Happy Half-Year, Babaloo

This baby girl is six months old this week, and here are her quick stats:

Height: 25-ish inches
Weight: 16 lbs 12 oz
Favorite song: Still the Duck Tales Theme Song.
Favorite toys: Mom's glasses, Mom's Nalgene, Mom's laptop, Mom's books, Dad's watch, Mom's hair, Dad's hair
Favorite baby food: Carrots!
Favorite book: Baby Sees Colors (the red page is the favorite page)
Teeth: Still none.

Hollie can roll from her stomach to her back and her back to her stomach pretty well these days, and her new trick is getting her arms and legs stuck between the crib bars. She will do anything not to have to fall asleep. She sits up like a pro and only topples when she is reaching for a toy. She also likes to stand up at church and hold onto the back of the pew for balance (and that's about the only thing she likes about church). Rather than experiment with consonants, this baby has been more interested in voice-range exploration. She likes to practice her high notes (think dog whistles) and her low notes (think dinosaur-grandpa-wolf grunts), instead. This last week, she expanded her repertoire with under-the-sea gurgle-singing. This is always accompanied with big smiles and ends in coughing (still learning to control that spit).

Grandma Hollie came to visit for a whole week and a half! We loved it! Baby Hollie got spoiled, and so did David and I. Utah is too far away from Texas. We did get lots of pictures of Baby Hollie smiling with Grandma Hollie, but I like this picture a lot. Her eyes and lips look so pretty, I think. (Speaking of eyes, they still change colors a lot, but we noticed this month that she has an eye-freckle in one of her eyes, just like her Dad does. I love that.)

While my mom was here, she got us a swing for the backyard! We're looking forward to some early morning and early evening swings (since West Texas summers are TOO HOT between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.).

A very rare photo of Hollie actually sleeping.

This is a typical picture of what you find at our house on weekends. Babaloo manages to get plenty of sleep, but David and I are still a far cry from fully rested. This girl has yet to sleep more than four hours at a time, and I can count on my fingers how often that has happened. She still wakes up every two or three hours in the nighttime to eat, and she still refuses to take naps in her crib. The pediatrician recommends tough love, but that will have to wait until school gets out. It's easier to read books and type papers with a baby sleeping on your chest than it is to read books and type papers while a baby cries in the next room. She's sleeping on me right now, if you want to know the truth.

We had to take a picture of Baboo's "hobo toe." What can I say? She kicks her feet with too much gusto for us to expect her jams to survive long! (I hope she blows the knees out of her jeans when she gets older, too. I always had blown-out knees as a kid.)

I can't believe our Babalina is halfway to a year old. We are so in love with this baby. People keep asking David and me how we are hanging in there with a six-month-old while also attempting to complete PhD coursework and teach college classes. We don't know how to respond except that it is the six-month-old baby that is helping us get through it! She is a delight and a surprise, and she makes us laugh every day. She puts our feet back on the ground and inspires us to work hard. She reminds us of what matters and keeps us from wasting time on what doesn't matter. It's all for you, Bean! Thank you for being a part of our little family!

For Sarah

P.S. Sarah: Aren't those YOUR hair extensions that David is wearing? Or was this a cover-up story Dave made up to protect me from a past butt-rocker phase?

Scholar-in-Training

Captured on film by our supervisor, Hollie and Dad look over grading materials for a freshman composition workshop. Our good little scholar is always on her best behavior at school. Of course, I was in the next room over with my own grading group when this picture was taken. By the time I came to pick up Hollie, David had his feet up, reclined as far back as those swivel chairs can get, with Hollie asleep on his chest and his own eyes shut. Fortunately our supervisor had put her camera away for that photo opportunity. (Though most scholars will tell you that another great characteristic for PhD candidates is the ability to fall asleep during mandatory meetings.)

Easter Miscellaneous

 

Oh, my. Time is passing so quickly this semester! David and I have been up to ears in schoolwork, grading, and a cute little baby. Unfortunately, we're not out of the woods yet, and I am technically supposed to be working right now...but I need a break. So I give you: Grover Family Easter 2012, in which Hollie wears a frou-frou hair bow (for ten minutes) and Emily learns to tie an Easter bow for the first time without her mom's assistance (also lasted for ten minutes).

