Alice - 1 Month Old!

Funny

My friend Melissa's beautiful baby boy:



Just amusing:



Really tired!:

Are you sick of us yet?

Urban

Dear Alice,

From the start, you belonged in New York.

Not one to be hurried, you delayed your birth, arriving fashionably late. When you decided to join us, you had no patience for a slow, deliberate labor. Instead you gave your parents four hours notice, even threatening to be born in a cab along the Hudson River. In your first few weeks, you ate as many New Yorkers do - leisurely and late at night. You took taxis and trains and buses. And, above all else, you took walks.

This - these strolls - were your favorite activity. You enjoyed rides in your stroller, almost laughing at every uneven road or cobblestone sidewalk. You were soothed by street noises on these outings. Sounds of buses and trains served as lullabies to nudge you towards sleep. And above all else, you loved your sling. A month into City living, you enjoyed sitting up and taking in the sights as you and your mom walked around the neighborhood.

Today, my baby girl, we took your very first train ride. You promptly feel asleep, as many of us do, laying your head against me as soon as the train ride began. This afternoon, we stopped at PinkBerry - an ice cream for me and a bottle of breast milk for you. Because the day was gorgeous, we ate outside in the shade. You kept your eyes wide open during the entire meal, observing every last object that passed in front of you. You watched like a true New Yorker - relaxed, removed, yet relieved to have the company of the City with you. Just about every woman that passed by stopped to tell me what a beautiful girl you are - and I, of course, agreed. No less than 15 women asked about you and offered blessings for your life. "May God bless her," they repeated.

Indeed. May God bless you as much as he has me. What joy!

Happy 1-month birthday, my Alice!!

Love,
Your Mom

Take 2

Torture

Learning

Alice is learning how to love her sling:


And that's making it possible for Michael & I to enjoy these:

Spaz

Last night was a rough one in the Dunn household. Alice was in no mood for sweet, angelic moments. She was very excited to scream and cry. Hard. With tears.

Managing my emotions while Alice has tears streaming down her face is more difficult than I imagined it would be. I do my best to stay calm and relaxed, knowing that she will respond to whatever Michael & I are experiencing. I think we're both learning how to keep ourselves from feeling responsible for her irritation and to remain patient in the face of obvious, demanding need for something we don't know. Sometimes we are able to laugh at her adorable face all worked up over nothing at all. Other times I fight back tears and frustration.

In any event, today she has been sleeping much better. Our little spaz, asleep in her crib with the blanket Aunt Jess made for her keeping her warm, her arms high above her head - that's our girl!

Also, this morning I attempted to put her into one of the outfits we got for her (rather than her standard adorable onsie). She's still a little bit too tiny:

Who can stand it?

She's just too adorable!

Alice - 3 Weeks Old!

Celebrations

Well, yesterday I turned 30 years old! Obviously the best present I've ever received is this little bug:


She amused me all day with great faces, like these:



And then, after a full day of love from Alice, Michael took over. He ran home after work to bake me a delicious cake - his first ever! - butter cake with chocolate frosting. Look how beautiful!:

But I must admit, the highlight of the entire day came after the cake was prepared (but before it was consumed). Our kind friend John came over to babysit for us and Michael and I went out on a date!

Just before John's arrival, Michael and I hemmed and hawed about going. We felt bad leaving our little one in our friend's care, fretting that she would scream and shout the whole time we were gone. But John pushed back when we gave him a way out, and Michael and I went for it.

Let me tell you, I am so glad we did. Michael's and my best dates have always been the ones that end with us sitting across a table from one another - preferably one littered with candles and wine and good tiramisu. That is indeed how last night ended. We ventured from our apartment southward to a new wine bar in the neighborhood. We ordered a half carafe of the Savignon Blanc, some mestizos, a salad and a burger. We talked and ate and enjoyed one another. We ordered another half carafe of wine. And then - truly joy of joys - we returned home to our beautiful baby girl, our Alice.

And, of course, our chocolate cake! John, Michael and I dove in, enjoying the fruits of Michael's labor, and just savoring the evening.

I look tired and 4 months pregnant, but this is me, feeling utter joy.

She's a Looker!

Getting to Know You

Here are five things I've learned about my daughter:

1. She doesn't like hiccups. Even though she gets them after every feeding.
2. She has zero control over her long arms and legs. She'll be nearly asleep and spaz out, hitting herself in the head with a stray fist and wake up.
3. She likes the mornings, particularly the 9 - 11 AM hours.
4. She LOVES warm water. She is as happy as a clam during her baths.
   
5. She is a true New Yorker - her favorite activity is walks around the neighborhood.

How We Are Feeling

Beat! But happy!

Fun with Alice

Alice - 2 Weeks Old!

A Side Note

On a side note... Nicholas Kristof's article in the Times today about the news coming from the Catholic Church was outstanding. Michael and I have discussed this tension on many occasions - the hierarchy of the Church discouraging its faithful, overshadowing the truly honorable and charitable work the Church provides at the local level. His piece is worth the read.

