So far, Penny has been hooked on “Soothie” pacifiers which don’t have a clip on the end. I’ve been wanting to switch her over to regular pacifiers for a while now, but it wasn’t until I dropped her final Soothie on the floor in her nursery and was unable to find it that I pulled out this amazing elephant paci clip with a delicious bpa-free pacifier on the end of it. I was doubtful that she’d make the switch easily, but as soon as I stuck it in her mouth she was sold. As for me, I’m sold on clipping it to her outfit and never losing the pacifier again!

From Daily Daguerreotype

Doesn’t that elephant just make you swoon!? WHY DO I LOVE SAFARI ANIMALS SO MUCH?!?!? Thanks, Auntie Lynne!

• Today Penelope is six weeks old, which pretty much blows my mind. She saw both sets of her grandparents this past weekend who hadn’t seen her since birth, and they all remarked that she was chubbing up a bit. It’s hard to see it when you’re with her all day, but my arms certainly can tell that she’s gaining weight. She’s got a pediatrician appointment on Friday, so I’ll find out how much she weighs now.
• Just when you feel like you’re starting to get into the groove of things – her schedule and feeding patterns were becoming more predictable – your parenting gets totally thrown because they hit another growth spurt. Right now we’re in the throes of it as she is eating all the time – sometimes once an hour. It’s wearing her out, though, so she’s sleeping a lot and being cute while doing so.
• This past weekend Penny took her first flights – from Nashville to DC to NH, then NH to Newark to Nashville. I loved that DC was the first place outside of Tennessee that she visited, since I have a special love for it after living there one summer in college. Our flight attendant on the first leg of the journey gave us a signed certificate from the pilot and co-pilot with her name and seat number on it. Matt especially found that adorable.
• Yesterday we took our first trip to the grocery store alone – just the girls. She cried the whole time, but her tiny newborn squeal was barely noticeable in such a large building.
• Six weeks is also a huge step in healing from my C-section, and I’m so happy to finally be here. I definitely feel almost back to normal, I’d say about 90%. Frankly, I’m thrilled that I’m finally at this point so I can start exercising regularly to lose the baby weight. I have some extra weight that I want to lose on top of the baby weight as I put on some pounds from some serious emotional eating after my miscarriage. I have a goal to lose it all before our family cruise in February, with my reward being a hot mom bathing suit and… um… ALL THAT CRUISE FOOD.
• She looks absolutely gorgeous in baby blue.
• We’re starting to make habits, and her personality is starting to shine through. She is a major snuggler. She wants to be held and snuggled all the time and sleeps best when she’s snuggled in bed with me. We get that time every day during her afternoon nap and first thing in the morning while Matt’s getting ready for work.
• She fights going to sleep at night, so we’re starting to just act like nothing big is about to happen, then we let her fall asleep in whatever room we’re in and transfer her to her crib. I think we are programming a terrible habit, but The Behaviorist is not concerned and thinks we’ll be able to break her of the snuggle-to-sleep when she’s old enough to cry it out.
• Yes, we’ll probably do the cry-it-out thing. I’ve already determined that Penny is definitely the type of kid that gets worn out by crying instead of escalating. I think when she’s about 3 months we’ll start sleep training her. Which is crazy since we’re halfway there!
• She has been introduced to Ben Harper, David Gray, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Tom Waits, Journey, Elton John, Billy Joel, and John Scofield. The only one she hates is Billy Joel, although it’s hard to determine whether she really hates him or just hates it when I sing his songs.
• She is smiling and cooing now, and it’s more than I can handle.
• She looks a lot like her daddy.

From Daily Daguerreotype

I can’t believe there are two people in the world I love this much.

Tiny Turtle from priscilla on Vimeo.

On Penny’s birthday, my mom’s mom heard the news of Penny’s arrival, and then died two hours later. Today is her funeral in Connecticut. And my midwife says no air travel until four weeks after delivery, so that means I won’t be there to remember her and celebrate her life.

Of all the people in the world whose life I would want to celebrate, hers is at the top of the list. Since I can’t be there in person, I will remember Grammie here, surrounded by her furniture, china, trinkets, and little white sweater that she knit for my daughter.

