Hello, Goodbye*

So I think we can all agree that my attempt at blog-as-baby-book has completely and finally failed.

Dear children, I love you, but apparently not enough to faithfully record all the silly, funny, heartwarming, profound, and also (occasionally) annoying, ridiculous, and mind-boggling things you do.  I would like to believe that this is because I was/am too busy living all those moments with you and soaking up your fleeting childhood to take time to document properly.  We all know that this is not entirely true, but I think it is a good story none-the-less, and I'm sticking with it.

So, here we are.  It is time to say a bloggy goodbye.  I'm sure this will be confusing to my "readers" (haha!) - kind of like when you see on the news that a celebrity has died and feel completely bewildered because you were sure they'd already died at least five years ago.  But no worries.  I am about to make it even more confusing by announcing that this blog is officially over - but also, not!

I am definitely giving up on the online baby scrapbook plan.  That is kaput.  BUT.  I do have something kind of big and exciting (at least to me) that I'm going to try to do this year, and I'm going to be using this blog as a platform for that project.  But after that, goodbye! 

I will share more about my project/goal in another post.  But before we dive into that story, I thought I should post an update on the cast of characters here in the Hough House.

First up: Peter, my partner in crime.

What can I say?  I married a good man.  Pete spends most of his time leading the church plant that he helped, well, plant, a year or so after we moved here from California almost 4 years ago now.  I am biased, of course, but he is doing a fantastic job.  He is probably the smartest person I actually know, plus he's kind and funny and cute to boot.  I am constantly quoting his sermons to myself and others, and not infrequently to him as well, which is odd, I suppose.  But he always challenges me and gives me a lot to think about while also being my sounding-board for all things.  I know it is said a lot about best friends and spouses, but Peter makes me a better person.  A waaaaay better person.  I am privileged to have a front row seat to his life and thoughts.

Second: Eden, my first-born, my delightfully 5 1/2 year old daughter.

I once said God created coffee just so I had a hope of keeping up with Eden.  I still think there is a good chance that is true.  Eden is exactly what she has always been: a glorious supernova of intelligence, determination, and sensitivity.  She is dramatic and competitive: uncertain and anxious at times, confidently commanding at others.  She reads books I didn't even know existed until I was several years older than her.  She loves animals and if you ever need to know how to tell the difference between a leopard and a jaguar, or what you call a baby platypus, she's your girl.  Living with Eden is like exploring a new frontier: occasionally fraught with conflict and drama and exhaustion but also beautiful and unexpected and wonderfully unforgetable.

Third: Asher, my comedian, my sweet almost-two year old son.

Asher is my cuddle-bug, my snuggler, my lover of all things-that-go.  He cannot leave the house without a toy car or truck or train in hand.  He loves things that ROAR, whether that is a motorcycle, T-Rex, or tiger.  As he approaches his twos, we are seeing more of the infamous Hough stubbornness and flair for drama, but he is still in many ways much more laid-back and flexible than his sister (and, let's be honest, his mother).  We cannot wait for Asher to start talking as it is very clear the gears are chugging away in all sorts of delightful ways in that shaggy head of his.  That being said, Asher has never seemed to be in a hurry for anything (except going outside - if you open the door to the great outdoors you'd better be prepared to block a twenty-something-pound toddler from stumbling through it).  In many ways, I think Eden sees milestones as personal challenges for her to conquer and control - opportunities for victory; I suspect Asher cannot possibly be bothered with anything so mundane as what other people think is important.  Undoubtedly, they both give me a run for my money on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, while also being tiny, bouncy pinpricks of light through which the glory of heaven shines in all its beauty.

Hough House bit characters: Two cats, Sheba and Pudge, the thirteen year old banes of my existence.  One rabbit, Flopsy, the three year old bunny who I'm actually pretty fond of, mostly because he confines his messes to the backyard as opposed to the interior of my house.

And that's that!  Life in our small-town cottage is currently frenetic and tedious, alarming and exhilarating and mundane - an adventure and a lot of work all at the same time, just as yours is, I imagine.  I am thankful for it, and I am trying will all my might to learn how to cherish it and how to give it away.

 *One of my all-time favorite Beatles' songs.  Also, a notorious ear-worm. (So, sorry if you clicked on the link.  Except not sorry because the song is awesome.)

