Charlie's Baby Blessing

In Latter-day Saint churches, we like to give babies special blessings in church about a month or so after they are born. It's sort of like a christening, but we just call them "blessings." They are performed by a church member who holds the priesthood, usually the baby's father or another family member or sometimes another male member of the congregation that the family knows and loves. A circle of invited priesthood-holders stand in a circle and all help to cradle the baby in the middle. The person giving the blessing listens for inspiration from God as he speaks, so he knows what to say. It's very special. Hollie was blessed by David when she was a baby, and last Sunday Charlie got to be blessed by his Grandpa Sam (Dave's dad). 

Smiley Charlie

I love baby blessings. It's tradition to dress babies in white, and we dressed Charlie in this hysterical little white tux with short sleeves and short pants that my brother William had been blessed in when he was a baby, 21 years ago. (Hollie was blessed in the white dress that I had been blessed in as a baby. My mom is the complete opposite of a hoarder, but she does keep really good care of a few select things, and blessing outfits are one of those things.) It was really neat that Dave's dad gave Charlie his blessing, too (even though David waited until church had begun to ask his dad if he would be willing to do it! We're so grateful he said yes!). My favorite part, I think, was when Charlie was blessed that he would grow up to be "kind, obedient, and fun." It was a blessing full of love, and I am excited to see our fun little boy's personality grow in the coming year.

Charlie's Grandma and Grandpa Grover, his Aunt Liz, Mary, Sarah, and Uncle Angelo all got to come visit for the weekend, and our house was momentarily filled with way more stories, jokes, laughter, and Texas sheet cake than Dave or I could ever create with just the two of us, and, consequently, Hollie was SUPREMELY happy. Dave and I are far from boring, unless you are an almost-two-year-old, in which case I'm afraid we get to be desperately boring. So for three happy days, Hollie had a handful of people who were completely interested in everything she had to say, followed her from room to room, chased her around the backyard, and smothered her in tickles and kisses. Her Aunt Sarah gave her an enormous pink-and-white striped pig that is taller than she is, and Hollie fell immediately in love (pictures pending). It was a glorious weekend.

Hollie and her Aunt Mary having way too much fun.

Anyway, here are a million gazillion pictures of taking the family to the South Plains Fair (a last minute decision that meant leaving for the fair at 5:20 p.m., coming home at almost 8 p.m., making dinner and then eating it at 9 p.m. and putting Hollie to sleep at almost 10 p.m. AND IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!) After the fair pictures are a variety of family pictures taken outside of our church that will be interesting to nobody but our family, so feel free to skip all those if you want to! Or feel free to look closely at how my hair was clearly wet when I slept on it the night before and I'm pretty sure it didn't even get brushed out that morning. I blame 9:00 a.m. church. 

Appreciating prize-winning produce

We're so grateful for Sarah being willing to take Hollie into the petting zoo. Such a fabulous aunt!

Petting sort of sad-looking goats. We mean you no harm, little goat!

Hollie woke up Sunday morning asking to see the bunnies again.

First carousel ride! She *almost* liked it!

First carnival game! I sort of can't believe I let Holls stick her hand in that nasty butt water and touch those rubber ducks. I'm pretty sure if you looked at gonorrhea under a microscope, you would see something like these nasty old rubber ducks.

But it was worth it for this awesome PURPLE MONKEY! She looks apathetic here, but she was gaga about that monkey for the next 48 hours.

What could be better than grandparents and a fair? NOTHING! (Except maybe being old enough for the rides.)

Oh yeah, Charlie was there, too, wearing blue jeans for the first time in his life.

And now, without further ado, a selection of several family pictures in various combinations of church-clothed people:

Come back and visit soon, Grover fam!!

Thoughts at the End of September

I've tried to update this blog for months now. There's so much to record, I can't fit it all in, nor do I know if this is even the proper venue for recording all that I'd like to keep. It's been a month full of all kinds of thoughts, and they contradict each other constantly, so writing down any one thought feels sort of dishonest since I'll likely be thinking a contrary thought in the next moment.

So let me just get some stuff out there so I can move on in this blog and stop feeling like I have to play catch-up whenever I want to say something.

You can't tell here, but his eyes are steel blue.

#1—I Had a Baby

Our Bonnie Prince Charlie either came late or right on time, depending on which due date you think was accurate. Two days before I went into labor, he made a royal flip (that I felt, in the middle of the night) and decided he'd try to come feet first. The doc gave him 24 hours to change his mind and right himself, but I went into labor before this change and before we could schedule the necessary C-section.

A tender mercy: I went into labor literally one hour after my mom showed up. My sweet mom, whom we all thought bought a plane ticket way too late, that surely the baby would be three weeks old by August 8th, but who came right on time after all. 