My grandmother was the definition of a strong and capable woman. Any resilience in life that I have in me came directly from her. My mad canasta skills also are attributed to her. She loved to travel, and saw most of the globe bringing home wonderful stories of her adventures. She was an outstanding New England cook who baked incredible pies and put on the best Thanksgiving dinner you’ll ever eat. She was thrifty and smart and a little bit snarky too. She was awesome.

But as I was telling my sisters the other day, perhaps the thing I loved best about Grammie was how much she loved Matt. When I brought him home, she and my grandfather adored him. They loved talking about the challenges of Matt’s job with him, the places in Europe he had visited, and his home state of New Jersey. Grammie respected him and thought I had done well for myself, which was the biggest compliment I could ever get. Watching her love on Matt made me melt inside, and I loved sharing him with her. I’ll never forget playing cards with her and Grampa – they taught Matt their game of canasta, and to this day he plays just as cutthroat as they did. Matt used to trash talk Grammie at the card table, and she threw it right back at him. He loved her probably as much as I did. He definitely loved her pies.

I’m so saddened that none of my children will get a chance to meet this wonderful woman. I’m also saddened that just like that all of my grandparents are gone. The last year and a half has taken three of them, and I’ve become accustomed to this process.

But my very resilient grandmother would not let anything stop her from overcoming the challenge at hand, and neither will I. Tonight we’ll play a game of cards (and I’ll kick Matt’s butt!), and we’ll tell Penny the stories that Grammie told me about her African safari. And one day we’ll take Penny on a similar African safari and the stories will come alive. Grammie would like that.

My baby will be two weeks old tomorrow, and let me tell you, the time freaking flies. I’ve been wanting to blog, you know, with pictures and all, but somewhere between the millions of guests (seriously, I had no idea we had this many friends!) and the endless pediatrician appointments (Baby Girl is up to 8 lbs 7 oz already!) I completely forgot about the fact that I have a blog. I also didn’t care that our wifi wasn’t working for about a week.

But now that the visitors have all gone, and I actually have time to sit down and stare at my baby and learn each and every one of her facial expressions, I am torn between my desire to write about it and tell the world how stinkin cute she is, and my desire to just sit there some more… staring at her face and kissing her toes.

I can only sum up the past two weeks by saying that the first week was me in survival mode. Surviving from a long labor and abdominal surgery, and trying to share my girl with all the people who came to see her and not be one of THOSE moms. The second week was me crashing down from the week before, which I survived purely on adrenaline. So I slept, and I snuggled her, and we went to appointments, and came home and napped because we were so exhausted.

But now… this part right now… this is what I was living for during the past nine months of pregnancy. I have a load of darks in the washing machine. The dishwasher is going and my kitchen is clean. I just changed the sheets on our bed since Penny peed on them this morning. And now I’m sitting at the dining room table checking my email for what feels like the first time in weeks, and staring at my daughter who is sitting in her bouncy seat on the dining room table. (I was totally one of those people who saw children placed precariously on things like counters and dining room tables in all manner of infant seats and thought, “OMG THEY ARE GOING TO DIE!” And now I am one of those people who does it because I have tried bending over, and the pain from my incision makes me scream, “OMG I AM GOING TO DIE!”)

I can’t begin to tell you how in love with her I am, and it all would just sound so cliche if I tried. I’m kinda waiting for the Baby Blues or the dreaded post-partum hormones to kick in and make me hate everything, including The Rolling Stones. But it hasn’t happened yet. In fact, each day I wake up and I like her more than I did the day before. I know her more than the day before. And I would chop off an even more important body part of mine for her than I would have the day before. The crying jags that I’ve had seem to be about two things. The first being my frustration at how slow recovering from a C-section can be – my desire to be up and about and taking my girl to the zoo is just that strong. And the second is when I realize yet again how blessed I am that I’m going to be a Stay At Home Mom. I just weep in Matt’s arms and thank him incessantly for making it possible for me to spend each and every day just hanging out with Penny. My life is great, internet. It really truly is.

So that’s what Penny’s first two weeks have been for me. As for her, she is growing like a weed. She loves to eat, and does it well. She takes a bottle and a pacifier and her mother’s cowlike teet all equally well. She sleeps wonderfully – last night gave us a 5 hour chunk before quietly whimpering for a diaper change and… maybe a snack, please? She even took her first Hep B shot like a champ this morning which leads me to believe she has her father’s medical disposition.

But right now? Right now it’s time for me to feed her again, so we’re going to head to her room to sit in the rocker for a half an hour of uninterrupted time, just me and my girl. And I think this time I’ll sing some Michael Jackson to her.

