If I bother trying to think of a real title, this'll never get published

I will skip my attempt to excuse my absence from bloggery this time. It's all very philosophical and boring and in the end I realized I just have to suck it up and stay plugged in if I'm going to maintain social (in)sanity. I sometimes feel like I was born in the wrong generation. I barely figured out T9 this past year (thanks Melissa B!) and have to remind myself that a text must be shorter than an email, and an email must be shorter than a book, and a blog post must be.

I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen and E.M. Forster this past year (those type of English novels are my perfect cure for insomnia), and I suppose they've made me long for a slower, less technological existence. With servants. Especially the servants. Do you know how cultured, accomplished and fashionable I would be if someone else dressed me, did my hair, fixed my food and cleaned my house? Lauren would already be at Yale, I'm sure. Or she'd at least have more time to practice her latest passion: throwing rocks in water.

But I have enjoyed pretending technology doesn't really exist this past year. I have finally felt like I'm doing what I've always wanted to do and what I was born to do, and it's been lovely to just be here. And by "here" I mean "being Lauren's mom." I spent a lot of time in other places feeling out of place and far less than fulfilled. I mistakenly subscribed to the notion that the kind of happiness I've experienced as Lauren's mom couldn't possibly be found soley in said role. I had to have other outlets, right? Well, yes. But I spent too much of my life thinking I had to find my outlets first. That motherhood would be my eternal destiny and duty, and that I would find a measure of fulfillment there because it's the right thing to do and I want a family. But my real personal fulfillment would, or ought to come from other kinds of personal achievement, independent of my ability to bear children. How wrong I was about myself. I usually am.

So, yes, I've loved this past year of her life, except for the parts that involved my insides turning to rubble postpartum and dealing with nursing-related infections. Oh, and most nights when Lauren wouldn't sleep longer than 3 hours at a time. But those are surprisingly small prices to pay. I am keenly aware of how lucky I am to experience biological motherhood, which is another reason why I've held off the blogging this past year: my own version of survivors guilt when it comes to having children. It seems every time I sat down I could come up with nothing but bunnies and flowers prancing with the deer and Lauren through meadows of motherhood bliss. Either that or the extreme opposite and I would have secretly hated anyone who talked of such things when I had been trying unsuccessfully to have Lauren. It's waaaaaay harder to swallow than the skinny girl bragging or complaining about her weight. There. I said it and I hope no one is stung by my honesty. Or feels guilty, because if you're my friend, I could never really hate you.

And I made myself a liar because I said I wouldn't talk about why I haven't blogged, but I suppose I subconsciously felt I owed you, whoever you are, an explanation.

I'm not sure what direction this blog is going to take. It's not going to be All Lauren All the Time (even though that's pretty much what my life is), but it's also not going to be pithy thoughts and pop culture. Mostly because my thoughts are usually overanalytical and rambly, and I know nothing about pop culture. Wait. Ashley introduced me to Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, so I'm not completely out of the know. And there is hope. Kelly and I broke down and got cable, thanks to the World Cup. He's been a trooper and has watched a lot of sports on the internets since we moved away from free cable, but that is unacceptable for this occasion. We're trying really hard to fight the impulse to blow more money on a sweet HDTV whirly bird gizmo too. Who knows where the escalation might end though. So we're ending it there.

And I'm ending this rambly post here.

Sweet concert in Salt Lake this Saturday! (Please read entire post)

My close friend Emily Hoopes is hosting a benefit concert and silent auction in behalf of her 18 month-old son, Patrick, who is in need of a bowel transplant.

Patrick was born without sufficient intestines to sustain normal gastrointestinal activity, so he has spent his life in and out of hospitals and hooked up to all kinds of tubes. Emily has spent his life bending over backwards to take meticulous care of his very special needs. He is currently listed for transplant at the Seattle Children's Hospital. It will be an expensive procedure, and any family under such circumstances could use any help they can get.

Click here to BUY TICKETS for Patrick's Hope Concert

Click here to DONATE DIRECTLY to Patrick's transplant fund

Click here to READ MORE about Patrick and his family.

The reason I do not blog as much as I used to...

