As Nora nears her half birthday, we are pondering solids… Tonight her daddy decided to try out a teensy bite of mashed potatoes…
She wasn’t the biggest fan.
Daddy apologized profusely, but I still had to wipe them out of her mouth before she would close it again!
I love this little girl so! I hope she someday soon wants to try new things, but for now I’m kinda glad she just prefers mom 🙂
Happy Friday to all!
Norabear met her Uncle Jim for the first time last night
She thought his finger was the ultimate teething toy
He didn’t seem to mind. Nora is a bit spoiled at my parents’ house (and my in-laws’ house, and at home…) and spent a chunk of the evening on her decked out play mat, cheering on the Thunder!
She’s a basketball fan, for sure. She’s a sucker for all the movement and color! Love that little lady.
That’s all for now, folks!
Well, I’ve had every intention of blogging being a daily habit, but the sweet Nora and I have been down with a nasty tummy bug.
Ben graduated from law school on Saturday (hallelujah!!!). I’ve started and stopped writing about that wonderful culmination of so much hard work and sacrifice on his part countless times, but I don’t think my brain has fully returned from the sick haze, so I think that will wait for another day.
As for Nora’s thoughts on the matter, we kept telling her how exciting it was going to be to have her daddy home all the time, and she threw up all over me and the in-laws’ couch during Ben’s graduation shindig, so interpret that as you will… For those of you who are as addicted to 30 Rock as my darling husband and I, you’ll know she is excited 😉
My brother comes home today. We’ve missed him, starting well before he was gone. He’ll see his little girl again and meet his niece for the first time. My beautiful niece, Alexis, who just turned 5, is so much like him, yet so different. She’s always the center of attention wherever she goes- she makes sure of it!
Here she is Saturday with my sister after her dance recital, which was unfortunately the same day as Ben’s graduation, so we missed. All reports say she was a vibrant performer, and apparently, her performance continued while watching the older girls. She was pretty sure she could out dance any of them!
I love her self-confidence. One day, we were at the park and she spied some other kids, all older, she wanted to play with. She simply walked over and told them what they were going to play. She’s frequently been known to yell out, “Hey kid! Watch me!” often followed by “Hey kid! I did it!” She is a songwriter, authoress of such hits as “Ooo, Baby You Love Me,” (lyrics are the same, but the live performance ranks among the greats!) among other backseat favorites. She’s smart. She knows all 50 states and their capitals and is working on the presidents in order. She is artistic, but quite the perfectionist and often draws the same thing 5 times before it meets her standards. She’s realized the important distinction between “won’t” and “can’t” fairly recently, which makes everything that comes out of her mouth a touch more dramatic.
One of my favorite Alexis stories is from a couple years ago. She wanted to play inside while everyone else was out in the yard. After making her rounds and getting turned down by each of us, she finally got this look of epiphany, and rang the doorbell! I’m pretty sure someone let her in the house after we were done laughing at her cleverness!
She is so creative and brave, and we are and always will be so glad to be allowed to be a part of her life.
I simply love the way kids view the world. I nannied for awhile (which further fueled my insane desire to be a mother), and I felt so honored to be near when a child had a “first” anything, or discovered something we as adults take for granted, such as toes, or anything above or below our eye level. Everything is so fresh and all things are accepted simply as they are.
I was pondering this following a first of Nora’s last night. She had her first experience on a swing set!
She got going a little higher than she would’ve liked at one point and got this look of sheer terror that almost made me cry, but passed so quickly and her smile returned. It’s amazing how implicitly she trusts not only us, but her circumstances. She has no fear of being dropped, no knowledge that as she throws all her weight the direction she wants to go, she could fall and be hurt- no knowledge that hurt exists. Of course everyone in her tiny radius is going to pitch in to make sure she’s fed and her diaper never stays wet or dirty.
