Firsts

oh i miss writing. actually i miss being able to follow my thoughts for longer than a minute and half. so many firsts and i want to recount them all. i have this insane need to bottle up every experience b/c i feel so aware all of this flies by.  this life is good. this tiny human changes me without me figuring it out. like suddenly i worry about myself getting in a car wreck or getting mugged in my neighborhood (i do realize that most worry about these things always and that is healthy) or i realize my outfit hasn't matched in days and my eyebrows are so out of control. i feel so significant to this baby that it makes me want to be so much for her.  two things people ask me a lot recently - how is stephen and do you still think about adoption, oh, and do i still want to go back to work? Stephen has continued to be the partner of my dreams, we swap strengths with her and he takes good care of me too. He iniitates a great balance of nuturing our marriage and learning our new family member.  i have never quit thinking about adoption. my heart desires so much to provide a home for an orphan. i sort of want to bring Juan Caleb (this is our joke name for our dream boy from Peru) home to play with Hannah v soon. I will have to be so patient to get our hearts and heads back in that journey and in fact we do have to talk to the agency in the next two months to let them know our thoughts. I need to prayerful to be wise on timing and place, etc. I so still dream of little o.  and yes, i do still want to go back to work. there will be probably many entries on this as i begin to process this divided self more close to reality. I have been asking myself all the time recently what is life-giving to me? what relatioships energize me, what work lights me up, and what moves my heart? what places in life am i living purposefully? i hear answers for the home and the world outside.   i have to include a few pics of great firsts below:

 

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what a wonderfully rich life she has, aren't these first so FUN! Believe it or not i am restraining myself from posting more like first election, first touch of sand, first time in mountains....

dreams of days like these

how can i hold onto this day? the tee tiny minutes of perfection in this day. i have long dreamed of days like today, with my daughter, and it is too good to be real. please repeat tomorrow.  sometimes when she sleeps i miss her. its ridiculous b/c we have plenty of bonding through the night. she woke up sweet. and instead of being B.E.B.T (bright-eyed and bushy-tailed) as she usually is around the 6am feeding, she wanted to cuddle and sleep some more. i let her, right there in our bed. the three of us slept in on this cold Friday morning. then inspired by the extra rest, we got up and headed for starbucks (nevermind that once i was in the bathroom at sbx, i realized that it might have been helpful to brush my hair and remove the nighttime breast pads before heading into public). their new oatmeal plus my fav latte plus the paper plus the fire = happy momma.  fast forward pass the chaos upon returning home to contractors, crazy dog, water spill, explosive diaper, crying baby bc way past time to eat and all the pieces delievered for bathroom except the sink which was the one the countertop guy was waiting for to measure.  day is overcast and cold which i love and i turn on cold day music and get ready for a lunch with a friend and her little girl at the house. enjoy fellowship and talk about discovering this mom thing. then after feeding presh which i am so thankful to get to do, we lay down on the sofa face to face and fall dead asleep AGAIN). at one point her hand flailed and hit me in the nose and i loved it and hoped her little fingers would just stay there. her pouty face breaks my heart, her curious eyes make me grin, her furrowed eyebrows make me laugh, the way her whole body falls onto mine and relaxes melts me, i want to hug her tiny self forever. and that's when i realize, these days, as sweet and dreamy as they are, won't last forever so i MUST SOAK them in with all the sleepless mominess i can. she is the most amazing gift i have ever been given and i somehow have to treasure this day and still be hopeful and excited about tomorrow when she is bigger and has more expressions and changes on me again.

My little daughter

Every couple of days I take a picture of Hannah with my phone and use it as my phone's wallpaper. Here are the pictures I've used. Though you might enjoy.

just the everyday

  [caption id="attachment_150" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="chillin with dad"]

[/caption] i told myself i would make sure if i blogged that a few things didn't happen: it would not become political, it would not become a boring recording of all details of my kid, and i would work hard not to give too much unsolicited advice. difficult time to refrain from all of those things. i have found on other's blogs that sometimes it is fun to grab a recipe or music recommendation or things like that, so i thought i would just try that out?    Run Fat Boy Run - GREAT flick. if you are the type to be drawn to the endearing quirky characters, you will like this movie too. it is sweet, moderately sappy, very funny movie. i love to laugh and cry in a movie.  Lullaby Renditions of Coldplay, the Weepies, Be Good Tanyas, and John Mark McMillian are the four CD's played most often in our house right now. i feel like a dork that i even said CD's, clearly these are itunes. Hannah really likes music so it has been fun to have it going more often during the day. the weather always affects what i feel like playing for her.    [caption id="attachment_146" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="First Road trip to Greenville, SC. Checkout my awesome handmade shoes by Mallory!We love them!"]

