Several years later…

Hey, it’s been the better part of three years since I’ve written anything here. Two, maybe two and a half of those it seemed like nothing happened because COVID, and who wants to hear about that? Well, I’m about to make up for it. With one post. Buckle up.

I turned 38 this week and turned 38 weeks pregnant on my birthday. Yep, we’re having that divisive fourth child. Three kids is “a lot to handle” but normal-ish it seems. Four is where you tip over into crazy weirdo territory. So here we are, awaiting the arrival of “Dumbledore.” I am voting for January 6, because then we’ll have two 6th and two 19th birthdays, and it would also even things up so that the average of all my children’s arrival dates would be their due date. Neat, tidy, and statistically sound.

I also came down with COVID for the first time a few days before my birthday, effectively cancelling all of our holiday plans. We figured we would get it eventually, and all household members have gotten all the shots that are available, but we did not expect that I would be the one to bring it home. I so rarely go anywhere without everyone else in tow! I can’t really figure out where I picked it up, maybe the grocery store? Anyway, it was pretty mild, one day of nasty cold symptoms followed by gradual recovery. The worst part was having to wear a mask all day every day because there’s nowhere in our house I could really isolate because…

Our house has been under major construction since July and we’ve been without a kitchen since mid-September. The contractor’s crew is starting to wrap things up, but that also means that it’s time for us to install the flooring which we decided to do ourselves to save some money. So earlier this week I was laying tile on my birthday while 38 weeks pregnant with COVID. Fun times! My hands are still not completely recovered from that experience. Thankfully, the tiling is completed. Well, except for the broken tile in the upstairs bathroom that needs replacing. It has needed replacing for well over a year though, so clearly it’s not urgent.

Anyway, because of aforesaid inability to isolate, Ken also got sick (not bad, had a fever for a day) and Anna and David have tested positive with basically no symptoms, so we’re all stuck at home together laying more flooring. The kids are so far enthusiastic, if not particularly helpful, with choosing the hardwood boards to use. The nailer is loud though!

I also just realized it’s New Year’s Eve, and we already put the kids to bed with no celebration or mention of it whatsoever. It’s been a long week… Maybe we’ll celebrate tomorrow.

So, will I post again before Dumbledore turns 3? Guess you better not hang around to find out – that’s a long time.

End of an era

As of today, I’m no longer employed at my interesting, flexible, well-paid, often fun, and important job.  Instead, I will be staying home with my kids and likely homeschooling (Anna isn’t scheduled for Kindergarten until fall of 2021 so we have a little time).  This will no doubt be interesting, often fun, and very important, but totally inflexible (nonstop, in fact) and certainly not well paid.  This makes me feel all sorts of things: sad, excited, nervous, guilty, happy, conflicted…

This is a weird time to be voluntarily transitioning to be a stay-at-home parent.

It is hugely convenient.  I could not have had a baby at a better time – certainly something for which we are thankful.  I didn’t have any COVID restrictions for birth or the baby’s early, frequent midwife visits, and I was already home with the kids when our daycare kicked out kids of non-essential workers.

However, the message from everyone in this stay-at-home time is “being home with my kids is terrible, I am failing to provide them with what they need, and I am resigning myself to be ok with it.”    I understand this situation is not what anyone signed up for – even people who were planning on being home with kids weren’t planning on doing it at home ALL the time.  And there’s the added stress of wondering if your family will get very sick, or if your aging parents or grandparents will die.  And it will be your fault if you don’t stay home “well enough”.  But still, it makes me feel like I must be a crazy person to have chosen to stay home with my kids – clearly nobody else thinks this is a good idea.

I am so saddened by the way people in this country are treating each other.  How can it be possible that so many people who aren’t White are being killed for things they didn’t do?  It makes me feel despair about how I think I can do any better raising my kids. It seems hopeless. Even if my kids don’t grow up to condone (or, God forbid, commit) violence against anyone else, what can my three super White progeny do that can possibly make a difference?  I guess this isn’t so much about the decision to stay at home as much as the decision to have kids at all, but it feels somehow tangled up with it.

Nonetheless, I’m doing it.  I’ve been greatly blessed to work at this engineer thing for nearly 17 years if you include school, and we’re blessed that Ken has a job that can support us (and that he enjoys!), and we are definitely blessed with these three kids (this is what I tell myself over and over when they all decide to scream and cry in unison).  So, we will pray that God will direct, do our best, wear our masks, and be kind to people no matter what they look like.

Here we go.

