the busy heart

It's a little amusing to me that I used initials yesterday for our friends' names, and today I'm going to share a good deal of their business, so let's just say now that their names are Kenneth and Emily, and we were friends with them here in Boston, and we plan to be their friends forever and ever. They are the best sort of people, and they've been trying to start their family for eight long years. I'll let you insert what you know of infertility, and pretty much nod that all of that was involved. And now, to their surprise and gratitude, they're expecting a baby girl in ten weeks. As I said, they came up last weekend to visit and I threw a small shower, and in what I think must be the curse of a lot of Pinterest activity, I was stressing about making it fabulous. Didn't I need favors and decorations and games and all of that? It turns out I didn't really need any of that, since it was more of a luncheon out at a restaurant, and only a few of ...

The finished quilt, looking shiny. I love miracle babies. Henrietta was a miracle baby, of sorts, and now my dear friends, K & E, are set to have one of their own soon. They visited this past weekend, and we had a small shower for E, at which point I gifted her this quilt. E is the one who taught me to quilt, and I'll just say it is scary business making a quilt for the person who taught you how. I'm generally pretty easy-going about quilts, as E taught me to be, but I was so worried with this one that she'd see all its flaws. She surely will. But hopefully it will be shiny enough to love anyway. Look! Bright colors! I fell in love with the backing fabric first, and then took about a million years to find the combo of fabrics for the front. Isn't that backing fabric delightful? I started the quilt during Nemo, the enormous blizzard, and it was a lovely way to spend the day while it blizzed (I made that word up) outside. You need lots of bright coins...

photo by the lovely and talented jen gibson, at London Bridge Creative I'm not beautiful. I mean, I'm not ugly. My looks do nicely enough. But I'm not drop-your-jaw and turn-your-head, look me up and down, holy wow, how-is-that-creature-walking-this-earth?, sort of pretty. I'm okay with that. I don't think I'd like being that kind of beautiful. It appears to be sort of a hassle. Lately though, I feel like I'm getting a taste of what it might feel like to be that beautiful, though the attention I garner is in its most innocent form: I have a beautiful baby. She turns heads. Or maybe it's just that I have a baby, a little baby. And though she absolutely is beautiful, there's something about her being a baby--any baby at all--that softens the world, makes it turn and coo and exclaim and comment. I walk into a store, and an older woman holds the door open for me, exuding sympathy for my awkward maneuvering, as if she's momentarily pr...

Elroy Rabbit Henrietta had her first playdate, which is just amusing for me on so many levels. A nice woman in the ward invited us over. I think she could see I was in need of friendship, and since she mentioned having a PhD in medicine, and that she studied art therapy with refugee children in Bosnia, I was curious about her, too. She has a six-month-old girl, whom we'll call Alice, and Alice is the youngest of four. Alice is a big baby. Granted, Hen (we'll try out a nickname, shall we?) is a small baby. Last we checked, she was 9th percentile for weight, and next to Alice, she looked it. Hen's never met a baby aside from her cousins, and in the few weeks since she's seen them, she's grown much more aware. Alice figured her out immediately, and was wide-eyed and chattering, saying hello, hello, little baby. Hen didn't really see her until we set her on the floor in a Bumpo seat, and then, well, then Alice was terrifying. Alice leaned forward to greet her,...

Last Wednesday we went into Boston so I could clear out my office. We brought Henrietta, and I met with my (former) boss and she got us a box, and I put everything in it: My notes to myself, my pictures of Sam, my lemon pepper for my lunches, my purple velvet ballet flats I used to change into after wearing my snow boots into work, my framed prints. I threw out stale walnuts and old soup and dozens of sandwich baggies and grocery sacks I'd kept just in case I needed to bring something home on the train. My coworkers gathered around the door to my office, there to see the baby and say hello. They were so kind and asked nice questions about Henrietta and said how pretty and alert she was and Sam told them about our new house. I cleared out all of my files while Henrietta fussed, and Sam held her, telling her we were almost done, it was almost time to go home. It was cold that day, very cold. My car temperature said it was 12 degrees outside when we left home, and it felt cold...