Our loot! Hollie got a Hello Kitty Easter basket that her Grandma Hollie picked out for her while she was in town (pictures of that soon. I love my mom and miss her dearly. *sigh* It is hard to be away from my family sometimes). The gorgeously wrapped-and-ribboned stack of book-and-game-shaped presents is to me from Davey (he even stamped the paper all cute with our bird stamps and label-makered my name to the top. *swoon!*). The handkerchiefs-shaped present is from me to David.

After church on Sunday, we somehow managed to invite eleven big people and five little people to our house and get them all fed (with some pot luck help, of course). My contribution was this Boston Cream Pie. It looks sloppy, but I have to admit I was pretty proud of it. David helped me to "render" the egg mixture of the cream—it was a first for both of us, but super fun.

Then, we tie-dyed eggs! Check out this awesome blog to see how you can, too! This is a new Easter tradition for the Grovers.

The end results!

Buzz-Buzz-Buzz, I'm a bumbley egg.

Look at gorgeous red. Fire engine art deco.

I love how the paisley showed up so clearly here.

I wish this one had had more contact with the silk to cover more of the egg. So rad. I can't wait to try this again next Easter. I'm on the lookout for terribly gaudy and bold silk ties all year long in the meantime.

My favorite egg. It looks like stained glass with little yellow paisleys. I can't wait until Hollie is old enough to understand how magical tie-dying eggs is!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Hollie hates being belted into her bouncer, because she prefers to lounge rather than sit in it.

Like her dad, when she's feeling particularly lazy she would rather accomplish tasks using her feet instead of her hands. (David is superb at grabbing remote controls and changing the volume of the music/film with his toes on lazy weekends.)

This is what happens when there is nothing to do until 1:30 p.m. church.

Like Father Like Daughter

 I'm sorry, my poor little baby. It is in your genes to have a lifetime of crazy-haired sleepy photos. I think you are both cute as buttons, though.

Four Months!, cont.

This just in: evidence that Hollie really does love the Duck Tales theme song. What you don't see is the five minutes after this was taken, when she promptly spit up all over herself and David.

Four Months!

Little Baboo is four months old! She is 25 inches long and weighs 14 lbs 13 oz. Dave and I aren't sure when she went from looking like a baby to looking like a little person, but it seems to have happened overnight. Since David and I are both in school, life around here is a pretty complicated juggle. We're glad that we can shuffle home, school, and church life without needing daycare or a sitter--one of us is always home with Hollie. There are days, however, when we have to switch shifts at school, so Hollie has also taken lots of walks to campus and back as a result. She is very careful not to scream when we walk past classes in session, thankfully. (And everyone at school LOVES her...she better not get an attention complex.)

Hollie loves:

• her bare feet rubbed on Dad's beard
• the DuckTales theme song, especially when Dad sings it (she laughs at the "Woo-ooh!"s)
• reading her 123 Texas book from Aunt Liz
• watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert with Mom & Dad (I think it must be the garish red and blue sets)
• when Dad plays guitar and Mom sings
• splashing in the bath
• playing with her blocks, her Grover doll, and her giraffe
• acting out the part of Jacob Marley by rattling her plastic chains and moaning
• grabbing her feet
• grabbing at toys that dangle from her bounce-chair (though, in general, she hates her bounce-chair)
• jabbering (she's become quite the chatterbox, just in these last two weeks)
• being in what David refers to as her "hot air balloon"—when we walk her around the perimeter of the house and let her casually look around and see the sights

Hollie hates:

• having a runny nose (her first one ever was this week)
• going to sleep
• waking up
• getting dressed
• her carseat
• anything that confines her from kicking and stretching out her legs

We are excited to try feeding her rice cereal, but we might wait until we get back from Georgia to try it. Dave and Hollie are coming with me to a professional conference next week, and we are excited and nervous. Hollie in a hotel room for four days will be an adventure indeed (not to mention the plane rides and train rides). We're hoping she likes the swimming pool! (I think I am more excited/anxious about that than about actually presenting my paper.)

Here is a short clip of Hollie's laughs. This has been hard to document because she is usually the most giggly at nighttime when we are too tired to get the camera out.

