A Great Many Things

Here is my obligatory New Year's Post.  Before you click the back button, be assured that this post won't actually be about the baby (at least not totally) or be full of gushings about how great a year it has been.  I had a mini-epiphany today as I was driving around town, and I wanted to share it with you and write it down for the sake of Future Christy.  Future Christy so loves finding nuggets of wisdom from Past Christy, so I like to look out for her whenever I can. Today has been a totally normal day.  Patrick is working, and I'm hanging out with baby Lulu.  She and I made the grand trek into Gastonia to have new tires put on my car, and we ended up at my parents' house because I didn't want to submit the occupants of the Mr. Nobody service waiting room to the melodious musings of a hungry, irritated infant.  While I was there, Mom suggested that we look at some old home videos that my ailing Papaw recently found and gave to her.  Her primary rea...

Oh, what a year it's been!  On November 24th, 2011, it happened to be Thanksgiving, and I took my second positive pregnancy test way too early in the morning because I was too anxious to sleep.  On November 24th, 2012, I am sitting on my sofa typing away as my almost four month old daughter snoozes in her swing.  It's amazing how drastically (for the better) God can change a life in fifty-two short weeks. These past few months have held many firsts for us as parents: Lucy's first Halloween, Lucy's first stomach virus, Lucy's first Thanksgiving, and, yesterday, Lucy's first trip to get a Christmas tree.  For the past several years, my family has trekked to Snowy Ridge Christmas Tree Farm in Boone the day after Thanksgiving to cut down our Christmas trees, like proper North Carolinians. Figuratively speaking, yesterday was no different; literally speaking, it was completely dissimilar to last year.  So, for your entertainment, here is the chronicling of our last...

Tonight Patrick and I ate our body weight in hibachi chicken, California roll, Fox Roll, and Shrimp Tempura from Sushi Dojo (on our sofa watching the DVR'd premier of Sisterwives , duh. We will probably go on our next post baby date on our third wedding anniversary...which is next September). After this glorious dinner, I was wallowing on the sofa like an incredibly pale walrus, and I opened my email to find this little gem: "Shed the Baby Weight Now!" (exclamation point included)  Apparently Gmail can read thoughts now?!? I mean, really. Disclaimer: I intensely and ardently LOVE my daughter, and I wouldn't trade anything in the world for her.  If I'd had to gain 300 pounds to have her, I would have done it in a heartbeat.  I knew what I signed up for, and I thank God every day for choosing me to receive such a mind-boggling blessing. That being said, I still have a right to share my thoughts in writing because that's a big part of how I process my feelings....

Yesterday Lucy turned three months old. On this chilly, drizzly night, the torrid heat of summer seems years away, but in my heart I still feel like I just left the hospital on a sunny Sunday morning with my new little girl. Non-parents may be reading this and thinking, "Three months really isn't that long," and I would've thought the same thing pre-baby, but thirteen weeks in baby world is a big deal.  In the past thirteen weeks (and, for that matter, in the eight weeks since I've last blogged about Lucy) so much change has happened in both her and me. I'll get to all the fun baby milestones soon enough, but for now I'd like to wax prosaic on the biggest and most sudden change in my life since the day in sixth grade when I woke up and suddenly found myself with boobs and birthing hips. I'll start by saying this: I like to groove. Yes, anyone who's seen my face-melting dance moves knows this, but I am referring to having a groove, not busting on...

September 25th will always be a special day for me. Today would have been Nana's 79th birthday, and I'm sure she would have done something truly fabulous with all of her adorable church lady friends in true Joyce fashion.  No matter how old I get, even when I am a grandmother myself (Lord willing), I will always treasure this day. This morning as I sat feeding and rocking Lucy, I had a philosophical conversation with her about her grand-Nana, life, death, and the whole idea of things unseen.  She thoroughly enjoyed it by the way. I could tell. Death and the Afterlife are things that have simultaneously fascinated and terrified me, but I've found certain answers and beliefs as an adult that have taken the edge off of the terrible earthly finality of death. As a Christian, I do believe that we have an eternal Afterlife where we are continuously in the presence of God.  Christian children are taught that Heaven is a wonderful paradise where everyone lives in a mansion, wal...

Two years ago yesterday, Patrick and I recited our vows in front of about 100 guests.  Our wedding was perfect in some ways and a total disaster in others.  Since yesterday was a bit of a crazy day in the Watson household, I've spent a lot of quiet time this morning reflecting on the past two years of marriage and our three years as a couple, and I decided I'd blog, so here goes. Suffice it to say that I don't have the best taste in men when left to my own devices. Of course it took me years to figure this out.  It finally hit me one summer when I was, once again, chasing after someone who was a bit of a free spirit.  I can't help it. I love male versions of me. I guess that makes me a narcissist, but hey, we all have our ideosyncracies. Since my very first semester of college when I was still naive and stupid, I have loved outgoing, over the top, center-of-attention guys.  However, this creates an issue because this kind of man is often not interested in seri...

