities to give them a gift for their whole lives. Maniacal and obsessive? Perhaps. Will she care as much as we do? Probably not. But it mattered to us. So we obsessed to our name-Nazis'-hearts' content. :)

We began in the most natural way two anxious first time parents-to-be might go about tackling such a hefty list of criteria...by thinking of a blessing we might like to give her or a prayer we might have for her life--as it was, we already thought about it and talked about it on an almost daily basis! And it wasn't hard to think of ways to tie our hopes for her into the Lord, because everything we hope for her ties her to Him anyway.

We found that the most consistent theme of our prayers for her is the hope that she will grow to love and serve the Lord with all her heart, and that she would remain in Him--unmoved by the world and it's ever-present attempts to sway her. We are as anxious and nervous as any parent to raise a child to love and serve God in a world so far from Him and know we (and she) will need all the prayers we can get!!! We just keep praying (and probably always will) that she will have wisdom and strength and conviction against the temptations of the fallen world she is being brought into...to have a strong, God-rooted conscience and the conviction to follow it...to say "yes" to the Lord and "no" to the world when push comes to shove.

It was from that launching pad that we leapt out to wade through the morass and mire of Name-dom in search of the perfect moniker for our little girl.

Now, throughout this process, I'd been talking to my niece Bianca on and off about names (I mentioned her in a previous post...she is fluent in Hawaiian and has been essential to this whole naming process...big thank yous, Bianca!)...her advice was to start thinking of meanings we wanted and then look the words up in the Hawaiian dictionary online (I've also mentioned this before but its worth mentioning again: wehewehe.com). So, whenever Jer and I had a chance to sit and think about it we would huddle around the computer brainstorming and looking up meanings, hoping one of them would strike us as worthy name material.

We searched and searched, but nothing really blew our socks off. We found some awesome contenders and Bianca even came up with a suggestion that I really loved...but in both cases either it was too long and "Hawaiian-y" for someone who was certain to look hopelessly white (the latter), or Jer couldn't pronounce it (the former and the latter). And we figured that, if he couldn't, nobody else would be able to either.

So we trudged on.

And then, one lazy afternoon at the computer in the midst of another bout of seemingly futile solo-searching, I did come across a word that I really liked the sound of and loved the meaning to. However, in my haste, I sort of wrote it off immediately because I just didn't think it could stand alone as a name very well. The word meant: "to shine, glitter, sparkle; bright, brilliant; splendor, brilliancy"...but the dictionary used it in a sentence as "light"...so the word "light", though not mentioned in the definition, is obviously implied. It made me think of the Lord when He describes Himself as Light, or it seemed to hold words that would describe His Light.

Also, I liked that a part of the name's definition includes the verbs "to shine, glitter, sparkle"....we learned from Bianca that when naming in Hawaiian, it's important to consider all the definition of the name before you choose it because the name carries all of it's meanings for the bearer. Which meant that, even though this word could be translated to mean "bright light" or "brilliant light", it also carried the action aspect of its definition..."to shine, to glitter, to sparkle." I liked that.

The whole word had an active quality about it to me...the light is shining, it is bright and brilliant light that lends splendor or brilliancy to what it describes...It made me think of Matthew 5:14-16 (Jer would later say that this verse came to mind for him as well)...

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Fast forward to when we arrived at the Ritz Carlton in Maui for our Babymoon...My Dad's friend and an acquaintance of mine, Clifford Na'ole--who was so generously hooking us up there and also happens to know a great deal of Hawaiian--met us at the entrance and welcomed us in. He immediately called the baby a name I'd never heard but really liked.

Apparently he and Jer had been in contact planning the visit and Jer had sent him this picture of me via email (I've posted it on the blog before)...

Jer explained to me that when he had sent Clifford the picture, he had shot back an almost immediate response saying that the smirk on my face reminded him of my Dad, and that he'd thought of the following name (and don't get excited because this isn't it): Te honi mai ka Hokua. It means "the kiss from the shining star"...the shining star being my Dad. I really liked this name for a few days...something about it really caught my attention...but then I realized that--besides it's gratuitous length (not too long as far as Hawaiian names go, but certainly more than what's typical on the mainland)--I wasn't too excited about the fact that it honored my Dad and not the Lord. Failure on Acceptable Name Criterion #2: Not an option.