Siblings

July 2012

November 2012

December 2012

January 2013

July 2013

August 2013

Sometimes they intentionally pester and harass each other.  Sometimes they out and out compete.  But I also love the way they love each other.  And I know this might sound strange, but I'm glad they get the opportunity to take each other for granted, to accept and expect each other as a natural and perpetual presence in their own lives.  He just is her little brother.  She just is his big sister.  What an extraordinary blessing the ordinary can be.

For The Beauty

For the beauty of the earth,

For the glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth,

Over and around us lies;

Lord of all, to thee we raise,

This our hymn of grateful praise.

Happy Fall everyone!

 May you go out in joy and be led forth in peace. May the mountains and hills burst into song before you. And may all the trees of the field clap their hands.

(From Isaiah 55:12)

One-Year-Old Photo Shoot: Brought To You By Lies, Lies, And More Lies

One of my favorite gifts that we received before Asher was born was a set of twelve onesies, each emblazoned with a numbered month for Asher's first year.  Included with the onesies was a pre-made scrapbook, designed so that all I needed to do was take a photo of Asher each month in his corresponding onesie and then paste the photo onto a page in the book.

It was beautiful!  It was awesome!  It had one tragic flaw.

It relied on me to take the photos at the right time.

We started off pretty well.  The first few months we either took the photos on the actual monthly anniversary day or pretty darn close.  But after that, we slowly got less... precise.  By the end of the year, we considered ourselves successful if we simply took the photo within the right month.  And, yes, the very last day counts as "within."

Then Asher turned one.  And we only had one photo left to take!  And we promptly dropped the ball in spectacular fashion just for old time's sake.

Determined not to let all our effort from the previous year go to waste (taking 11 photos is rough, people!), I did my best to catch that one last photo today.  Today, when Asher is 14 months and 8 days old.  (We're only a little late, right?  I mean, if someone asked, we'd say he was a year old - so this still qualifies, right?)

Whatever.  In addition to being too lazy and/or unorganized to take the photos on time, I am also too lazy to choose just one or two for you today.  So, enjoy the smorgasbord of photo quality that is a "photo shoot" of a one-year-old (wink, wink) by a completely unskilled photographer with an average camera but a SPECTACULARLY cute kid.

Things I Love: Kitchen Update Edition

I recently got a new dishwasher!  Sadly, I do not have a photo of the new dishwasher.  It pretty much looks like every dishwasher you have ever seen, except in black.  (Unless the dishwasher you were picturing in your mind was already, in fact, black in color.  In which case it looks exactly like that.)

We do not have a ton of cabinet space in our kitchen.  We used to have four cabinets, and now that we have a new dishwasher, we are down to only three.  This can make storing basic kitchen items (pots, pans, dishes, food - in case you weren't certain what "basic kitchen items" referred to) challenging.  Fortunately, my smart, handsome, and talented husband was up to the challenge.  He designed and built this handy-dandy spice rack on the back of our basement door (which is conveniently located next to our stove):

He was assisted in his task by an extremely adorable little helper:

I cannot get over their respective cuteness.

Now This Is The Story All About How, My Life Got Flipped, Turned Upside Down

Annnnnnd.... you're welcome!  Try getting that song out of your head for the rest of today!

So, when I said I wanted to start with Asher's story, I didn't just mean in a general sense.  (And, good grief, I didn't mean months later either.  Holy frijole this whole renewed-commitment-to-blogging-thing is going to be rough.)  Every kid sooner or later wants to know the story of his or her birth day, and I'm guessing this particular little boy will be no different.  And of course, I want to remember it too - every itty bitty detail, even the unpleasant ones (of which there were more than a few, this being a story about labor and childbirth after all).

For point of reference, Eden's birth four years ago went something like this: contractions started around 2 or 3 in the morning and became fairly frequent and painful very quickly (although not at all regular).  We went to the hospital around 5:30 or 6 am, had an epidural within the first couple of hours, and birthed a baby at about 5:30 in the evening.  So, approximately 15 hours of labor all together, the majority of which I didn't feel as my epidural (which, unfortunately, took 4 needle sticks in the spine to place) basically knocked out all physical sensation from my ribs down.  (This meant that I not only didn't feel the contractions at all, I also couldn't tell if/when I was even pushing when the time for that came - which is a weird predicament, to say the least.  I also needed help rolling over, etc., and in the event of an emergency, I can guarantee you I would have been completely unable to take a single step away from that bed.)