Maureen Dowd also had an excellent piece a few days ago, one I've thought about quite a bit since. The other day, the CBS Evening News did a story on a nun who runs a home for adults with special needs. It was so touching - this woman raising her own flock, giving her life over to serve these communities, providing a maternal love to those who need it. I thought a lot about how spot on Maureen's article was. Again, worth the read.

And that's about as coherent as I get these days...

Burping Alice

Happy

Sure

I may keep Mom and Dad up all night, but at least I look good doing it!

Laying on of Hands

As you know, last week we had a baby! It's been an amazing few days - utterly inexplicable ones, full of cuddle time, breastfeeding, sleepless nights, overwhelming, heart-stopping joy. I am mesmerized by my little girl and by the love that my husband and I have for her. Watching Michael care for her, soothe her and dote on her, watching him love her as I do further solidifies the reasons why I am with this man, and why I am so grateful to be sharing a life and raising a family with him.

There have been a lot of hazy reflections rumbling around in my brain since Alice was born. One phrase keeps coming back to me: the laying on of hands. In Christian theology, this act confers blessings and calls on the Holy Spirit to be physically present. From Alice's unexpectedly natural birth with our utterly supurb midwife, to the compassionate care of the fabulous nurses at St. Vincent's, to the food prepared for and delivered by friends and family, to girlfriends willing to bring me supplies to help my healing body, Michael, Alice and I have experienced our community reaching out and laying their hands on our little family of three. These acts of love embrace us with blessings and, yes, the Holy Spirit.

Thankful!

It's almost asparagus season!!! Which means we can go to the market and buy vegetables again! Hooray!

Check this out.

Early Morning

Alice - 1 Week Old!

Alice's First Bath!

Sweet Dreams

Dignified

Alice after her lunch:

Our Growing Family

Introducing

Alice Lee
April 5, 2010
11:19 am
6 lbs., 13 oz.
20 inches

Evenings

Tonight, after Michael came home from his run and I woke up from my nap, we sat our bed in the guest room and read. Before we knew it, the sun had set, and the only lights on in our whole apartment were from the guest room. It was such a peaceful, relaxed and quiet way to spend a part of the evening we haven't been able to share for the past year and a half. Pretty fantastic...

It's Coming!

Home Bound

Today is my first day of maternity leave. For the next three months or so, I am not going to be trekking downtown to my office everyday, punching in my 8 hours and trekking home. Saying goodbye yesterday was surprisingly difficult, made harder by the lack of actual baby in tow. The trip to the office and back just became too much, and hours sitting in a chair were more than my lower back could handle any more.

The other big news of the day yesterday was that we scheduled an induction for Monday night. If our little girl doesn't show up this weekend, Michael and I will go out for a nice dinner on Monday (because I'm sure I'll be really ready to eat something), and then check in to the hospital to get this baby born. I would much prefer for her to come on her own, so I warned Michael that we're spending the weekend walking, taking stairs, and maybe even visiting the acupuncturist. Hopefully we'll see her before next week, but it is amazing to know that there is an end date in sight. In a week, Michael and I will have a new addition to our family.

I was surprised by how emotional yesterday made me. Between saying goodbye to my friends at work and setting my mind on a different type of delivery, I guess it was a lot to soak up. Thankfully the weather is going to be stunning for the next few days, and Michael and I will have time to enjoy together. It will be a quiet Easter weekend, but one to savor.

Good morning!

Woke up this morning feeling ambitious, so I put my energy into making some chocolate chip cookies - YUM! Makes the apartment smell oh, so good!

Then & Now - 40 Weeks!

From 4-Weeks:

To 40-Weeks:
What a miracle!

March 30, 2010

Today is our baby's due date! Michael and I woke up this morning, registering first that the baby didn't arrive last night and then realizing that today was the day we've been holding on to for months. That said, there's been no activity to indicate today will be any different than yesterday, or any in the last couple of weeks. It looks like our little girl is just going to stay put for a bit longer.

I've been trying to remind myself that keeping her healthy, safe, and growing is a blessing. She's a little one, and it's good for her to bake a little bit longer. But Michael's and my patience is wearing thin - we are just so excited to meet her!! I'm utterly uncomfortable, am tired of being in transition, and have silly day dreams about laying on my stomach and resuming a life in my old body. Plus, if one more person says, "No baby?!" or "How are you feeling?" I'm going to flip. I'm ready for this next phase, to embrace my little girl, to not fear labor any more. One day soon...

Simultaneously, I must say, when I feel my little lady's foot kicking, I am reminded just how much I'm going to miss feeling her presence every day.

39-Week Baby Bump (cont.)

A few weeks ago, our doctors changed my due date from the 27th to the 30th. So here we are again, still at 39!

Relax...