However, what's important about this discarded name to the story of how we chose her new one is the use of the "T" in place of the more commonly used "K" in the "Te" (pronounced "tay") or the "the" portion of the name...I checked with Bianca and, apparently, the "T" is from an older style of Hawaiian passed down through speaking...it's not commonly heard or used nowadays because they don't teach it to students who learn the language in school (which is how the majority of people who know the language today have learned it)...it's old fashioned, but Bianca assured me it is still totally valid.

I stored that away in my mental Hawaiian-naming-tool-box.

Back to our Babymoon: Of course, Jer and I spent a lot of time talking about baby names while we were there. On our last night, we went to a nice dinner at the fanciest restaurant they have there at the Ritz called "The Banyan" (details to come in a future post)....after dinner, we enjoyed a leisurely moon-and-tiki-torch-lit stroll on the hotel grounds before settling in on a little bench to look up baby name ideas on my iPhone.

At that point, the aforementioned "light" word I had found came to mind and I mentioned it to Jer...I will now reveal that that word was "alohi". I didn't like the word by itself because it reminded me too much of "aloha", which is (sadly) so overused and commercially associated with Hawaii it's ridiculous. And though I knew it would have been possible to add a "the" in the form of a "ke" at the front of "alohi" to make "Kealohi", I didn't want to do that either--a) because my sister's full name is Kealohikea, which--though it has a different meaning with the extra "kea" on the end--sounds like the exact same name, and b), because she would most certainly be called Kea for short, which is just too weird.

And then, right there on that bench at the Ritz Carlton Kapalua on the last night of our Babymoon...

...it hit us.

Sub the "K" for a "T".

Te Alohi: The bright, brilliant, shining light.

Tealohi.

We liked it...no, we were pretty sure we loved it. But we were still unsure. "Aulani" was still haunting us. But we did feel, for the first time in awhile, that we had made some real progress. Satisfied with that thought, we agreed to let it marinate a bit and headed back to our room for the night.

Fast forward to after we got back from Maui:

I was back at Mom and Wendell's, looking for a spot to settle in with breakfast, when I felt the sudden urging from that all too familiar still small voice (you know the one) to pick up a Bible and get into the Word. In my (tragically) typical manner of response to promptings like this, I silently attempted to reason with that voice that I simply couldn't pick up a Bible because I'd forgotten mine in California...but then I promptly realized how poor an excuse that really was because I was currently standing in the middle of a Pastor's house surrounded by stacks upon stacks of Bibles of every translation, commentary, size, shape, and color. Immediately embarrassed, I grabbed the nearest one I could find and headed out to the balcony.

Initially I didn't know where to start, but after a moment I decided I'd try to find a verse that I'd seen printed on the shirts Wendell and Mom's church, Calvary Church of the Islands, had ordered for the upcoming Halloween outreach. The outreach was called "Light the Night" and I knew the verse on the shirt had something to do with light, and so I figured, hey, If I'm toying with the idea of naming my daughter "the light" I'd better read up on what the Lord says about it. I remembered that the verse was in John, but couldn't remember the chapter and verse, so I flipped to the concordance in the back and--obviously--looked under "light". The first mention of "light" in John happens right in the beginning of the book, and it also happens to be one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

Now, prior to this moment, I'd always thought the last part about the darkness not understanding the light was a foreshadowing of the Jew's reaction to Jesus...like, the sinful nature of man (the darkness) would prevent the people from understanding who Jesus (the light of the world)--truly was. But this particular morning I happened to be holding a Life Application Bible--which, as most of us know, has notes on the bottom of each page to help explain or provide commentary on the verses--and the note on this particular verse explained that what the darkness not understanding the light refers to is the darkness' inability to overcome the light...that the light drove out the darkness rather than succumbing to it.

I was shocked. In all the years I've been reading that verse, God chose this moment to reveal that little tidbit to me. That new clarification reminded me so much of all the things Jer and I had been praying for for our daughter...that she would be unmoved by the world, that she would drive out it's influence in her life rather than giving in to it.

Somewhat lost in those thoughts, still not piecing it all together, I remembered that I had been wanting to look up spiritual gifts. So after a brief stop in the concordance again, I flipped forward from John into Ephesians 4.

