For The Love...

You know that saying, 'oh, for the love...'? It's often directed at another person and used to express frustration, perhaps with a dash of impatience. In my mind, it could be equated with other phrases like, 'C'MON, seriously?' or 'Are you for real?' It seems like it's usually used in conjunction with trying to get someone to do something, 'oh for the love of all that's good, would you just do xyz already!' So, for those of you that know me, you know that up in that crazy brain of mine resides a fascination with semantics. I often find myself hearing a word or a phrase and thinking, sometimes to myself and sometimes, (unfortunately) outloud, 'what does that really mean?'. So, I hear that phrase, 'for the love,' and I think, for the love of what? and what might you do for the love of that thing or that person? If you don't think I'm making sense right now, it's ok, hang tight, it's a stormy place up in that brain of mine.

In the time known as B.B. (Before Ben), I couldn't have imagined how much I would love this tiny being who's 100% dependent on me for his every need. Think about it, what other relationship do we engage in, other than the love of a child, in which we'd pour ourselves out in love without ever expecting anything in return? I mean, I've let friendships go because I reached a point where I felt like I was doing all of the initiating and the effort wasn't being reciprocated. But with a child, it feels so different. I feel like I would do just about anything over and over again, unreciprocated, 'for the love of Ben.' Now, I'm positive that that will be tested many a time when he starts talking back to me or able to run in the opposite direction of where I'm asking him to go, but for now, it's how I feel.

People say that babies do nothing but eat, sleep, and poop, yet my husband and I agree that that they do so much more. It turns out that they actually DO give so much in return for our love that I didn't expect. I experience so much joy in the way he nuzzles his face into my neck. And I love when he rests his head on my shoulder and for just a moment, releases his tiny clenched hands, as if to say, 'I feel safe here.' There is so much beauty in the sweet smell of his hair and the softness of his skin. And it melts me every time I witness his wide, toothless smile that exudes abundant joy in response to the simplest of things, like me waving a pen in front of him or a zerbert from his daddy. I admire the silent curiosity that reaches out from his big, bright blue eyes, as he takes in every corner, shape, and color that his new world presents. And as I watch him drift off into a peaceful sleep, I can't help but feel peace myself (and not just because it means the crying has stopped, but I'm not gonna lie, that's pretty wonderful too!). And I didn't ask for or expect any of that, it's just a total gift!

The Bible encourages people to have faith like a child, and I've spent a good deal of time wondering about what that might actually look like in day to day life. I think I understand it a little better now that I have a child, but I'm confident that I still have a great deal to learn about that from my son in the coming years. When I look into those big, bright blue eyes of his with their gaze fixed upon me, I wonder what he sees when he looks back at me. I can only hope that he sees a mom who is learning, and learning a lot from him, to be filled with faith like a child, pure and unconditional love, deeper trust in people and God, and uninhibited joy, like that which my son exudes.

Yeah, my baby definitely gives back much more than I ever could have imagined he would. But that's just a big, fat, huge added bonus, a total gift. It's not why I do what I do for him. I will change stinky diapers, wash those stinky diapers, fold his little clothes, read him books, sing silly songs, talk in a strangely high and sing-songy voice, rock him to sleep, make funny faces, continuously wipe his spit off of my arm and neck and leg and hair, eat nothing but turkey, squash, and rice for 3 weeks trying to determine what he's allergic to, perform the high risk, surgery-like task of clipping his tiny fingernails, and walk and walk and walk until the crying stops and my arms feel like they're going to fall off. It's a no brainer. Yes, I will do all of these things in a heartbeat...for the love, the love of Ben. And at this point, I'm just thankful for the little ways he communicates love back to me, but I'm not asking for anything in return. That being said, if he did want to start sleeping through the night, I certainly wouldn't be opposed!!!

Single Track Vernacular

In my life B.B. (Before Benjamin), I had no idea the expansion my vocabulary would undergo once a pregnancy commenced. Who knew that along with baby comes an entirely new language. And like it is with learning a new language, it could be a full-time job studying all of the words and their meanings that can be found in Baby Land. There are the words, phrases, and acronyms that you want and hope to hear, like 'BFP (big fat positive),' 'doubling HCG levels,' 'fully effaced,' and 'great APGAR score.' And then there are the dreaded words that you hear, but wish you hadn't, like 'small for gestational age,' 'induction,' 'non-stress test,' and 'posterior position.'

