two months//dear maddox

dear maddox,

today you are [already] two months old. even though i still feel like you were just born, i woke up the other day and realized may was half over (and now almost over). which means this year is almost half over. which means time doesn't slow down even one tick when you have kids. weren't we just sitting in our friend's apartment ringing in the new year? you were about twenty six weeks, just developing your hearing so you could listen to us talk. and now may is almost over. you sure change time, kid.

you have changed so much right before our eyes. not only are you bigger (but we don't really see that. until we sit with a week old baby at church and realize just how big and how you aren't a newborn anymore) but you look different, too. you're not our tan little grumpy baby anymore. all your jaundice is gone which makes you the color of a normal human being and not snooki. your face is developing features and that newborn look is gone. you look like a baby now but i still call you a newborn, especially if i'm ranting and raving about something (smokers, most likely. mama's gotta protect those newborn lungs!).

your newest thing is talking. you talk SO much. i wonder where you get that from? ;] you make noises all day long and we just talk back to you and you babble your sweet little coos and squeaks back to us.

you also have started making tears when you cry. oh man, that breaks my heart. i laid you down for two seconds to change some laundry and when i turned around your eyes were filled with tears and i promise i will never lay you down again if you promise to not make any more tears.

you LOVE sitting up. AND standing. we lay in bed with our legs propped up and lean you against them. you talk and kick and dive bomb to the side and we laugh and tickle you and lose hours and hours this way. and standing, oh man. i think you're going to be the earliest walker this world has ever seen. we hold you under your arms and you stand and bounce and "take steps" with your right foot (pick it up and put it down, pick it up and put it down) and you smile the entire time.


and we cannot forget about smiling. smiling's your favorite. that first smile the day before my birthday was only the beginning. you smile all day long especially when we're talking to you and when we say "hi." you have the best smile and i know i'm biased but it's more than just mommy brag. it's real life. it's especially adorable because you have one lone dimple, just like your mama. it melts me.

we've got this nursing thing down pat. i lay in bed and nurse you and we cuddle. it's your favorite way to be nursed and mine too because it requires zero effort at 3 am. thank you for being such a good feeder. you are your father's son. i'm afraid you might not even remember how to nurse any other way which might prove to be a problem when your parents are idiots and pack everything including the kitchen sink into your diaper bag and somehow manage to leave your bottle on the counter. not that that has happened multiple times or anything. i think you should tell your daddy that i could remember the bottle if i had a prettier diaper bag. i think that's the problem.

you're happiest right after you've been fed. which, by the way, happens about every 3-4 hours if i'm lucky. you were going a little more than four hours right after your one month birthday and then you decided to have a growth spurt and went all the way down to two hours. you go a little longer at night and we basically feed you only once in the middle of the night, usually around 4 am. you eat again between 6-8 and after i keep you in bed with me and we sleep. don't tell your doctor. we always wake up to your daddy coming home from the gym and sneaking a picture of us and then the three of us spend some time cuddling before it's time to get up and get on with the day.

EXCEPT. except, sweet boy, last night, on the eve of your two month birthday, you slept from 11 to 6. ELEVEN TO SIX! this isn't the first time you've slept through the night, though. the first time was at seven weeks. just one little teasing of what life used to be like, way back when (way back when i wasn't pregnant because sleeping when pregnant is not a real thing) and then you were promptly back to waking up every 4-5 hours or so. but that was a good two month birthday present to us. you eased the pain of your growing up by letting us get a full night's rest. so thank you for that.

at seven weeks i quit my job so that i could stay home with you. oh, how i love spending my days with you. and just last week your daddy officially got hired at church to be a part of the college ministry and we are so proud of him! we. you don't have a choice. i make all decisions on your behalf. anyway. i get to stay home and raise you. the day after i quit my job, one of our favorite people on the planet said to me, "God will honor that and bless you immensely." so i know that was the right decision. also because the amount of time that i've been away from you in two months is three hours. three hours.

at some point you lost almost all the hair on the top of your head. it didn't fall out, it was just gone. it's back now, and growing fast. you never lost the hair on the back of your head though, and so you sort of have a baby mullet going on. 

this week one of your daddy's coworkers lost her daughter in a super tragic accident. i held you a lot tighter that day and cried a lot of tears as i rocked you and prayed for your safety and your days and my heart because when people say that a child is a mama's heart walking around outside her body, it is true. and so you're going to get a lot more kisses and extra tight hugs and that's just how it's going to be.

as for me, i no longer feel (as) guilty putting you in your bed to sleep. by bed, i mean anything but your crib. you aren't a fan of laying flat on your back. which yes, that means you're still in our room, next to our bed, in the rock and play. the night before you were born, your daddy was setting up the monitor and these were his exact words, "i want him sleeping in his crib on night two. night one he can be in our room but i don't want this to turn into months and months and months in our room." HA HA HA HA. we laugh about that a lot.