The Watson Trio (as I now affectionately call us) has made it through the first month postpartum!  To celebrate, I wore a regular bra for the first time in six months.  Okay, so I didn't do that to celebrate, but I did do it with much gusto.  One never realizes how much one misses underwire and fun colors/prints until they're gone. In some ways, this month has passed far too quickly, and in others it has lasted for an eternity.  It is so odd to think that one month ago today, at this exact moment (approx. 2:00 p.m.) I was beginning to push.  I find it bizarre to be nostalgic for a hospital stay, but that is what I find myself doing at times when I get the occasional spare moment of time for free thought nowadays.  Lucy's birth was such a great experience, and it was such a special, precious time that I often think, "If I could just go back and savor it a little bit more."  Undoubtedly, I will find myself thinking that more and more as the weeks and m...

Earlier this evening, one of my friends (the lovely Heather B.) and her husband came over to bring us dinner - something that any new mother can assure you is like being the recipient of manna from Heaven.  As we were visiting, Heather asked me what the most surprising part of being a mother (thus far) has been.  My on-the-spot answer was how hard it is to get simple things like eating or brushing my teeth done on a daily basis (which is true - I am surprised that I, a once clean individual, probably have the rankest breath in the land now); however, I've been thinking about it for a few hours, and I've come up with a better answer that has proven to be a huge realization.  The most surprising part of Motherhood, for me, has been the wracking guilt that comes with it. For the past two weeks, I have reveled in my daughter's baby noises, her steely blue eyes, the stinky sweet smell of her hair, the perfect curve of her cupid's bow lips, and 99.9% of the other things she...

Now that we've "settled in" (relatively...HA), I wanted to write Lucy's birth story for nostalgic purposes and anyone who happens to be interested. As odd as it may sound, childbirth is a lot like teaching.  When I was in graduate school to get my education degree, every single professor told us that no class can fully prepare you for what being in the classroom is like. Understatement of the century.  Childbirth (and Parenting) is oddly the same.  I read all the books, newsletters, websites, and Patrick and I attended Childbirth and Infant CPR classes in an effort to be "prepared"......or at least not totally clueless.  As anyone with half a brain can tell you, childbirth hurts, but my mother had a horrible epidural with me, so she had my sister naturally.  "If Mom can do it naturally, so can I," I thought to myself. Armed with information, I filled out my birthplan, complete with instructions that I wanted to labor naturally as long as possible...

As you might expect, every pregnancy website that one logs onto during the 9-month haul likes to send out weekly email updates with things Good Moms should be doing during that particular week of gestation. So what, pray tell, are the Good Moms doing this week??? Journaling! I've got nothing better to do so...what the heck...I'll be a Good Mom and record my final thoughts on pregnancy because this will, in all likelihood and Please God, be my last blog post before the arrival of my little Sweetsie. According to the "How to Be a Good Mom" email newsletters, the magic and special moments of pregnancy, infancy, and childhood are lost to the mind-clogging minutia of the every day, so you should record your thoughts and such in the moment, lest they be lost forever.  I can see some of you rolling your eyes...you know who you are, you Big Fat Neg Bombs...and I probably would have been one of said Neg Bombs, oh, I don't know...about five or six years ago. But would you...

Like any parents-to-be, Patrick and I have been working on the nursery little by little.  I have never really liked to leave anything major until the last minute - now does that mean I've never procrastinated in my life? HA! Anyway, I digress.  Had I left Lucy's nursery to the last minute, I can assure you that I would have broken down in tears at some point, lamenting what a terrible mother I already am. Getting her room together has been simultaneously frustrating and satisfying, stressful and natural, and any other contradictory pair of words you want to throw out there.  First challenge: the paint color.  I lived in a pastel pink room that I outgrew by age seven but lived in for more years than I care to remember, so I have come to loathe that particular hue. Go figure.  I've never been a huge lavender person, so that was out too.  Both of those typical "girl" colors are just too princess-y for me. Now, don't get me wrong - I have nothing against prin...

Tuesday, March 13th. Tuesday, March 13th. Tuesday....March....13th.  When I first found out I was pregnant, this date kept scrolling through my consciousness as the date I would be 20 weeks pregnant.  It seemed so incredibly far away, and the thought of all of the delicate work that had to take place inside my womb to get to that point was staggering.  My baby had to form a spinal cord...and a brain...and lungs...and kidneys...and even fingernails.  As a worrier, I had to make a conscious effort not to lie awake thinking of everything that could go wrong.  I have reminded myself over and over that God gave me this baby for whom I have prayed so ardently, and He will see us through.  As part of my efforts, I decided to take the pregnancy week by week.  No reading ahead in the baby book.  No reading about the upcoming week on baby websites until I was a day or two shy of making it.  No wishing the time away.  I am incredibly grateful, ov...