Well Ellie,

You are officially 1 month old today. (well yesterday…when I started this post it was the 24th, and then you woke up and kept me busy!)  Hard to believe a month ago at this time we were revelling in your newness, pinching ourselves that you were real.  It’s been a whirlwind of a month, whipping by and yet somehow has felt so long too. Long in a good way.  And also long in a not-so-good “for the love of everything good in the world, it’s 4am, go to sleep” kind of way.   But every single moment of being your mom has been a joy.  We are still learning SO much about you, so I thought I’d make a list of some of those things.

Things I do know:

1. It is a guarantee that you will sneeze at least four times a day.  It’s usually more, and this never gets old for me.  You are dang cute when you sneeze and I hope you never outgrow this.  (ok, maybe when you have actual snot coming out of your nose then I’ll wish you didn’t sneeze so much)
2. You know how to smile.  Like legit, I’m Happy And I Want You To Know It smiles.  You’ve been doing this for a while now, and I don’t care who tries to tell me they’re gas smiles, I know better.  
3. You can scream like the dickens. And there are times when I’m honestly worry you’re going to damage your vocal chords, so high pitched is your scream.  But (and here’s where I KNOW I’m still in new mom bliss), I think it’s so cute.  Sometimes, instead of meeting whatever need you have, I just hold you up in front of me and watch you scream for a few moments.  
4. You are most definitely a people person.  It is already evident that you don’t want to miss anything that’s going on around you, and this is SO not helpful at three in the morning when, just when we think we’ve gotten you to sleep, you pop your eyes WIDE open again.  I don’t get this. We’re sitting in a completely pitch dark room, with NOTHING to look at, and you still manage to find things to keep you awake.  That’s when I throw a blanket over your head.  So far it’s worked every time.
5. You are strong. You’ve always seemed to have a strong neck, and have held your head up pretty well since the beginning.  When we hold you upright you move your head around until you find the exact position you want to be in. We have no choice but to comply.

Things I don’t know

1. How our nights will be.  You have definitely kept us on our toes with this one, but we think things are looking up.  You went for a good couple weeks of just wanting to be awake from about 11pm-4 am and to be honest Ellie, that sucked a little.  Mostly because the only thing that would soothe you/put you back to sleep was bouncing with you on the exercise ball.  This gets real old real quick.  But I will say I’ve watched more Conan O’Brien in the past 2 weeks then I ever had before, so it wasn’t all bad.  Plus, even at 2 in the morning you are super cute, and if I was lucky, you would also sneeze and that made it all worth it.
2. Why you get so dang upset sometimes.  If you’re fed, changed, and clean, shouldn’t you either be happy or asleep?  We’re learning the ins and outs of what makes you sad, and this is one big mystery.  Although I suppose if you were that easy to figure out, we’d be bored by now.  So thanks for keeping things interesting.
3. Why I get so excited about your poop.  Sad, but true.
4. How to keep the soother in your mouth.  Seriously kid – trust me on this one, you want this, you really do.  It’s a hit or miss endeavour so far – sometimes you embrace it fully, but most times, you either spit it out or gag in what I’m sure is just protest.  But when it’s in, it’s a miracle worker – putting you right to sleep. You suck that little thing like it’s going out of style.  So let’s work on keeping it in mmk?  (And I’m not even lying – in the time span it took me to write this paragraph, I have walked over to your swing no less than three times to shove it back in your mouth)
5. How I can possibly show and express to you how much I love you.  I know this will get easier as you learn to interact with us, and then even easier as you come to understand our words and actions.  But oh little one, for right now, I just wish you knew how every time I kissed your feet, or your belly, or watched you nursing, or held your hands next to my face, or sang to you, or held you close that you knew that those little ways are such a meagre expression of how deep my love for you goes – but I’ve got nothing else right now.  

Happy 1 month little one.  

But cute no?

I am surprisingly not as tired as I thought I would be.  Don’t get me wrong I am tiiiiiired. But I think I was bracing myself for the worst.  Given that everyone pretty much tells you how terrible the first 6 weeks of the baby’s life is.  But it’s been ok.  Ellie HAS taken to being awake from 10pm-4 am, and kind of cranky – which, if I’m being honest – kind of blows.  But we just catch up on our sleep during the day and it makes it manageable.  Plus, just when I think she can’t get any cuter, she just busts out a big smile at 2 am sitting in the twilight of her nursery lamp, just her and me, and that almost makes it worth it.