it's kind of hard to comprehend how things will be when you have this new life to take care of. i keep you in our room so that i can listen to you breathe. so that i wake up the moment you do. so that you're near me if something happens. so i'm near you if you need me. but i know i'm going to have to wean you (and me) of that soon. even though a) that doesn't sound fun, and b) i don't want to.

you make me super nervous when you sleep because you're a burrower. we swaddle you and you somehow tuck your face under the blanket, and sometimes your whole head. the first time i woke up and peeked into your rock and play only to see your face smashed into the blanket, i died for about three seconds while i ripped the covers off your body to check your breathing. now i carefully make a little extra room in your cocoon for your little burrowing face.

you just keep getting better, maddox. you were so much fun when you were a squishy new born who loved to sleep skin to skin as much as possible. and now you smile and are developing a personality and recognize our voices and our faces. you're so smart and you're insanely strong. you are so much fun to be around and we are so proud to call ourselves your mama and daddy.


i love you,
mama

so this is love

i found these from my birthday last year. i'm a statue and evan is a dancer. sounds about right. i love him.

We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all. 

extremely loud & incredibly close

[untitled]

sundays are our nothing days. typically we get up late, late enough to skip breakfast and head straight to lunch. we keep our clothes in their drawers and closets and we cover up with blankets instead. we don't do our hair and we don't even think about makeup. we catch up on all our shows and we read books and we cuddle. we soak up a million baby smiles from a baby who found his voice and his smile this week.

i used to feel guilty about wasting an entire day in bed. but with a husband home only two days a week, weekends are made to be spent together in whatever ways we desire. we can stand to waste more than a few hours in bed. we can especially stand it when it's been raining for three days and nights and going outside in the rain with a baby is just not happening. so, we curl up, i tuck my legs under evan's, he propps maddox up between us and we start another episode of grey's anatomy and i fall in love over and over and over again with my boys and this simple but oh-so perfect life.

mother's day photoshoot

we did a little mother's day photo shoot because you can't beat 75 degree spring days in our secret photo spot with our new little (oh-so photogenic) man. and it was all sorts of perfect. my two favorite boys + sunshine + the prettiest blooming trees. i swear, i never noticed how absolutely gorgeous those pink and white trees are. every time we drive by one i beg evan to stop so i can take a picture. also i almost lost all of my iphone photos because i tried to restore my phone (music issues) and it restored to march 30, 2012. ummmm there was no maddox on march 30, 2012. ruined my whole day and i've never cried so hard over stupid technology in my life. don't worry, i got it figured out and retrieved all of my photos. thank sweet baby jesus for icloud and google. and if you're wondering how to get DIY ombre hair, just go ahead and dye your hair consistently for a lot of years and then get pregnant and take prenatal vitamins so that your hair grows really really fast and then stop dying your hair for nine months and your roots should grow out in your natural hair color and be a completely different color than your ends. voila! DIY ombre. you're welcome.

 

twenty five

24, you were a good year to me. ask me anytime last year and i might not have said the same thing. but now that it's over, now that i can look at the year as a whole and not just at the pieces as they appeared, i can honestly say that it was my best year yet.

+this time last year i was dealing with the end of a friendship and dealing with so much hurt and anger i could hardly get through a single day without lashing out to evan about that entire situation. i was just consumed by hurt and heartbreak and going into my 24th year, i was searching for closure and the ability to forgive. now i have both and it took an entire year for me to realize that it's not a simple thing you say and accomplish. it takes time and energy and work and it's an ongoing process. i have to choose love and forgiveness instead of resentment and anger every single time. but that was the biggest and most important lesson learned this year.

+this time last year evan was starting his internship at the church where he would work two full time jobs and weekends and i would see him sparingly for the next three hundred and sixty five days. my heart was breaking because if you know me, you know i need my husband and that i suck at sharing him. and we made it work. he changed his schedule a billion times for me so that we tried every single combination of schedules until we found one that worked. one that gave us a few nights off during the week and always at least one full weekend day. we had a schedule that allowed for three lunch dates during the week and that one was my favorite, even if it was short-lived. what also was my favorite was watching my husband lead serve groups around our town. then he started and lead(leads) a singles ministry and lead(leads) events for all the single people in our church. and i am so proud. it was a hard year. and it pales in comparison to what so many couples go through, but we are stronger and smarter and better time managers and we made it through an entire year with less time together than we've ever spent. and i am so proud of us. we. did. it.

