A Month of Firsts

 This month has been a lot of fun. And this last week especially has been whirlwind of a events. Two Saturdays ago Nora went to her first birthday party. She had a blast and so did we! Here she is gobbling up birthday cake after attending her first Pool Party.

 We also got a box from Grandma that included a new dress and lots of books. She spent an hour handing me one book after another, asking me to read them. She was in book heaven.

Nora's birthday was also this month and we celebrated last Saturday. While I was running around making food and decorating this is what John and Nora were doing. I managed to snap a few shots and laugh at Nora's squealing but it was very stressful! I'm not sure why I was stressed but I guess any time you try to do something new there's going to be some level of fear, right?

Nora had a great time though and she loved playing with her friends and eating her 2nd cupcake. (This one was way messier then the first.) So I would definitely call it a success.

So after a bath we threw her in her crib with the leftover balloons and let her go crazy. She loved it! And it bought us a lot of cleaning time. 

Over the weekend I also managed to hit my first softball at our local batting cages (woo hoo), have my first taste of octopus (this place is the best!), and boulder my first time over the ledge at our climbing gym! I'm a weakling so that last one was sort of a big deal.

And today will be our first anniversary spent together. Last year John was in Pensacola and I was at home in El Paso with a four-day old baby. I am so blessed to be married to him and to have a family that I love being with. These last two years have probably been the most difficult and happiest years of my life. So John and Nora, here's to eternity.

Why I'm a Happy "Young" Mom

Being a young mom is something I think about a lot.

From the time I was pregnant and started showing I've felt self conscious and a need to explain my whole life story to whoever was around. Which is interesting because I don't remember feeling the same way when I got married. When I went to try on wedding dresses another group of women came over to me as I was admiring myself in the mirror and asked me my age. When I told them I was nineteen they told me I was very young for getting married. I smiled and told them that maybe nineteen was very young to get married and then ended the conversation by turning back to my mirror. This same experience played out about 10 more times with everybody from my hairdresser to my classmates before I finally got married in July 2011. I never felt embarrassed. I knew I wanted to marry John and I knew I wanted to marry him at 19 end of story. But being pregnant and then having a baby took a huge toll on my self esteem. In my mind it was almost like getting married young made me mature but having children at a young age made me irresponsible.

As I'm sure any mother would be happy to tell you, postpartum sucks. Your stomach is deflated and squishy and you still don't fit into your pants correctly. You're not showering everyday because who has the time for that? You have to function on as little as two hours of sleep for what seems like an eternity and are ravenously hungry all the time because your body is trying to create food for another living human. (Sorry but this is going to get graphic...) Your breasts are rock hard and when they aren't leaking milk they're bleeding. You fear going to the bathroom. Your bum hurts so bad you think you might be having another baby. And just when you start to feel better you realize all your hair is falling out... and oh did I forget to mention....? Your jeans still won't fit.

Maybe I'm crazy and more mothers have had a beautiful experience where they feel empowered by their motherhood but I think for the first few months all I felt was ugly. And maybe sleepy too. I bring this up to set the background for a facebook post I read a few months ago. Basically a "friend" asked why so many people she knew were getting married and having babies so young. Weren't they sex educated? Didn't they know where to get and how to use birth control? And then I was suddenly bombarded again by that feeling of embarrassment that I hadn't experienced since I was pregnant. Except this time it was magnified times ten. This was how the rest of the world viewed me. As some irresponsible, stupid girl who had never heard of birth control. It was awful.

Since then I have thought about why am a young mother. Why I chose to get married so young and have kids at a time when my peers are graduating from college and travelling. Everyday I see pictures on facebook that show my friends at parties, in foreign countries, dancing, laughing, out at restaurants. I see posts about their stressful jobs and busy school schedules. And I ask myself why. On a bad day the answer will sound something like: I was silly and spontaneous and didn't know what I was getting myself into.

But the truth is...

I never would have enjoyed dancing or parties. Not only am I a wallflower but a terrible dancer. Nora was our first dance instructor and it wasn't until we had her that John and I enjoyed dance parties. (At home with the blinds closed of course.)

Going to restaurants is fun, but cooking is more fun. Before I got married I was not a cook. Having the responsibility to feed a family taught me skills like budgeting, menu planning,  and of course cooking. I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I do. I had a good time using my disposable income to eat out when I was working. But having a new creative outlet is a real blessing for me. 

I never would have enjoyed travel. Again, I think I'm too shy to put myself out there and get a really  great tourist experience. John has travelled many places and he is the one that teaches me to let loose, to talk with people, and to try new things. I never would be able to leave my comfort zone without him and I look forward to traveling with him. And actually, I doubt there is anything as novel as watching a brand new human person discover the world. I will never get over how cool it is to be Nora's "tour guide."