Our only bit of excitement (you know, apart from the whole having a new baby thing) was that Eden's heart rate dropped a few times during labor.  At one point that almost sent us into surgery for an emergency c-section, but it always self-corrected.  When she was born, we discovered her umbilical cord was tied in a true knot (somewhat unusual), so that may have been the cause of the heart rate fluctuations.  Fortunately, it didn't cause any serious complications.

Asher wanted a bit more dramatic entrance apparently.

I woke up around 2 am on the morning of Tuesday, July 3rd, feeling very uncomfortable.  No matter what position I tried, I just couldn't fall back asleep.  Now this is not uncommon at all for women in their third trimester, and I was at the very end of my pregnancy (just three days from my due date on July 6th), so I didn't think much of it - especially since Eden had come downstairs an hour or so earlier asking to sleep in our bed and greatly increasing the difficulty of finding a comfortable sleeping position.  I decided to just get up and distract myself with facebook and random Internet browsing for awhile, but it wasn't long before I started suspecting that I might be having contractions.  Not that contractions would have been too unusual at this point either - I'd been having regular and prolonged episodes of Braxton Hicks contractions since the mid-point of my pregnancy - these however felt sharper, and more painful even though they seemed confined to a smaller area of my abdomen.

By 3 am or a little after I was pretty sure I was in labor, so I started getting things ready - packing last minute items, etc.  The contractions hurt, but were definitely manageable, and just like with Eden, not at all regular.  By 5:15 am they were definitely making me pause and focus on my breathing to get through them - and I suspected they were maybe averaging about 5 minutes apart at this point.  (Our OB had told us to come to the hospital when our contractions had been 5 minutes apart for 2 hours.)  I woke Peter up, told him what was happening and asked him to call my sister-in-law who had agreed to come get Eden.  Then I took a shower, and by the time I was out of my shower and dressed, my sister-in-law was there.  At this point my contractions were also about as painful as they had been when I received my epidural in my labor with Eden.  I could walk/sway and breathe my way through them, but I was not looking forward to the next several hours of labor at all.  I figured we would wait a little while longer (my OB said two hours after all), but Peter wanted to go ahead and call the hospital and get on our way.  Since we lived 30 to 40 minutes away, this seemed like a pretty fine idea to me.  The hospital asked how far apart my contractions were at this point, and I estimated 4 minutes apart, but I didn't personally think too much about it.  As I mentioned before, with Eden my contractions were very close together from the very beginning, and it was still a 15 hour labor, so I was expecting something roughly the same this time.

We left for the hospital around 6:30 am, right after we got Eden settled (very sleepily) in my sister-in-law's van and on her way to St. Louis.  I had been dreading the car ride (the sitting position not being at all my favorite position for laboring), and it was definitely no fun.  We made it in about 30 minutes, but the last 10 were fairly harrowing for me.  I had started to feel as if I couldn't bear the contractions if they got much more painful and basically began mentally counting down the minutes to my epidural: 10 more minutes to the hospital... 30 minutes to get checked in and settled... maybe another 30 minutes until the anesthesiologist could come to my room...  I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait much longer than 90 minutes to be pain free - but even that seemed like an eternity.

We arrived at the hospital, and I walked to my room, stopping just once to breathe through a contraction.  Peter helped me into my gown and a nurse stopped by to ask a few questions.  I'm not sure what it was about getting to that room, but within just a few minutes of being there (basically once I was in my gown and on the bed) I reached my limit pain-wise.  The contractions became more than I felt like I could bear, and without meaning or wanting to I started groaning each time they hit.  It honestly seemed like my body just kind of took over, and while the groaning was a little bit embarrassing to me (an introvert who does not like to call attention to herself), it also seemed entirely reflexive and outside of my control - like that sharp inhalation you immediately have to take when you jump into cold water.  It really did help me manage the pain just a little bit more, so
I think it must be part of how are bodies are wired to instinctively deal with the demands of labor.

After that, everything happened really fast, and - in no small part due to the fact that I was feeling overwhelmed at this point - it is all pretty much a blur to me now.  I know a nurse got me settled on the bed, took my blood pressure, and started an IV.  She left and quickly came back with more nurses.  They all started asking me questions and seemed to be in constant motion although I have no idea what they were actually doing.  I know they wanted me to get at least one bag of IV fluids - preferably two - before I was given an epidural, and I know they were trying to get in contact with the anesthesiologist.  I was still comforting myself with the thought that I just needed to try to hang on a little longer for the epidural.  Of course at this point, I was definitely wishing we had started the whole process sooner.

