She is NO Newborn

I was just watching a video of a friend's baby on youtube (how do you put video on there anyway?). And of course on the side bar, a million other baby videos lined up to trick me into wasting time watching cute little videos of strangers' babies. But it led me to this realization--maya is NO newborn! She no longer stares at nothing (at least not normally). Her eyes work in unison most of the time. She doesn't do those weird herky-jerky movements (except when she pokes herself in the eye because she's mad because she's hungry). She looks at us when we talk to her (most of the time). She smiles and does something very close to a laugh. She tries to stand up and looks around with this very proud of herself look. She kicks her legs like crazy. She scoots down in the crib so that when we go to get her she's all catty-wampus. She makes a little yelp sound that i'm pretty sure will turn into a, "NO!" at some point. I had already forgotten what newborns even look and act like. This girl is growing and changing so fast! She is NO newborn!

Busy with Grammie

We have been busy! Maya's Grammie has been here with us so we've been doing lots of fun things like:

making Valentines

eating out at our favorite restaurants

visiting with friends going for walks

having parties

going on road trips

We took Grammie to the grocery store where she got in trouble for taking pictures (not before she snapped a few). And then she got in trouble with the police for taking pictures near the police station. People are kind of sensitive about taking pictures here. But lucky for us, they didn't throw her in jail.

New Skill

Maya has been working on a new skill. Thumb sucking. We are thrilled by this new development because it means she can soothe herself when she wakes up and wants her pacifier, and doesn't know how to get it. She doesn't have the whole thing figured out yet (she still pokes herself in the eye a lot), but she's making good progress, as you can see!

Grammie is Here!

Grammie (a.k.a. my sweet mother in law) arrived safely on Friday afternoon. It was so fun to pick her up at the airport--she did this cute little hop jump thing when she saw us. It has been something like 2 1/2 years since we'd seen her. She says she's a little rusty at dealing with babies, but Maya seems to be taking to her just fine. Pretty sure they'll be inseparable for the next two and a half weeks or so.

How do I go to the store?

Just wondering today: how do I go to the store? If my child is too small to sit up in a grocery cart she has to be in her car seat. If she's in her car seat, where do I put her? The carts at my grocery store won't hold a car seat in the small section that is for little people, so basically, she goes down into the main section of the cart but then where do I put the groceries. (Not to mention that my grocery store is 2 stories and there's a strange lift thing that takes the cart up and down like a cart escalator while the people ride up on the people escalator, so you'd have to take her out of the cart for the trip both ways b/c it's not safe to leave the baby in the cart while taking the cart up the cart escalator). This is all assuming, of course, that whatever matt has going on doesn't require that he take the car. If he has the car, I can walk to the grocery store, but then what do I do with the stroller once I get there? There should be a manual for this kind of stuff. And once I figure out how to go to the store, can someone please tell me how to exercise? . . .

Grateful

Most of you have already heard via emails or prayer requests or facebook that I had to have my gallbladder removed about two weeks ago. It wasn't necessarily how I wanted to spend a week, but looking back at the whole experience, I am so grateful for so many things. I thought I would share some of them with you . . .