Ellen Mae

Hello, fellow pandemic social distancers!  I thought it would be helpful amidst all of the doom and gloom and potential death that looms over us to publish some good news.  Our daughter, Ellen, has arrived! And is now six weeks old, actually…

Isn’t she the cutest?  This is her a picture of her at one month on a quilt made by her paternal grandmother.

I’m going to write up her birth story, because for some reason I love reading them and I don’t want to forget.  For those of you who want a shorter synopsis without all of the gory details I’ll put the important stuff here first.  She was 8 lbs, 2 oz, arrived several days before her due date, is super chill, and we love her.  There you go.  Read no further if you’re squeamish/don’t care.

Ellen’s Birth

Late Monday afternoon, a week before Zwingli’s due date, I had mild contractions for a few hours in the evening, but they clearly weren’t going anywhere and I didn’t tell Ken.  He is a great person to have around during labor, but he gets excited too easily at the beginning.  Sure enough, when I drank some water, took a shower, and went to bed they stopped.  I congratulated myself on not telling him and went about my week.

On Wednesday I had a midwife appointment, which took a record quick 15 minutes.  I declined both membrane stripping and a cervix check, anticipating both my last day of work including a goodbye cupcake party the next day and my last glorious kid-free day ever on Friday as Anna and David had their last day of school/daycare and I didn’t have to work.

That afternoon in my last meeting with the team I’ve been leading for 7 years I started to have some contractions again. Once again, nothing that particularly concerned me.  I picked up the kids from daycare and we went about our evening.  By this time I had confessed to having contractions on Monday to Ken and this time I told him that I thought the same situation was happening again.  Sure enough, when I laid down they stopped and I went to sleep.

However, at 1:00 AM I was awakened by a contraction and for an hour I laid in bed timing them and willing them to stop so I could go back to sleep and go about my last day of work.  There are so many stories about women somehow being able to control when labor starts – like after their last day of work, boom, labor! But it was not to be.  By 2:00ish I gave up on sleep and got up to walk around – maybe walking would stop them.  No luck.  Resigning myself to my fate, I researched and downloaded a contraction timer app and woke Ken up and told him he might want to call his Mom to come over with the kids.  We called the midwife around 3, interested in heading in.  The midwife on call was already up with another birth, so she asked how we felt about hanging out at home for another hour then checking in and I agreed.  Ken was super irritating and took forever and made tons of noise getting ready to go.  In retrospect, I’m sure it wasn’t that he was actually super irritating, but that I was super irritated because labor…  We left for the birth center at 4:00 AM, and thankfully my contractions spaced out a bit for the 25 minute car ride so I only had like 4 or 5.  Contractions while buckled in the car are the worst.

We got the same room where Anna and David were born, and we got settled in and paced about a bit before they checked me.  I think by time they checked me I was at 8.5 cm dilated and they offered to fill the tub.  Zwingli was having some heart decelerations that weren’t coming back after contractions as much as they would like, so they monitored the baby’s heartbeat more often than with the previous kids. I walked around for another while – maybe 30 minutes, while they filled the tub, then I got in.  Contractions spaced out in the tub, which was nice, but made me feel like nothing was happening.  Again, the heart tones weren’t promising, so they had me change positions and threw out the word “transfer” – meaning transfer to a hospital for further medical intervention – if things didn’t improve.  They were guessing the umbilical cord was pinched between baby and me somewhere.  Strangely, this didn’t concern me other than a thought of “That will be expensive.”  I guess after 2 previous births I have all confidence that if the midwives say we need to transfer we do and in the event that we have to go to the hospital the people there would take good care of us.

After changing positions in the tub didn’t help, they had me get out and lie on my side on the bed with this weird peanut-shaped exercise ball between my legs.  Thankfully, that position was good for Zwingli’s heart rate and there was no more mention of transfers.  Unhappily, being out of the water made the contractions come more often and they were getting pretty painful.  Painful enough that I asked for the nitrous, thinking, there’s no need to be a hero, this could go on for a while.  At that point I looked at the clock, remembering from my previous experience that I have 0 sense of time while on nitrous.  It was 6:30 AM.

After several side-lying contractions with nitrous – could have been minutes or hours, who knows- the midwife asked if I was feeling like pushing.  I wasn’t, so she asked if I wanted to get up on top of the weird peanut thing to see if that would help move things along.  I was game for whatever nonsense they wanted, figuring they’re the experts, so I said I’d try, and spent the next minute trying to convince my limbs to do what I needed to do.  Nitrous is so weird.  Sure enough, after the next contraction (or maybe the next couple, again with that time remembrance problem…) on top of the ball I felt like pushing, and they told me to go ahead.  So I did, and shortly thereafter there was a distinct popping sensation, followed by a flood when my water broke.