 

On Owning Things, Losing Things, and Keeping Things

When Dave, Hollie, and I went to my parents' house in Utah for Christmas, we made out like bandits. Spoiled! We had to pack all of our presents (as well as a bunch of things we had brought with us, and a bunch of nostalgia from my childhood that Hollie was to inherit) into four huge boxes that cost us $70 to mail to our house in Texas. Of course, we got home before the boxes did, and we promptly went from airplane to car for a nine-hour drive to Houston and another week away from home. When we finally made it back to Lubbock, we were worn out, pleased with ourselves and our little baby for surviving the road trip, and we were more than eager to put all of our new possessions away and play with our new toys.

In the coming days, David and I opened boxes of books for school, patiently awaiting the REAL packages of everything we sent from Utah.

...Yeah, they never came. We started to wonder after a couple of weeks, then wonder turned to worry, worry to frustration, frustration to regret, and regret to acceptance.

While we were in Houston, we forgot to turn off the mail, but it was okay because we had a friend staying at our place while we were gone (he was there to check out the university). There was only one day between when our friend left and we came home that all of our presents must have come, sat on our doorstep, and been stolen sometime in the middle of the night.

But who would steal boxes of baby clothes and toys, or old children's books with inscriptions like: "To my dearest Emily, from her Great-Grandmother Melba"? I told David and my mom that if I had stolen some boxes and found that they were filled with memorabilia and baby things, I would put them back during the middle of the night the next night. My mom said that's why I'm not a criminal. Dave reminded me that the cardinal rules of thieves is to never return to the scene of the crime.

What bothered us more than losing the things, though (things are things, after all), was that these things were gifts, chosen specifically for us by people who love us and know us, things that were thoughtfully considered, purchased, carefully wrapped, and brought to Utah to watch them be opened by us. My mom who lives in Utah and my sister who lives in Alaska can't be near Hollie more than a few times a year, but they can at least feel close knowing that Hollie is wearing their clothes.

It's made me want to at least memorialize what was lost by making an inventory of the things here. I must add, though, some embarrassment about doing so. We really are so ridiculously, wildly blessed and spoiled, that I feel shy telling everyone just how much we received in the first place. (And this is not even to mention the loot we brought home with us from Houston, including tons of great hand-me-down clothing like the polka-dot dress Hollie is wearing above.)

What Was Lost:
From Mom/Grandma:
* a lavender Bumbo
* several outfits for Hollie (including a special Valentines Day jumper)
* teething rings and toys
* new cute pacifiers
* David's first power-tool, a circular saw
* a fancy Vera Bradley briefcase for women
* an immersion blender

From Sister/Aunt Amanda and Brother-in-law/Uncle Tyler:
* a Baby Bullet (for making baby food)
* a baby food cookbook
* more clothes for Hollie (including bibs that said "from my favorite auntie" on them)
* a pretty stylish shaving kit with lotions and creams for men
* a rad tie rack
(fortunately Amanda's present for me I got to wear home: a necklace with a huge octopus pendant, and a locket with a watch inside!)

From David and Me to Hollie and each other:
* Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso
* 2 Harry Nilsson LPs
* more cute clothes for Hollie (including her first pair of Osh B'Gosh overalls that I bought back in November, I was so excited!)
* Hollie's first purchase with her own money: Four special board books from The King's English including Grover's There is a Monster At the End of This Book, Pride & Prejudice for babies, and Dinosaur vs. Bedtime

Stuff we already owned that we were shipping back:
* a hip baby t-shirt that I wore in 1982, in good condition
* all my special hardback books from when I was a kid, including one I had won in a contest and scrawled an explanation of how I won it in my seven-year-old handwriting
* a black Mobi-wrap that Mom gave me before Hollie was born
* our Wii (the worst part of this is that we had bought the new Zelda game the day it came out because we were so excited, and now we can't play it. I had played just enough to see how super awesome it was. Oh, Zelda! When I get my PhD, I am going to buy another Wii and play you to my heart's content!)
* Dave's SuperNintendo!! This one is extra tragic, because it was in excellent working condition.
* Incredibly rare SuperNintendo game cartridges, including: SuperMetroid, Secret of Mana, ChronoTrigger, Tetris/Dr. Mario, Megaman X, and the original Mariocart (possibly others...we've been too downtrodden about it to check what we still have here)
* a special stuffed rabbit from one of my professors to Hollie (fortunately, she also gave us a blanket that we still have here)

Gone, gone, gone.