1. The doctors were great and as soon as a real Dr. saw me (it was a teaching hospital so the first Dr. to see me still had braces and looked like she might have been 12), he knew right away what was wrong with me and got me scheduled to have a sonogram to confirm, which did confirm that i had a gallbladder full of infection and stones.
2. I am so thankful for good hospitals where we live. When the first hospital we went to couldn't admit me because it was too full, I was transferred to a hospital that has some kind of relationship with Johns Hopkins in the states and I am telling you this place was NICE! In the bathroom they had big fluffy robes like we were in a nice hotel! And oh, the water pressure! And a view of the sea out my windows.
3. Great nurses. They were mostly male nurses, which could have been weird, but they were very kind, and one even wanted to go on a double date with Matt and I and he and his fiance by the end of the week. He also wanted us to take his picture with his i-phone holding Maya. Any time he walked in the room and Maya wasn't there, he would ask, "Where is your baby?"
4. Speaking of Maya, we were able to have her with us in the hospital almost every afternoon while our dear friends Jason and Kelli kept her at night. This was really good for my mama-heart that was really struggling with not being able to take care of my baby!
5. Maya had formula for the first time and took it without any problems for the whole week, then was able to switch back to breast feeding (after I was all drug free) without anything worse than a little constipation.
6. The surgeon was great and he not only took out my gallbladder, he found and repaired a hernia while he was at it.
7. We have medical insurance and the close to $12,000 in bills will not be coming out of our pocket--praise the LORD!
8. Friends here visited and brought me things to do to try to assuage my boredom during the week that I had to wait for the stone to pass and for my inflammation to go down before they could do surgery.
9. At the beginning they were concerned that the stone I had passed was lodged somewhere, which would have required a second procedure, but the stone ended up moving on it's own, which simplified the whole treatment process to one surgery, "Giddy up, giddy up, get a move on--raw hide!"
10. Matt was wonderful, and unless he was going to get Maya or take her to our friends or run to our house to send and receive email, or doing dishes and picking up our apartment, he was by my side, taking great care of me.
11. My recovery has been SO fast and SO easy (i was only on Tylenol starting the day after surgery) and I've been able to resume just about everything I was doing before, and aside from a few digestive issues, I don't seem to be missing my gallbladder one bit! Who needs it anyway?

What Can I Say?

I haven't blogged much lately. Things have been busy. I had a baby. She is awesome. She fills my days and nights with feedings, diaper changing, laundry, holding, rocking, thinking. Not much sleep. Not much that is high and grand and blog-worthy. The stuff that is on my mind these days is very simple. Like yesterday she smiled at me for the first time. And although it doesn't feel like it's very high or worthy or grand, it was to me. It was beautiful. And amazing. It was very simple, but my eyes are filling up with tears right now just thinking about it.

The big things on my mind these days seem pretty shallow. They are things like when will I lose enough weight to fit into the mountain of clothes that I own, so that I can stop wearing the same 4 pairs of pants that I have been wearing for months? And how can I get organized so that this apartment doesn't feel so small and crowded? And how on earth can I make a place for everything so that we don't constantly have piles everywhere? And how can I remember all of the stuff I need to remember if I put it away in it's place? And what on earth can I cook (that even resembles healthy) from the few items in my pantry and fridge?

Maybe all of this doesn't feel very blog-worthy because I don't know how to find Jesus in it all. What is the relationship between the piles on our dining room table and Jesus? Or the revolving door of laundry and Jesus? And speaking of Jesus-how on earth do I continue to have some semblance of relationship with Him when I can hardly find the time to shower? And this is the hardest part--how do I chose Jesus when all I want to do is collapse on the couch and watch TV, or climb into my bed and sleep?

Then this voice of reason says to me, "Hey, cut yourself some slack!" And then when I stop and think about it, I realize that I am only about 2 months into a completely new job called motherhood. There is a learning curve. Maybe some of you old pros can tell me how long the intense learning curve lasted for you. Maybe this will help. In the meantime, I am so scared that in the time it takes me to figure out how to keep up with the laundry, or how to fix healthy meals, or how to make time for exercise, I will fail to do the important things with this new baby we have been entrusted with. Like read books. Sing songs. Play patty-cake. Pray for her.

I have spent so much of my life believing that if I could just perform better, then I would have the relationship with Jesus that I want. The intimate prayer life. The outreach and ministry that touches lives. The organized and clean (and therefore welcoming) home. That if I could be more self-disciplined, then Jesus would love me more. That if I could have the hour long quiet time then I wouldn't feel like such a failure. That if I even knew where my Bible is right now, then I might have something grand and noble and worthy to blog about. But then again, maybe the fact that I feel like a total mess makes me a good candidate for the deep deep love of Jesus. Maybe my struggle with failure and perfectionism makes me a great candidate for unconditional love and a huge measure of grace. Maybe I can somehow learn to hear the still small voice of God in the midst of my mess, instead of hoping to get it all cleaned up and under control in order to find Him. In order to know Him. In order to love Him. Maybe in the midst of so much newness in my role and my responsibilities He can be the One who never changes.

So as it turns out, I did have something high and grand and blog-worthy, after all.