"in the long run we have found...

electrikthunder:

Watercolors by Sue Howells. VISIT HER WEBSITE

LOVE

(via secondhandcheese)

in the wake of 3 cases of infant death among my dear, dear friends in less than 6 months, i realize now, fully, more than ever before in my life, that every baby that is born is a miracle. yes, we live in america, in the modern age, with every medical advantage. & yes, literally, there are babies born every day, all over the world. but NO baby who is born is commonplace. every time a baby survives for 9 mos in the womb & lives through labor & delivery, & is released to go home to make mommy & daddy crazy with lack of sleep & endless screaming is a miracle.

i adore my son. i have felt the intense weightiness of the miraculousness of his existence. but tonight, as the unimaginable grief & horror of the parents of the third sweet baby gone before ever seeing the home his parents made for him is tearing at the edges of my mind, i realize that even the endless nights & days with no sleep, the never-ending head-splitting, nerve-shattering screaming, & the general nightmarishness that a new baby brings…it’s all miraculous. because it means that your baby is alive & well. & because some parents would give anything, anything in the world to be sleep-deprived, nerve-jangled me right now.

God, help me never forget to be grateful.

Wowza. I have not posted in quite some time. So for today, I will leave you with two things & hope more frequent posting will follow :).

One is this photo of my unbelievably adorable child.

& Two, an observation: It is amazing how spending time with another mother today has made me feel even more strongly about my parenting philosilophies and the ways I’ve chosen to raise my child.

Now, I know there is absolutely not any one cooke-cutter method that works for all parents or all children (believe it or not, I used to think there WAS! …I know, right?), but after talking to this mom who is already forcing her 6-week-old into a schedule, who has been using the “cry it out” method already, & who said that even if her baby is crying & upset, she just leaves him & says too bad, kid, I just…I don’t regret for a second choosing the more natural parenting. Letting our tiny infant eat or sleep when he was ready, even if it was inconvenient for us…always choosing to comfort him when he cries during the night (though now that he’s almost 6 months old, I do let him put himself back to sleep because he’s actually capable of it now without having to scream helplessly for hours & finally wear himself out)…& actually paying attention to his wants and preferences instead of forcing things on him that are convenient for me or making him do things he’s just not that into (tummy time, for instance. & for the record, my boy rolled over when he was 16 weeks old, so don’t try & tell me I was hindering his development by not leaving him to scream on his tummy because “he just needs to learn.”). I believe in listening to your baby, & choosing to comfort & give that craved attention & love even if it’s not convenient or if other people look at you like you’re nuts & tell you “wow, you really baby him” (um, he IS a baby!?).

I don’t know. That’s my soapbox for the day I guess, but it just gets to me how parents like me are seen as weak or silly.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a LOT of things I have learned & will probably do differently with our second child, & I by no means think I know what I’m doing most of the time. But today was just a nice validation of the choices I’ve made…

love.

from head to toe.

the last & most complex project i wanted to have completed before this lil guy makes his appearance was this one. last night, in an unprecedented display of mind over matter, i sat, bug-eyed & bent over my sewing machine, and cranked out 15 tiny poly-satin red balloons. 60 tiny pieces of slippery, silky fabric became 15 little deflated red balloons, all piled on my sewing table, ready to be turned right-side out & filled to perfect balloon-y plumpness. i’m still impressed with my dedication. 

i rewarded myself with a much more comfy seat on the couch (surrounded by needles, red thread, scraps of red silkiness, ribbons, a huge bag of stuffing, and one tiny black kitty) and several episodes of mad men. this partially-finished bunch is the result. and i couldn’t be prouder :D.

now just to finish the last 10, attach them to the bunch, and figure out some way to secure the whole thing to my baby’s crib so he wakes up every morning to something like this:

hope. joy. peacefulness. a general feeling of unimpeded soaring. 

all these things i want for my baby boy. 

jasonbodley:

196/365 Ruthie in the nursery. 

i don’t know if it’s the constant sense of impending change that never quite leaves my mind and heart nowadays, but i’ve been finding myself wanting to make an effort to remember. to not just have vague memories of this time in our lives, but to have a detailed description with times & dates that i can go back & read & really, truly feel the memories. and where better to record my random daily life memories than tumblr? :)

so here goes. i have a few, just to start myself out. 

the other morning when i woke up, i found myself in a state of hopelessly tangled hormones & thoughts & worries, and somehow found myself overwhelmed with sadness, hopelessness, and utter alone-ness. (pregnancy ain’t for the weak, just so ya’ll know!) i lay there in the soft morning light, in our gorgeous white bed with its ridiculously fluffy cloud-like comforter and cried silently with the weight of it all. but then, my still-sleeping husband suddenly rolled over, reached out, & cuddled me close. then, my precious kitty showed up out of nowhere, and planted her fuzzy self right on top of me, purring & happily kneading. so there i was, unexpectedly being held close by the two great loves of my life…& i knew i was ok.

we had a very sudden & unforeseen bout of very fall-like weather here in the first week of september—it went from temperatures in the 90s to 55 overnight! so, of course, we opened every window & door in our house & let the beautiful coolness waft gently through. i woke up every morning and came downstairs to utter peacefulness. every window glowed & the curtains billowed with crisp breezes carrying the scent of trees, leaves, & that elusive-yet-undeniable fall scent. the linoleum in the bathroom and the kitchen chilled my bare feet, and the kitties alternatively lounged luxuriously, blinking contentedly in windowsills and were taken by fits of joyous kitty madness. i drank my coffee wrapped in a blanket & just sat on the couch, loving it all.

my kitty has been having moments of neediness lately. i don’t know if she senses her impending de-throning as the object of all my extra-maternal instincts, or if i’m ignoring her more than i realize in my steadily more frequent lapses into day-dreams of tiny fingers and toes, of impossibly small pants and socks and hats, and soft, sweet-smelling baby skin. but whatever the reason, she has been letting me know, loudly, and with much rubbing and possibly intentional tripping of mama with her extreme under-footedness, that she demands immediate attention. so the other afternoon, during a particularly pointed display of neediness, i gave in and lowered my bulk onto the floor in our living room & proceeded to pull out her favorite toy and play with her for awhile. it was another peaceful moment i want to remember, as i sat against our couch with my expansive, wriggly stomach spread out in front of me, with the late afternoon light slanting in through the windows, with husband’s kitty blinking happily next to my head, and my now completely delighted kitty jumping and prancing and attacking with utter abandon. 

i know these peaceful moments will seem like dreams from another, far-away world once our baby makes his grand appearance & invades every part of our lives with his tiny, noisy, endlessly demanding presence, but i want to remember. and maybe, just maybe, as we become better acquainted with our son & he becomes better acquainted with this new world outside of mommy’s tummy, we’ll find these moments again.

othercat. stately bastard.

<3 love. my. maddie. <3 

i hate it when i wake up completely disoriented…confusing my dreams with reality. these crazy, random pregnancy hormone-induced dreams bring up memories that are all too real…and it takes me an hour or two into the day before i can fully shake them off and move forward. 

but it definitely helps to feel the lil guy happily flipping and kicking and rolling around :) <3