I don’t know if it was the difference between a water birth and a land birth, or difference in position – I was on my hands and knees kind of upright on the peanut versus on my back with the other two births, but during pushing with this birth I couldn’t have done anything differently if they had told me to.  In the other births I had some amount of control, if they had told me to stop or do something differently I think I could have, and I consciously did with Anna.  With baby Zwingli, my body was doing what it was doing and there was nothing conscious Lisa brain could do except keep that nitrous mask firmly pushed onto my face and hope that it would be over quickly.  And it was!  Out shot the baby, they declared it a girl, and handed her to me under my belly.  The time of birth was 6:45 AM, which seemed totally crazy to me because all that had happened, had happened in 15 minutes?!

Although we didn’t know for sure, we had been expecting a boy because of a comment the ultrasound techs had made at the 20 week ultrasound.  Well, they pulled a fast one on us, because Ellen Mae is definitely a girl. And, no, she’s not named after the Beverly Hillbillies…  We had no idea there was an Elly May Clampett, although everyone of our parents generation has informed us.

The stay at the birth center was very relaxed compared to our other two – with Anna of course she was the first and we had no idea what we were doing, and with David he had oxygen issues and ended up transferring to the NICU, so that was stressful.  With Ellen we sort of knew what we were doing and they were busy getting set up for yet another birth, so we were pretty much left alone.  We got home right at noon, 8 hours after we’d left.  Ken hadn’t told his mom that Ellen had arrived, just texted her and let her know we were on the way home, so she wasn’t sure whether we were coming home with a baby or not!

Although all three of the kids have lost a lot of weight and had some difficulty gaining it back, Ellen has had the most trouble.  She finally surpassed her birth weight again at 3 weeks and a few days.  She was taking 1-3 oz of my milk from a bottle after each feeding up until a few days ago when I decided to try to wean her off of it since she seems better at nursing.  So far she seems to be doing ok without the supplement, but it’s only been a couple of days, so we’ll see how her weight looks after a week or so.

Ellen’s big siblings are delighted with her and adore her, although they are struggling with all the changes to their lives which manifests as lots of big feelings and misbehaving.  We had just last week started to get into some outside activities that would add some structure to our weeks – church events and swimming lessons, and of course they are all cancelled indefinitely at this point due to COVID-19.  I guess we will just have to come up with our own structure!

 

The 2010s in review

I know this blog is essentially dead, but look, I have data from all of my exercise from the past 10 years I can post! It feels like I should write a decade in review post for posterity.   Looking at that data made me curious though, what was I doing over those years that led to those pretty crazy shifts in mileage?

In 2010 I was working on my my dissertation, living in Cleveland, riding my bike to work (only 4 miles round trip, if I recall correctly).  I did my first Olympic triathlon that year. My first sister got married.

In 2011 I defended, got married, went to my middle sister’s wedding, moved to Albuquerque, started working as a postdoc, bought a house, got a dog, rode my bike to work (13 miles round trip) most days.

In 2012 I got another (terrible) dog, kept riding my bike to work (different office, closer to 12 miles round trip).  Ken sold his 1980s BMW and bought a 2000 BMW.  My cousins moved to Albuquerque, the first of a long line of my relatives.

In 2013 I tried out some Crossfit, did my first (and probably only) half marathon, we refinished the floors in the house, continued to ride to work, went to Ken’s sister’s wedding followed by an amazing coast backpacking trip in Olympic National Park, and went to Maui with my family.  I think we bought our truck this year, then proceeded to work on it for pretty much the next two years straight.

In 2014 we did a bunch of work on the house, had the shop built, explored the Gila wilderness a bit, and I went to NY city.

 

In 2015 I was pregnant and apparently did almost nothing active – stopped riding my bike to work, didn’t do any triathlons.  We did cruise to Alaska and climb the highest peak in NM, sold my beloved Honda and bought a new car for me (Subaru), another one of my cousins moved to Albuquerque this year, I think.  Anna arrived in November.

In 2016 we got bees, went to two sisters (youngest and second youngest) weddings in WA, an epic trip to the Canadian Rockies, and my brother-in-law’s Air Force graduation in FL.  Ken quit working for the man and started a business.  We lost a cat due to terrible vet care.  The engine replacement in the truck was completed at long last!

In 2017 I finally did a triathlon while I was like 12 weeks pregnant with David.  We went to CA, WA, MA, NH, and ME for vacations, my aunt and uncle moved to Albuquerque, and David was born in December.  A week late.

In 2018 I did a sprint triathlon when David was just short of 10 months.  We sold the Subaru and bought Mom and Dad’s minivan.  Went to family reunions in OK, which was miserable, and OR, which was lovely.  We paid off our house!  My cousin moved away from Albuquerque (we miss you, Peter!).

