4 YEARS

Happy Anniversary Michael! It's been an amazing 4 years with so many great experiences... but adding Raya to the center of our heart takes the cake!

She's a ONE year old!

At this time one year ago today, I was posting my final blog entry as a pregnant gal... knowing that in a matter of hours I was going to meet my sweet baby for the first time. Since then I've had the best, most fun, most SPECIAL year ever. This girl has filled my life with so much joy and love. Even a bad day turns good when I'm with her. She's made me understand what's so important and what's so not important. And she's allowed me to finally let the big ol' dork within me out to play. Who cares who notices? We'll sing about remembering to buy diapers while shopping in the produce section if we want to.

Thanks Baby GT for bringing into my life so much more love than I knew possible. Thanks for giving me something to look forward to when I'm stuck at work and frustrated about being there. Thank you for loving me so much that when I walk through the door you wave and laugh/cry (craugh, if you recall) as you waddle your way to me. Thanks for loving your big brother Steve and giving him the attention Daddy and I sometimes neglect to give him since you arrived. And last but not least, thank you for sleeping tough in your crib so I could quickly write this blog and post it on your actual birthday.

Happy 1st Birthday Raya Claire!

I love, love, love you.

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

It's been awhile! So much has changed since my last blog entry. Raya is now 10 and a half months old. She started crawling shortly after the last time I wrote and now she's just about to start walking! She cruises around our living room furniture, touching it just enough to feel confident but not really needing the support. She can stand alone for as long as she wants. If I sit in front of her and say, "Come here to Mommy!" she might take a step or two... but if I provide something as simple as a string for her to hold while I hold the other end, she'll trot on over! The baby mind is silly and complex.

Her current favorite word is Bay-bay-BEEEE! Although Momomom and Dadada are a close second. Na-NA-na is also a fave. I believe this means she loves herself first, Mom & Dad second, and bananas third. Her favorite activities include pointing at the pictures on our hallway wall, climbing on Steve while squealing in delight, hanging out with Momomom as much as possible and playing row-your-boat with Dadada.

I'll try to post some pictures when I have a chance. Raya rarely allows me to spend much time on the computer. She LOVES the computer and is always trying to take over whenever she sees Michael or me on it. We got her a toy one. She's not fooled. They really need to make a toy computer that doesn't LOOK like a toy. Hasn't anyone caught on to this yet? Anyway, I was trying to take some cute pictures of her today but she just kept trying to grab my camera. So I gave her my camera and took this video of her instead...

Oh No She Di'unt!

Raya likes it when I'm a dork...

Special and Mine

Everything about motherhood has the potential to be a sensitive subject to someone. The ease or difficulty of becoming pregnant; the things we do while we're pregnant; the way we decide (or don't decide) to give birth; how we nurture and raise our child... everyone has their ideals and sometimes they don't work out. And as much as you want to be okay with it, you can't help but feel that sting when your sensitive subject comes up.

My sensitive subject is my child birth experience. Having had a scheduled C-section, I feel the need to tell everyone that I had no choice. That I did everything I could to avoid it. That Raya was stubborn and chose the way she we wanted to be born. While all of that is true, what I don't say is that every time I talk about it, I feel like I'm sharing my first failure as a mother. Not only did I not get to deliver my daughter the way nature intended, I didn't get to experience any part of it! No water breaking. No major contractions. No hours spent waiting in anticipation. No "OH MY GOD, THIS IS IT!" moment. My birth story began with a voicemail left on my cell phone while I was shopping for new kitchen appliances at Sears: Hi Hailey, your baby's birth date has been scheduled for next Tuesday at 4:00pm. Please arrive by 2:00.

I mourned the loss of a labor experience as if the experience were a close friend. I was devastated. I kept replaying in my mind the video we watched in child birth class. The baby came out and was immediately placed on Mommy, skin to skin, all bloody and gooey and beautiful. I cried when I saw that video. It broke my heart to be told I wouldn't get to experience it. My Mom helped me more than she knows when she said, "There is so much that goes into creating a life and raising a child, how they come into this world is such a small part of it." I forced that to be the way I viewed my situation. It's not my ideal way, but it's how Raya is coming into this world. To not appreciate it would be unfair to her. So I did my best to embrace it. At 4:00pm on a Tuesday, I laid on the operating table, arms spread out on either side and numb from the chest down. Michael holding my hand on one end, my anesthesiologist taking pictures for us and distracting me with light hearted conversation on the other. Finally my doctor announced, "Here's your baby!" And the nurse, on her way to the warming table, paused to display my beautiful, slimy, gray-toned, baby girl. The most perfect moment in my life. I cried just as happily as the woman in the video.

Ready to meet my daughter

This next picture may take some by surprise (so scroll quickly if you don't want to see). It shows my baby's special entry into this world... butt first :)

We all have our things we're sensitive about. I will always feel some aimless resentment for being "robbed" of labor and delivery, even while I protect and defend the experience I had. It's taken me awhile, but I now know that there is no right way or wrong way. There is only this way and that way. We don't always get to experience our ideals... but if we allow it, the experience we have can be just as special.

Welcome to your family baby Ray :)

Firsts

First big girl bath - sitting up without the infant insert

Raya's 6th month has held some very monumental moments! She's keeping me super busy which explains my lack of posts :) She's not quite crawling yet, but that doesn't mean she's not mobile! She's just stuck in reverse is all. Scooting around backwards on her belly is one of her favorite new tricks. Here are a few of her other recent firsts...

She's reaching for the tube of Butt Paste at the end of the second video... not a first.

My Ray

I started going back to work a week and a half ago. It breaks my heart to be away from my girl. I fought tears (often unsuccessfully) all day my first day back. With each day it has gotten easier, just as everyone said it would. But my heart still breaks a little every time I walk out that door in the morning. All I wanna do is be with my girl!

Lucky for me, my hours allow for a good amount of time with her after work. I get home just after 3pm. So from then until bed, it's Mommy and Raya time.

This is how we spent the afternoon after my first day back at work.

My second day of work was Raya's first day of skoo. She was seepy when she got home.

Here's Raya pretending to be Mac. (She's in Mac's car seat with Mac's blanket, self-feeding the way Mac sometimes does)

Just seepin' and suckin' my thumb

Raya goes to daycare 3 days a week. Her cousin Mackenzie goes there too. We call it "skoo." Raya had some tall tales about her day at skoo today. Sounds like she and Mackie had tons of fun.

(I apologize upfront for allowing my nerdy laugh to intrude on Raya's cuteness. You'll see.)