The ridiculous thing is that we still brought home so much loot despite these losses. Furthermore, our dear friends in town brought us over some of their baby stuff just days after we got home, including a mint-colored Bumbo and other fun toys. Spoiled we are. Spoiled rotten. And David bought me a really ridiculously nice camera that I demanded we take on the plane with us in case I wanted to play with it. Blessed and spoiled and blessed.

It has taken a while for us to stop saying things like, "Hey, where did we put that one thing....? Oh yeah, it was in The Boxes." And sometimes right after waking up in the morning I would suddenly remember something else that was lost that I had forgotten we'd packed in The Boxes. It felt like days of losing things. I was upset, and then I was scared. If people felt good about stealing special Christmas presents, couldn't they also feel good about breaking-and-entering or creepily stalking us, etc., etc.? But David assures me that, no, it is entirely different to steal from one's porch than it is to steal from one's bedroom.

I find it hard not to create backstories for the people who took our things. I want to narrate, to have an account of it. I picture them coming to our doorstep and expecting the boxes to be filled with watches, stereo equipment, video games and jewelry (the boxes were very heavy, after all). I see them put the boxes in their van and bolt, sweating, wondering if neighbors were watching. I watch their faces melt into disgust and disappointment when they pull out the gym clothes my Mom was letting me borrow, and they realize the weight was all in baby books and electronics from the 1980s. I see them dumping all our treasures into dumpsters, hawking the power-tool and the Wii for quick cash. I see them justifying their actions because in their eyes, we have too much already. I can see them writing a story for our family as they go through our private things. I can hear them say we didn't need these things, that we should feel lucky to have a family, a house, jobs, and zero need to ever steal from anyone.

And they'd be right.

We will always remember this Christmas as the one where all our presents were lost, and I will always remember it as the Christmas I realized a little more concretely that the reason we get together with family isn't for the gifts at all. The treasures I will always have from this Christmas are the pictures we took and the memories we made, so precious now that we live so far away from each other. The things I really want to keep aren't things at all: I'm so glad that I live at a time and in a place and in a situation where I get to live with my husband and my daughter without a fear of getting split up or taken from one another. I've thought a lot these last couple of months about all the families in the world today who must fear this loss daily. How grateful we are for so much. There's no way to take a proper inventory of the people I get to keep, my sweet family that I have faith will be with me forever. I'm so grateful that David and Hollie are mine to keep.

Hollie in another, different Valentines Day dress that Grandma sent to replace what was lost:

The green Bumbo from the Franklins and a giraffe from Utah Grandma's stocking that we took with us on the plane--the one baby toy that made it.

Happy Three Months!

Miss Hollie turned three months old today. Here are a few quick facts about the little bean so far:

On January 10th, she weighed 12 lbs 12 oz. We figure she is just over 13 lbs by now.

She likes to stroke David's beard (his big, beautiful, glorious beard) when she is falling asleep.

She talks a lot but only when David and I put our faces very, very, VERY close (Eskimo kiss close) to hers. It also helps if we howl in her face. She responds very well to howling.

David can make her laugh sometimes by pumping her legs or blowing raspberries in her face. She looks more concerned when I try these things with her.

She loves holding her two hands together, and she just recently learned to grab toys and lick their faces (yes, not bite, but lick).

She is starting to get baby dread locks (well, one baby dread lock) on the back of her head. Don't ask me how to comb out a snarl in hair as fine as hers.

She will sleep in her swing (turned off) in our room from midnight to nine (with feedings about every three or four hours still). In the daytime, she still refuses to sleep anywhere but on us.

During tummy time today, Hollie grabbed a toy that was just in her reach, and she got up on one knee, but then she got mad. She tolerates about five minutes of tummy time a day.

A sure-fire way to get Hollie to go down for a nap is to be wrapped up in a Mobi with Mom while she (Mom, not baby) reads Paradise Lost out loud.

