Here kitty kitty kitty ...

Nick loves our cat Wee. Wee tolerates Nick. Most of the time she stays upstairs to avoid his rough handling techniques. But this week she sat in the living room perched atop the couch, just far enough away so he could see her but not touch her.

It was torture for the little guy.

Here's how it went, in pictures, with my interpretive captions. Enjoy!

Wee, my small friend, why are you all the way up there?
Come down here NOW!
No.
Please??
Mom, stop taking pictures and HELP me!
A little self-soothing ...
I have an idea ... will you come down if I let you see my duck?

Super-fast Six on Saturday

1. I'm well. Well, well, well. It took two months but I'm w-e-l-l.
2. We are buying a front-loading washer and dryer set this weekend because our dryer died and we want the rebate from SDG&E on the nicer set. I am secretly (or not-so-secretly) THRILLED.
3. I have made it clear to David that this set is NOT my mother's day gift. Because he has already tried to frame it that way twice.
4. Nick has gone from walking three steps to walking about 20 feet without falling. Here we go!
5. My classes are over, and once my grades are in, I'm on vacation until the end of summer. Wahoo.
6. The sun is shining for the first time in a week so I'm going to stop here and go outside and soak it up.

Mother's Day

I don't take it for granted. I know too many who want to be mothers but can't, wanted to be mothers but couldn't; I consider it an honor to be able to celebrate the day, appreciating my own mother and being appreciated as a mom myself.

Last year my mom bought me a beautiful rose bush for my first mother's day. It bloomed a few weeks ago for the first time this season. Isn't the color just amazing? It smells like heaven. What a wonderful gift that I can enjoy year after year, as a sweet reminder of the role I'm so blessed to play in Nick's life.

I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day this year, whether you are celebrating, being celebrated, or both.

You're gonna miss this

I really love this song. Don't you love songs that make you think, change you somehow, make you stay a little longer in the moment? Well, I do too. And this song made me stop whining. Yes, things are tough right now. But I'm gonna miss this. I'm gonna want this back.

Life is precious. And I know that these days are some of the most precious I will ever, ever know.

It's the end of the semester ...

and I'm going a little mad. I'm dealing with students and attorneys and police officers and relatives and colleagues. Yes, all those.

I'll be back in a week when I can CATCH MY BREATH. And you better believe I'll have some stories to tell.

Meantime, there are new pics on Flikr! Check 'em out. This week Nick learned to snap his fingers and took SIX steps by himself before falling over. At least once a day he makes me giggle out loud, and that's what keeps me sane.

Here's a pic of him snapping his fingers from yesterday ...Ciao for now!

Five on Friday

BIG news tonight - Nick took three baby steps all by himself, no hand-holding, no walker. I think (gasp) he will be walking very soon. And then what will I do?

Here are this week's Friday Five:
1. Nick waves at you when you say "Hi Nick". It's a wild, wrist-flapping kind of wave, and it actually makes him laugh to do it. I officially caught it on video three times this week, because one short vid of someting that cute is not enough. He also says "Mum um um" in a grunty sort of voice to me. I don't think it counts as saying "mom" or "mama" though.

2. He turns 13 months next week. This past month flew by. Wasn't it just his birthday like 30 seconds ago?

3. My mom is the world's best cook and this week while she was here she made her famous lasagne. Guess who liked it a lot?
4. I'm still not feeling well. Can you believe it? We are talking two whole months now. Life is soo-oo-ooo much easier when you feel good. I've learned not to take my health for granted. I just pray that Nick doesn't inherit my condition.

5. We spent our afternoon at the park today because it was unbelievably beautiful outside. Here are my favorite of the pics we took. One with dad ...
This one because I could just nibble on those baby toes ...
Fun with the infant swing.

A little alone time.
On the move.
Walkey Walkerman!
Have an awesome weekend.

Susie's magic

More beach pics ... Enjoy!

Shift Happens

Do you have 6 minutes to spare and want to see something cool that will make you think? Click here to watch.