I hated school. I hated just about every second of it. I went to college because it was something that was expected - not because I wanted to. Now that my life is so much more complicated and John and I have to earn the money that will pay for school it means so much more to me. Education is important now because it will provide a way for me to have a career that can support my family if need be. Going back to school means learning things that I can eventually teach Nora.

I'm not saying that for these reasons everybody should become a mom by twenty. I'm just saying that for me personally, I'm happy to be a full-time wife and mother so young because I realize now that this was the happiest path for me to take. I shouldn't be jealous of my friends' lives on facebook because realistically - I would hate their lives. This was the best fit for me. So why did I choose to get married so young and have kids? Because I loved John and I wanted us to start our lives together. I didn't realize at the time that our lives would include the cutest little girl in the world so quickly, but I'm happy they did.  So if you ever see a young mom having a bad day at the store corralling her kid(s), reject the thoughts that she probably shouldn't have had kids so young, or that she was unprepared, or that she would have been happier if she had gotten a career and was working and remind her of the joy she has in her life right now. Congratulate her on her adorable child.

Maybe this is a weird post but I felt like I needed to write about this because it has been on my mind for so long. Anyway the point is: Don't feel sorry for me. I'm in freaking bliss.

Wisconsin

We are out of Florida and very happy! John graduated from C school last Thursday morning. On Wednesday we went to have our breaks serviced at the Subaru Dealership and they told us that our head gaskets were leaking and when we told them that were going to drive to California they were concerned that we might be stranded in the middle of the desert. After telling us that it would $3,000+ for the repair we left the dealership pretty disheartened. John called his Dad to get his opinion and his Dad offered his help fixing it if we drove up to Wisconsin. And so even though we had entirely planned our trip already we decided to say to heck with all of it and drive to Wisconsin. We decided to drive to John's parents' house around 4:00pm on Saturday and managed to clean and throw everything left that we own in the Subaru and leave by 7:30pm. We made it to Nashville that night and to Hubertus by 10:00pm on Friday night. It was crazy but I think it was a really great experience for us as a family.

On our way through Illinois we needed to stop to get food and nurse Nora and for some reason thought it would be a good idea to stop in Chicago. Since the movers came earlier that week, we thought we were still just driving straight to San Diego, so I only packed flip flops and a light sweater and Nora didn't have clothes that were any warmer. (We were both freezing and my joints had been aching for hours and hours). So when we got to Chicago it was snowing and we couldn't find any parking. After finding a street with restaurants we circled around a few times until we finally found a spot and I ran inside the restaurant with Nora in a blanket while John paid the box for parking. He was taking a while so I ran back out to find John speaking to a police officer. Apparently we had parked next to a fire hydrant even though the sign next to our car said that it was a parking spot. He was about to write us a $150 citation before I gave him our sob story about how we were trying to get food on our way to Wisconsin and couldn't find any parking and had never been to Chicago before. Lucky for us he was a VERY nice guy and told us to just find some other place to park. We tried getting back on the highway and got lost more than a few times before finally getting back on track. Traffic was ridiculous! And Chicago drivers were terrifying. No signals, no spacial awareness, and no manners. We almost died a few times. When we finally got out of Chicago we needed to get to Milwaukee and accidentally drove onto a Tollway. We had no cash and the teller gave us some serious sass when we told her this. Luckily you can pay it online. We took the first exit, found some cute little villages in Illinois and stopped at the first mcdonalds we could find. This whole frustrating last leg of our journey was made much better by a mcdonalds strawberry cream pie.

Lately I have been making an effort to change how I treat Nora and John when I am under stress. I notice I have a little more bite when I am stressed out and I think that  it is pretty typical for married couples to bicker when both of them are stressed. But this experience was a good way to practice being there for John instead of blaming him when neither of us really had any control over a bad situation. In the drive-thru of the McDonalds after feeling really stressed and cold and hungry and tired, we talked about how nice it was going to be getting to sleep in a warm bed and eat some of his mom's delicious food and then we hugged and kissed and everything was all better.

Being in Wisconsin is just what our family needed. Nora has so many cousins to play with and I have never seen her so happy. John has been enjoying working on the car with his Dad - something he finds challenging and exciting. By the way our entire engine is now sitting next to our Subaru :o And I'm loving getting time to do things like - eat breakfast uninterrupted and take a shower without worrying if Nora is screaming her head off.  Also there have been no disgusting bugs the size of my hand, no screaming neighbors, no swampy smelly air, no rain, and no Florida! I do feel bad for disappointing my family and friends who thought we would be driving through Texas and Arizona this week, but I still think we made the right decision. I never thought in my life I would ever say I'm in love with rural Wisconsin but... I'm in love with rural Wisconsin.

New Pictures

Nora had a photo shoot this week with our friend Jessica from Church. It's hard to get a smile out of her but we got a more than a few great shots of her. Here's a link to the album: 

Nora's Album

And here's a preview: 

But this one is my favorite...

because of how much it reminds me of this picture...

