| Today Hendrik is 101 days old! Since I am someone who likes numbers and symmetry, this is quite a momentous day.
There are so many little milestones... I had been concerned that he wasn't keeping his head up yet, and of course I kept seeing pictures of everyone else's more precocious babies who were younger yet already doing algebra or something while holding their heads up. I would put H on his tummy and he would face plant and drool, then cry. I nervously chalked it up to a huge noggin. But then all of a sudden, the day he turned 3 months old, it's like his head became buoyant and he lifted it up and looked all around. He still face plants a lot, but at least it's not his only tummy-bound perspective on the world.
Another fun first was on Mothers' Day.
| | Just being a mother on Mothers' Day was amazing enough, but then I woke up to a sweet card from Dirk with an Amazon gift card and directions to go look in the garage. Imagine my surprise when I found a chest freezer! I wanted one for a long time, but it just hadn't worked out yet. Now I've been daydreaming about myself in a 1950s apron making dinner by waltzing into the garage and pulling out a home-cooked casserole, all ready to go. So here's to some fun casserole making days ahead. That wasn't even the only major purchase of the weekend-- the day before we had bought a minivan--so much more spacious! We're so thankful to have been able to get that. But the best gift happened Mothers' Day afternoon when Dirk and I were playing with our incredibly smiley baby. We were tickling him and making faces and singing and doing whatever we could to make his grin wider. And then, all of a sudden, his grin got so wide it exploded into a bubbly giggle! We both looked at each other: "Did you hear that?" And then we all laughed. What a gift-- better than the freezer, better than a new van.
Here is Hendrik, roughly 40-100 days... our boy getting bigger and bigger. Feeling blessed in good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over!
A conversation with two ninth graders today...
E: Who was Hitler?
me: (to V) Do you know?
V nods.
me: Why don't you tell her?
V: [explanation in Spanish-- all correct-- about how Hitler wanted to rule the world and how he didn't like the Jews]
E: I heard Hitler turned people into zombies.
me: What?
E: Yeah, something fell from the sky and it divided up and he used it to turn people into zombies.
me: I think you're thinking of World War II and Zombies*
E: No, seriously, I really heard it!
me: There are no real zombies in history... you know that, right?
E: I think there are.
I love my students.
* the book I just decided to write in the tradition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead
We have all survived me being back at work for two weeks--hooray! As a friend said, work is a known. I know how to do things there, and I'm especially lucky in that I have small classes and know my students pretty well. It's good I can go on semi auto-pilot, because Hendrik doesn't give me more than 2-3 hours of rest at a time during the night. The daycare lady says he sleeps a lot there, so I keep telling myself he's reverse cycling... I'm really tired. But the summer is coming, and sooner or later longer stretches of sleep. Only a few more weeks-- hey, night feedings just give me more time to love on the little one, right?
As of yesterday Hendrik has a new cousin! It's so exciting!! By the end of the summer, he will have 4 first cousins within a year of his age! That is so fun. But it's sad because they range in distance from 400 to 8300 miles away. I am seeing some exciting road trips in our future. Or, you know, maybe we could start a sibling commune where everyone is required to live in the same compound. Hmm. The wheels are turning.
And... the nursery is finished. We're finally ready to have a baby! I'm so happy with how it turned out. A nursery is a perfect place to exercise my interior design style-- primary colors and lots of artifacts on the walls. It took much longer to finish than I thought it would, but I love how every little detail tells a story. | | | My amazing husband pays so much attention to detail-- he decided to replace all the trim when we repainted. He stained and sealed it, and you can see how much better it looks against the old door (left)! He stained a new closet door (right), and it looks goooood. | | | The mobile, a gift from my sweet parents, who love music. It has buttons for Bach and Beethoven and Mozart-- for all your Baroque, classical, & romantic listening pleasure!
I got the elephant picture at a little baby boutique in Chicago when I got to go up and see Kelly there.
I made the three paintings... I copied the designs from some Wee Gallery cards (I'm not selling them, so no worries)-- have I mentioned I love green and blue together? | | | | Lanterns! From my trip to Beijing almost six years ago, and Chinatown in DC last summer. A tea towel from New Zealand my awesome sister-in-law gave us for Christmas. I added a border and some dowel rods, and voila! Beautiful wall hanging. | | | Turns out origami is one craft it's possible to do while nursing. This mobile has 10 kusudama, each made from 6 sheets of paper. I got the empty mobile on Amazon thinking I would hang pictures from it. But this idea seemed so much more fun. | | | My mother-in-law made the latch hook alphabet, and it was hanging on the wall in my husband's room when he was a baby! It's a special thing to have.