In 2019 Ken got a job working for the man again, we visited Zion, Bryce, and Yellowstone National Parks with our families, putting some significant miles on the beloved minivan.  The kids and I (and my mom) went to the OR coast.  I did a sprint triathlon while a couple of weeks pregnant with Zwingli.  I don’t think I’ve made an official announcement, so I guess this is it.  Zwingli is coming in February! We had a 400 ft well drilled.  Ken’s mom moved to Albuquerque.  My sister and brother in law moved to Albuquerque.

That was pretty fun remembering all the things from the past decade and looking back on how we’ve been so blessed by God.  In 2020 I’m looking forward to figuring out how to exercise with 3 little kids – double Bob won’t cut it any more!  And no child care, I’m “retiring” in May and will have the kids home with me starting in February.  I will have spent almost 17 years as an engineer or learning to be one, so no longer working on that career will be a new adventure for sure.  There’s talk of an east coast family reunion to make travel easier on the Lithuanian contingent, so that may be our big trip for the year.  We’re also going to seriously explore our options for adding on to our house.  Both bee hives have died already this winter and with the new baby we’re not going to buy a package this year, so no bees unless somebody calls us up when they find a swarm.  We’re expecting Ken’s step dad to move to Albuquerque next summer to join his mom.  Should be exciting.

I don’t have grand expectations for the next decade of my exercise data being particularly high numbers, but I do hope for consistence and hopefully many more adventures.

 

David Ellis

We had a baby!  No, I haven’t been pregnant for the entire seven and a half months since the last post, although he did hang around inside for about an extra week.

We had a boy, we named him David, he is perfect (aside from the total depravity, of course), and we adore him.

He spent less than 24 hours in the NICU for some trouble getting enough oxygen.  I got my first ambulance ride with him to the hospital!  Thrilling!  Hopefully that is the most exhausted I will ever be in my life, after laboring all night, pushing out a baby, then having to go to the NICU and leaving the baby overnight.

It was love at first sight for Anna.

Wait, that’s not the baby!  But have you ever seen a cuter 2.5 year old?

He is a totally happy, chill dude (unless he’s hungry), and he popped out his first tooth a couple of weeks ago.

We’re having another kid! Like, tomorrow.

I’ve been doing some sewing lately.  Don’t show this picture to Anna, these are Christmas presents, but notice how there’s a 2 year old size and a baby size?  That’s because there’s a baby due either tomorrow or the next day!

I didn’t really intend for it to be an internet secret, but that’s how it happened because it turns out being pregnant with a toddler and a job is busy and somewhat exhausting!

I managed to find time to make him/her (another surprise baby – it’s in-utero name is Rupert) a stocking.   It’s just awaiting the arrival so I know what name to embroider on the top.  It will not be Rupert.  Also, check out that 39 week and 5 days belly encroaching on the picture!

I was also going to buy a ring sling, because the rumor is you can nurse in them, which would be amazing if it turns out to be true, but then I figured out that it’s way cheaper and actually super easy to sew one, so I did.  I think I spent $18, although I did get the fabric on a pretty amazing sale.  Ken and Anna are big fans of it, I’m a bit afraid Anna’s going to be more than a little upset that the new baby gets to use it and not her.

This pregnancy has been harder than the first, in some ways.  I was a lot more “morning” (all the time) sick for a lot longer than I was the first time.  I was nauseous before I knew I was pregnant and it stuck around until like 20 weeks.  It was really incapacitating.  This baby is also much more violent than Anna (everyone says that means boy), so my innards have been beat up considerably more.  On the other hand, towards the end of the pregnancy with Anna, they thought her heart was sounding funny, so we had to do an ultrasound to check her out, and my blood pressure was high once, so they were worried about that, and we haven’t had any of those problems so far.

I’ve been frantically finishing up things at work,  we’ve been doing some serious cleaning/rearranging at home, and I’ve been trying to do a few fun things with Anna all by herself before we have an infant encroaching.   I love how much she’s concentrating to get that cookie cut out.

Whew.  Actually got this post written before the baby arrived.  Stay tuned for baby announcement hopefully in the next few days!

Happy Birthday Anna!

So I was planning on writing that now I’m officially a year behind on blogging, because the last thing I wrote about was Anna’s first birthday, exactly a year ago.  But turns out that I never actually posted that post, so I’m over a year behind.

Anyway, here’s her a year ago, on her 1st birthday, screaming down the slide headfirst.  Because when you’ve been walking for two whole months, why not go down slides head first?