A nurse checked me and said I was at a 7.  Not fully aware of how fast my body was progressing through labor, I felt surprised but also a bit relieved by this news.  It probably wasn't going to be 15 hours of labor this time then...

The nurses were looking for my OB at this point as well, which I naively wasn't paying too much attention to, because I knew the OB really only shows up for the birth, so I thought we weren't going to "need" him for awhile.  My attention was almost completely focused on getting through my contractions, which were extremely intense and all-consuming.

A nurse checked me again and said I was at a 9.

What the what?!?!  It had only been 10 or 15 minutes!

I was still trying to process that information when out of the corner of my eye I saw another nurse (there suddenly seemed to be nurses everywhere) come up to Peter and whisper something that sounded very much like, "I don't think there's going to be time for an epidural."

Peter looked as if he had just been informed that someone had died.

And ironically, overhearing that whispered news was simultaneously terrifying and comforting to me.  Terrifying for obvious reasons.  I'm about to have a baby.  Without so much as a Tylenol for pain relief.  Comforting because it was all now really and truly out of my hands.  It didn't really matter if I felt prepared or not.  My body had clearly completely taken over and was going to have this baby - RIGHT NOW - whether my mind was on board with the situation or not.  So, here we go!

I remember the nurses telling me to try not to push.  I remember trying not to push and once again feeling as if I had no say in the matter.  So, I remember replying (between sobs), "I'm so sorry, I'm trying not to push, but I can't help it."  And I couldn't.  It felt like my whole body was repeatedly seizing up in a charley horse that I couldn't control.

Then - wonderfully! - my OB arrived.  I picked my OB almost entirely for his bedside manner and that really paid off in the delivery room.  He told me how and when to breathe and how to push with the contractions.  Perhaps part of the reason labor is so painful is that you become incredibly motivated to get that baby out.  Even though the delivery itself hurt very much (and I most definitely felt it all) I was so glad to finally be able to DO. SOMETHING. to move myself toward the point of bringing an end to the contractions.  On the third contraction I pushed with all my might twice and pretty much expended every last ounce of energy I had left.  I remember sobbing that I just couldn't take anymore, and hearing a nurse reply, "You don't have to!  Open your eyes!"  And I opened my eyes and looked down, and she was holding my newly delivered baby boy.

That really is one of life's most magical moments.  I held him and snuggled him and the doctor and nurses continued to talk and move around, but I didn't hear or see anything else but my sweet baby.  He was (and is!) glorious, and there's just no other way to describe it.

Eventually they took him away to be weighed and measured.  Peter went over to the scale with the nurse and they stared laughing and called out 9 pounds, 11 ounces.

Huh.  Wow.  That's a lot.
*5 seconds*
Wait, what?!?  HOW much did he way?!?!

Our OB, who had specifically told us that we "were not going to have a 9 pound baby" sheepishly admitted he hadn't called this one quite right.

 And that's it.  The story of Asher's birth.  The story of the first day of our new family.

Our newborn isn't really a newborn anymore.  At three and a half months he's smiling and cooing and squealing and grabbing and pulling and clearly recognizing each of us.  His eyes follow us around the room like we are the greatest and most mesmerizing things he has ever seen.  And we all watch his every move and expression like he is the greatest and most mesmerizing thing we've ever seen.

It's love.  All of it.  God-delivered, prayed-for, hoped-for, long-awaited, long-endured, pain-made-perfect, love.

And I am so, so thankful for it.  So thankful for him.  So thankful for us.

This One Is For Shanelle

It has been almost a year since I've written anything here.  My second to last blog post was written on the eve of my 32nd birthday, and in just 3 days I will turn 33.  This isn't the first time I've taken a "break" from the blog - but over the last year it was looking increasingly like this particular break might become permanent.

My friend, Shanelle, helped changed my mind.  (She is very persuasive.  And persistent!)

But there was another person who really won me back over to the idea in the end.

World, meet Asher Malachi.

He is adorable.  He is wonderful.  And his hair alone is worth opening this blog back up again.

Posterity needs a record of this, don't you think?

I probably won't be writing the same type of blog posts as before.  But then, I'm not the same person I was before.  And we aren't the same family.

We are deeply enjoying the beginning of a whole new life - with a whole new set of stories.  So that's why I'm giving the blog another go - because I cherish each and every memory of Eden recorded here, and I want to add to her stories.

And I want to start with his.