I don't how it is for everyone else, but I definitely had that feeling, when they sent us home from the hospital, that maybe it wasn't a good idea to send the baby home with me . I mean, I liked her well enough, but I wasn't a mom . I was just a person who had a baby. And while that identity has been slowly solidifying ever since, I really think I became a mom--or at least gained some confidence as one--in a single moment when she was about three weeks old. This is how it went down. Sam had been on a work-related trip for three days. Well, one full day and two half days, but it felt like three years. She of course screamed most of the night the first night he was gone, and I only got her to calm down and sleep by taking her out to my car at one a.m. and driving around until she zonked out. I spent the next day--literally, all of it--going to Target, getting her a motorized swing, getting the swing back home and assembling it one-handed while I held her, realizing ...

Before A year or so ago, I found this baby lamp at the thrift store. I think I paid a couple bucks for it, thinking I'd revamp it at some point since I wasn't crazy about the yellow gingham. A few weeks ago I thought I'd tackle the project, and found this stretchy turquoise lace fabric in my stash. I used modge podge and some hot glue to cover it (which was ... maybe not the best method, but it got the job done), and here's the after. After And because he hopped up right as I was taking pictures and looked so picturesque, here's Meatsock with the Moon. Cat + Moon

So, here I am, against all predictions, still pregnant. I'm 36 and a half weeks now, which just blows my mind. And she shows no sign of imminent arrival. I mean, I'm uncomfortable. Really, profoundly uncomfortable most of the time. It's a little absurd. And there have been some scares with low fluid and contractions and the like, but everything is pretty much fine now, aside from the fact that she's stubbornly breech. They're going to try to turn her next week, which will apparently be an incredibly painful procedure. But hey, if it turns her around, it's worth it, right? (Right?!!) Anyway, way back when we were worried she wouldn't even make it 28 weeks, some dear and lovely friends ( Russanne , Emily , Sarah) threw me a shower. Since I was on bed rest, they did it at my house, and the loyal Russanne came and cleaned up the place and decorated while I sat on the couch. This was only slightly awkward, since I so longed to help. But Russanne is an absol...

I made a few more modern-looking baby quilts for friends, and thought I'd share. In fact, I thought I failed to take a picture of the first one, which was a bummer because I love it, but hey! I had pictures of it all along, just waiting to be posted. Both of these were made for dear friends in my ward, whose babies have arrived now, and I'm super super pleased they have evidence of my adoration, ready-made. I'm slightly obsessed with these solid-color quilt tops. I wish wish wish I could make one for the baby I'm growing, but she'll have to settle for a similarly-themed crocheted blanket. Perhaps I'll provide a sneak-peak of that soon? We'll see. The verdict is still out as to whether I'm not totally destroying it. And now, a bunch of pictures. These were the colors of baby's nursery: coral, gray, and light blue. The pattern was inspired by this quilt , which I found while pinteresting .  There was some discussion as to whether black was...

Me+Baby at 20 Weeks This is basically the only pregnant picture of me that exists. At least the only belly shot. And it's sort of a pathetic belly shot anyway, right? I mean, I told you I'm not really showing. And wow, looking at it really confirms that fact that I'm just looking chubby. But hey, someday I'll be glad we took it. Perhaps. Right? I had Sam take this right before my 20 week ultrasound, the one where they found my shortened cervix and sent me straight to bed rest, do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. I worked from home that morning, finished up a memo summarizing a meeting, sent it out, and we had lunch on our way to the appointment. And part of what amuses me endlessly about this picture is that I'm actually not holding onto the baby at all. Did you know this? That babies ride much lower for most of the pregnancy? That if I actually held onto what is baby, you would think I was obscene? So here I am, clutching my smushed internal ...