But once I was there, a heading on the opposite page in chapter 5 jumped out at me. At the moment, I can't remember exactly what the heading said...and, unfortunately, I don't have a Life Application Bible on hand to look it up...but I do remember that it was something ridiculously eye-catching for someone in my frame of mind, like "Being a Light in the Lord", or something equally perfect (as only God can orchestrate). So I started reading...starting in verse 8:

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful to even mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: 'Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.' Be very careful then how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."

And I'll tell you...the heavens may not have opened up...an angel choir may not have ascended from Heaven to say it to my face...but I just knew right then and there that the Lord was affirming "Tealohi" for her name.

Almost every single sentence of that verse addresses a prayer we have for her, a concern we've brought before the Lord for her, a hope we've shared with each other for the kind of person we want to raise her to be. Jer and I had been praying for months for the Lord's help in choosing the perfect name for our little girl, and I just knew--and still believe--His leading me to this verse was meant to be confirmation.

I ran into the house to grab Jer and tell Him all about it, and from that point on, it was her name...she's been Tealohi ever since.

Of course it's inevitable that she'll be called Téa for short (pronounced "taya" but we spelled it like Téa Leoni's name with the fancy slashy thing)...but we actually love that name all by itself. AND, when we looked up meanings for "Téa" on its own, we found out it's from the Italian name "Dorotea", which means "gift from God". Granted, she doesn't have a lick of Italian, but we still thought it was pretty cool...Even her nickname is meaningful!

As we've lived with "Tealohi" more and more now, deeper meanings have unfolded. We connected the dots to what we've always known...that the story of her even getting a chance to come to be is a story of Light. She was given to us a time when all we could see was darkness...when God asked us to remain in the dark and let Him reveal things in His timing. He asked us to trust Him in the midst of that darkness...to let go, "trust Me and I will restore you". My Dad was dead and my sister's death so close behind had rocked my world and my marriage was falling apart in the wake of my grief and my music career was at a standstill...I had nothing left to lose but more faith. Little by little, I let Him have his way. I gave Him my grief...I gave Him my despair...I have Him my marriage...I gave Him my music career...I gave Him my hair (!)...I gave Him my control...birth control, that is. And then, there she was, a plus sign on a stick and a whole new world...

...and suddenly everything that the Lord had been doing became clear...the purpose for all He had allowed me to go through, all that He had demanded of me...and why He had needed to do it all so dang fast! The Lord revealed her to us and lifted her up over our lives and suddenly, everything made sense, everything that had been hidden was visible, everything that had been lost was found. She was the answer to it all...she was what the Lord had been waiting to give us all along. She was our restoration...exceedingly and abundantly more than we could have ever asked for or imagined. She was the light dawning on a new day in our lives...the long awaited sun rising up from my darkest hour.

It's been a long journey from then to this point. She has grown ever brighter as she draws nearer and nearer to us...moving surely and steadily from the vague concept she once was to our un-comprehending minds to the real, live, flesh-and-blood part of our world we never knew we were always missing...our yearned for love who has taught our hearts and our arms to feel empty without her.

Our little Téa has already filled our lives with so much love and hope and joy! We know that the light she has been so far is nothing compared to the light she will be in our lives forever. Oh how many lessons we have yet to learn from her of the Father's love! Of His goodness! Of His graciousness! To give us something so precious and so wonderful and so undeserved as the right to raise up and care for and watch over even one of His precious and unique creations! The blessed ache of the new depths and heights of love we will be allowed to experience! The unsurpassed joy that will fill our hearts! Our little Tealohi...Our bright shining light...Our precious one...Shining into the depths of our hearts and showing us the new stores of love that wait there, ready to overflow.

And she has only just begun to shine.

May she live in the light of her Father and walk in the power of His love all the days of her life.

Twilight!!!