On the long drive home from Houston over the holidays, the only thing that would make Hollie stop crying was if we played the She & Him Christmas album over and over again. We tried the Beatles, Billy Joel, Fleet Foxes, and Coldplay, but only Zooey Deschanel succeeded in soothing her.

Hollie loves hearing the hymns at church but hates pretty much all of the rest of it.

Hollie is a busy little mover, and she inspires us with her endless baby crunches, step aerobics (with our help of course), and admirable hair-pulling exercises. She NEVER sits still. Ever.

We love our little girl and can't believe how much she is learning and growing everyday. Happy Three Months, Spooky Hollie!

Week 3 vs. Month 3

Mommy's Finest Hour

Before I tell the following story, let me first post this evidence that I can at least look like a mom that has it all together. We were already late for church when I made David take this picture, but I told him we had to take it because there is no telling when the baby and I will both be fully dressed at the same time again.

And without further ado, I give you my finest hour as a mother thus far:

David works as a tutor at the campus Writing Center for about fifteen hours a week as one of his many part-time jobs. He was gone last Friday from 8:00 to 3:00, the longest stretch of the week. Baby Hollie and I were getting on fine, and she let me put her down for her first nap of the day (though really, who can distinguish between her naps and her nighttime sleeping? It's all the same.), letting me get some more shut-eye, briefly.

When she woke again, it wasn't quite time to eat yet, so she was content to fall back asleep as I held her in the living room. I hadn't eaten yet myself, so I carefully and stealthily picked ourselves up and went into the kitchen to scavenge. It really takes two hands to hold this little girl the right way, so I couldn't prepare anything for myself that took actual cutting, spreading, or complicated-package-opening. I knew we had some leftover Stauffer's lasagna in the fridge, so I tucked Hollie's head under my chin and went for it.

I did not drop the baby. This is not a story about dropping babies.

I managed somehow to transfer the (let's face it) three-to-four serving size portions of lasagna onto a plate and into the microwave. Upon opening the utensils drawer, I realized that all that we had left were spoons. I briefly considered washing a fork, but this sounded like a two-handed task, and one that would potentially leave my hand/s cold unless I stood there for a full minute or two waiting for the water to warm up. A spoon seemed like a perfectly reasonable tool for eating lasagna.

I put the spoon in my mouth and somehow precariously held the piping hot plate of piping hot lasagna in front of where I was also holding Hollie's cute little poking-out bum with one hand, and her cute little fuzzy head with the other. Successfully making it to the couch, I placed the plate on the secure foundation of my closed laptop on the cushion next to me, and chose to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix rather than read any 18th-century literature like I ought to have done (kudos to my good friend Kaitlin for suggesting Buffy as the new mommy series of choice for midnight feedings--though Buffy has now infiltrated my daytime watching, too...).

We had settled into a good episode of third-season Buffy, with Hollie perched on my chest leaving one of my hands free for volume control and the other for spoonfuls-of-lasagna control. I had it all: good food, good entertainment, good sleeping baby. I could not have asked for more (and considering how much lasagna was on that plate, I really shouldn't have).

Life was so good, I rewarded myself with one of those "because-you're-worth-it"-sized spoonfuls of lasagna--a real heaping load. But as I raised the spoon over my baby's head, my sleep-deprived nervous system somehow managed to disconnect my brain from my hands.....and I missed my mouth. I watched in helpless shock as the single-serving-sized portion of lasagna fell from its awkward positioning on the small spoon and landed on my baby's back, rolling down her white onesie with the yellow elephants and onto my sweatpants, where I stared at it grudgingly, as if to say, "This is all YOUR fault."

Disgusted with myself and my food, I picked the dropped piece up with my fingers and stuck it in my mouth, where it could harm no one else except, eventually, my waistline and maybe my thighs. I paused Buffy. I looked in despair at the trail of tomato sauce and small bits of ground beef that ran down my peacefully sleeping baby's back. Thank goodness it missed her hair and her neck. Thank goodness for that. But I was still creeped out. There is something about Baby Hollie not being able to eat solid foods that makes me nervous for her to come into any contact with big-people food at all. There is a deep-down part of me that feared the lasagna trail would somehow go through her onesie onto her skin and get sucked in osmosis-style into her body where it would still manage to wreak havoc on her tiny developing digestive system.