Nick and Hudson

Here are some very cute photos from today's get-together. It's funny, these two have known each other since they were in the womb because Candice and I spent a lot of time together during our pregnancies. They are two months apart - 8 weeks to the day, in fact. Hudson is the younger of the two, but he's huge! Of course he weighed almost 9 pounds at birth, and Nick weighed only 5. But their personalities have been opposite since day one. Hudson is all boy: Very rough and tumble, eager to play and laugh, and definitely a strong-willed little guy. Nick is more laid back and gentle, and he gets his feelings hurt very easily. Maybe it's because since the very beginning, Hudson has taken to slapping Nick - usually right at the start of each play date. He even did it today, see? Just for the sake of comparison, here's Hudson slapping Nick a few months ago at the beginning of another play session. Here they are a little later in their play period today, post-brawling session, enjoying the musical table together.
And chatting with Bella through the fence.
It wasn't long before Hudson discovered Nick's walker.
And then they pushed it around together. Got that on video.
Finally fatigue set in, and Hudson wanted his bottle. Nick started crying for no good reason with a mouth full of gross and soggy cookies.
But then a minute later he was fine, ready to share his cookies with Hudson and Aunt Can.

Need your help

Below is a message from my colleague, Scott, whose family was touched by a terrible birth defect last year. If you can spare a few dollars to sponsor them, please do. Every little bit helps, and the cause is so incredibly important.

Dear Friends,

Hello. As you might be aware, last year our family was touched by the March of Dimes mission to prevent birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality with the birth and passing of our daughter Abigail Grace. To honor Abigail and children like her, we have formed a Family Team to raise money and participate in San Diego's March For Babies. In addition, we are also walking in celebration of the healthy babies that have blessed our lives this year; our son Jack and our nieces Eleanor and Hannah. We will be walking on April 26th in San Diego's Balboa Park. Please join us in honoring Abigail by sponsoring our team. To learn more about our story, please visit our March for Babies team page.

Contributing to our team online is fast, easy and secure. You can donate directly from my personal webpage with a credit/debit card or PayPal. If you prefer, I can also accept cash or check. Just click the appropriate box on my webpage. Last year you helped raise over $3000 and this year we would like to beat that. Every little bit helps. Please forward this to anyone you think would like to help or participate. We are grateful for your support.

If you cannot support us through financial means, maybe you would like to join us in walking. There is no cost to register and we would love for you to walk with us.

Our family knows firsthand the challenges associated with birth defects and infant death. It is important to find out why birth defects, such as Anencephaly, occur and what can be done to prevent it. By raising money, ongoing research to answer these critical questions is funded. When you support our Family Team, you show you care and you give hope for defeating premature birth and other threats to babies.

Please join us and millions of compassionate people across the country who support the March for Babies each year. We need your help. Visit my webpage and sponsor our team! Help us to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. With your support, there’s hope.

With Sincerest Thanks,

Scott, Rebekah and the entire Handley Family

Coming and going

So I'm turning 35 this summer, and it's making me quite introspective (and oddly insecure). A great deal has changed in my life over the past few years. In particular, I'm noticing the transit of people coming in to my life, going out of my life. It has been a pretty fluid, though not entirely painless, set of transitions. This year there have been more transitions out than in, and for the first time in a long time, I feel disconnected. I spent an hour tonight thinking about this circumstance in detail while I blow-dried my hair. Here's what I've surmised.

Friendships before I had Nick are entirely, categorically different from those I would be interested in cultivating or maintaining now. Those people in my life who were "friends" but are not interested in being part of Nick's life, too, are gone - some by their own choosing, and some by mine. These would include a lot of my professorly friends who enjoy drinking expensive wine and thinking big thoughts and spending a lot of time on email. A breastfeeding mom does exactly none of those things anymore.

So once I started to lose/shed my professor friends, I thought, well, I'll go and find "baby" friends - via playgroups, or other baby-related connections. I've tried joining two playgroups. But those people are a whole other story; I find most of the women oddly competitive and the groups themselves quite cliquey. If you join too late you never become part of the whole. And if you differ philosophically on issues, well, you can imagine how that goes.

Another issue I have is that to my colleagues, I am "the new mom", but to playgroup people, I am "the professor". You can sense the inherent dilemma: I can't fit in with either of these potential/former groups of friends. I decided to seek some advice from one professor friend who is also a new mom (most female professors are childless) and she advised me not to join playgroups - that they are for women who "have no careers and thus must establish their entire social identity and intellectual worth vis-a-vis their new child." Did I admit to her that I'd tried to join these groups precisely to establish my identity relative to Nick? Huh, no.

