Thirty-Four

Today is my birthday and I am 34 years old. Half my life ago, I was here:



Look at 17-year-old me opening a present! It looks like it might be a CD.



And here is 17-year-old me with my friends from 17 years ago (most of whom I still love and hold dear and am in contact with, amazingly) at my birthday party. We have all just finished our junior year of high school and we are playing Taboo.

My mind can hardly wrap around the fact that it's been as long from when I was born to these pictures and it has been from these pictures to now. Does my hair look disturbingly similar to how I have it cut now?

Since my birthday fell on a Sunday this year, I declared this to be birthday weekend and we have been celebrating for several days now. I had a massage (which is, SERIOUSLY, one of my favorite things ever) and we went out to dinner last night at Mazza (here is a blurry Instagram picture that Grace took while there) and tonight we are grilling burgers with Brie and grilled onions and dried cherries and drinking delicious Cabernet that Rob's parents gave us last Christmas. I am having a lovely day.

So what will this, my 35th year here on the planet, bring to our lives? No one can say, but I am thinking these days about the concept of going back to work. Lewis will turn one at the end of the summer and I am starting to feel myself coming out of the fog of his babyhood into the relative clarity of regular me. When Grace turned one, I was teaching as an adjunct in Connecticut and realized that working was finally starting to feel more doable and less stressful; I said to myself that if I could, I would try to take an entire year off if/when we had more babies. When Violet turned one, we were deep in the throes of planning our escape from Dallas so returning to work was far from my mind. Now I'm thinking about it, though, and pondering what my options are here in Salt Lake. My first choice would be to teach as an adjunct again, maybe just starting with one class the first semester back. I've opened up my CV to update it and have been looking into what connections I have to the physics departments at the various universities around town and WE'LL SEE. I'm not sure if this will all come together for the immediate fall semester but perhaps this will be the year that I step back into the world of JOBS.

Nine Months

Lewis is nine months old today and has been out in the world for about as long as he was inside of me. What a gorgeous, joyful baby he is and how lucky we are to know him...



He shrieks and vocalizes and babbles "dadadadadadada" and "bababababababa" and sometimes even "vavavavavavava". He grins right up to his bright blue eyes when we copy his babbling, full of glee at communicating with us. He's a peaceful sleeper at night for 11-12 hours (still nursing a couple times, but sleepily and peacefully-- he's still in our room so it's no big deal to us) when illness or teething are not in the way and takes two long naps each day. He has eight teeth, four on top and four on the bottom, which is about what Grace had at the same age but double what Violet had.



He is sort of gradually starting to put those teeth to their intended purpose, although GOODNESS he is very bad at eating. He apparently started out with a really strong gag/tongue-thrust reflex. It's a protective reflex that newborns have to keep things from choking them but his was strong. For a while, when food would get into the back of his throat, he would gag theatrically and then throw up the entire contents of his stomach. Gradually he moved to gagging without throwing up and managing to choke the food down, and now at 9 months he doesn't gag very often anymore. In fact, he likes to take EVERY TINY THING he can find and put it in his mouth. He pooped out crayons yesterday and the day before I pulled a dead bug out of his mouth. SHUDDER.



His growth has slowed way, way down. He grew from 9 lbs at 2 weeks to a tremendous 20 lbs at 4 months but since then has only gained a couple of pounds. At his 6-month check-up, the doctor said he was concerned about the steep drop-off in his rate of growth (from the 99th to the 75th percentiles in a couple of months) but I think it is probably fine and he is adjusting to his genetically-determined size, which I am going to predict is somewhere between the 50th and 75th percentiles, given the sizes of Rob and me and our other two children. I don't think we need to stress out trying to keep him at the 99th percentile. Also, the doctor was using the CDC growth charts which includes all healthy U.S. infants; if you plot Lewis' growth on the WHO growth charts which only include healthy breastfed infants, he dropped from the 90th to the 80th percentiles, which is no big deal. Anyway, there's not much we can do to "fix" the issue that we aren't already doing. We're doing the best we can with getting him to eat more solid food and he's still nursing well/frequently. I have been more deliberate about not rushing his nursing sessions and not trying to stretch out the intervals between his feedings (both tempting things to do when life is so busy) but if I try to make him nurse more than he wants to, he just tries to bite me (8 teeth!) and roll away. I'm sure that if I started supplementing with formula, it would just reduce the amount he is nursing. I really don't think he is hungry; I think he is growing fine.