Moving

Nora is becoming a pro at crawling. For some reason she only uses her left leg to crawl and her right leg is dragged along like she has a crawling limp that she got in the war. But she is also cruising now which is exciting too. I still have to be near her in case she falls back but she has the general idea.

It's strange to think that a few months ago she couldn't even roll over on her own. And it's really neat when we work on something and I finally watch her master it - clapping, crawling, walking, our names, etc. Well, so she hasn't actually mastered walking yet or our names but she's awesome at cruising and saying mama and nana. We're working on Dada. Anyway she's doing great and I'm very grateful to Heavenly Father for a healthy and sweet baby.

Our Modest Super Great Valentine's Day

This is our third Valentine's Day together and our second one married - and I really wanted to make it special. I'm not much of a gift giver, I'm pretty terrible actually. But I decided to start early this year and do my research. John had been talking a lot about planes and has been youtubing rc flights so I knew what I had to do. After a month of reading reviews and shopping around I found this bad boy:

Soo.... He doesn't look super cool, but I knew that this was a great starter plane, ready to fly, and not easily broken. Unfortunately John showed up for lunch just a few minutes after it arrived at our doorstep (a whole week before Valentine's Day) so he saw the box and I told him if he wanted to he could open it. So he did and he was so excited! We flew it that night after work. He offered me a turn at flying it which I warned him against but finally I gave in and flew the plane into the ground breaking a wing in the process. John was able to glue the wing back on and we flew it again the next day. That was when he broke the wing.

We glued it again and plan to fly it some more this weekend. Am I the best or what?

 I decided to make some naughty sugary breakfast for our Valentine's Day dinner and call it good. We covered our desk with a bedsheet and set Nora in front of Yo Gabba Gabba and had a pretty nice evening.

Yes those roses are made of bacon. I accidentally started a grease fire making them in the oven but it was totally worth it. And those are banana chocolate chip pancakes and maple peanut butter syrup. Thank you OurBestBites/Pinterest. I put on my favorite dress and John put on his suit pants and my favorite blue shirt of his and it was really fun. John got me flowers. I LOVE flowers. I wish I could wake up to flowers everyday and I am always sure to walk by them in grocery store even though I never buy them. Have I mentioned it was a great day? Okay I need to stop bragging. But really I love Valentine's Day. And it's not because I've always had a date. In fact John was my first real Valentine. I still have the card he gave me. On the front were two Iguanas and the caption read: "Iguana love you forever." But before John, I enjoyed valentine's day because of the candy, the expressions of love between my Mom and Dad, the stuffed animals that would always be waiting on my bed in the morning courtesy of two really thoughtful parents, and just the overall romance and thoughtfulness of the day.

Nora had a fun day too. She finally figured out how to crawl. I guess I shouldn't say finally because she is right on schedule at seven months. She is enjoying her new freedom by pulling power cords, window blinds, and getting stuck in corners behind furniture. Really though, I am trying my best to watch her. I was talking to John about how she is always crawling to our laptop to bang on the keyboard. And he said:

"She can't help it, she has it in her blood."
I hope your Valentine's Day was great too!

Dandelions

So as usual not much has happened this last week. You're probably asking yourself, "Why does she bother writing when she has nothing to say?" but aha I've got you now! Because I've been thinking about that a lot in the last few days - about how even though there doesn't appear to be a lot going on right now, there's so much I feel like writing about.

So, to start off I'll talk about John who is an amazing Dad to Nora. After driving home from church we all got out and I was ready to dash into the kitchen and cook and eat anything and everything in our fridge. But John who was holding Nora, stopped in front of our building and set Nora down in the grass. He knelt down with her and started blowing dandelions and picking flowers and holding them up to her and describing them. She stared at them for a while, gave John a funny look and then tried to eat a few of them. But the whole time this is happening I'm thinking... who does that? I had never even noticed the flowers on the minuscule patch of grass next to our apartment building. Sometimes I let Nora pull the leaves down from the trees on our walks but I never sit and talk to her about them ask her what she thinks, etc. John has this amazing gentle way of talking to Nora and teaching her and he's never in a rush the way I am. By the time John stood up to get into the apartment there was a puddle in the place where my heart should be.

Unfortunately Nora's attitude about their flower lesson was the dictionary definition of ennui. I felt bad for John about how little she cared about their time together until I heard him say this on our way up the stairs:

"I'm so proud of you Nora.  Just like Dada taught you. Flowers are dumb."



So I guess even though I'm not snowboarding in Patagonia or even graduating this Spring like I thought I would be, my life is so happy and made up of small, wonderful (though not super exciting) experiences.

Happy Valentine's Day... almost. Have I mentioned that Valentine's day is my 3rd favorite holiday right after Christmas and Easter? I guess I'll talk about how ours went next week.

Rachel