Wee Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures of Mom before the baby arrived:

And some Wee pictures:

Fun Fact: Little was born exactly 29 days before Mom's birthday, and Wee was born exactly 29 days after Mom's birthday.

More later . . .

Happy Birthday, Wee!

Our beautiful little girl, Liv ("Wee"), was born today at 7:30 pm. She is 8 lbs and 1.8 oz. She is also 21 and 1/4 inches long. She has full cheeks and an extra chin (very cute)! Both mother and daughter are doing well. I am just home from the hospital to pick up a couple of things, so I thought I would let everyone know. I am heading back to the hospital now. We will post pictures soon.

waiting for our Liv to begin

no baby yet. shut up.we know. there are so few days left before Wee arrives and still so much fun to do. whatever. we'll do just about anything to distract ourselves from all the waiting. having hubs home all the time is the best thing that's happened since the moon landing and the invention of scotch tape (swoon), but still. there's a certain amount of anxiety that builds as the due date approaches.

since i'm not into castor oil, we've been trying out another concept: patience. yesterday we day-tripped it up to Solvang, a little danish-founded town that caters to silly people like us who appreciate the pretend danish architecture and can comfortably eat our weight in pastry.

it's so good when it hits your lips.

the drive up and back was quick and pretty (Little slept most of the way and i read aloud to hubs from a mystery novel). Little's favorite parts of the trip: picking leaves. climbing stairs. investigating lumps on the sidewalk.

i'm getting to that point in this process where i start having wild dreams that i give birth to a fish or a puma--or a fully dressed toddler. does anyone else remember that episode of northern exposure where pregnant shelly wakes up one morning and can't speak--she can only sing? i'm one step away.

i will be fine. but wish this one luck. her world is about to get rocked.

i know it's wrong

instead of cleaning my house yesterday to prepare for the arrival of Wee, i cashed in a christmas check from grandma H. and paid a team of 3 far more efficient women to come do it for me. i am not going to lie to you. it was super-duper.

and now i can do less of this:

and more of this:
don't think i won't.

2008 in review

kind of small, but i think you can click on the image to enlarge. if you feel inclined to so spend your time.

Little lately

1. Little made the observation last night that the logs in the fire look like (or, in her opinion, are definitely) fire poop. something to remember.

2. a few days ago i found this little scene in the doorway to the hall.

3. my dad made her a toybox for christmas. she plays "go to sleep" in it all day.


4. this game takes the place of actual sleep, which she's been doing less of since i started to wean her from the pacifier--her "sassy." today i gave in. it's a long story--3 days' worth--that ends with her in the fetal position, post-hysteria, falling to sleep the instant i give her the sassy. and me being a horrible human being.

5. she got her first haircut. (above picture is after the super-fine, snarly baby hair was trimmed off. now when we comb hair i am a slightly preferable version of my horrible self. that is, neither of us has to cry.)

note: all my pictures lately have been fuzzy, which i know is distracting. i think the smears were caused by Little "taking pictures" by pushing the on/off button repeatedly and hitting herself in the eye with the retractable lens. i just spit on it a little so we should be okay now.

this just in

I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

there's nothing like teaching sunday school to make my ignorance even more obvious than usual. it's not like i wasn't aware of this before. but it seems harder to accept now that i'm thirty-two big ones. somehow i just thought i'd be...smarter by now.

glad that's over. i can go back to being a big phony in my own head instead of in front of groups of people.


anybody else feel a little silly today? or in general? no? just me? okay.

don' lee me, come ba! COME BAAAA!!!!!!!!

yes, i haven't posted in a while.

it was a christmas to remember, so i will get to the remembering soon...but i think i'm just not quite ready to deal with everyone being gone yet. i wouldn't say i'm totally depressed, just middling. not that Little and i aren't having a fun post-holiday extended party here, 'cause we so are. and i'm pretty sure i already got my good cries all out (2 of 2). i save these up for the end of the year. (i have a theory about this, which i'll share in my next post.)

meanwhile, here are a few lovelies from lauren's new christmas camera:

bideos

done it before, i'll do it again

Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.