The Many Names of Maya

In case you haven't noticed, Maya's hair has a slight curl to it.

Because of this, we have many different stages of curl. Along with the stages, we also have names.

Number 1: Fresh out of the bath or pool, it's the air dried, nothing done to it, Shirley. Shirley Temple.

Number 2: Nap hair or morning hair, either way it's pretty snarled and all over. This is Gene. Gene Wilder.

Number 3: This is a new one. In an attempt to just comb it a little, we got this. Roseanne Roseannadanna. Just in case you are unsure, look up Gilda Radner and Saturday Night Live.In a bit of irony. If Gene and Roseanne would have had a child, his/her hair would probably look something like this:

Half a Decade

At 5:30am on September 20, 2005, I finally got the call I had been very impatiently waiting for. The hospital had a bed for me and they were ready to induce!! Freaking-A finally!

Woke up mom, called Buddy at work and got ready. We arrived at 6:30 and everything got underway at 8:00. By 3:00 nothing major had happened. Apparently baby just wanted to keep hanging out. Doc broke my water at 3:30 and that did it! The best man in the building came in at 4:30 to give me the good stuff (epidural). I even took a little nap after that. And then it was time to get things really going at about 7:30. At 9:18pm, our 8 pound 4 ounce baby boy was born.

I remember him being place on my chest. I remember watching him get cleaned up, weighed, measured. I remember the nurse bringing him over to me to show me how straight his spine was. I remember being so completely happy and shocked and overwhelmed and excited that I was a mom!!

There have been ups and downs of course, but this little man is seriously awesome. He is smart, sensitive, friendly, happy, playful, and the best big brother. I wish I had a baby picture of him to post, but the home computer with all his baby pics is packed up. We called him the "Cutest Baby Boy in the World", cuz you know, he was. He had a cueball head; completely round with barely a hair. From the back he looked just like his Grandpa B. He was always big for his age (still is) and grew out of his clothes so dang fast! He didn't look heavy, you'd pick him up thinking he's pretty average, but he deceived you and you had to use your muscle. He crawled at 7 months, walked at 10 and was a very happy little guy. I was so lucky to have such a good baby. Never an ear infection, hardly a cold; just a healthy, happy and hungry boy.

Happy Birthday, Hayden James!!! We couldn't have asked for a better little man!

The First Due Comes and Goes

5 years ago today was a Thursday, I was a tank. I was retaining so much water that you could push your finger into my ankle and leave a half inch dent. I was on bed rest. I ate every two hours, literally. My face was so swollen you could hardly tell I had eyebrows. You will never see a picture of me like this. Ever. Today was my due date with Hayden.

We didn't know what we were having, only that it was a baby. I was very excited about becoming a mom, but extremely scared about, you know, how baby was going to come out. I'm okay with pain, I am not okay with needles and hospitals and IV's. The first time they took blood during my prenatal care, I came to on the floor with my head on a pillow, a juicebox next to my head and my legs at a 90 degree angle with my feet propped in a nurses thighs.

I went through the entire pregnancy thinking this baby would be early. Baby would just come early September. I ended up with mild preeclampsia with 6 weeks to go. I had just finished working and wanted to finish getting ready because baby would be here in a month. Scratch that, bed rest time. I checked my blood pressure three times a day, kept a record of each reading and waited. As long as baby would come after the first of the month and not before, I would be happy.

(This is me, but not with Hayden. Picture bigger belly, swollen hands, arms, fingers.)

My mom came down the Saturday before my due date, because baby was going to come early. Buddy picked her up from the airport. When she saw me, her eyes got big and then turned to horror at how huge and uncomfortable I looked. Seriously, it wasn't pretty.

Then, this day came and went. As did the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th. Here is my opinion on due dates: Doctors need not give a due "date", they should give an estimated time of arrival. You know, like "You'll be 40 weeks here, so expect baby to come within this span of days/weeks." That whole due date thing just doesn't work with me.

Another chapter has closed

I apologize I haven't been a great blogger lately. I've been a little busy. Moving. We moved to a rental home while we wait for a short sale to go through so we can be homeowners again! We sold our house with hopes of a smaller mortgage, more land, a basement, a place to park the RV, a smaller mortgage, less in the power bill throughout the summer (9 out of 12 months), a guest room, a possible playroom, no "upstairs", a basement and a smaller mortgage. That's not too much to ask, is it?!
We found it. It needs all new floors, an updated kitchen and my painting skills, but we found it. It's got a larger yard, a place for the RV, a guest room, a playroom, a basement and a smaller mortgage! Now, it's just super tight finger crossing time that it is ours. We have our minds going into overdrive thinking of all the things we want to do to make it "ours", but it's still a huge wating game.
In the meantime, our house has sold. In this market, we were extremely lucky! I was upset about having to leave within the first few weeks of accepting the offer and starting to pack. We didn't think it would happen so fast. We built that house. I painted (literally) almost every inch of wall space. We brought both of our children home to that house. We were on our hands and knees putting wood flooring in the dining room. We always knew it wasn't our final home, we just didn't think about what it might feel like to no longer live there.
But then, we found something we felt was home. We had put in offers on other homes because we just had no time, we were starting to feel homeless. I am so glad those offers fell through because we would have put ourselves in something that wasn't home. It just would have been a house and a mindset of "what-if". For now, we are renting month to month just waiting to hear those magic words of: It's yours. You will close on ____ __. 75% of our things are stuck in a 10X20 storage unit waiting for the good news too.
I cleaned the floors and dusted shelves in our sold home on Sunday. I was shocked with myself that I didn't bawl through every room, remembering. I don't know if it was because I had cried so much throughout the last month knowing we were leaving or because I felt so good about what our future home could hold. I will miss that house. I will miss all the work we put into it. But I can take all the memories with me, those are in my heart, not in the house.

Sigh...

I get homesick this time of year. Every year for the last 9 years, I've gotten homesick for Minnesota. Why? Because here in Arizona, we don't have Fall.

This time of year has a different smell in the air in Minnesota. It's a smell that tells you school will be starting soon, football season has begun, something is changing. I miss this dearly.

I get no smell here. There is no crispness in the night air. School has already been in session for a month. I really want to wear jeans all the time now, but I'd be kidding myself and sweat all day long.

I miss driving up to St. Cloud this time of year. The drive is always so pretty with the leaves changing and the Fall decor being put up. The grass is still green, but the trees, oh the trees! Apple orchard signs are out and the smell of cinnamon starts seeping from everything.

I get to rely on my Cinnamon Cider Scentsy fragrance or being smacked in the face by the overpowering cinnamon odor coming out of the craft stores, fake Fall leaves and wearing shorts and tank tops to watch a football game on TV.

It'll cool down in November. Gee, can't wait.