And then of course, there are the words which represent the slew of items that accompany baby, most of which conveniently seem to start with B. There's the Bassinet, the Boppy (pictured at left with the binky!),the Bottles, the Bumbo (pictured above right), the Bibs, the Binky (ok, so it's a pacifier, but that's what we call it in our house), the Blankets, and my favorite, the Bargains (they don't so much accompany baby, but they do make my day!).

Oh and how could I forget, the most famous Baby B word of all, the Breast (not pictured for obvious reasons!). I don't know about your house, but in my house, this word opened the door to a whole new world of puns, mostly courtesy of my hubs. We're driving on a trip and Baby Ben (yes, we thought we'd stick to the B theme when we named him!) is growing hungry. Hubs says, 'oh we better pull over at the Breast Area!' And Hubs also refers to 'them' as Ben's Breast Friends. My addition to our new found vernacular includes the 'Dine n Dash.' This occurs when I pack everything up I need for an outing, then feed the lil bambino, and then proceed to dash out the door, attempting to maximize the time we have before my good lil eater gets hungry again! But my favorite one of them all has to be the term my hubs coined and likes to announce just about every time it's time for Ben to eat..."Benny-Boo, the Breastaurant is now open, today's dinner specials include..."

It's kind of funny how once you give birth, all inhibitions, in writing and life in general, go out the window! And yes, since Baby Ben has arrived, we've learned a lot of new words and made some up too. You might say we've developed a single track vernacular, all falling under the general category of that one, all-encompassing addition to our lives...Baby.

Confessions of a Mountain Mama

This past weekend we took Ben, who is now 2 months old, camping for the first time and much to our enjoyment, he seemed to love it. Thus, we did too. And while I feel like I could write about how cute he looked all bundled up at night or how well and long he slept, or how he seemed to thoroughly enjoy hanging out in his mini tent during the day, there is something entirely different on my heart today. It has everything to do with what was awakened in me this weekend. It's the same thing that's awakened in me every time I find myself in the mountains or in nature in general, perhaps just a little more this time. The mountains and the water are the two places where I feel most alive and most connected to my Creator. You see, I'm a mountain girl at heart, trapped in a suburban world. And while there is of course, absolutely nothing wrong with the city or the burbs, living there for me is like taking a fish and expecting it to live on a playground. It feels like I'm not being toally authentic to who I am.

Though,I do have to acknowledge that I love sampling food dished up from around the world at hip local restaurants, and I enjoy encountering different cultures and languages, and I definitely appreciate the arts and sporting events that come with living in a big city. And I'm not gonna lie, I have come to love the convenience that comes with living in the burbs. I have 3 grocery stores and a target within 5 minutes, all of which I can and have walked to on occasion. And there is every chain store imaginable within 10 minutes of my home, including 2 Home Depots, 2 Lowes, 2 Costcos, Babies R Us, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Michaels, and not to mention, 5 Starbucks. I really do appreciate the convenience that comes with this life, especially now that I have an infant, who seems to have identified his ideal timing for a cryfest as about half way through the shopping excursion, when the cart is half full and there's no turning back. And I do have bike paths and 3 lakes within walking distance of my house, as well as a view of the mountains, so what is it that I'm longing for? Is this just a case of me wanting more, wanting what I don't have? Because I readily admit that I've been guilty of that from time to time. But I think this is different. There is something different about this pull to the mountains. And I'm still asking myself questions about my longing, while at the same time working hard to remain grateful for what I do have, to enjoy where I am and the life I am living in the here and now.

But one thing I do know is that I most come alive while hiking through a field of wildflowers, biking up a mountain pass, running through the woods on an undulating mountain trail with my sweet dog, working in a garden, or writing beside a gentle stream. Yes, I love the opportunity to have an active, outdoor lifestyle that mountain living affords. Yet that can also be had while living in the city, it just looks different. So, it's more than just the active lifestyle I'm after. It seems there is a certain type of simplicity that comes with mountain living, a simplicity I long for, perhaps because I have difficulty achieving it here in the city. There is also a connection with creation and my Creator that is, for me, more easily nurtured the deeper into nature I live. This explains why I loved my summers spent as a mountaineering guide in the Medicine Bow Range of Wyoming and in the San Juans here in Colorado. While I certainly don't wish to be doing that now, there are elements of that life that I sorely miss. I know that I'm my most creative, most calm, most at rest, and I feel most beautiful and most alive when I'm in the nature.
In the 3 years that Tom and I have been married, we've been fortunate enough to travel to some incredible places, mostly thanks to Tom having business in those locales. We've visited Seattle, Vancouver, New Orleans, and Australia. But my favorite vacation, other than our honeymoon, the one where we backpacked along the beach in Olympia National Park and then proceeded to drive down the coast of Washington and Oregon, camping wherever we felt like stopping along the way. We caught fish and enjoyed it for dinner, accompanied by mussels that we had traipsed into the water to retrieve ourselves. We dined on fresh oysters that we let perch over the fire to crack open. We met a couple who lends their land out to campers and who allowed us to pick fresh veggies and berries from their garden to eat with the fish we had caught. We spent an entire day sitting out on a dock, casting our crab nets and reading books. We later gnoshed on the crabs we caught by the light of the moon.
I know, I know, it was vacation and real life isn't like vacation. But it's a vacation that I can't wait to repeat with our kids some day. And I also know that when I think about my favorite memories, from childhood to the present, the majority of them are of sweet times spent with people I love, outdoors in some capacity.