I dabbed my fingers repeatedly against her back, licking off as much lasagna as I could. After finishing the rest of my lasagna and the Buffy episode (like I said, "my finest hour"), I scooped up sleeping-baby and changed her clothes.

As for my lasagna-covered sweatpants (read: David's old sweatpants that I have since commandeered), I didn't change out of those for another two days. Sunday morning David looked at my pants and said, "Is that blood?"

"No," I said, "it's lasagna."

He replied, "From two days ago? Oh."

And the best part of this story is that having blood or having lasagna residue on my clothes was equally unalarming to my adorable husband. The second best part is that this dialogue was immediately followed up with David saying, "Have you lost even MORE weight this week? Your body looks incredible!"

So......why was it again that I was so nervous about flyaway hairs and chapped lips before we got married?

One Month: Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby Hollie turned one month old the day before Thanksgiving. She is much more like a little person now (instead of just a little eating/sleeping machine), and we really enjoy her chirps, grunts, baby dinosaur noises, and the way she smiles big and giggles in her sleep (but no WAY is she going to smile or laugh when she is awake. She is all grunts and grumbles when she is awake).


We really wanted to go to Houston to see family for Thanksgiving, but we had to make the difficult decision the morning of to stay home. Hollie cried through the night on Tuesday, and there was no way we could make the nine-hour drive with three or four hour-long feeding breaks somewhere in the middle. We were second-guessing our decision until Hollie had two poopy blow-outs before noon--we decided then that it was probably best we weren't cleaning poop out of a carseat somewhere in the middle of Texas. It was still sad not to be able to come, though.

We did get to take Hollie to some friends' house, however, and she was pretty well-behaved. She wore her cute romper handmade by our cousin Jane. I must say, she looked pretty adorable.


P.S. I know this isn't my most eloquent post ever, but what can I say? Sleep-deprivation has given me, among other things, minor aphasia and a delirious sense if reality. We're putting the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard, if you know what I mean.

Two Weeks

Uncle Will holding Hollie next the pumpkins he and David carved.

Everyone said that the first two weeks are the hardest. Well, we made it! And it's true: the Baby Blues have dissipated just enough that I don't have weep for no reason as soon as the sun sets, and I'm only half as anxious as I used to be about Baby Hollie surviving the night without my watching her every breath. I owe a lot of thanks to David and my mom for encouraging me to stop reading so many baby books and looking up scary baby problems on the internet. Sometimes it's best just to look your scrappy little baby in her big blue eyes and say, "You really are one tough little peanut."

I don't try to count how many minutes I sleep each day. I've decided that will do me no good. The adrenaline keeps me alert even when I do drift off, so I am usually tired without being drowsy, which really isn't so bad at all.

Today I went back to school and left David with a bottle of breast milk for Hollie. It was tough, but it felt good to be back in class (read: It felt good to not feel one MORE week behind) and it ended up that Hollie ate well and was good for her Daddy for the three hours I was gone.

I think what has made these past two weeks the most fun, though, is our three a.m. family home midnights. Hollie loves to have her quiet alert time in the middle of the night, and it is nearly impossible for me to get her back to sleep after the three a.m. feeding. Sometimes she'll fuss a little bit and wake David up, or sometimes we'll accidentally wake David up when we're walking the perimeter of the house and stepping on all our creaky wooden floorboards. David usually has to get up early to tutor in the Writing Center so I try to let him sleep as much as he can, even though he swears he'd rather be up with us.

Anyway, we've been getting progressively more tired, which makes us significantly more goofy at these three a.m. rendezvous. The other night I was singing gibberish to wide awake baby when Davie got out of bed and started doing a dance for us in the doorway of Baby Hollie's room. There was a lot of booty-shaking going on, and David swears now that he doesn't remember any of it.

The next night I woke up to feed Hollie and found a plate of cookies and rolls on the table by the glider. I'm not kidding: my husband is the best. I can't wait until Hollie learns to giggle at how funny her Dad is. He needs to know how much his girls love him, especially at three a.m. when we need him the most.


P.S. A super-big thanks to all our family that was able to come for Lil' Hollie's baby blessing on Sunday. David gave her a beautiful father's blessing, and he said that Hollie was wide-eyed the entire time, quietly listening and looking at all of the men as they held her during the blessing. We are so in love with our little family, and we feel so blessed to have each other.