2008-11-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

For those of you who lead normal adult lives and don't know that Twilight opened today...well now you know!!! And what kind of obsessive devour-each-book-in-24-hours, trawl-the-web-for-the-latest-movie-scoop, handcraft-tees-with-sayings-pledging-my-eternal-love-to-Edward-Cullen fan would I be if I didn't go on opening day!?!?! (Just to put all of your minds at ease, I didn't actually go so far as to paint any sayings on any shirts, confessing love or otherwise...I did feel the need to clarify that in light of the fact that some of you reading this right now knew me during the height of my Lord of the Rings frenzy and, I'm sure, wouldn't put it past me.) :)

I felt a certain sick satisfaction having to wait in line for 20 minutes outside the theater...being a part of a pop culture phenomenon on opening night just wouldn't be the complete experience without the line. And the fact that there were people older than me--like, women who could have had their teenaged daughters with them--in front of me in line made me feel a little better...even though being the most pregnant girl in the Twilight line did feel a little ridiculous. :)

Jer might have taken a little comfort in the fact that he was certainly not the only long-suffering and dutiful male whose devotion and love was being brutally and unapologetic-ly tested. One smart chap right in front of us had a book with him and tried to spark up a commiseratory conversation with Jer...but it's hard to keep the hard won best-hubby-ever points you're trying to earn while in the midst of bashing your wife's movie preferences with a complete stranger while she's sitting right next to you, so eventually he just turned soberly back to his book and Jer to his iPhone. I did think it was pretty hilarious that, in a cruel stroke of fate, Jer's iPhone had no service right in the spot where we were waiting. :) So instead, his endurance was tested a little more as he was forced to sit and talk to me about the only subject my crazy little one track mind was able to discuss coherently at that moment...how freakin' excited I was about seeing the movie!

In the way of awesomely frightening we-are-in-way-too-deep-being-here-on-opening-night moments: When the crowd of people who were headed out of the showing before ours was making its way out, I am being completely serious when I say that there were two tween girls who had, in fact, painted "I heart Edward Cullen" on their t-shirts. And once the movie started, there was a girl a few rows behind us literally squealing and swooning out loud like our Moms did at the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show every time Edward would say anything remotely romantic to Bella...or, really, anything at all for that matter. And in the way of we-are-definitely-at-a-movie-for-teenagers moments: Somebody actually came out before the movie started and had to announce that text messaging during the movie was as against the rules as making a phone call. And also, during the big (and sort of oddly passionate for a teen movie) kissing scene...more than a few girls let out an awkward giggle in spite of themselves. But really, all of that just added to the embarrassing, surreal fun of it all.

As for the movie itself, I have to say...(what else?) It was pretty awesome. But seriously...all joking aside, despite my excitement, I actually went in to this movie expecting to hate it...I figured that any movie depicting a book you know every nuanced detail about backwards and forwards is going to be a disappointment. I mean, the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies have all been handled really well, but I knew Twilight was much lower budget and geared toward an age group a solid ten-to-twelve years younger than me (ugh...that's just sad). Not that it wasn't without its unintentionally funny or badly executed moments...but for the most part, I found that what could have been a winking or condescending portrayal of how-an-adult-would-see-it forbidden teen love was actually a very sober, weighty, well-acted, and completely un-ironic sort of updated Romeo and Juliet. It felt like an art-house movie in a way (I guess with Summit behind it, it technically is)...the lack of budget worked in its favor in that it came across as very honest and very intimate and kept the story firmly grounded in the characters' relationships...which, frankly, were richer and better fleshed out on screen than they are in the books (shhhh...don't tell any other Twilight fans I said that or they'll drag me into the streets and stone me for blasphemy).

Perhaps because of that, the light finally went off as to why these books have resonated with me so much. (And it's not because Edward Cullen is, like, a total babe.) :)

I knew my love for the books...or at least my ability to identify with them as an adult...had something to do with the fact that it depicts two people (okay, well...one person and one vampire, but you know what I'm saying) falling in love at almost the exact age I was when Jer and I met and fell in love. But what I didn't realize until seeing the movie is that what makes Twilight different than other stories about teen romance is that Edward and Bella are not written like children and their love is not written like a cute phase or an irrational, hormone-induced frenzy that happens to end well in the book but who knows what happens after "happily ever after". Bella is a smart, sensible girl who doesn't really get along with girls her own age and Edward is a tortured soul looking for meaning in his seemingly unnatural existence, and when they meet, though their physical attraction is strong (obviously for Edward in more ways than one with the whole vampire blood-lust thing), what drives them together is so much more...it's love that strikes the core and fills the dark corners of every part of who they are. They're soul mates who just happen to find each other at an age that most people aren't thinking about what they'll want in a year let alone for the rest of their lives.