The midwife sent me home with the edict to spend the weekend doing nothing but the thing that got me into this mess to begin with. Matt had an evil glint in his eye. Boy is embracing midwifery more and more each visit.

41 weeks is no more uncomfortable than 40 weeks or 39, or 38. Would I love to be holding my baby girl this very moment? Absolutely. But I continue to be tickled pink that I have a team of care providers who are really in my court – ones who feel induction at this stage is unnecessary unless Penny was not responding well to the tests. I have until Monday before I go in for more tests, and should we pass those I’ll have until 42 weeks before they will plan induction.

A lot of people have asked me why I don’t just go ahead and get induced anyway. Aren’t I uncomfortable? Wouldn’t I rather just get the inconvenient waiting over with? I so appreciate that they understand how non fun it is being this pregnant for this long, but I truly believe that my babe will come when God wants her to come. Getting her out for my own comfort seems a bit… selfish, no? I want her arrival into the world to be the God-ordained, natural process that it is supposed to be.

Plus if I do this laboring according to my brilliant plan, I can come out the other end without once being touched with a needle.

So a big thank you to all of our dear friends and family who are inundating us with love, support and encouragement. As Tom Petty so correctly put it, “the waiting is the hardest part.” But I am having so much fun spending these last few weeks with Matt, and am really happy that my care providers are giving me the (very normal and healthy for a first-time mom) extra time for Penelope to make her way into the world.

Scuse me… I just got a rascally wink. Duty calls.

This week has been one where I have felt very blessed by the friends and acquaintances in my life. My house is bursting with fresh flowers that have been given to me all week long. A chair in our living room is covered in gifts that I need to write thank-you notes for. My email inbox is overflowing with messages from people who are thinking of us, praying for us, and telling me to hang in there for the next few miserable days until she arrives. I am truly blessed.

A few months ago, our pastor called Penny our “Blessing Baby” when referring to her in conversation. I found it moderately cheesy, but in actuality she really, truly is. Even yesterday as I moaned to Matt about how sore I was, I still got giddy thinking about how she is now fully formed – fully ready to live in the outside world. Perfectly knit together. And more Matt for me to love.

I want her so badly. I have wanted her so badly since what feels like forever ago. I am eager to have her radically change my life. I am ready for her to stress me out. I am dying to be her mama and take care of her every need. I can’t wait to see what she accomplishes in her life and how she changes the world.

And as I write all of this I am astonished by what I’m saying. I’m floored that I have become this person – this person who just cannot wait to go through labor and delivery and get to the other side where I’m holding my tiny baby girl in my arms. I never thought I would be this person. I never thought I’d admit it even if I became this person. Although, I still wouldn’t be all that disappointed if a puppy came out instead.

While I’m incredibly impatient and can hardly go ten minutes without thinking “WHEN THE FLIP IS SHE GOING TO MAKE HER APPEARANCE, ALREADY!?!” I am trying to kick back and enjoy the last two weeks of our lives as we know them. I’m trying to get and keep my house in order. I’m trying to look at Matt as my best friend and partner in crime, not just my Baby Daddy. I’m trying not to kill the cat for making me have to vacuum daily.

But I sure wouldn’t mind if the next two weeks flew by in double time.

Which meant Berlin spent a lot of time sleeping on her bed all alone.

After I dropped my mom off at the airport last Saturday morning, it was as if Berlin got a new lease on life and she’s been euphoric ever since. We were home most of the weekend, and while running around a bit this week, at least one of us has been home at almost any given time since then. Berlin’s getting evening fetch with her dad again, something she had gone weeks without. And she has morning snuggles with her mom, something that was traded in for rushed early mornings when I needed to be up to let the drywallers in.

In fact Berlin’s been so happy over the past few days that she appears to have sprained a leg while playing too hard outside. It looks really painful, yet her tail is wagging frenetically because to her, life seems to be back to normal! It’s just the four of us in the house again! So she spends her days randomly going in and out of her dog door – inside to snuggle for a while, outside to play. And she couldn’t be happier.

They say you’re supposed to prepare your pets for your baby’s arrival so that they don’t become territorial or aggressive. I’m not at all worried about that; Berlin doesn’t have an aggressive bone in her body. But I am going to be sad to see my happy girl return to long days sleeping on her bed from lack of attention.