Whew. So, was that the most depressing post ever, or what? Thank you for showing up here to read it, and for all of your really lovely and compassionate comments. I appreciate them, every one. And I think it was good for me to get all that out there, even so publicly, though as soon as hit publish I worried one just wasn't supposed to be so honest. The next morning I woke up feeling better, and mostly that's held. I still have bouts of sadness--usually once a day, to be real--but I'm able to have a bit more perspective over all, and I'm learning what's essential to my sanity. Not long before I got put on bed rest, I heard about a Buddhist meditation practice that involves the simple question, "Who am I?" asked over and over again. It's asked not with the intention to answer it, per se, but to peel back everything that surfaces that's not really an answer. That idea has been in my head a lot lately, as I navigate this new reality. It feels like I...

The ultrasound last Friday was lovely--one of the loveliest. We saw her hands and arms, her profile, her cute nose, her brain, and the beating chambers of her heart. And the ultrasound tech showed us how confident she was that that the baby was a girl. A girl. A girl! I felt pretty and motherly, wearing a polka dot blouse and vintage skirt. And then everything got very dramatic. The tech told me to wait there, that she needed to show something to the radiologist, that after that the midwife would probably want to speak with me. She asked if I'd had any cramping, and I remembered the evening we had spent at the MFA the night before, how I had clutched my stomach as we walked down corridors and through large, beautiful rooms, and I told her, "Yes, actually." I waited, we waited, wondering what it could be, but not concerned yet, not really. And she came back, and invited me into an office where people were entering information into computers, talking about what they...

My friend at church is pregnant with twins, after a long hard fight with infertility, and her shower last weekend was one of the purest, loveliest, most joyful events ever, and I felt it was only right to make the babies quilts. And now I will load this post up with many photos of them and say very little else, besides the twins are a boy and a girl, and that I can't think of a more deserving and happy new mama. I wish her much joy, and and as much sleep as humanly and babyly possible.

So, I have a dear friend who lives in Utah and has two exquisite boys and I had a Christmas present for her, but I forgot it at home when I saw her over Christmas, and it only took me until, oh, March, to actually send it. But! It was because I decided to make a gift for the exquisite boys as well. And here is what I made. A bunny and a giraffe. Both were Pinterest-inspired . I made the bunny first, and when I finished it Sam rather sheepishly but utterly sincerely asked, "Ummm, may I have the bunny?" How could I say no to that request? So the first bunny lives on his bedside table, and I made another. Both bunnies were made from a shirt Sam used to wear while we were dating, and this shirt, whenever he would wear it, would make me swoon. So I am glad the bunnies are wearing it now. I am pleased with how the giraffe turned out, too. It's for a baby boy. I even bought a cheap (and exceedingly ugly) soft rattle toy and dissected it, stole its rattle, and used it for ...

Last night I dreamed I met Felix. Felix was the name we had for the baby, had it been a boy (which we found out it would have been, rather than a girl, some weeks after the miscarriage, but that's another story). The dream woke me up, and I came out and stood in the hall. Sam was still awake, and he held me, pressed my head against his chest very gently, and I said, "I met Felix." And he said, "Felix the former?" And I said, "No, I think Felix the soon." I dreamed we were in the hospital and it was clear I was ready to have a baby. And that dream delivery was a total a breeze, as they are free to be. One moment I was sitting up in bed and I mentioned to Sam we should maybe find the doctor and the next moment I was holding this baby. And oh, this baby. He had so much hair and he looked like a young Sam and he had these incredible eyes. They reminded me of my dad's eyes in baby pictures and my nephews' eyes but also Sam's eyes. And I held t...

Here is Isadora, the first grandchild on Sam's side. We attended her lovely, moving, outdoor blessing over the weekend. She's exquisite. Here she is in her heirloom blessing/baptism dress, sticking out her cute tongue. And here she is listening to a violin: With her pretty mama: And here is Sam trying to have a conversation with her. I think this was right before he told her she had bad breath and made everyone at the table fall into stunned silence. His defense, "I didn't think she spoke English." Uhhhhh. We're still working on understanding babies and how to interact with them. Here is another baby. My sister Kira's. I met Savannah when I was in Utah. We took a nap in a recliner, Savannah scrunched up on my chest, her breathing soft and sweet. As my friend Eden said, There is no better way to sleep. Anyway, here she is with my brother, Garret. (It's Garret's birthday today, yippee!) Here is Savannah in her blessing dress with my mama. I wish I ha...