Great Aunt Nanny & Great Uncle Tom came to meet Hannah!

[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_148" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Meeting the Bokowy family!"]

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and last random note for the day is to give tee tiny update on HAO is two new things i have learned about her in the last week. a - She is SO curious. it is amazing. for a 3 week old, she is checking out the world around her. she is alert and focused. its so cool. she loves light and patterns. she has also made great eye contact in the last week which TOTALLY melts our hearts. i think this is much like her dad to be so inquisitive. b - chaos can be soothing for her. this is my dream come true. she seems to be calm when i walk outside to the loud traffic, when i turn the music up a little louder, or when we are in a resturaunt packed with people. she has peaceful alert times during this and i love it, its like she wants to be a part of the action.. this much like her mom.   [caption id="attachment_151" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Go Panthers! Focused on the game.. "]

Picture time!

Since there a quite a few of you dear friends and family that haven't gotten to meet her yet, I will try to be good about posting pics. It is so fun to see how much she has changed already! Love, love. [caption id="attachment_128" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="HAO nursery"]

  

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do i look like my dad?

  [caption id="attachment_134" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Or my mom? (so far we think neither. (:)"]

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Sooz & Ba have given me so much TLC

Hi.  [caption id="attachment_132" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Milk drunk beauty queen"]

[/caption]   [caption id="attachment_135" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="This is where i sleep (sometimes)"]

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cold coffee

my mom warned me. half hot meals and cold coffee will soon not bother you, they will simply be caffeine and food. i didn't believe it b/c i absolutely do not drink cold coffee...until yesterday.  i realize that pictures are really the deal right now and i promise i am begging PH to download more tonight so i can add them to this message.  so, hannah, um, i love her. i hardly know what to say b/c i have 108 emotions a day. the strike of hormones has been "special" and i cried, like lots of free flowing tears just about everyday of the last 12. in some ways it feels so good and refreshing and in other ways i feel so silly that quite literally i could release these tears at any moment. i pray regularly that hannah know peace in her life. and so far she seems to have a really sweet spirit. we had one 48 hour stretch of hurricane hannah but we are putting that off on a growth spurt and hoping we are turning a corner and getting back to sweet times. she is eating well, weighing in at 7lbs. 11oz. yesterday which they say is great. i love her tininess and am trying to soak in these first days.  two things i have been thinking: 1. Before having children, NEVER say what you will NEVER do. i laugh at myself now as i quickly realize we all make choices of what is right for our state of mind and baby's wellbeing and in two seconds cross the line of what we thought we would "never" do... we had the NEVER ideas before we knew a thing about what our baby would actually be like. 2. keep receiving the miracle. yesterday, my dear friend Kate visited with her baby girl Gwyneth. in many ways we acted like it was so normal that we were sitting there on the sofa swapping stories and holding our little girls. she left and i realized how deeply and how long my heart desired that moment with her. i didn't want to forget the miracle that i was holding my baby girl, that God blessed the longing in my heart and gave me her and i now have the privilege of sharing moments like that with my girlfriends and their children. i think i am a mom now. wow.

Hannah Amelia Oster

i can't even type the first sentence without crying, which of course couldn't be hormones, but anywho... we joyfully welcomed Hannah Amelia into our lives on September 12, 2008 at 7:35pm.  Discovery. Each day since Friday morning when the contractions began has been totally unreal, totally unfamiliar, full of anticipation. it's difficult to write this entry because there are no perfect words to describe the last 5 days. no doubt, my world is rocked. and i can't pick all the ways i want to describe it. 

