6.29.2012

Lucy's Birth Story, Vlogged



I know I never posted anything about Max and Maggie's birth story -- it was such a crazy experience, so exciting and scary and mind-blowing and painful and wonderful and heart-breaking that I could never really get it out in a way that satisfied me. I still may write about it, some day, when it's farther away and easier to think about. But Lucy's story is so perfectly amazing and happy, I'd love to share it with you.

I realized a few days ago that I'd never have the time to write Lucy's birth story {again, in a way that satisfied me}, so I decided to vlog it. And because I'm incredibly self-conscious, I feel the need to say that it's unrehearsed and therefore pretty awkward. I also feel the need to add these notes:

It's almost fifteen minutes long. I stumble over my words and repeat myself constantly. My hair wasn't actually as tall as it looks. The first time I mention the date, I say that it was June 19th -- it wasn't. It was May 19th, der. I don't know what I'm doing with my hands at any point. There's one part when I tuck my hair behind my ear, decide I don't like how it looks, and pull it back out. Watch for that. I get emotional near the end and my nose gets runny and it's gross.

I almost scrapped the whole thing and started over, but when I watched it back, despite all the aspects that jumped out at me as being weird, it also felt more honest that way, like this is the way I would tell you if we were face-to-face. And I like that about it. So... enjoy!



And, because I forgot and then couldn't figure out how to put them together in the same video:

6.27.2012

A Few Thoughts



Have you ever loved something so much, and been so grateful to have it in your life, that it made your heart hurt just to think about it? It's 5:30 in the morning, and I'm awake. I'm sitting in Lucy's room and staring at her crib. At how the sheet is all bunched up on the side. And I'm grateful. Grateful the sheet isn't perfectly smooth, because it means a real baby lives and sleeps in there.

She's there now, wiggling and squirming and trying to decide if she wants to fall asleep or eat some more. And my heart aches with gratitude for my children, that they are real, that they are here, that they are mine. I sometimes squeeze Lucy against my chest because I need her close to me, I love her smell and her soft little head and I want to absorb some of her sweet goodness.

I have big, important posts that I'd like to write soon, like Lucy's birth story, and how different our newborn experience has been the second time around, and my thoughts on being a mother of three, but I lack the time. Until that changes, I think I'm going to stop in every once in a while with shorter, whatever-I'm-thinking-at-the-moment posts. So I have a record of these first few months of Lucy's life. So I don't forget the peace a rumpled, twisted crib sheet brings to my heart.

Because it is perfection.