I love bulletin boards. | | | Dirk helped me make these shelves. We used the pattern for ten-dollar ledges, but we used fancy trim instead of plain wood on the front. I like seeing the fronts of the books.
And there are other stories too-- the quilt from African fabrics, the craigslist changing table, the homemade bedskirt and curtains... I'm excited to tell Hendrik all of these stories someday! |
I'm not superstitious, but I have been dreading today for months. It's Friday the 13th, the day I go back to work after 9 weeks of maternity leave. My sweet husband takes good care of me, and it was his idea to go back on a Friday. That way I could get one day under my belt, cry as much as I need, and have the weekend to regroup before diving into a whole week. I'm so glad he watches out for me and knows me so well.
I've been so weepy about leaving Hendrik. Last Friday my aunt came to visit, and she talked about a little embroidered wall hanging her mother-in-law had given her:
Cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow
For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.
I cried when she repeated it, cried when I read it online, and needless to say I spent a good part of the week rocking Hendrik and feeling thankful for the chance to do that. It's really touching, but I'm not sure this poem was written to third-rate housekeepers like me-- the last thing I need is validation for not cleaning!
Back to today. I had visions of waking up at 6 and taking a hot shower, then feeding Hendrik and loading the car up with the bags and lunches I had packed, with plenty of time to drop him off at daycare and get to school by 7:30. But a night on the couch with a wakeful baby and missed alarm clock had me up, looking at the clock bleary-eyed at 7:04. I started crying and rushed around, bagging up fridge items and bringing Hendrik to daycare with a bottle of partially defrosted breast milk for his breakfast. So much for a peaceful morning feeding! He cried the whole way there, and I may have too. I dropped him off and got to school at 7:38, only to realize I had left my pump at home. No way was I going through the day without that. So I battled school traffic to go back home, grabbed the pump, and walked into school just as the 7:50 bell rang. I barely had time to greet the handful of students waiting to say hi and then we were full tilt into the school day.
So many big and small blessings through the day... The chance to show off pictures and hear over and over how cute and precious our son is, a locked storage room off my classroom and several opportunities throughout the day to pump, hearing how a dear student in need got so much financial aid for college. I love working at a school where most of my colleagues have either had babies and gone back to work or watched their wives do it-- lots of sympathy. And my teaching load is great. The kids kept me hopping through the day, so I didn't have time to sit and be sad. I called the daycare during a break and heard that everything was fine, so that eased my mind too.
When I went to pick Hendrik up, the mom who runs it smiled big and said, "He's sleeping!" A few of the older preschoolers ran over to a pack-n-play and pointed in, and there he was, sound asleep. I got a report on what he did-- mostly slept, and he sat in the swing and bouncy chair--and how much he ate, and we went home. I'm so thankful for this great daycare situation in a sweet loving home.
So now we've been gently led through our one-day week, and we have six regular weeks before summer break. I feel more and more confident that we can do this, and I see that God hasn't brought us this far just to make me do the rest on my own. His grace covers us even in daycare and going back to work. He has made a way for our every step, and we are so thankful.
A friend of mine and her husband are going through an excruciatingly painful time right now. After 10 years of infertility and longing for children, last summer they had a successful procedure that resulted in a twin pregnancy with a boy and a girl. So exciting! However, at one of the doctor's visits they couldn't find a heartbeat for one twin and confirmed that the boy had died. They were devastated. My friend continued to carry the little girl. Several weeks later, I think it was an ultrasound that showed that the baby had a problem with her heart, one side of it not being functional. The doctors and specialists made plans to do heart surgery on the baby shortly after she was born-- she would have to have a series of surgeries, with the first one being the riskiest and happening 4-5 days after she was born. My friend's water broke early, around 33 weeks, and went to stay in the hospital. She didn't go into labor for a couple more weeks, so the baby was stronger and bigger (5+ lbs) when she was born. The baby was born almost two weeks ago, and she had her first surgery last week. Things were looking good after the surgery, but a few days later the baby girl died. So my friend has had to go through a memorial service for her little girl and return home to the nursery they have all finished...