He has been doing an army crawl down on his belly for a couple of months now, pulling himself along with his two arms, with one little foot pushing to help and one little foot poking up in the air. In just the past few weeks, he has shifted to a real crawl, up on all fours, although he still switches back and forth some. He is finally a more stable sitter; he had an efficient crawl well before he could sit up, which is reversed from the order the girls reached those two milestones. Recently he's started pulling up on furniture to standing, but then he gets stuck and starts to panic and needs help getting back down again. In the past week, he has learned how to climb stairs which means we need to get the baby gates up, like, yesterday. He likes to sit with his legs tucked under him in a splayed W shape; this is how I sat as a baby and toddler but he is the first of our babies to sit like this. Being surprised at what Lewis does is an unexpected joy, as he's our third baby and all, as is being able to see him open up and become more of his own amazing self with every passing week.

Things I Have Done Lately

• Played quite a bit of Draw Something. It makes me wish I had an iPad; the people with iPads make such better drawings.
• Returned to losing a pound a week after starting my thyroid medicine. It had been taking me 2-3 weeks to lose a pound lately, so this is a welcome development. I have less than 20 lbs to return to my pre-baby weight now; a number in the teens feels very nice and doable. I haven't been re-checked yet so I don't know if my thyroid levels are back to where I should be but I'll find out soon.
• Tried to help this baby learn how to eat actual food. He is very, very bad at it.

 

• Saw a child of mine have an allergic reaction for the first time. The second time we gave him eggs, he broke out in hives all over. An allergy to egg is one that many babies outgrow so I'm hopeful that it is just a temporary thing. Rob says we can try again in a few months once he brings home "supplies" from work. I'm not exactly sure what that means.
• Running and yoga, with a smidge of Pilates thrown in. On a good week I am working out 3 days a week. Ideally I know we all should exercise more like 5 days a week, but I feel like this is pretty good for my current life stage.
• Despite the weight loss and the exercise and the healthy eating and the thyroid medicine, I have been plagued with bouts of intense exhaustion. I know that everyone is tired all the time and these are our tired thirties but it has been BAD lately. I'm not sure how to fix this.
• Not been sewing very much. Sigh... I like to sew so much and I really want to wear the summer-y skirts and dresses I have planned out but I have lost my sewing mojo lately. See above RE: exhaustion.
• On the other hand, reading a little more regularly than I have since Lewis was born. I love books.
• Experienced significant brokenness in some family relationships. Sigh... Things are not good in this area.
• Watched our neighborhood emerge from the bare gray of early spring through the bright colors of tulips and irises into the leafy green of May. Our spring has been warmer earlier than last year after our very mild winter-- darned global warming. Although yes, spring is lovely.
• Been researching and getting estimates for replacing some windows at our house. I really love our 100-year-old windows in many ways but WOW they are inefficient. It is especially uncomfortable in warm weather; we had our first day in the upper 80s last week (freakish warm snap) and now I am obsessed with getting new windows on the west side of our house.
• Vacuumed under our dining table. I don't feel capable of getting another dog yet and caring for ONE MORE NEEDY CREATURE but every time I vacuum there I think, "Gosh, I miss having a dog."

A Spring in Our Steps

Spring has invigorated our chickens. They seemed to be fine during the snowy winter but the warmer weather has made them more active and perky and the longer days have increased their egg production.





We are finally FINALLY getting green eggs. Our chickens were supposed to start laying sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Henny Penny (may she rest in peace) started laying right after Lewis was born, if I remember correctly, so sometime in September, and then we started getting eggs from at least one other chicken. One of our chickens is supposed to lay green or blue eggs so for months we would eagerly check out the nesting boxes to see what might be there, only to find just brown eggs. As time passed, we started to lose hope on the colored egg issue. Then, finally, at the end of FEBRUARY, we found our first green egg! This means that our Ameraucana hen hasn't been laying this whole time. Slacker. And I am rather surprised that there is such variance in when these hens started laying; they were all the same age to within a few days of each other.

But now! Now that there are more hours of sunlight, we are getting lots of eggs, one nearly every day from each chicken. Mrs. Benedict (pictured up there in the nesting box) lays smaller brown eggs, Drumstick lays big brown eggs (she was the second one to start laying, after Henny Penny), and Ella lays large green eggs. Supposedly within about a year year their eggs will get larger but they will lay less frequently; then they will be HUGE, because they are already as big as the biggest ones you buy at the store.