And here’s her yesterday at her birthday party with her favorite present, a shovel from Daddy, and this morning surrounded by way too many presents.

And in between was a year.  A year of mystery, because I never posted anything. Maybe I’ll catch up someday, but maybe not, it’s a lot more fun to play with the new 2 year old than write blog posts.  I’ve always liked toddlers a lot better than babies, and it turns out that the same is true for my own kid.

Trip to the South

We took an epic trip to New Orleans and Pensacola last November.  Ken was not overly impressed by the French quarter.  It was certainly unique.  I’m not sure that I ever need to go back there (the French quarter or New Orleans), but I’m glad we went.

Mom and Dad and Lauren and Justin came too.  We ate SO much good food.  That was definitely the highlight.

The Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola was incredible.  SO many cool planes.  We also got to see the Blue Angels practice, which was awesome.

Anna was a big fan of the gulf.  She wasn’t a big fan of the sand, which she fell down in several times and got a face full.  Ooops.

Our whole party except me and Anna chartered a fishing boat and got to spend a day fishing.  I think they had a good time, although they were disappointed they didn’t get to take any fish home.  We made up for it by buying lots of fresh seafood and devouring it.

Daddy had fun in the gulf too!

Not pictured: touring a battleship, walking around beautiful parks and neighborhoods in New Orleans, going to a fort, fishing off of a pier, seeing how huge the Mississippi is, having a childhood friend captain us on a pontoon boat for several hours, an art fair, playing games, watching my brother-in-law graduate from his Air Force training, and many, many amazing meals.  It was a great trip!

September 2016

My sister has been writing blog posts after a long hiatus (https://randbvance.wordpress.com/, in case you want to read about her super interesting life in Egypt), and she is inspiring me.  So here’s another attempt at getting caught up on the last year.

My father-in-law sent us a box of avocados from his tree last summer.  Anna was a big fan, and we’re still eating the mashed up avocados from the freezer.  Delicious!  Also, she was tiny and precious and adorable.  Now she’s big and precious and adorable.  Also, blond.  Probably I’ll post pictures of her from now by next June, so stay tuned…

Then…  We went back to WA for another wedding.  This time, Sara and Michael! Look at how adorable they are.

Their wedding was in Spokane, so we got to drive for about an hour and meet up with my childhood best friend.  She and I look cheesy, but Anna is looking good, as usual.  Hopefully she remains so photogenic as she gets older.

Looking good at the rehearsal dinner.

Seesters!  Do we look alike?  We’re missing one, she was stuck dutifully teaching her students in Egypt.

Sara got married on Lauren’s birthday, so we had a birthday breakfast for her.

Look!  That is Ben, Bekah’s husband.  I told you he exists!  Also, he’s good with babies… Anna’s been a fan every time she’s met him.

It was an evening wedding, the reception was outside, and my photography skills are not adequate for taking pictures under such circumstances, so this is my only picture of us in wedding finery.   And with that, all 5 of us are married.  Whew!

And since we started this post with a picture of Anna eating produce last summer, here’s one to close it out.  I harvested those red tomatoes, she harvested the green ones, then proceeded to eat the red ones.  Oh well, at least she likes vegetables!

 

It’s been almost a year

What can I say? This happened the day after this kid started crawling, which was shortly after my last post was published. Turns out having a mobile kid sort of eats up your leisure time.

We’ve done a lot of traveling and had a lot of visits from family.
First, Mom came back from Oklahoma with us to watch Anna for a couple of weeks and test our soil. It was all very alkaline, if you were wondering.

Anna went on her first camping trip to the Sangre de Christos.

Ken’s sister and brother-in-law came to visit us and the Grand Canyon, and we gave them a horrible stomach bug. Sorry guys!

We went to WA for my sister Bekah’s wedding to Ben – I have a picture of Bekah, but none of Ben. He was there at his wedding, believe it or not.

The Egyptian sister also made an appearance.

After the wedding my parents and sister drove up to Banff with us for a fantastic vacation.

Ken and I left them and took a few days to take Anna to visit Ken’s grandpa Larry and his aunt, uncle, and cousins in Edmonton.

Then it was out to Jasper for some more incredible views.

We had a quick visit with Ken’s parents and brother back in WA, then home.

We took a quick weekend trip to Mesa Verde.

And that brings us to the end of the summer, which is probably enough for one post. The other thing that we did at the end of the summer was stopped using cloth diapers sometime around 9 months old. The aged poop from daycare was getting to be too much to clean off. I was pleased with our cloth diaper experiment though. I think we saved money. And that is how exciting life gets with a small child. Diapers rank on the same level of excitement as trips to some of the most beautiful places on earth.