Faith. i am pretty sure i just entered a whole new realm of grasping faith. i already beg God for strength, protection, wisdom and understanding to care for this baby girl. i am so so very aware of my inadequacy and also His perfect design. I can't believe she is given to us to raise, and yes Lord, i need thee every hour. Partner. I knew he would be unbelievable, i just didn't exactly what it would look like to be joined in this new way. Stephen has not missed a moment to love Hannah or me. He is tender and strong, caring so actively for us in everyway. there is no person in the world i would rather pass at 2:30am in the morning as we tag team this new era of our marriage. 

 

Uncanny Love. there is this beautiful play going on in our house right now as stephen and i learn about our uncanny love for our new daughter that we are recieving totally uncanny love from our parents. we loved having the osters and the wilsons at the hospital awaiting hannah's arrival. and they have both continued to give unbelievabley back to us as we welcome hannah into our lives. my parents come in each day and work tirelessly to care for us so that we may put all our energy into discovering hannah. our gratitude for the depth of love and faith that raised both of us is unending and totally inspiring to how we begin our journey. 

 

  hannah.

 

 

I am not sure i need to use more words here, but wanted to update you with a few snapshots from our first 6 days. She is a delight and we are learning each other every day.

Ready, Set....

COME. okay, i know i am sending too many messages sweet girl. but i am READY now. mom's here, dad's here, brother was here for weekend, house is deep cleaned, nursery is set up, work is done. addition isn't done, but who cares? i didn't think this day would come, and granted it took me 39 1/2 weeks to get there, but my longing to know you is SO much greater than anything at this point. i want to see your little hands and feet and i wonder if you have any hair.this morning at church as soon as i sat down, i started tearing up with this truly overwhelming desire that i didn't want one more church service, one more evening, one more sleep, one more anthing without you. i know this sounds so silly, she'll be here soon enough. i know the timing will be perfect and i know that she is going to rock my world so i shouldn't rush it. but i can't help it. I am about to go outdoors and do some jumping jacks.

Grace

it doesn't exactly work when there is a time limit. i have perfected, somewhat unconciously, the length my grace extends. you can forget to call x times, you can be late x times, you can have that attitude for x amount of minutes, you can forget my birthday x times, you get the idea.  this weekend in a less than fun conversation with PH this lesson stood out to me loud and clear. chose to extend grace to me or not, but i can't work within your time limit for this courtesy. here's the ugly example - my last day at work, emotional, new, weird. friends invite us over for dinner to celebrate. i get in my car after some goodbyes and it hit me like a ton of bricks that i just signed off on my email that i would be on maternity leave. what the heck is that? i never imagined myself on maternity leave, i can't believe its my turn. hence tears and fear. well the second i heard his voice on the phone i realized he had a hard day, he let me know he may not make it to the dinner at all and if he did he would be pretty late. ouch. rough day with clients, need to start over on one design. head spinning, i quickly make the desicion this is okay, push through, be there for Stephen instead. have grace that the world didn't perfectly work out that he would have an easy day on my last day so he could care for me. fine, this is reality that sometimes the switcharoo of care in a marriage doesn't pan out perfectly and both people are needy at once.  without carrying on too much here, the point is, he did make it to the dinner, late, but he made it, but he was still sour and frustrated. and at this point i realized the buzzer on my grace had gone off, i wasn't prepared to have him come into the fun celebration dinner with a sour attitude. he was supposed to be over it by now or push through for me. right? well no. I was actually needing to chose to continue with a spirit of grace and welcome him, its hard to have him guess when the time limit has been estinguished.  you know what i mean? its funny how we decide our limits of grace. one of my college roommates, Anna, was one of the first people to really live grace to me. and i was so surprised by it, that i literally kept waiting for it to run out, almost self sabotaging. but she was able to stay kind and patient and hopeful with and for me. her grace had depth. thank heaven's God's grace is immense, vast, wide, and timeless. i want to practice life with more of that.

7am convo

Alarm goes off. I am wide awake.  "Sweetie, today is my last day at work. I made it. i can't believe it." Groggy, turning, "wow babe".  "I got a new job." Smiling Stephen, "mhmm." "I am going to be a mommy."  Repeat Stephen smiling "mhmm." "They cut my salary in half though. and i lost my benefit package." "Sweetie, But you get the very best benefits now." Me laughing and moving towards shower with smile, "oh, right."