This spring Grace is playing soccer at one of the city rec centers here. She's been asking to play soccer for quite a long time now but I missed sign-up deadlines and games were at inconvenient times and so forth until this spring. Her team is made up of kindergarteners and they play other teams of kindergarteners meeting all at the same time. Her team was assigned their uniform colors and they have dubbed themselves the Penguins. This whole team sport thing is new to me, as the closest I came to a sport growing up was ballet and running cross-country in high school. I think she is super adorable in her little cleats. They were significantly outmanned in their first match but in the weeks since then they've played teams more on their level; Grace has even scored goals! These small people seem to have the best luck when their approach is kept very simple-- kick the ball as hard as you can in the right direction and then everyone run after it.

This past weekend was soooooooo busy but also so wonderful. Rob's parents came in town to visit and we had an Easter church extravaganza which included me playing piano AND our church's big resurrection party AND a baby dedication for Lewis. Easter is becoming one of my new favorite holidays since we moved here to Salt Lake; celebrating with our church community here is such a gift. We did this song from David Crowder's new album this year, and I am really loving it now. We got up on stage with all the other babies and their families and read a Bible verse we picked out for him and then people who we love prayed for him and us.



So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of.

Philippians 1:9-10

In the afternoon, we had a HUGE PARTY up in the neighborhood where our church has its office. My friend Becky has lovely pictures of it all her beautiful blog. There was beautiful food and warm sun and a bounce house for the kids and a couple baptisms and lovely togetherness. The weather was amazing, and the view, and the experience of being with people we love as we celebrated resurrection and new life for all of us.

Springtime and the Living is Easy

Spring has come in fits and starts to the Salt Lake Valley. We have had such balmy warm weather with blue skies and wafting breezes and backyard picnics, interspersed with spring storms racing through the mountains bringing snow and cold rain and getting the fleece jackets back out for a few days. I don't mind the waffling weather one bit; I know that summer will arrive in all good time and meanwhile these back-and-forth days are lovely, each in their own way.

One of my very favorite things about the advent of warmer weather is being able to wear skirts with bare legs and sandals-- my very favorite way to dress. So easy, so comfortable. This does also mean the beginning of pedicure season, which is kind of a pain, although also sort of nice. I feel conflicted about all the rituals entailed in our society's feminine beauty norm. On the one hand, it takes so much energy and time and it is problematic to think of your body's "natural state" (whatever that means) as unacceptable. On the other hand, self-care is good and these rituals provide a framework for caring for your own corporeal self. And sparkly toenails!

Spring has been achingly lovely but our enjoyment of it has been besmirched by illness. We were very lucky all through the winter but we've had a string of colds and stomach bugs around here lately. Violet has been hit the hardest, as she always is. Grace, in contrast, almost never gets sick. When Grace was a toddler, I was so smug about how she never got sick. "Oh, it's because I breastfed her for so long. And look at what healthy food I feed her!" Then Violet came along with the same length of nursing and the very same food and she gets sick much more frequently. Grace just has some kind of immune system of steel, I suppose. Anyway, it's been since my dad's last visit, so... over a month of various little viruses, shared amongst us to one extent or another. Right now Violet is getting over a cold and is in a TERRIBLE grouchy mood, and I am in the throes of it with a nasty cough and laryngitis and feeling like crap.

In other health news, I was just diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I had Graves' disease in my early 20s, the autoimmune version of hyperthyroidism. I never had bugged-out eyes but I was losing a bunch of weight and was jittery and exhausted and my heart raced all the time. I saw an endocrinologist who had me on thyroid-suppressing drugs for about 5 years, gradually tapering off until I was declared in remission. That endocrinologist always told me that patients like me usually end up going hypothyroid later in life, and well, that time has apparently come. My thyroid has decided to give up the ghost and quit working. I had an annual check-up with my midwife last week and she checked my thyroid levels like I always do at check-ups because of my history. They've been in the normal range for almost a decade now off any drugs, but this time they came back VERY hypothyroid. It's probably the autoimmune version again, although they haven't checked for the thyroid antibodies yet. I have been feeling rather tired and losing the baby weight has been slower this time than after my other pregnancies, but I just attributed those things to having a new baby + two other children, being a few years older than after my other pregnancies, etc. I started on the thyroid hormone drug (you just take in pill form the hormone that your thyroid would normally make) this week and I will be pretty happy if suddenly I am full of energy and get super skinny without having to work very hard. On the other hand, I am now probably facing taking a pill every day for the rest of my life, which is kind of a bummer. Not in the grand scheme of things, I know, as spring and a joyful baby and warm weather and Holy Week would like to remind me.