Having a baby is an excellent way to not spend any money.  Probably because I rarely have left the house for more than an hour, but whatever the reason, my back account activity has been pretty dead this past month, which makes me happy.  (I’m a saver at heart, what can I say).  I’m pretty sure this trend will change as Elliana gets bigger.

I have watched ridiculous amounts of tv this month.  I’m not proud of this fact, but am mostly ok with it, since I’m either nursing, or too unmotivated (read: tired) to tackle any chores.  As a result, I am becoming a Jeopardy queen.  I’d like to think this balances out the episode upon episode of Modern Family that I ALSO watch.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but on my list of “things I never really expected to do”, we can add ‘shoving my face inches from a poopy diaper to examine the consistency’.  It’s a classy act we have running over here folks.  

We did a little photo shoot with Elliana this weekend, because we do want to send out some birth announcements.  We got some great shots, but amidst the few good ones, there were scores and scores of not so good ones.  Such as this little gem where it looks like she’s doing the worm.  Mostly because she’s SO angry that we woke her up and made her get naked, she protested by writhing her body instead of laying peacefully like a newborn angel.   She’ll thank us when she wins So You Think You Can Dance in 20 years.

But further down that list of great things is that you get to experience the kindness and genuine excitement of those around you.  Perhaps the most overwhelming part of these beginning days has been the love and kindness shown to us by those around us.  I am so humbled by the gifts, food and presence of those in our lives these days and it has left me feeling full. In lots of ways.

Our fridge and freezer have never been so full – filled to the brim with meals brought to us by so many friends and family.  I know being a part of a church community has a lot to do with that, and we’ve been the recipients of a schedule of meals set out for us these weeks.  But beyond the “expected” meals that we knew were going to be provided, others have just dropped off food just because. And then there were the 4 days in a row last week where we had different friends come by with food and eat with us that night.  Now that’s a fulfilling combo: a hot meal prepared for you, and  the rich company of good friends.  

I spent some time on the weekend sorting through Ellie’s room, which – although was organized before she came – has once again been overtaken with gift bag after gift bag of people’s generosity towards our new little family.  So yes, her room is also full.

And the living room has also been full.  Full of visitors, which, at times has been slightly overwhelming, but mostly, just wonderful. (They’ve all been sensitive to our time along)  I am continually blown away by the ways people just genuinely want to meet our daughter and are SO excited for Elliana’s arrival.  

So, it’s been a filling 2 weeks.  My heart is full and I guess I didn’t quite expect to be the recipient of so much love and generosity.   We are thankful for so much these days, and part of that is the people surrounding us as we do this parenthood thing.  

What a wonder she is.

We are terribly in love and can’t imagine a better Christmas!  We are all doing well, and had an incredible home birth experience.

More pictures and birth story to come!  Merry Christmas to you all!

Sheesh, you’d think with the THREE WEEKS I’VE HAD NOT WORKING, I’d actually blog a little more.   

I didn’t think I’d actually get to the point where I could write a 41 week post…this one was supposed to be how cute and awesome our newborn baby is.  But, such is the nature of babies – they come when they want!  And it’s really ok.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that this might in fact just be a Christmas baby, and that’s ok.  I just had to re-frame my idea of what Christmas was going to look like.  (as in…I might still be pregnant, as opposed to showing off my 3 week old…)

Anyway – since we’re still in waiting mode over here – I thought I’d add a few pictures of the baby’s nursery, just for kicks.  

(as you can see, we went with a green and ivory theme) I agonized over the colours for a while (so.many.options), but in the end, was inspired by that blanket hanging over the crib.  My mom made it for our wedding, which was also a green and ivory theme, and I just thought it would be a neat tie-in to our baby’s room)

I’m a big fan of organizational bins.  Especially ones that are colour coordinated.

So, those frames are going to go on the wall behind the crib. We haven’t decided what we want to put in them.  Pictures of our family? Prints of something cool? Words? Any ideas out there?  We are ALSO going to be putting a tree on the wall behind the recliner chair.  I wanted to do this all along and couldn’t decide if I was going to paint one, or get a decal. And I had a pretty specific vision of what I wanted.  (read: I was picky).  But then I started approaching my due date and realized that it probably wasn’t even going to happen, so I gave up on wanting to paint something and just re-scoured the internet for a decal that I was actually happy with.  So here it is.  I think we’ll do the tree in ivory, and the leaves in grey and dark green.  I THINK.   