And there is also the whole "forbidden love" parallel with Jer and I...most teenage love stories striving for that level of depth follow in the Romeo and Juliet vein, ending in tragedy or at least separation (I've always thought that that was more a product of people's jaded perception that teen true-love only lasts as a post-humous legend or a memory recounted to the person you really end up with after you've grown up...though, maybe that perception of other peoples perception of teen love speaks more to how jaded I am...). But in Twilight, finally we teen-lovers get our happy ending. Edward and Bella fight and hold on for dear life and almost die and sacrifice everything and go against their very natures to keep their love before they get to live their happily ever after, but in the end, they do. Of course Jer and I weren't forced to go to those lengths (as far as I know, Jer wasn't fighting the urge to murder me the whole time we were together) but we certainly had to make some very difficult decisions and compromises and sacrifices along the way. And it's the way we do our marriage to this very day...I've always said that how we began is the key to why we are as strong and happy and connected as we are...because we learned early on that love is something to fight for and hold on to, not something that hits you like an arrow and then flits away as soon as you don't feel it anymore. It's such a big part of who we are, and it's nice to hear/watch a story unfold that understands that true love is worth fighting for no matter what age you are when you find it.

I just don't meet a lot of people who found their soul mate and experienced forever-love in their teens like Jer and I did. What makes Twilight so fun for me, is that, finally, I feel like there is a love story out there that I can really and truly relate to.

So say what you will, but I loved it! And you know what? Jer liked it too...and he didn't just like it for me...he actually really and truly liked it all on his own (don't tell him I told you that). :) Maybe he won't be going back to see it with me the second time I see it in theaters (and oh yes, there will be a second time...), but he'll be ready again by the time the DVD comes out.

By which point I just might have gotten my act together enough to get around to making that t-shirt. :)

***

Here I am right after we bought our tickets...I'm at the end of my 27th week in this picture...

Jer snapped this one when I wasn't looking...it looks like I'm just staring longingly at the door to the theater (really, I was watching the people coming out of the previous showing...honestly)...

Getting ready to go in!

Why do I love...?

2008-11-20T23:57:00.000-08:00

...My friends?

Because (among other reasons, of course), by the power of their giving hearts and financial powers combined, I was able to walk into Ikea today and purchase a desperately needed dresser for our little one's room, free and clear...and walk away with money left over! All of you who contributed...I do not deserve you. Thank you a thousand times! Here she is:

...Nordstroms?

Because today, I walked in and returned a broken pair of Chanel Sunglasses I've had for over a year for a full refund back on my card (not even store credit!)...to the tune of $360 dollars!!!...

Which afforded me the ability to purchase my new Stella McCartney for LeSportSac baby bag I've been drooling over guilt free...

Which led me to discover another thing I loved...smartbargains.com...because they were selling my baby bag at a over 40% off!...AND they are shipping it for free!!!

Ahhh...it was a good day. :)

Week 27!!!

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I know, I know...this blog has been consisting of more weekly updates than anything else lately, but I wasn't kidding in my last embarrassingly whiney post when I said I had 7 posts in the works and somehow can't manage to finish a single one! It is not for lack of trying, I assure you.

For now, however...it's Week 27! It has been since Sunday, but I want to make my way back to posting at the top of the week in preparation for the start of my third trimester this Sunday!!! I promise my final trimester will be more prolific than the second, blog-wise. Mostly because I'll be so incapacitated by my size and discomfort that all I'll feel like doing is blogging! So here it is...last weekly update of my Second Trimester!!!

"This week, your baby weighs almost 2 pounds (like a head of cauliflower) and is about 14 1/2 inches long with her legs extended. She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were to be born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle."

No hiccups yet, but plenty of awesome kicking. I love it! Its my favorite thing in the world right now! I could sit and just feel her doing it all day and it'd never be enough.

It's also oddly comforting that she could survive outside the womb for some reason...it feels like a milestone, though a morbid one. I haven't really worried seriously about her health this whole time because I believe so strongly that we were meant to have her, but Jer has been a little concerned, so it's sort a big moment for the Clements collective that she can survive if she had to.

More later...I'm huge and I'm determined to get a picture of the carnage up soon! We'll see if I can complete that simple task by this Sunday...