So, what keeps us from mountain living then? For starters, we tried to sell our place last year and it didn't sell. I trust it wasn't the right time, but I believe the time will come. And for now, Tom's job keeps us here, as well as our desire to be near my parents, our friends, and our church. So, for now we stay put, trying to enjoy what we have, taking walks along the lakes and trails nearby, and taking excursions to the mountains to play in all the ways we love.

And while I still can't put my finger on exactly why I want to move to the mountains and what it is about mountain living that is an ever-magnetic pull for me, I know that I do. And I expect that one day we will. It's in both of our hearts, it's who we are in our core. So, we keep listenting to that, keep dreaming, keep working to live congruent to who we are and what we believe. And in the meantime, we give much thanks for what we have and for the fact that the newest addition to Team Meuzelaar seems just at home in the mountains as we are.

I Spy A Newbie Mom

Yup, that newbie mom would be me. Today you could have spotted me from a mile away as my "newbieness" was screaming! It all started this morning with our goal of the day: attend Stroller Strides class (a workout class for moms with their strollers and of course, their babies) for the first time. Class starts at 9:30 with a desired arrival time of 9:15, and it's 20 minutes from home. Problem #1: Ben and I wake up at 8:30, mind you we were up at 6 am and just happened to fall back asleep around 7. So we wake up and are supposed to be out of the house in 25 minutes...right! Maybe a veteran mom could pull this off, but not me. There I was flying around the house trying to pack the diaper bag, get myself breakfast, brush my teeth, change Ben's diaper, and get him dressed. And then finally, "The Dine n Dash," where I feed him and we dash out the door, in hopes that he makes it through the class before he gets hungry again and starts screaming. Well, we managed all of that but the problem was, we walked out the door at 9:10 am...oops. The whole way there I was thinking, 'why bother, we're not going to make it there,' yet I kept driving. And then I realized that I had forgotten 3 things, my phone, the directions to where I was supposed to go afterwards to pick something up, and probably the most crucial, I forgot to pump which I always do first thing in the morning after I feed him. Moms, you know the conundrum I created for myself with this one. But, as we were almost to the park, I figured there was no turning back at that point.

As we pulled into the parking lot at the park, I see a line full of moms and their strollers starting to walk away from the parking lot. I frantically pull the stroller out of the car, put Ben and the carseat in it, grab my water, a blanket, and a pacifier (I declare the remembrance of these items as my success of the day!) and we start running over in "wait wait, don't leave without us" fashion, trying to catch up with the stroller parade. Huffing and puffing, I fall into line and introduce myself and Ben to the instructor. I quickly find myself doing all kinds of hopping, kicking, plyometric-ky type stuff, things that kicked this post-partum mama's booty! Then came the dance steps, oh no. We're talkin jazzercise type stuff, folks. Mind you, I was tomboy as a child, a soccer and softball player, never setting foot in a dance studio. Picture it, I'm stumbling over my feet, totally out of sync from the other moms, clapping at all the wrong times. To put it into perspective for you, I was far worse than Kate Gosselin on Dancing With the Stars! Then it was on to the exercises with the stretchy band thingy. 'Phew,' I thought to myself, 'we're done with the dance moves.' Little did I know that we were going to incorporate songs into the stretchy band exercise portion, so as to keep the kiddos entertained. Turns out I don't quite remember the words to "I'm a little teapot" or "I've been workin' on the railroad!" I found myself wanting to fake it by doing the ole "watermelon watermelon watermelon" trick, but you can't really do that when the moms next to you can actually hear what you're singing. So, there I was singing every other word or so and tipping my spout at all the wrong times. Oh well, I suppose I will learn those too!