Our baby is going to be a genius. My wonderful friend Christy hosted a shower for me, where the theme was showering baby “book”ma.  So every person included a book (or two) in with their gift.  It was so special to see what books people chose for our baby, and now we are so well stocked with awesome books for years!  And we WILL be putting them in a bookshelf…we just haven’t gotten it yet.  So ignore the laundry basket for now.  And feel free to come over and re-live your childhood through some pretty awesome books!

And that’s where we’re at!  It’s hard to believe Christmas is in 5 days – but we’re looking forward to some time either away with family, or getting to know our newest member!  

The only things are are making me kind of ancy is the ever looming date of the 25th.    I REALLY want this kid to come before the 23rd, mostly because the further away from Christmas they can have their birthday, the better…and well, we’re already only 10 days away.  Also because it will kind of cramp our CHristmas style if we’re still waiting by Christmas eve, meaning we will probably just have to stay home by ourselves instead of heading to my family’s for a few days. 

Also, Ben’s family is in town until the 24th, and even though I can’t control anything, I will feel awfully darn bad if they come and then leave without there being a baby.  

But all that being said – God knows when this kid’s birthday is supposed to be, and we’re just trusting that.

But, anyway, onto a few random points:

1) I had to swing by the liquor store this morning to pick up a few bottles of wine for gifts, and my automatic reaction was to look for the “expectant moms” parking spot.  (sidenote: As much as I thought I wouldn’t use those at all being pregnant…man do I LOVE them.  I take FULL advantange whenever possible).  and then it hit me that if there was ever a store to probably not cater to pregnant ladies, it would rightfully be the liquor store.  Which then made me feel a little bit ridiculous waddling my pregnant self in to load up my arms.  

2) My friend Nikki posted this on my facebook wall the other day and mercy is it ever funny.  So, if you need a little Christmas cheer today, give this a watch. (and yes, he is lip synching, which makes it even more awesome….and kind of makes me wonder who the original artist is….)

(ok, so this picture is from over a week ago….but I pretty much look the same as I did then)

Things continue to go well – still feeling pretty good and haven’t yet reached the “ok, I’m totally ready for this to be over” stage yet.  I certainly don’t feel like I’m going to give birth in the imminent future, but I guess that’s the funny thing with babies, they can just up and surprise you with their arrival, so we’ll see.

I think we’re as ready as we’re going to be on this end.  It’s felt like a whirlwind of a month, trying to get things in place and organized, but after our panicked “crap, we’ll be screwed if the baby comes tonight” phase last month, we’ve made significant progress.  Such as actually organizing the baby’s room.  Instead of just shoving every item we’d acquired in the room and then shutting the door, most things now have a home.  It’s a good feeling knowing our baby won’t think it’s parents belong on Hoarders. 

We have very few baby clothes.  I’m not sure if this is a wise move, but it’s the truth so far. Part of the reason is that we don’t know what we’re having, and I don’t know if you’ve looked recently, but the “gender neutral” market seems to have taken a steep decline out there.  When we were in the States last month I thought I’d pick up a few things for cheap, but literally every kids store I went into was divided into 2 – boys on one side, girls on the other.  So I left empty handed.  And at this point, there are only so many white and yellow duck and bear outfits that our kid can own, so the closet is looking a little sparse.  Reason number 2 is that we’ve had several people tell us that once they know what we’ve had they have clothes for us, so truth be told, I’m just waiting for the freebies.  And reason number 3 is that I’m just a little nervous about the length of our baby.  I really didn’t want to stock up on newborn sleepers only to have our baby not fit into them because of how long it will be. (Have you SEEN this kid’s father?)   So, all that to say, it may be a dumb move, but we’re kind of holding out until this kid’s birth day to see what clothes it will need.  At which point I will send out my mother or mother in law to hastily buy clothes, just so that our baby also won’t think it’s parents belong on I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. (worst show ever by the way…)