...which we all know wasn't much anyway. :) I'm horrible at remembering to take pictures, and worse at remembering to blog them, but I wanted to give anyone who still checks in here a glimpse of what Lauren looks like these days.

Progress

I went so far as to sign into Blogger and open a New Post page today. That's progress, right?

She's ba-ack, and apparently speaking in third person

Okay, so I'm sick of not posting.. It was beautiful for a while. Still, no matter how much I try to convince myself I'm happier not blogging, I come crawling back. It's not personal, Little Bloggy. I just have a hard time keeping up in little snippets. But turns out that's how life outside Lauren is packaged: little snippets, and I'd better get better at approaching things that way. That's how Lauren is packaged too, come to think of it. She's the cutest, happiest little snippet I've ever known and I've been reveling in my time with her. Oh, and also adjusting to the new job which has come with it's share of experiences I don't revel in too. It's just been a bit overwhelming and I knew if I approached blogging about it, my thoughts would come out all wrong.

So with that ambiguous re-entry back into blogdom (for the how-many-eth time??), I'll leave you to look forward to more of whatever I've got clogged up my sleeve after this latest hiatus. Yes, some of that includes pictures of the little snippet which is what I know you're here for anyway. Okay, okay, I'll go get one now to tide you over. Just one though. Like I said, I'm learning this little snippets thing. And now I'm just typing that word again because it's cute: snippet, snippet, snippet...

I strike again!

This is Kelly again with another renegade posting. We took a little trip on Friday out to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was a beautiful day and a great way to spend my day off from work (I work nine hour days and get every other Friday off). Lauren slept though most of the trip, but Lindy and I had a great time enjoying the scarce Seattle sunshine.


That's me and Lauren in her bright green sling - it helps put the size of the fields in perspective.

These were some of my favorites - the aptly named Fabio tulip.

I like how these ones seem to glow.

Even the flowers cheer for the Phoenix Suns

And despite all of her sleeping during the trip this is how Lauren decided to spend her evening after the trip.

Lauren Update

So I (Kelly) decided to finally just post some more pictures of Lauren. There won't be much commentary, but I figure most of you are okay with that.



It might sound like she is upset - but really she isn't. Trust me, if shes upset you'd be able to tell.


I'm warning you, if you click on these pictures they will be huge. I just didn't have the time to resize them.

She loves her auntie her auntie Melissa - and all her other aunts and uncles too.

Her smile is too cute.

A little creepy that she looks so much like the doll...but we love her just the same.

Whoosh loves her mom the most-est.

Picture time...finally!

So it turns out that when you take a lot of pictures of a baby, it takes a long time to narrow down your favorites, crop and resize them and then upload them to Blogger. Especially when every time you sit down to do it, said baby inevitably wakes up from her nap. Besides taking a lot of pictures and taking forever to post them, here's what we've been up to:

Sleeping:

Bathing:

Eating:
I don't care what some Facebook users insist on, I'm not taking or posting pictures of this activity. It makes Lauren uncomforable.

Burping:

Entertaining out-of-town fans:

In order of appearance both here in Seattle and on this post: Annie, Grandma Lesa, Grandpa Frank, Auntie Melissa

And last, but not least...
Posing:

A clarification

Here's why blogging's hard for me: I'm worried that things come out wrong. Like the following statement from last post for example:

"So far, I'm loving being a mom. I fully expected a difficult transition emotionally and otherwise, but I guess when you go in with such low expectations, you're bound to be surprised. I feel lucky to be so."

After I published the post, I realized that could come across like I wasn't looking forward to being a mom. I totally was. I've just heard that the postpartum period can be rough, and it's been easier than I thought it would be. That's all I was trying to say.

And here I am posting it an another post because I'm pretty sure Google Reader doesn't update as posts are edited. I have no idea, but I just had to clarify that before my overanalyzing got the better of me. Actually, I think this post is proof that it already did.