For now I have decided to embrace the small circle of friends who don't pigeon-hole me, aren't super-competitive with their kids, and wouldn't judge me for being in limbo with my relationships as I try to reconcile my various identities.

Maybe once I actually turn 35 I'll figure all of this out!

The orchid whisperer

I don't have a lot of talents - I do about 6 things really well, I think - but one of them is, without question, growing orchids; and more specifically, I am able to make them bloom. I am especially gifted when it comes to phalaenopsis, or moth orchids.

But how did I come by this talent? Well, I've always been enamored with growing things. I love the flowering process of plants. I find the end result, the bloom, to be the reward of loving care over time. So I am one of those people who, if you give me a plant, will keep it forever and find joy in seeing it bloom or blossom every year or season.

And people love to give orchids as gifts. They are so elegant, and the flowers live for such a long time. But when they expire, getting an orchid to bloom again is quite difficult. They are tempermental beauties, and it takes just the right blend of watering, air and bark conditions, light, and fertilizer to see their flowers come back year after year. It can, however, be done.

At work I have a reputation for bringing people's orchids back to life. Folks at universities (for some reason) get orchid flower arrangements as gifts all the time, and once the blooms die I have seen many a spent orchid plant in the trash. So my habit has become that if I see a spent plant on someone's desk, I ask what they plan to do with it. If they don't know how to revive it, I offer to do so for them. All it takes is a few months in my kitchen window and some informed tender loving care. I've done this for many people over the years, but some moved away or just didn't want the plants back once I revived them. I repotted those, and they now sit in my kitchen window peretually blooming and reminding me of their sweet former owners.

I hear through the rumor mill that another spent orchid at work is about to join my collection. My sister says she might bring me one of hers as well. I am so excited to know my three little bloomers will make new friends this summer!

And here, because you just have to see them, is a shot of my three lovelies in their favorite south-facing spot on my kitchen sink. Seeing them every day makes me so happy.

More birthday festivities

Can you believe that Nick's birthday was March 31 and we are still celebrating? Auntie K came down yesterday and brought Prince Nick more gifts. Of course, the best gift of all was seeing here, and the second best gift was being able to sit on her lap and yank on her necklace.



And, sigh, Nick is going through another one of those weeks where he looks bigger and older and less baby-like every day. I've particularly noticed that his hands are growing; his fingers are getting longer and less pudgy. I would be completely sad and devastated by all this sudden maturity if he wasn't still so cuddly and lovey and clearly my baby in other ways. But then I look at this picture and I just think to myself, He looks like such a little man!

A sneak peek

Super quick ... here are the first shots in from our beach photo session. Susie, they are so beautiful. Can't wait to see the rest.

Six on Sunday

1. We had an hour-long sunset photo session with Susie yesterday at Windansea Beach in La Jolla. Boy, did we pick the right day for a beach shoot or what? We had so much fun. I can't wait to share the photos with you. Thanks again, Susie! You are just the best.

2. Speaking of photos, as many of you know I am working on my own photography business. It should be up and running in about a month from now. We are a little behind because ...

3. I have been sick for almost a month now with my Crohn's disease. I started steroid therapy today (very begrudingly) because my doctor says if I don't get better this week I will have to be admitted to the hospital. For like a week. Yuck.

4. So I am hoping and praying the steroids do their thing. And quickly.

5. The warm weather has me dreaming of summer. Can't wait to resume our playdates and get back into our routine. We especially miss Nick's little buddies (and mama's big buddies). The first people we plan to see when I get well are Candi and Hudson!

6. After this week there are only 4 weeks left until school is officially out, my grades will be in, and I can enjoy my stay-at-home schedule for a few months. I am so lucky to have a profession that affords me summers (and January) off.

Here are some pics from this past week. Nick is finally drinking from his sippy cup. He's so close to walking it's not funny. And he's now in the 25th percentile for growth and weight - the highest he has been since he was born!


Hope you have a wonderful week.

Have you read this?

If not, and you have children - or think you might one day - I hope it inspires you.

Excerpt from The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

We're back!