I realize this next point immediately puts me in the eye rolling category of over excited mom who documents stuff that literally NO ONE cares about, but she posts anyway, using the guise of “it’s for the grandparents”, even though really, they probably have better uses of their time as well, but I’m posting it anyway.  Here’s a little clip of Baby Bokma in all it’s glory.  I’ve said several times how much I love watching him/her move around, and I’ve also said how this kid just seems to KNOW when there are people around, and kind of freezes up. So I tricked it and took a video.  Actually, it’s still not that good – it also seemed to know when I was attempting to catch it on video and would slow down/stop moving.  But in any case, here’s a little taste of what keeps me entertained most hours of the day.   (Looking at the video, on your top right is where their little bum likes to sit, so you can see that part move up and down the most…and then towards the end, it hoofs me good with it’s feet waaay on the other side of my stomach)

Ben and I have parties galore this weekend, so I’m secretly kind of hoping this babe holds on for a few more days so I can squeeze in a weekend of fun – but I guess if he/she chooses to make its arrival early that would trump any work Christmas party anyway, so it’s kind of a win-win.

Enjoy your weekend!

2) Being all domestic-like.  Due to said aimlessness, I’ve done a heckofalot more cleaning, cooking, organizing, etc.  Some may call this nesting, but I call it “umm, I would feel guilty sitting on my butt all day while my husband brings home a paycheck, so I guess I’ll make us something for supper”.  

3) Enjoying our clean house.  Back in March, Ben and I bought a 4 hour house-cleaning gift certificate at a silent auction fundraiser that our church was having.  Mostly out of procrastination, we never really cashed it in, and then once we were pregnant, we just decided to hold onto it until this month, when I really wasn’t going to feel like cleaning my bathtub. (I believe I even admitted this all to you a few posts ago….so rest assured, if you visited now, you’d see a streak-free tub). It’s SO nice to have parts of my house clean that I really can’t be bothered to get to like, say,  my baseboards.    They are CLEAN people.  

4) Not being in labour.  And that’s ok.  I’m really not ancy at all yet, and kind of am preparing myself to have another couple weeks to go before anything significant happens.  Sure, it COULD be tonight, but that’s still a crazy concept for me to wrap my brain around.   Sheesh, we are thisclose to being parents.  

5) Secretly hating all of you for thinking I’m going to have a large baby.  Seriously people. I put the baby pool guesses in a spreadsheet today and only ONE PERSON thinks our baby will be under 7 lbs.  In fact, the majority of you think it will be 8.5 lbs or higher.  Jerks.  Isn’t anyone rooting for me to have a baby that just slips right out because of it’s slenderness? Is that JUST me?? 

6) Reminiscing about the time that Ben and I graduated from university and we went to go get our cap sizes for grad photos and the guy there said to Ben after measuring his head “wow – you’ve got the largest head we’ve seen yet today”, and then when I chuckled he told me “don’t laugh, you’re one of the largest female heads we’ve seen today too”.  Oy. As funny as that was 6 years ago in 2005, I’m guessing that doesn’t bode well for our baby’s head circumference and the path it has to take to exit my body.  (quit laughing) 

7) Making a long to-do list for each day and then only accomplishing 4 of the items on the list.  And I’m ok with that.  It just means my list is 1/2 made up for tomorrow already. What’s the point of being off work if you can’t be a little bit lazy?

8 ) Trying to come up with a GRINCH costume for our jr. high christmas party tonight. In my genius planning of the Christmas youth events for this year, I made the Jr. High Christmas party a Grinch theme and then told everyone to come dressed as their favourite character. Well, the problem with this is that there actually AREN’T that many characters in the Grinch.  My options are basically, Max (the dog), the Grinch, or Cindy-lou-who.  And I’m having a really hard time coming up with a home-made costume for any of them….any ideas out there?? (And yes, I KNOW I’m on mat leave, but how could I miss the Christmas parties??)

9) Eating clementines like it’s my JOB. There are many reasons why I love this time of year, but one of those reasons certainly is the clementines.  In all their easy-to-peel-quick-to-eat-(mostly)-seedless glory.  

10) Apparently not blogging very much. (are you sick of looking at the same post about all the sugar I’m (not) eating??)  I do hope that I can fill this space more than once a week in the coming days, knowing that once Baby Bokma arrives, things may get a little sparse.  Here’s hoping!

Happy Wednesday!