Entries from May 2010 ↓

i just realized how behind i am on posting and taking pictures this month.  i’ve done more videos and i could have sworn i’ve taken more pictures, but they must still be in my camera.  too lazy/sleepy to go look.  anyway, here are a few photos and snippets from our lives:

–at the beginning of this month, i took baby dude to his two month doctor visit (yep, getting three shots sucks, dude.  i’m so, so sorry.) and he weighed in at 12 lbs 4 oz.  when the doctor came in, she asked how the baby was doing and then asked me how the delivery went.  this threw me for a little bit of a loop because it made me realize that i’d assumed there was a big red blinking indicator on our medical records that he had been adopted.  maybe because i thought that fact might make a difference in the assumptions the doctor makes about his health history?  she did give me a funny look when i started my reply by saying, ‘well, we missed the actual delivery, but we did get to meet him on his birthday.”  ha!

–in politically correct adoption-speak, it is more proper to say that a child “was adopted” rather than “is adopted.”  The past tense version clarifies that it was something that happened to him, but doesn’t (like the present tense) define who he IS.  For some reason, I’ve stumbled over this phrase when telling people our good news (it’s not like I tell everyone we meet that he was adopted, just the people who know me and have seen me frequently enough to realize that I wasn’t pregnant) until last week when I finally told someone, “we adopted!” which puts the action onto US and not him.  It also feels weird to say “adopted” in the past tense when we haven’t gone through finalization yet.  I mean, is it more correct to say that we’re in the process of adopting him?

–baby dude and i survived our first overnight alone this week.  j was out of town for work on monday night (and all day monday and tuesday) and it wouldn’t have been a big deal except that b.d. decided that this would be a good night to revert to waking up every two hours and then deciding not to really take a nap all day tuesday (except for the hour and a half where i strapped him to my chest in a moby carrier and went for a verrrrry long walk in the woods).  i’ll admit that i was reduced to a few tears a time or two the second evening when he just would. not. go. to. sleep. but we made it through (he eventually went down and slept for 4 hours, then one hour of screaming and then another long stretch before i got up at 5:30 to discover a very cheerful and wide awake (!) baby ready to greet the day) and i somehow managed to refinish and recover my glider & its cushions during those two days too, so it must not have been all that bad.  right?  i’ll share “after” photos of the chair sometime….

–i also thought i’d post some photos of baby dude meeting the family.  enjoy!

and one last shot of baby dude practicing his flamenco moves…

first of all, thank you to everyone who responded to my “ghosts” post both here in the comments and also off-blog at my e-mail address.  thank you for making me feel like it’s not completely bizarre that i still had those reactions to mother’s day hullabaloo even though i am now a mother.  in case you’re all wondering how my first mother’s day went… it was the best mother’s day i’ve had in at least five years.  although i had to get over some initial disappointment that j didn’t get up at 5 a.m. to cook me a 7 course breakfast in bed complete with a glittery tiara that says “#1 mom” (instead, he got up at 5 (or was it 6?) a.m. and took the baby to babble in another room so that i could get a few more winks of sleep.  thanks honey!) we did have a lovely, relaxing day at home, then gave the baby a bath, went to church, and then out to eat delicious thai food where they brought out a free dessert “for mothers” (we were joined for dinner by some very dear friends who do not have children and i was greatly relieved that the waitress brought a dessert for them too without making a big deal out of it.).

remember in that ghost post where i talked about the double whammy?  well, i got the best half of that duo–a beautiful baby boy–and we had a little mini photo shoot (thanks again, j!) to prove it.  here are a few of my favorites:

and here’s baby dude’s gift for me:

Gabriel says Mama from carissaabc on Vimeo.

yep, it was a pretty happy Mother’s Day.  I’m already looking forward to next year.

despite my last post, i’m still looking forward to celebrating my own first mother’s day as a mother.  maybe it will help me to change these negative associations….

it’s mother’s day eve and i’m filled with mixed emotions.  for one thing, today is also known as “birthmother’s day” ( i sent “C” some videos and a text message with a photo to recognize the holiday earlier today.  i’m not sure though…. can you say “Happy Birthmother’s Day”?  Is it that sort of holiday?) so “C” has been on my mind a lot today.  for another thing, the ghosts of mother’s day past have been haunting me for the past few weeks.  i still get that same shuddery jolt whenever i run into a large display of flowers or candy or breakfast meat (seriously. this morning at the grocery store, there was a whole section of bacon and sausages and maybe even ham marketed as being ‘perfect for breakfast in bed for mom.’  apparently moms like meat on their breakfast trays.) that are being sold under the banner of mother’s day.  for the past five years, mother’s day has made me want to hide in a hole.  it was the double whammy of not only not having the child i so desperately wanted, and (therefore) also not being celebrated when all of my friends were being lauded for their motherhood.  ouchie ouch.  and so now, even though i have a beautiful son and i have every right to be celebrated tomorrow (breakfast meats or no), these old habits die hard.  this morning on weekend edition they were featuring stories about motherhood.  a friend of mine invited me (and other mother friends of ours) to attend a local event where people will read essays about motherhood.  those things, for some reason, still make me want to crawl in a hole.  old habits and deep wounds die hard, i guess.

i made a video for “C” for our most recent package (to go along with the photos and the letter that we send each month) and i thought you might enjoy seeing it too.  this is the first time i’ve posted a video of my own on my blog, so if it doesn’t work for you, please let me know and i’ll do some troubleshooting with J.

two months old from carissaabc on Vimeo.

it was fun to make this movie!  I used my iPhone for these videos, but i’d like to try the next one with our video camera to see if the quality is way better.  maybe (and this is a big MAYBE) we’ll do it every month to show how he’s grown?  That might help my video editing skills get better… It would work a little better if there were a second, non-baby person to hold the camera sometimes (i couldn’t really hold the camera while i was reading him a story, for instance).  or maybe I just need to set up our gorillapod….. we’ll see if any more ever actually happen!