Lauren's birth story and other tidbits (basically a lot of writing if you care to read it)

Well, we just started week three of parenthood, and so far things are going very well. That's largely thanks to all the great help we've had. Thanks to Annie for tending to us during delivery week, and thanks to MommaLesa for taking care of us postpartum. They've both bent over backwards making meals, doing laundry, washing dishes and holding Baby L. As if pregnancy and childbirth alone didn't drive home how indebted we are to our mothers, then they come and do all of this! I just wish we knew how to sufficiently thank them.

So far, I'm loving being a mom. I fully expected a difficult transition emotionally and otherwise, but I guess when you go in with such low expectations, you're bound to be surprised. I feel lucky to be so.

Speaking of surprises, I'm surprised how well I've taken to this newborn phase too. Being the selfish person I am, I hadn't really been a huge fan of newborns before because they didn't fulfill my need for interaction. But with Lauren it's different. She's so freakin small and adorable--I past few days, and I'm not really sure I want that trend to continue. My dad's always joked acould hold her and stare at her and talk to her all day. In fact, I've noticed her getting bigger the bout pituitary gland removal for his grandchildren...but now I'm not sure he's entirely kidding. It really would be nice to be able to keep them small. But then again, it's not like they get any less adorable as they get bigger. I hope.

Of course, with a newborn who can only cry to communicate, I've had a few questions. As I've perused various sources for answers, this is how I've felt:

I'm not going to say any more about that.

Some of you may be wondering about my birth experience, and I haven't decided which version of the story to tell here on the blog: the long or the short. I should probably stick to the short since that will turn out to be long anyway.

I had my first real contraction the morning of Monday, February 9. Contractions continued to come intermittently throughout the day, but became more regular long about 4 pm. By 9:30 pm they had been regular enough for long enough that the doctor told me to get to the hospital by 11 pm. Of course, I was running late and didn't get there until about 11:30. Typical Lindy. I was dilated to a 3, so the hospital kept me. Contractions kept coming regularly, 2-5 minutes apart and 1.5-2.5 minutes long each for the rest of the night. I was having back labor, but was able to manage the pain without medication for the whole night.

Long about 5 am, the contractions kicked it up a notch in intensity and I was between 4 and 5 cm dilated. It was demoralizing to realize that six hours of long and painful, regular contractions only yielded a centimeter and a half of progress, especially since I had been up all night and was exhausted. I asked the nurse how long a typical labor might last, and she estimated 5 more hours. Well, I may have had that much more in me, but I knew if I kept going like I was, I would likely have been too thrashed to enjoy Baby L when she arrived. I decided instead of proving my strength to myself, I wanted this delivery to be as happy an experience as possible for all of us, and I requested an epidural. What a relief! Now I know why my friend Rachel calls it the Holy Epidural.

My labor kept progressing to not quite 7 cm dilated until 8:30 am, and then completely stalled out. We waited to see if things would progress before my doctor broke my water. She did that. Then we waited to see if things would progress before throwing petocin into the mix. Finally, long about 5:30 or 6 pm, I got a "whiff" of petocin and that got the labor up and running again. I was pushing at about 7 pm and Lauren emerged an hour and 45 minutes later. She was placed immediately on my chest and I got to just hold her for a while before she had to get cleaned up and weighted, etc. I was suprised that the new baby slime didn't gross me out and that she didn't look like a lizard to me.

Please don't hate me for saying this, but I loved my labor. It wasn't a tiptoe through the tulips, of course, but it was overall very focused, peaceful and happy. Kelly and my mom were the perfect support team, and I also received fantastic care from the hospital personnel. I went through four shifts of nurses, but each one who was assigned to me was the perfect personality to have around for that particular phase of my labor. My doctor checked on me a couple of times during labor, and arrived before I started pushing. She stayed with me the whole time and really made sure things went as smoothly as possible. I feel very blessed.

See? I told you the short version would turn out long. But there you have it. Thanks MommaLesa for holding Whoosh while she sleeps so I could have some time to type this up. Yes, we still call Lauren "Whoosh." Probably more often than we call her Lauren. Somehow the name's just stuck.

More baby Lauren pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital, my favorites. We brought Lauren home today and everything is going great so far. A big thank you to Annie for coming out to help. We've been able to get a lot more rest thanks to her.