Cute. Cute. Little Baby.

IT'S A GIRL!

Announcing the arrival of Miss Hollie Margaret "Spooky" Grover, born October 23 at 6:57 p.m., weighing in at 8 lbs 4 oz, measuring 20 inches long. She's got feet the size of a small rabbit's, and her fingernails are already far longer than her nail-biting Mom's and Dad's.

Here's the quick stats:

Duration of labor: 18 hours
Epidural: Yes (did you read the above stat? The nurses told me to brag that I lasted 12 hours without one.)
Number of stitches Mom got after labor: They're afraid to tell me.
Number of nurses who stayed late on their shift in order to see Baby Grover born: 2
Number of nurses who showed up just as things suddenly got exciting: 2
Number of ice cups and popsicles the doula brought me since hospitals are crazy and don't let laboring women eat anything: 4
Number of naps David and I took after the epidural set in: a billion
How much sleep David and I had before going into labor Saturday night: 0 hours
What time David and I had woken up Saturday morning: 6:00 a.m.
How much sleep David and I have had since then: Does sleep even count if it's only for forty-five minutes at a time and you spend your dreams thinking about the baby?
Number of times I've had to call the lactation consultant 24-hour hotline since coming home: Just once. It's a miracle.
Number of bags of groceries Grandma has bought since coming to Texas last night: somewhere between 25 and 30, including several pink things for Baby Hollie and her room
Number of hours of schoolwork I've done since Baby Hollie arrived: 0 hours

Okay, here are more pictures:

Peanut Spooky



Mom and Little Spooky Hollie (It ends up brushing your hair becomes quite the impossible dream when you have a 2-day-old. Ditto for brushing teeth.)


Baby Hollie meets Grandma Hollie

The Final Countdown and, also, Pictures of the Apocalyptic Dust Cloud That We Survived

No but seriously: we have considered putting "The Final Countdown" on our song list that we will play when it comes time for Spooky to come out. Somehow, though, I'm thinking the song will be a little too upbeat for me as I strive to find my "focal point."

[A note on focal points: I want to try to have this baby with all the feelings that come with it, but I also don't want to panic and stiffen up from the pain that is supposed to be greater than anyone can imagine until it's all over everywhere around them. So apparently breathing, relaxing, and having a "focal point" helps. My problem is that I can't ever decide on a focal point, so they get all jumbled. My doctor said her focal point was being on a tractor, riding off into an endless sunset surrounded by the fruit tree groves she grew up on. Ina May Gaskin, a totally hip and scholarly midwife whose book I read, said she just imagined she was a mountain lion. When David and I practice breathing together (so adorable, I know, and pretty necessary for this periodically hyperventilating crazy wife) I imagine he and I are at an Asian bath in a cabin in the woods only it's also a Miyazaki film (because some of our song tracks are "relaxing piano" versions of Miyazaki film theme songs) and also sometimes it's snowing and sometimes there is a campfire and sometimes it is night, sometimes evening, sometimes morning, sometimes we're snuggled up in warm clothes, sometimes we are in swimsuits, and sometimes I'm suddenly in the baths in my ski trip outfit and it's too hot for sweaters anyway and David is tapping me on the shoulder and telling me I need to relax. Maybe I should just go with "I am a mountain lion. I am a mountain lion. I am a mountain lion..."]

Here's a picture of David jumping behind our house. I'd show the front of our house, too, but I'm too lazy right now to photoshop the house number off the picture. And the last thing we need is some weird internet stalker.

But here's Davie on our front porch:


Anyway, I have no time to write this blog post considering that I'm basically a ticking time bomb and could go at any time, but I wanted to tell everyone that this Grover fam is still alive and well, and also, some of you might want to see the apocalyptic pictures of the Lubbock dust storm from yesterday. It was awesome. David and I stayed inside and sang Beatles songs while leaves, garbage, grackles, pumpkins, and small cows slammed against our sliding glass doors.


P.S. These pictures were taken at the same time of day as the other pictures in this post. And, as I have mentioned earlier, I have no time for photoshopping. This was the color of our world. And quit making fun of the duct tape on our car.