Oh and about half-way through the class, I realized that the buckle that secures the carseat into the stroller was unbuckled. I gasped when I realized it, mortified the other moms might have noticed the red straps hanging down from either side of the stroller. But what could I do at that point, other than non-chalantly secure the strap and be very grateful we hadn't gone down any hills in which the carseat could have fallen out. Yup, I am a newbie mom. I'm provided with daily opportunities to laugh at myself. I make mistakes and I learn from them. I am still figuring out my routines and developing my "don't leave the house without it" checklist. And in the meantime, I take the words of Amelia Earhart to heart, "And here, by the grace of God, go I."

The Beauty of Adaptation

Recently, I was reflecting on my first weeks of pregnancy, and remembering the thoughts and fears that flooded my mind when I realized that I was actually going to have a baby. They went something like this: How will I know what I need for a baby? How will I know how to use all that stuff that comes with a baby? What do I do with said baby after we bring him home from the hospital? How will I know what to dress him in? How will I survive on such little sleep? So many questions, so many unknowns, as we set out toward a foreign new land...parenthood.

And here we are, Benjamin is now 2 months old as of this week. And though we are still learning so much about him, given that he changes so quickly, the heaping pile of questions seemed to have answered themselves. We figured things out. By talking to other parents, by reading books, by googling the heck out of every question we had, we learned and we adapted. With the help of friends, we figured out what to register for. We quickly then figured out what to return, what we needed, and what we didn't need. We learned which pacifiers Ben does and does not like, which outfits he's too hot in, and which swaddle blankets he can bust out of in under 10 seconds! We learned by trying, by doing, and by making mistakes.

I am continually amazed that God gave us minds, bodies, and hearts that can encounter a new and foreign situation and turn it into a familiar one. Now, I feel like I could change a diaper with my eyes closed. Two months ago, I was fumbling around trying to remember which end goes in front and trying to figure out how to prevent the little fountain from spraying all over, if you know what I mean. Though I expect the learning to be life-long, it is rewarding to reflect on how much I've already learned about the mommyhood, some things the easy way and some the hard way. And with each foreign territory that becomes familiar, I find my courage growing along with my desire to take on the next challenge! And the next challenge is...camping with a 2 month old and it starts tomorrow! Here goes nothing...and everything!

You Know You've Been In Labor Too Long When...

...You know all the Labor and Delivery nurses by name.
...You've watched the clock strike midnight TWICE during you're labor and you're still only 7 cm.
...Another Father-to-be says to your husband in the hallway, "You're still here? Oh man."
...You've consumed approximately 28 popsicles and you've changed your mind multiple times as to which is your favorite flavor, rootbeer or banana.
...All other patients' names on the whiteboard have been erased and replaced by new patients' names TWICE and your name is still up there!
...You've seen 6 out of the 7 doctors in your practice (and to think we were so happy to think that the first one was going to deliver our son).
...Your husband asks you what you want to do regarding a medical decision and you respond by saying, "I just want to go home. Seriously, Ben can be born another day, let's just go home."

Benjamin William

If I were to write a book right now, besides the fact that it would most likely be chock full of incoherent sentences from a sleep-deprived mom, I would probably want to title, "What to Expect When You're Expecting...The Unexpected." Yep, there were a lot of unexpecteds with the birth of my son, yet I'm discovering that in every unexpected moment and circumstance, one can find some element of sheer beauty...somewhere.

A little over a week ago on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 4:50am, I gave birth to my first son, Benjamin William, weighing in at a mere 5 lbs, 8 ozs and 18.5 inches. Though, he is small in stature, he has already proven that he is mighty in heart. After all, he endured a 45 hour labor. Yup, that was one of the "unexpecteds," and not one that I would wish on anyone else. Another unexpected, was that he made a last minute decision to make his debut in the posterior position (face-up), much to our surprise, which likely contributed to the length of the labor. But wow, I really have no words to describe the sheer beauty of that moment when they placed Ben on my chest. Even though he was covered in blood and goo, greenish and blue in color, and sporting a cone head that was seriously a good 6 inches long, He was absolutely perfect in my eyes. And I have never known a more tender, beautiful moment in my life, with my newborn baby on my chest and my husband by my side. It's fascinating to me that things which might be judged to be disgusting or imperfect by the world's standards, when seen through a lens of love, are found to be absolutely perfect.

While I wondered what it might be like and how I might feel post-delivery, the sheer beauty of holding my son is unexpectedly beyond description.