Monthly Archives: October 2008

Mormor Memorial

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Last weekend Billy, Will and I went to Portland to honor mormor (meaning “mother’s mother in Swedish). She passed away on her birthday this last September 29th at the age of 84. She had traveled to South Dakota from Portland, Oregon just ten days earlier for my oldest brother’s wedding. She arrived around 11pm on September 19th (my youngest brother’s birthday and one day before the wedding she had come to see), she made the rounds and said hello to everyone then went back to her hotel room to get ready for bed then 20 minutes later had a stroke. She was attended by the innkeeper who used to be an EMT until the ambulance came and was then rushed to the hospital three blocks away. This was a small town where everyone seemed to know each other: Wellington Spring, South Dakota.

I was asleep with my little family in my hotel room trying to catch up on some sleep. Being a new mom, my family did not wake me when they got in to town so I did not get to see mormor before the stroke. I was waken from my deep slumber by my third brother. He came to let me know what had happened. The knocking was loud and unexpected, it scared us in our little room. Startled and scared I came to the door to see it was merely my brother then I got hit with something even more starling and scary. Mormor was being taken to the hospital.

WHY DID I ASK TO BE LEFT TO SLEEP!? If I hadn’t planned on catching up on sleep I could have seen mormor one last time.

This was going to be the first time mormor had met Will. And I had not seen mormor since last Christmas. Oh mormor. I love you so much. I miss you so much. I know I can’t hang on to this regret of not seeing her this last time and of her not meeting her first grandchild of her youngest daughter’s family.

Well, I did get to see her as she was being wheeled to the ambulance as well as in the hospital a few times. I even got to say “goodbye”. We all got to before we left to go home. It was hard to do because she was still alive. I did it anyway but I used positive language and tone of voice.

Wow. This post is a bit hard to write.
And now, baby is here after his bath with dad and need to be fed. I’m going to go feed him now and hope to write more on this later but I know if I don’t post this now it may get stuck in my “saved drafts” pile.

good night, and be well.

What were Will and Christine up to today?

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Here is an email I just wrote that I wanted to share in my blog as well:

Hi my dears,

Will and I had some mom baby time today with the other mom baby friends of ours. We went to the Piedmont District and this is what ensued! (See attached pictures.)

Narrative about the pictures:

After we had lunch, Amy and Amanda had to take off but Juliette and I went to the church park and spread out blankets with the boys to give them some face time. Wow! Look what happened! I asked Juliette how Julian was able to get so high up … she told me the secret: prop the arms up in front of them. I tried it and it worked. Will loves it. I was so proud I took about 12 pictures just of that scene. That’s my boy!

Mom, Will is modeling the had you custom made for Amanda. Amanda is wearing it too in another picture. I just fits her… she doesn’t have to grow into it. Her mom Amy will take a picture of it with her Halloween costume. Amy thinks it is great! I will get that to you when I get it.

Miss and love you all,

~Christine

14th Week

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Will is in his 14th week outside of the womb. I had lost track. I had been saying 15. I had to count it up yesterday. I used to always know and didn’t quite understand the mothers who didn’t know. Lesson learned.

I feel like I am getting used to some things about being a mom but it is still quite the adventure, challenge and, honor. I keep trying to get things done. Ha! I have actually started to sleep a bit more when Will is sleeping because I could not stand myself otherwise. My coping skills that had come back to me had gone down hill last week. I have heard it said that once you get used to the baby’s schedule (if you can call it a schedule so early in life) that it changes! Yep. So true. Will hasn’t had a clockwork schedule ever by any means. But I have started to notices similarities from day to day with the sleeping as well as with the ques he gives me to indicate what he needs. Same with the ques, once I began to really understand how they worked he threw me for a loop and added the fussy tired or tired hungry combo that is difficult to resolve gracefully. Last week he began needing rocking to sleep. He used to just fall asleep after the feedings.

…LATER, the next day (or two… dunno, I lost track)…
Ok, I see this still sitting on my desktop. I am going to publish it NOW and keep the updates coming.

This is how I never get thing published. You should see my saved drafts folder. It is full of unfinished posts! Dear oh dear me.

Debate on Current TV

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I watched the final debate tonight with Billy (and Will at the breast) on Current TV. They aired a “hack the debate” version of all of the presidential and vice presidential debates where people could Twitter about what they were watching and those Twitters (selected by Current TV staff) would show up on the screen. For the first one to two debates we watched in this was distracting. I tried to read the comments but it took away from the debate. I wanted to focus on what was being said by the debaters. But I found that by tonight, the final debate, I could stomach it, even enjoy it. I even “tweeted” some comments.

You can’t see this live anymore but you can watch reruns of it on Current TV on cable. You can see the site where it was aired live online but what you will find there is discussion only now. But, check it out: http://current.com/topics/88834922_hack_the_debate

Work At Home Mom Tips: Time Management

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I looked up “jobs for moms” in my google search bar because I wanted to further along my search and to see what opportunities lie out there. The looming deadline of me finding work that I can do from home is quickly approaching. I want to try to have this figured out sooner rather than later or, at least progressing nicely (it could be more than one thing that I do for money). I am distracted from life, from Will in the worry about what in the world can I do that will let me stay home with Will and make the money we need?

This is hard to do because I have trouble managing my days when i have one thing scheduled … I even have a hard time getting out for a walk on days where I have nothing scheduled like today) man my cabin fever is on. When I stay home all day without getting out I feel terrible. Will is always needing something or if he isn’t then I need to eat or nap. Excuses excuses. I just don’t understand it. I have a friend who just had twins. She seems amazing, happy, balanced. Perhaps I don’t know the full picture. Anyway, I am to be amazing and I feel like I have a long way to go. But I do know that I give Will much love and attention and I am proud of that.

Oh, yah, the title of this post led me to what I wrote above but more specifically here is what I was referring to: this article on time management for work at home moms was interesting and positive. There are ideas of how to make it work and prioritizing.

(I typed this on my side while breastfeeding Will in bed in the “side-lying” position. It was not easy but I aim to reach out to the world. Hello out there!)

Debate Pizza

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Billy asked me to pick up a half-baked pizza at our local worker owned bakery Arizmendi so that we could eat it while we watched the vice president debate. I called Arizmendi ahead of time to see what the “pizza of the day” was (answer: artichoke, red onion, pesto)and learned that you could reserve a pizza, so I did. I figured it couldn’t hurt. I got there to pick it up at 5:23pm and saw the little chalk board sign that tells you what the pizza of the day is named and it said: SOLD OUT of Blame Sarah Palin. Ha. How’d they know we wanted it for our debate dinner?

While I was in there, briefly, 2 others strolled in and were disappointed to find that the pizzas were sold out. They too had planned to dine on pizza while watching the debate.

The pizza was good. The debate was, well, interesting.