We have about five and a half weeks (give or take a couple days) left of this life that we know so well before it all radically changes. Now that my nesting urge seems to be calming down a bit, I just want to spend each day soaking in the normalcy. Until we have a new normal defined for us.

See, I’ve been pregnant for nine out of the past twelve months. Matt and I moved to Nashville just 15 days shy of a year ago, unpacked boxes in our temporary apartment, hung our pajamas together, and took that life changing pregnancy test. Two months of my first pregnancy went by, and then my mom flew out to be with me during the hardest week of my life. Her visit last July changed everything about our relationship. Up until then, she was my mom, and I loved her. But when she came out to Tennessee to help me through my miscarriage, suddenly her MOMHOOD struck me like never before. All those years of hearing her tell me to “drive safely!” while I rolled my eyes came flooding back, and suddenly I realized A) what it feels like to be a mother, B) how the last thing a mother ever wants is for her child to hurt, and C) what it’s like for a mother to lose a child you loved more than life itself. My mom now totally made sense.

I’m not sure she realizes it, but since then I’ve opened up to her in ways I never had before. I’ve told her things I haven’t told anyone else (other than Matt – sorry, Mom, but you would want me to be honest with my husband, I’m sure). I’ve gone to her to cry instead of the people I might have otherwise gone to. In the past year, I have finally taken advantage of her motherhood the way she had offered it to me for years.

People often ask me if it’s hard living far from family, and the biggest thing I miss is that I would have loved to share the past seven months of this pregnancy with my mom… in person. Because I’ve realized just how much I need her to mother me… at age 27. I’ve realized how much I want to be a mom just like her. And a mother-in-law just like her. And a grandmother just like her. I want to be like my mom.

So she’s coming out next Monday, and for a full week we’ll be able to live out pregnancy together the way that I’ve wanted to for the nine months of this past year that I was pregnant. We’ll shop and clean and daydream about Penny together. She’ll give me tips and advice, and bemoan raising daughters, and I’ll likely cry a lot when I voice my fears and concerns to her. And I will so enjoy just soaking up her motherhood. It will be such a great time of bonding, but it will also be a time of closure and healing. Last time she came alone to visit us, she was here to mother me in a dark place. And this time, she’s here to celebrate with me.

All of this to say, I love my mom. And yet again in my life, God has shown me that I will face tough stuff ahead, but there is so much to celebrate. New life, green grass, faithful friends, a man I admire, creme brulee, a puppy romping in her backyard, and fresh beginnings. And the best daggone mom in the world.

I am sooooo excited about this article (the second newspaper article I’ve been interviewed for… EVER!) because I really enjoy reading this health reporter’s columns as she’s very fair and balanced. And I think we could all use a bit more health reporting that is balanced. Something along the lines of OMG! SWINE FLU = THE APOCALYPSE!

Plus I love that she’s bringing attention to midwifery – a subject that sadly very few women know anything about. I know that I personally knew nothing about midwifery until I started doing my own research because it’s just not in the public eye.

At any rate, this is all falling on the week that we returned from a fun trip to the East Coast. Meaning I had no food in the house and the house was a mess. We had just finished painting the kitchen floor, so the kitchen was ripped apart. And the drywall for the upstairs gets delivered tomorrow morning with the crew right behind ready to start working. Tomorrow morning Matt has his board certification exam, which is just a tiny little bit important. Meaning if he passes he gets a nice fat raise. And the letters behind his name will now say “M.A.  B.C.B.A.”

Then we’ve got Matt’s climbing buddy coming in from Massachusetts on Saturday to go rock climbing for the weekend, and my mom arrives on Monday morning to hang out with me for a week. Which means I will frantically clean every nook and cranny of my house only to have her arrive and clean it all much better than I did the first time. And I will love and adore her for it.

And somewhere in there, I need to finish the nursery because the photographer from The Tennessean will be coming by to take a picture. Of me. At seven months pregnant and heavy enough to be a mean and competitive contestant on The Biggest Loser.

Strangely enough, all of this hectic activity is actually really good for me. I work best under tight deadlines, and frankly get a rush from anything that feels a little bit like a high school theatrical production.

But if I completely crash and forget to pick my mom up from the airport on Monday morning, can someone please tell her it was all because I opened my big fat mouth? She’ll roll her eyes and understand.