+this time last year i wasn't pregnant. i wasn't planning on kids anytime soon. i wasn't preparing my house for a little bundle of joy to take it over. but here we are. one year later and i have the best life. if you would have asked me where i thought i'd be today, this life would not have been the one i'd have described to you. but oh how things change and become great. even the unplanned events that rock your world (like a wagon wheel) and change everything. uh, do more than change everything. i'm so happy with where i've ended up, no matter how unintentional that may be.

and this might have been my favorite birthday yet: a wonderful husband and a perfect baby boy + a few friends and SUSHI. FINALLY SUSHI.

when i was in the hospital i had blueberry muffins every morning for breakfast and since then i've been craving blueberry muffins like nobody's business. BUT. i hate raw suger and every. single. bakery is obsessed with raw sugar. if i'm eating a soft muffin, why would i want to also eat crunchy sugar? I DON'T. is the answer to that. so evan special ordered me some NO RAW SUG blueberry muffins (YEEEUM) and also bought me an espresso machine (double YEEEUM).

we sat in the park across from our house and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine (while it snowed like crazy in the states surrounding us-HA! it's not allowed to snow on my birthday). we did a little birthday shopping at target where evan didn't complain once about shopping and my indecisiveness or my complaints about WHY THE HECKFIRE ARE MY BOOBS SO BIG?! you don't even realize it until you try to buy a shirt with buttons. HEY OH. evan also bought me some tulips because every year when i was growing up i took pictures in front of my mama's tulips. then the tulips stopped blooming and she dug up the tulips and that was the same time that evan and i started dating and so he took over the tradition and now he brings me birthday tulips.

we also popped some tags, well evan popped tags and bought a $12 suit for a mad men party we're attending. except look how handsome my husband looks in it! (don't look. he's married.) i'm going to make him wear it all the time after i make sure there's no lice crawling on it or whatever sorts of things come from thrift stores. i tried on a billion dresses and failed at fitting into anything. but did win at sending evan a super attractive picture of myself with like 80 chins because he brought me a woman's (why do men not know what the "w" stands for?!) dress to try on and i said, "as if i need help looking like a whale." because, post pregnancy bod, get it togetherrrr.

we finished the night off with friends and sushi and a crying baby who peed through his "mommy loves me" onesie and adorable hoodie and of course the restaurant did not have a changing table because who needs that noise?

i love birthdays. ALSO? two embarrassing things happened on my birthday: 1) evan dropped and broke a porcelain cup at world market. shattered it. in front of a hundred people. 2) i opened a package in my car, the kind of package that is like bright orange envelope package where you rip open a tab to open it. then i walked around world market for like 15 minutes with a giant piece of bright orange envelope stuck to my crotch.

WE ARE AWESOME.
SLASH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.
[evan did not get me a chocolate cake for my birthday which is my one requirement, even before tulips because chocolate cake is my favorite favorite. so evan, when you read this, i'm adding chocolate cake to your tab. thanksloveyoubye.]

AND, in other additions to kind of crappy birthday happenings: maddox gave us his first REAL smile on wednesday, the day before my birthday. we get smiles all the time when he's falling asleep or sometimes when evan tickles his chin and his bottom lip. but this smile? this smile was an honest-to-God, legit i see you and i like you so i'm going to smile at you, smile. and the reason he did it? he saw evan. he was laying on MY tummy, while evan had his face all up in maddox's grill and was saying, "hi, maddox! hi, bud!" and maddox just let go of thee biggest smile. evan captured it on camera BUT the first smile was for his dad?! on the eve of my birthday?! poo on that. [i got four smiles the next day. within an hour. sort of evening out.] (excuse the crappy cell phone picture. what matters is that we caught it!)

sleep talk with a baby

sometimes all times, we like to talk in our sleep. it used to just be evan, but i've picked up on it, too. maybe it's because i'm exhausted or because my sleep schedule is completely jacked. whatever the reason, evan and i certainly do not need to be awake to have a conversation with one another.

here's what's been said over the past month:
(also keep in mind that maddox sleeps next to our bed in his rock & play because i'm attached to him and still sometimes need to put my hand on his chest to feel his breaths. don't judge. he'll sleep in his room eventually.)

/me: "his head keeps falling off! his head keeps falling off!"
evan: "are you feeding him?!"
me: silence.

/a few minutes later...
me: "i can't find him. he's between us." also me frantically hitting the sheets/bed between us.
evan: "WHAT?! WHAT?! WHERE IS HE?! WHY IS HE IN OUR BED???"
me: silence.

/one night maddox woke up screaming his head off to be fed and evan sat up in bed, leaned over me and shouted, "THAT'S MY BABY! THAT'S MY BABY!" then fell back into bed and was instantly back asleep.

/one night evan got up to feed him and brought him back in, put him in his crib and then left the room. it woke me up but not up enough to fully register what was happening so i dreampt/thought that evan had laid maddox on my chest. evan left the room for probably 2 minutes and i laid in bed with my hands on my chest holding this imaginary baby. when evan climbed back into bed i asked him to "put him in his crib." evan responded, "in his room?" "no." "do you mean the rock and play?" "no!" "what are you trying to say?" "no. take him off my chest." evan laughs. "he's in his rock and play." then i got mad. "do you know you're talking in your sleep?" i rolled over and went back to sleep.

in case you want to read more funnies from evan, there is this post and this post.