But this will be a quick update post. I am sick at the absolute worst time in the semester for a professor to be unwell. I just have to share that Little Man is loving the walker he got for his birthday. He pushes that thing anywhere and everywhere, and gets so frustrated when he runs into a wall or the island in the kitchen (but has learned to turn it around by himself!). It's hilarious. I have video but it has to be converted from high definition in order to go on YouTube or something like that. I will work on it soon and post when I can. In the meantime, here's a photo.He also got his first official "walker" shoes at Stride Rite this week. He loved the lady who fitted him for his shoes. Let's just say he was focused on one particular feature of her body and he must have been thinking that if he could just get close enough for a cuddle, she would have a LOT of milk for him :0)

Two major developments this week: He has learned how to kiss, and loves doing it! And he started to share his food with me. That has been fun. It's wonderful to see him reciprocate all the feelings I've had for and shown to him for so long.

Finally, I must end this post with an expression of frustration. Wouldn't you know it? Everyone buys him wonderful birthday toys and he spends his week playing with them on occasion, but clearly prefers two things: One, a plasic back massager thing that someone gave me in a spa gift basket about 3 years ago (he found it by accident); and two, a plastic drinking bottle that his Grammie put some tictacs in so it would rattle when he rolls it. Lesson learned: The best toys are the ones you don't buy.

Hope your week gets off to a great start!

Taking a break ...

I am sitting here on Sunday night recalling all the events of last year, at this exact time, getting ready to meet my son. I've decided to take a week off from this blog and finish up the book I've been writing to Nick since the day I found out I was pregnant. It is officially 300 pages long (single-space, yes, but with photos). I am going to have it bound in April as my birthday gift to him. I certainly can't buy him any more toys ... have you seen this little man's birthday loot? And his Aunt and extended family haven't even given him their gifts yet! We are so blessed. Anyway, who knows if he will ever read the book, titled Notes to Nicholas, but it has been my way of documenting this journey for him since he won't remember it all. Every new development, every special moment is chronicled. I am even thinking of sending it to a publisher. Looking back when I was pregnant I think I would have bought something like it - a mom's notes to her unborn son and then her notes to him throughout his first year.

Anyway, all to say that I'll be back in a week. See you then! In the meantime check out the birthday pictures.

Before, after

Day 1 of his life:

The morning of his 1st birthday:

What a year it has been. A link to pics from today's party is forthcoming ...

Enjoy these moments - they pass too quickly

My water broke on March 29, 2007. My labor was induced on March 30, and Nick was born at 12:32 p.m. on March 31. I was only 36 weeks pregnant. I thought I had another month to go. Nick had other plans. We all joke that he wanted to be here in time for Easter.
Ah, labor. You know, I felt most of it even though I had an epidural. They shut off the meds pretty early. I felt that entire last 2 hours and of course the hours before it was inserted. Every single twinge, burn, pull. And I wouldn't change a thing. I have never felt more empowered. I can say, in no uncertain terms, that I know pain. In that moment when your child's skull is trying so desperately to move through and past you, it's literally bone on bone. It's a pain I cannot describe. And there's a sadness attached to it. I kept thinking, why are you in such a hurry to leave me? I was so happy being pregnant with Nick, feeling his kicks and movements, having that connection that only a pregnant woman can have with her unborn child. When my water broke, I cried. I was pretty zen throughout the delivery - there is something sacred about the process that quieted me is all I can say - but then when Nick was finally outside of my body, when I held his tiny body on my chest and the doctor with David's help "cut the cord" I cried again. I knew as long as he was inside me that he was safe; now he was out in the world and I wouldn't always be able to protect him. It was a primal experience of my body releasing him and my heart aching and my soul seeing its reflection in this new human being all at once.INTENSE STUFF. What I wrote above is about the best way I can possibly describe it all in words.

One year later I realize that Nick's birthday is the most important day of my life. It's not really just the start of his life; his life began much earlier, and was so intimately connected to mine long before he broke free from my body. To me, March 31st is a day to celebrate the fact that I've given half my heart to another person who brings special gifts to the world and who gave me, without question, the greatest gift of all: He made me a mother.

All of this, one year ago this weekend. Thanks for letting me reflect with you.