Mom played with Hollie for a few glorious days, just the two of them: Grandma Hollie and Little Hollie. It couldn't have been more perfect; they couldn't have more cute together. She was a million times better behaved for Grandma than she ever is for us.

Dave and I went to the hospital at midnight on August 8, and I had a C-section at 3:00 a.m. on August 9. My water broke as they wheeled me into the operating room. It was maybe the most uncomfortable and freaked out I've ever been. The spinal block calmed me down, even though it made my arms spasm uncontrollably (I hear that some women have their arms restrained with belts—I'm glad I didn't, even though it was unnerving to see my hands flopping about like fish out of water).

David loved wearing surgical garb. He looked like Jack Shephard from Lost and kept making Jack faces and saying Jack lines to keep me calm and entertained ("I don't believe in miracles, John!" "I need to bury my dad!" "I'm a surgeon, not an anesthesiologist!").

Dave reading Ryan North's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, To Be or Not To Be. It came in the mail the day I went into labor. It is brilliant and funny and made the sleepless nights more manageable. Note how properly disheveled we look. And note the bright sunflowers my doctor brought for me from her own garden.

Finding out I would need to have a C-Section was hard to swallow. It felt a little bit accusatory, like, "You aren't a real woman with a body who can handle having a baby. We need to help you. Also, if this were the medieval times, you would be a dead woman. Thanks and here's your bill." But fortunately my doctor is lovely and I also had lovely friends and family shower me with support and advice. It was all worth it when they finally pulled Charlie out (feet first, after all, just upside-down) and announced his boy-ness. (Also, David saw my uterus outside of my body. He probably doesn't want me publicly announcing this, but I can't help myself. It's too weird. It deserves utterance. Also, he said he wasn't going to look but then he did anyway.)

#2—I Love Being a Mom

Charles Roscoe has been a pleasure and a joy. The boy sleeps in his cradle at night! He still wakes up for feedings, but it is nothing like the 24-hour trade-off schedule that Hollie had us on. David and I took turns for six months taking turns holding her all day and all night, watching obscene amounts of Netflix (and way too many episodes of How It's Made and My Name is Earl). 

Chaz eats like a speed demon and then falls right back to sleep. I'm less anxious this time around, so I feel like I am enjoying his babyhood more than I did with Hollie. I loved Hollie as a baby, but I was so scared and panicky, especially at nighttime. Now I just feel sleepy-drowsy and hungry at night. I feel a lot more relaxed, and he really is such a good baby. He's easy to pacify, he rarely cries. He smiles at me every morning. It's lovely.

And Hollie is hilarious. I can't believe she's almost two, and I promise to devote a whole post to her on her birthday. Suffice it to say that she keeps us entertained and on our toes. She hasn't tried to kill Charlie yet, either, which is nice. She has such a big personality that I spend the day thinking of her as a fellow adult, a child, and a baby all at once. I love 'em. I love these crazy kids.

#3—I Wish I Were a Better Mom

I found myself wondering these past two days whether I am a stay-at-home mom or not. Our kids don't go to daycare. David and I split the work 50/50 or 50/50ish. We both spend some time on campus and some time at home during the days. So are we both SAHMs? Are neither of us?

Dave's been sick for two days, so I've been the sole baby-wrangler except for when he swooped in this morning to change Hollie's poopy diaper and swooped in again tonight to put her to bed (David doesn't really know how to be sick). It's been hard. I can't believe how often I take for granted putting Charlie in Dave's hands while I go for a run (or even go to the bathroom). I suddenly feel guilty for realizing how hard it is to do a thing that many of my girlfriends do full-time everyday.

So I wonder...am I not so great of a SAHM?

There's more I could say here about a lot of things. I consider myself a feminist, but this has been a pretty loaded word, especially in my church of late. I look at Hollie, who is picking up on the stuff of life like some kind of psychological kleptomaniac, and I wonder how to instill in her both the values of a feminist and the values of a stay-at-home mom (again...am I a SAHM? Isn't there some kind of online quiz or something I can take that will tell me?). Or if not a SAHM, then something close. 

I want Holls to feel both limitless and reasonable. I want her to feel free but to also recognize the ideologies we all subscribe to in order to function in American society. I want her to rebel and concede, to socialize and be independent, to question and to believe. I want her to be faithful and skeptical all at once, even though these traits often bring my own heart and soul into anxious turmoil. 

I don't want her to feel anxious turmoil. I don't want her to worry. 

I want her to be all confidence and all humility. I want her to know herself but to never be so cocky or self-assured to admit it.

I also don't want to hold her to any of these expectations, because I never want her to feel that I'm disappointed in her.

So that's where I'm at. 

I had another baby. I love my babies. I don't know what's best for them or how to be what's best for them.

And those are my thoughts here at the end of September.