I've just been crying and crying, and it makes me angry that we live in a fallen world with death and sadness and tears. It's not what we were designed for... we are living under a curse. This weekend as we remember that "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death," it seems like a victory that's too good to be true. The sadness and brokenness in the world just feels so heavy at times. I ache for my friend. I hope that she senses the Lord walking with her through this, but even if the grief is too much right now, that doesn't change how Jesus conquered death and will wash away all tears.
A wise person once told me that really happy times and really sad times should both point us to heaven-- the first because we long for the really happy times to last forever, and that's a yearning for heaven. And the sad times point us there because we are crying out for healing and deliverance, and we won't fully experience that until we're with Jesus in heaven.
I don't want to include their names for privacy reasons, but please pray for my friend and her husband. And let's pray for Jesus to come back quickly and bring us a new earth without any suffering.
Well, actually it's been 43 days, but I really like the Biblical connections of 40. Hendrik's been with us out in the open the same amount of time it rained during the flood, the same time frame that Jesus fasted... Those were the only two times I remembered off the top of my head, but a quick google search brought up more-- Moses was on the mountain 40 days twice, and the spies checked out Canaan for 40 days. There are more 40 day spells with Elijah, Jonah, and Ezekiel, and Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after he rose from the dead. I now have a greater appreciation for all of these events-- they all seem much longer!
That same google search brought up a page where the period of 40 in the Bible is described as pointing to probation, trial, testing... It's interesting, because in some traditions a newborn and the mother have a 40-day period of confinement where they don't go out or do any extra work besides resting and healing and caring for the baby. I read about a Kazakh tradition of having a 40-day coming out party for the baby where he meets the family and receives blessings from them and a lock of his hair is cut and tucked away in an envelope. Somewhere else I heard about families sharing photos of the baby after 40 days. I like these celebrations. And it feels like an achievement to think we are now through a sort of probation period, even though we didn't exactly stay confined or throw a party.
In honor of Hendrik's 40 days, here are pictures of how he's grown.
 I got this idea from the Young House Love blog, and it has been so much fun! I hope to keep it up all year long. This 6 week photo from yesterday is unfortunately par for the course these last few days. Poor Hendrik has suddenly had a few days of being super fussy and sleep resistant. After his usual night of 2-3 awakenings (depends on how you count it) and long feedings, he slept one time today for an hour or two. He seemed really drowsy a few more times but just would not sleep, despite all sorts of soothing and feeding and whatnot. Dr. Weissbluth says baby fussiness peaks around 6-8 weeks, so hopefully we're normal. It's been a long few days, and it'll probably get worse before it gets better, but I keep reminding myself that we are so blessed. The sleep deprivation is worth it a million times over to have the gift of this little boy. So Hendrik, a 40-day blessing for you: May our Lord Jesus Christ keep you from falling and present you before God's glorious presence without fault and with great joy!
 Thank you, Grandma Mary, for this idea! We found a mirror as we were putting things away in the nursery, and it has made diaper changes so much happier!
What Hendrik lacks in head control he makes up for with facial expressions. It amazes us how fast he can go from one extreme to the next-- crybaby one minute, happy and cooing the next. Or, more often, the other way around. Let me just take this moment to say that I had not guessed how much his crying would set me on edge! Dirk says his cry sounds like a two-cycle engine, but it's not that. Even if it was melodious it would make my blood pressure go up... I have just never heard the cry of a little baby who is my job to take care of. It's incredible how we are wired like this-- him to be cute and cry sometimes and me to love his cuteness and want to do anything to keep him from crying.
I wonder if time moves differently for babies... Maybe every cycle of sleeping and eating is like a little day, and babies feel older than their years (days, months) because of it. Maybe every shift of facial expressions, no matter how close together, really does show the difference between the pinnacle of bliss and the end of the world. Maybe one part of growing up is not becoming more aware of your emotions but more dulled to them. Or maybe it's mostly gas and pooping. I'd rather think it's the emotional thing!
Here are some of Hendrik's highs and lows over the last few days...
I concentrate better with my mouth open.
the crucifix position
please no more photo shoots!!!
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Boo!
So sleepy
the thinker
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 ...we were in the hospital, high on adrenaline, and just looking and looking at our new baby boy!
We are still looking and looking, and amazed at plumped-out cheeks and a Buddha belly and eyes that stay open longer each day.
Yesterday it was 64 degrees outside (a Leap Day miracle in Indiana), and I loaded Hendrik up in the baby carrier for a nice walk to the library. He fell right asleep, through the library visit and the windy walk back home.
Happy three weeks, little one! Next week we'll celebrate with a visit to the doctor to see how much you've grown.
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