Tag: Jess

The Unmentionable

Posted on by zsmd

Since Jess normally writes these posts and she’s too modest to even acknowledge her roll, everyone but her gets the shout outs. It’s about time someone mentions her.

Everyone knows that newborns pose some difficulties, so I won’t list them all here.  It suffices to say that our newborn is not exceptional in this regard, and Jess has stepped up in every way.  She hasn’t gotten more than 2 hours continuous sleep in a month, yet she has never responded to any of Moxie’s (or my) insane demands with anything but an impossible amount of love.

Moxie wants to feed every 15 minutes for a day? No problem.  Moxie forgets how to burp?  Sure, mom will pat her back and walk around for an hour until she remembers.  Moxie wants a $1,000,000 in unmarked tens and her own Greyhound Bus to transport the hostages to airport?  Of course, and here’s a helicopter with enough fuel to make it to Cuba.

I know, lots of kids have been born (107,602,707,791 as of October of 2011, in fact), which means there have been a lot of mother (around 48,421,218,506).  Maybe they’ve all been this good; I don’t know.  But that doesn’t in any way diminish my astonishment and appreciation of her.

I’d like to say that I’ve enjoyed helping her in this process, but it goes too far to say what I’ve done is “help”.  At best, I’ve tried to relieve her of all the things she has to do to take care of me, and not always so successfully.  (She’s still my best alarm clock.)  Sure, I’ve changed a diaper or two in the middle of the night, but given how hard it is to wake me up, it’d be easier for her to just do it herself.  Yet she does wake me up, just so that I feel like I’m contributing to the effort.

Whenever I come home, she has a smile and a happy baby ready for me, which, after many sleepless hours of dealing with tears, poop and vomit, I imagine is an Herculean task.  (And our stables are also always clean, incredibly.)  She’s not just good at motherhood, but also at spousehood.  (I’m a pretty middling spouse, which just shows how good she is.  I want to be supportive, but I’ve never been great at expressing sympathy or love.  And yet…she kindly hears the things I don’t say.  Were I her, I would’ve killed me by now.)

So I just thought I’d mention Jess and a small amount of all she does, as this blog seems rather lacking without it.  And to those of you who said she’d be a great mother and a great wife, you mightily underestimated her.

Aunt Kiki

Posted on by jesslee
Pulled pork secret ingredient

For the last few days Moxie has gotten to hang out with Kiki. She has been helping all of us stay sane and really well fed (ask her about her pulled pork recipe). We are sad she is leaving tomorrow. Next time hopefully Glenn and Kai can join us too!

Unfortunately, Jess let go of the stoller to take the picture.
We still can’t get the Pili fur out of the Britax wheels.

Postpartum Care

Posted on by jesslee
Food photography is easy.
Jess mugging for the camera, just seconds
before consuming 5 oz. of purple plastic,
resulting in two cycles of pump-n-dump.

We came home with Moxie yesterday (dressed in the same outfit my mother sewed and dressed me in when I came home back in 1980) overwhelmed and exhausted. We were considering driving back to the hospital to demand they readmit us until we walked in the door and found our dogs happy and healthy (thanks Karen and Ruby) and our fridge, freezer, and counter full of delicious ready to eat meals (thanks Josh, Tracy, Jacque and Karen). We have been eating like royalty even though our days and nights are completely consumed with figuring out and caring for Moxie. We have also had lots of calls, emails, letters and texts from people wishing us well and checking in.

We are surrounded by the love, support and humor of our friends. Thanks to Moxie’s caffeine laced 2 am feeding we are finally able to say a small, insufficient thanks to the bad asses who take the time to show us love.

“Hospital, I do not regret out parting,
but I will not soon forget nor regret our brief liaison.”

Birth Beads

Posted on by jesslee
If you could buy poop on Etsy

Throughout labor I relied on the wonderful beads friends and families gave me at my two super fab baby showers (in Colorado by Court, Steve, Kiki, and Glenn and in DC by Karen, Mom, and Hannah). Just before a contraction I would choose a bead and tell myself all about the bead, the reason it was given, and the person who gave it. We even took the beads with us into the c-section.

Before we left for the hospital I strung all the beads on a string with little black beads between. Our midwife, doula, delivery nurse and, later, anesthesiologist all commented on how cool looking my beads were and what a great show of support from people in our lives.

Photo Credit: The Ever Running Nurse

Niagara Falls

Posted on by zsmd

Water has broken, onto the kitchen floor,

With each coughing, a full pint more,
I laughed and I laughed, a very bad idea,
But still I maintain, better than diarrhea
Midwife has spoken, pack up the car,
Jess is a trooper, revived by a shower,
Praise for the baby bag, for an easy bon jour,
Praise for the Wendy’s, open 24-hour.
(with apologies to Eleanor Farjoen)
We are at the hospital.  We have a nurse named Charlotte.    The baby has not arrived, so we’re all awkwardly standing around.
Jess is asleep, thankfully.  The midwife comes tomorrow when labour is active.  (She never eats the crust, either.)
A warning to interested parties: We will not be able to take the baby home with us because we brought so much stuff.  They will hold her for us, though, so we will be able to pick her up next time we make it to Rockville.

Looking forward to hanging out with this baby

Posted on by jesslee

Well, I went for an acupuncture appointment that is specifically geared towards induction.  I’ll let you know if it worked. I guess I can’t really tell you if it worked.  I don’t have a control case Jessica who didn’t have acupuncture to compare with treatment case Jessica.  Ok. Moving on.

The woman I met with suggested that, instead of feeling frustrated about the baby being late, think about all the fun things to look forward to with a new baby.  I am going to start a list. Please, chime in:

  • Dress her up in all the sweet clothes everyone has given us
  • Take pictures of her and make funny captions giving her a sense of humor before she can even see straight (this will mostly be Strider’s responsibility)
  • Begin weaning her off oxygen and onto helium–we want that cute baby sound to be permanent
  • Watch the responses from our dogs when we bring her home.  We feel pretty confident that Gyges won’t think anything is that weird and immediately accept her into the pack.  However, Pili will likely add the baby to her list of things she is completely petrified of.  That list includes: strangers, card board, the mail man, sneezing, and the stroller. 

Any other ideas?

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3.

Posted on by jesslee

Hi Friends and Family!

Jess would later give birth to a 4 of diamonds.
Was that the card you were thinking of?

As we await (not so patiently) the arrival of our daughter we thought we would get our blog up and running.  We want to share our adventures with you but weren’t sure the right medium to do so.  We considered phone trees, beginning with our moms and letting the information branch out from there, hand written letters using carbon paper, email updates, and an MTV reality show.  After serious review we figured out this blog would be our choice. Anyway, please check in with us every once in a while and see how things are developing in our neck of the woods.

In the news: Little Missy Colorado’s due date *was* August 23rd.  However, here, today August 28th she still remains snuggled comfortably in my gut.  Our new working theory is that she is actually an elephant and will need 22 months to gestate instead of the measly nine human babies need.  Actually, our midwife practice will induce labor at 42 weeks so worst case is this child will be born around September 6th. 

We are all set for LMC’s arrival.  We have our hospital bag packed (mostly) and the various numbers programed into our phones.  We will let you know as soon as something happens.

Well, welcome to the blog!  We hope it won’t be too terribly boring.

Jess and Strider