A couple months ago, Nora and I were at the zoo with some wonderful mommy friends I’ve come to know and love through an app, of all things. One of the babies had on a Superman onesie, and a little boy of maybe three years old walked by us and exclaimed “Hey! It’s Superman!” We were a bit surprised and, upon realizing he was referring to the onesie, the baby’s mom acknowledge that, yes, he was wearing the Superman symbol. The little boy replied, “Oh, that’s cool. So he’s a superhero with superpowers and all that. That’s cool,” then walked off. So very matter-of-fact, not questioning, drawing the most simple and obvious conclusion.
Makes me wonder what life would be like if we retained more of that simplicity as we grow. What a different world we might live in.
I
I have never been more excited, felt more love for my husband and our families, or been more absolutely terrified than the moment I saw this. I remember it so vividly, April Fools Day, 2010, the day my world changed.
My husband and mommy (yes, I still call her that!) were thrilled, because they knew the 6 months of disappointment and the negative test just a week earlier had me near my breaking point. My father-in-law thought maybe I was playing a trick on Ben, but I think he believes now 😉
For me, that moment, that point of no return, made me examine my whole world-view. How can you know exactly what is best for the tiny person you’re suddenly responsible for? I make so many choices, large and small and in between, on a daily basis that affect her, beginning even before I got that very faintly positive assurance that she exists. I eventually talked myself down off the tall building I’d climbed and, over time, finally convinced myself that my best would have to be good enough, because that’s what she’s stuck with!
I’d already chosen the best daddy for her- I’ve never had even a fleeting thought to the contrary, and she has great male role models in both her grandfathers and now Uncle Adam as well. She may never know how lucky she is in this respect, and how few little girls are blessed to see in their day-to-day life men who care for their wives and families with the integrity and strength of the men in her life.
Strong female role models? Are you kidding?! She’s got those coming out the ears. When I was having a particularly hormonal moment, doubting my capabilities as a parent, Ben said to me, “Do you think our mothers were perfect? Do you think they made all the right choices??” which made me cry harder, because I’m convinced they did! Those two women will always be superheroes in my eyes, and I hope Nora gets so many of their qualities, as her aunts clearly have.
On top of that, 5 wonderful great-grandmothers, great-aunts & uncles, cousins…. This baby is swimming in love.
I’ve wanted to be a mother since I realized my body was capable, but I never really understood the implications. Below I’ll list just a few of the choices Ben and I have made, right or wrong, for our tiny bear baby:
1. I breastfeed. The benefits to mom and baby are like nothing else. I love the bonding and it’s a good excuse to steal her back when I get sick of other people holding her. I pump at work and, so far, she’s managed to be solely on breastmilk thus far.
2. She’s getting vaccines.
3. She takes a pacifier. I hope she’s not one that has to be weaned when she’s much older, but the reduced possibility of SIDS and teaching herself to self-soothe trump.
4. I work full time. It’s not necessarily the choice I would prefer, though I do love my job, but I don’t want Nora to ever go without. Maybe a bit selfish, but she loves her daycare and doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, courtesy of her father!
5. We’re going to try baby led weaning as much as possible after 6 months. We’ll see how that goes, but I don’t really see a down side.
There are a million other things… Choices I make for my body, such as water intake, caffeine, alcohol, vitamins, random little things such as how long she’s held, how often we put her on her tummy versus her back, how often we check her diaper, when and how often she’s bathed, the list goes on forever…
Every day I hope and pray that she knows just how much she means to us, just how much her precious smile makes every up and down in life worthwhile.
I’m crap at beginnings and endings- my favorite has always been the middle. I’m constantly asking for a happy medium. I love Autumn and Spring, have only had two first kisses and one real breakup. I live in Oklahoma, have for 13 of my 24 years. The middle and I get along quite well.
A quick introduction is in order, I suppose. I’m Stephanie, married to Ben (the husBen, haha) for five years this coming August, mother of Nora the Norabear, age 5 months, along with five fur babies. We live around the corner from his parents and about a five minute drive from mine in the town where we grew up, met, and fell in love. More on that last part and how I wound up a part of the Cult of Ezzell some other time.
Ben had his FINAL FINAL today! Law school is over and 19 years of school excitement are about to be behind him. Officially, graduation is Saturday, and I couldn’t be more proud to be his wife. That is one ending/beginning I AM a fan of!
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Cult of Ezzell 