MPH Mama: January 2014

Saturday, January 18, 2014

You were once inside me. I grew you there.

Today I napped with my baby and she was still asleep when I woke up. It felt so nice to snuggle that I stayed there and wrote this poem:

You were once inside me. I grew you there.
I didn't always love having you in there.
Sometimes it made me really sick.
Sometimes I couldn't do things I wanted to do.
Sometimes my back and hips and feet hurt.
Sometimes I was so tired.
Sometimes my ribs hurt from your crazy kicking.

On the day I went into labor,
I was excited to be done with pregnancy
And to get to meet you.
When you were about to be born,
I was excited to be done pushing
And to be done with the pain,
And there was a LOT of pain.

When I first saw you, someone said "here is your baby."
It was hard for me to comprehend.
Here was the being that was kicking me in the ribs.
And making my back and hips and feet hurt.
And making me so tired.
Just yesterday.
Yesterday!
And now here you were.

With the arrival of my milk
Came the arrival of so many love hormones.
More than I had ever felt at once before.
That was when my body knew:
You were once inside me.
I grew you there.

Sometimes I hold you so close
Because I miss having you inside me.
Sometimes you squeeze me back
And even though I'm pretty sure you're just trying to eat my shoulder,
I like to think that you know that you were once inside me.
And that I grew you there.
And you miss it too.

Monday, January 6, 2014

New Year Rewind

Hello again, readers! Here's a recap of our new year celebration:

New Year's Eve morning-- went running shoe shopping with my mama and then met my sister for lunch. Shoe shopping was somewhat difficult because I really wanted to run down the aisle to try each pair, but as soon as I turned to jog away, Baby would totally lose it! I finally had to ask my mom to encourage her to look at some colorful socks so she wasn't just standing there watching me run away.

How we rang in the New Year: Parent Potluck and Baby Bash 2014! Okay so we didn't really ring in the new year officially because the party went 4-6 pm in appropriate parent-like fashion, but Baby did wake me up at 12:01 am to nurse, so that counts, right?

On New Year's Day, we had mimosas (believe it or not, a party full of young parents is not a good way to go through two bottles of Prosecco) and later went for a 3 mile family run around Jamaica Pond and Baby didn't fuss once! This is a huge breakthrough because I don't think she's ever lasted more than 15 minutes in the jogger without getting upset. It helps that she's now old enough to sit up on her own instead of reclining in the infant hammock thingy, because she can see a lot better. I'm hoping between that new development and my new running shoes, this mama will be able to get into some decent running shape in 2014! (just as soon as I finish recovering from the stomach flu we all caught the day after new year's :-p)

Holiday Rewind

Happy Holidays, readers! I was going to cram Christmas and New Years into one big post, but there were way too many photos, so I'll break it up. We had a great Christmas this year, which involved several days in NH with my parents, as well as having my in-laws at our place in Boston for a couple days. The snow in NH was thin and covered in ice, but the day we were supposed to leave, it snowed just enough to allow for some re-grooming, so we stayed another day to ski! Here are some photos to highlight our holidays:

Baby's first ski (out-of-utero, anyway)! Now before anyone freaks out, keep in mind that a) I've been doing it since I was old enough to walk, and b) I avoid steep downhills when I'm babywearing. She had a blast, in addition to a good nap!

Brian fells our Christmas tree

This may be the least Charlie-Brown-iest tree we've ever found in the woods!

Salt dough ornaments we made and gave to family as gifts. 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/4 cup water (roughly)... kneed into a ball, flatten with a rolling pin, use a cookie cutter (or top of a wide-mouthed mason jar in our case) to make a circle, and press baby's hand in (easiest when she's fast asleep!). Don't forget to use a straw or pen to make a hole for hanging! Bake at low temp (~150) for at least a couple hours, then either seal with craft sealer or several coats of acrylic paint. I also traced the print with some sparkly craft paint to glitz it up. Ta da!