This is How It Be

First trimester nausea is like riding in the fourth row of a sixteen passenger van trying to read a magazine written with 12 point Times New Roman while on a road with lots of switchbacks. All the time.

Just relaaazz. That's right. Relaaz. It's more than relaxing.

Holidays Interrupted on Account of Reproductive Activity

This makes Thanksgiving numero dos (my first grade teacher, Mrs. Whitbeck, said all her numbers in Spanish; talk about a progressive woman for 1982!) that was slightly curtailed thanks to child-bearing. Last year it was full-on labor, this year? Full-on nausea. I'm one of those people that you could call "lucky." I've heard people say that nausea in the first trimester is a sign that the child is developing properly. This is the kind of information that is doled out when people don't know what else to say. It's like when someone dies and people tell you trite things like, "God must've needed them up in heaven." Or you lose a job and people say, "Well, there's probably something better for you out there." Or you get dumped and people say, "I never liked that person anyway."

So, I feel like chewed up bits of turkey and stuffing that has been regurgitated and left out on the counter overnight to dry. But at least the baby is healthy.

I had Jamie around for four days to bring relief to the daily duties around here. And now he's at work. Before 7:15 this morning Stella got into my yogurt and got it all over the floor. Lovely. Other than feeling ill this morning (although not too bad) I felt scared that I was going to be left as the one in charge for the whole day.

Thankfully, Ms. Martha Lee Kelly is going to come over and help me do some laundry. This should spiffy things up around here. I can barely stand the smell of the grout on the tile or the top of Stella's sweet little head (when the smell of your own children is revolting, you know you've got problems) much less clean my nasty kitchen. I don't even like to think about throwing something into the garbage can. Now I must go find out when Jamie's Christmas break starts.

Redux

Wait, did I say, "I'm so happy that she's here"? I meant I'm so tired that she's here.

This Time Last Year

I was still pregnant. And large. Though starting to have contractions.

This year? We have Stella.



Next year? We'll have one more.

Where Are All the Adoring Fans?

Sometimes it's too easy for me to write about "Stella." I say it like that because sometimes I think of her as a character in my life. That may sound odd but I just had to mentally edit what I was going to write once I looked at a sweet picture of my daughter and realized, "Wait, she's a small, little, defenseless person. She cannot read what I'm saying or understand it. She has no opinion about it now, but she does have her very own personhood and her own soul." I need to remember such things when I am recounting the details of her life. She is not a character in my life, she is a person in it. And because I write here to supplement the record of her early life, I want to record things she'll want to know about and be able to read with pride.

That being said, she had her first birthday party last Saturday. It was a milestone in her life as well as ours (her Mom and Dad). It's funny to think that I've lived to see the first birthday of my first child. It's crazy how time flies.

Stella is a sweet little booger who's still a little clumsy. When I look at these pictures they make me want to cry when I think about her little body falling down and getting injured throughout her day. (That's a very odd, non-sequitir thing to put there, but it's just what I think when I look at her.)

I am so happy that she's here and that she's developing into a little person. She definitely has opinions she just can't articulate them yet. But she's done a great job of breaking us into parenthood.

Birthday crown idea from this crafty mama.

The Haps

This is what is coming up in the Hanson Household:



Creating this sign really made me wish I had one of those chalk strings that you snap so it leaves a guideline. Do you know what I'm talking about? I wonder if those are expensive.

This is what has already happened in the HH:





This is a regularly occurring event. That is, playing out front with the cat in the afternoon. We collect rocks in bags, pick up dirt clods and generally explore the habitat.

The Deceiving Cover

Does this look like the face of one who enjoys the following...

• eating dog food?
  
• defacating in her bath?
  
• picking her nose?

I assure it is that face.

It is also the face of one who enjoys...

• greeting her animals in the morning
  
• waving goodbye when you leave
  
• giving "kisses" when asked (though they rather resemble a simple shifting of weight)

My Little Chunky Monkey

I know that when I was growing up I thought it was very hard. Now that I'm watching someone else do it, actually helping them do it, I know it's hard. Today Stella had immunization subterfuge, "Stella, look at this book. Look, it's Pooh and Piglet." This is when the nurse deftly plunged two needles into Stella's puny left bicep. May these two memories not be linked in her mind!

Then there's the naps. I love naps. Jamie takes them when necessary. I know many adults who would loved to "be made" to take a nap. Stella does not share my affinity. She cries when she goes down. She cries after twenty minutes of shut-eye. This is her overall napping experience.

There is one thing she does enjoy:



a little downtime with a book in the dog's bed. Nothing repairs the wounds of this world quite like it.

This One is for Chris Kelly

Who is Chris Kelly, you might ask? Well besides being a model for the PVCC Fitness Center dress code dos and don'ts sign, a man with pretty hair, an SRP employee, a liberal-leaning Republican (Proposition 107? Hello?), Donna's husband, Marty's son and Joey's father-in-law, he is also Jamie's uncle and, therefore, Stella's great-uncle. And tonight over Grandma Kelly's famoso pollo asada (that's Spanish just for you, Chris!) he asked me why I haven't updated lately. Not that he reads this pansy child-centered blog on a regular basis. Just every now and then. He described it as, "Not a website, but her own place on the internet where she posts pictures of her (meaning Stella) and them (meaning all of us) and tells stories and writes little sayings and stuff."

Anyway, why haven't I posted? No reason other than laziness. I've been too busy reading a good book that was due to the library (459 pages, whohee!), starting and finishing Stella's birthday quilt, landscaping the front yard, going to my creative writing class, visiting my aunt and uncle's cabin in Pine, applying for the Master Gardener program, planting seeds in my yard and generally being outside. This is the time of year for outside activity. This is when Stella lives the other part of November. We're closing in on Year One. We've experienced the first Accidental Trauma--not major but it did involve blood, scabbing, tears and a retaining wall. We've tasted dirt! And sand! We've put rocks in a bucket and taken them out again. Exciting stuff this.

And now for some eye candy:


I will not discuss my sand-eating habits in a public forum.


Sand is not a gateway mineral and I resent the fact that you think it's making me crazy.