Today I didn't go to work. Instead, I have been sleeping, putting together our baby book, watching horrifically bad television, and enjoying some peace and quiet. I stupidly put together a "to do" list, but I'm successfully avoiding almost all of the items on it. And I'm hoping that this calm will encourage our little girl to join us.

Our due date is Tuesday!

Scenes from My Evening Walk

Nerds

On Sunday night, Michael and I watched C-Span and celebrated as the House passed health care reform - what an utter thrill!

Because this is my job and I love it, I've been reading as much as I can about the implications of the reform, the analysis of its passage and the impact of the process. Two strikingly different articles struck me today, one by Bob Herbert and one by Alex Massie (found via Andrew Sullivan on The Atlantic). The Herbert piece highlights all that's wrong in American politics, while the Massie article commends the uniquely American democratic process. I highly recommend both!

(This should be a longer post, but let's be real - I can barely think about anything unrelated to this baby. So it is the best I can do!)

Shockwaves

39-Week Baby Bump!

Today has been amazing.

Michael is free from the tyranny of his work email account. We spent four hours walking for 6 miles around the City, enjoying the sunshine, stopping randomly at Chipotle and PinkBerry and Gap and random stationary stores. We enjoyed a Saturday without fear of Michael's job, and that was a blessing beyond words.

And now we're off to John & Anna's for dinner! Heaven.

This Glorious Day

Yesterday was utterly exhausting. For details, read here.

Today, in an effort to listen to my bosses, I decided to work from home in the morning and then take the afternoon for myself. The morning was lovely and leisurely - I did laundry, taking the stairs each and every time, and cleaned out my inbox at work (down to just 50 messages!).

Just a little past noon, I slowly made my way downtown for a nice, easy doctor's appointment. Relieved when it finished, I set about to enjoy the day. I got my hair cut, picked up a new teapot so that we'll be able to make more than 1 cup at a time when my mom and brother are visiting, treated myself to a PinkBerry, and strolled through stationary stores in search of beautiful new cards. I soaked up every last bit of sunshine and warmth, knowing that this brief glimpse of spring will likely disappear in just a few days.

Throughout the day, I thought a lot about the way strangers treat me right now. Sometimes it was annoying - while at the beauty salon, a random woman put her hands on my belly without even looking at me, for example. But overall so many people are insanely wonderful. They tell me I look great, they ask God to bless this baby, they give me a large rather than my requested medium at PinkBerry. I feel so welcomed into a New York community I didn't even know existed. And I know I will miss it. Perhaps carrying a little girl around our fair City will open the door to yet another unknown and equally kind world...

I do have to share one more pretty funny event today. On the train, I sat next to a young man who could not keep his eyes open. He kept falling asleep and then startling himself awake as he fell. Every time his eyes closed, his head would fall almost to my shoulder and then he would jerk himself awake. It was hilarious!

Menswear

Isn't he a looker?!

Revive

Last night, Michael and I revived one of our favorite traditions: an evening stroll. His current job is one that demands late evenings, so for the past year and a half getting home in time for a walk was pretty rare. Our evening strolls, routine during our graduate school days, took a back seat to a furious rush home so that we could eat dinner before midnight.

But yesterday's warmer weather and Michael's pending departure from his current job allowed for a leisurely stroll through the streets of our new neighborhood. We've been dying to stretch our legs out around here since moving in, but the cold winter weather and late work nights kept us both from being out and about. Walking around last night - through Riverside Park, in and among the college students rushing to class nearby, to PinkBerry for ice cream and Chipotle for coke - left us both with a sense of freedom and grounding that we've been missing for quite some time. Michael's new job (and daylight savings and warmer weather) will allow for more strolls like these, and that may just be the greatest benefit of the whole transition.

Lunch

Today a colleague of mine took me out to lunch to wish me good luck on maternity leave. He works for the CDC, so we don't see each other too often, but meet on a weekly (disastrous) teleconference with a team of about twenty million people.

We had an incredibly pleasant meal, sitting outside and soaking up the first rays of spring.


The remarkable element of the whole lunch was the lack of one topic of conversation: the baby. For the first time in about two months, I made it through an entire event without someone asking if I'm ready for the baby, or what I've done to prepare, or how I'm feeling about motherhood. As I walked back to the office, I thought about how much I appreciated this little reprieve. Obviously all I can think about these days is this little one about to make her debut. But it felt good to talk about work and other elements of life for just a little bit this afternoon.

Sunshine Returns!

It's a promising start!

38-Week Baby Bump!

Okay, this is a little gross since it is from my work bathroom, but with no full-length mirror at home and no gym this week, my options were limited!

The Opposite of Blerg

Just one more day...

Weekend Developments

This weekend, my dad and brother joined Michael and I to face the floods of New York City. They came up to visit on Thursday, just in time to witness the craziest, rainiest, windiest, wettest weather we've had in quite some time. Simultaneously, on Saturday, we lost heat and warm water and gained a couple of leaks in our roof. Despite these major handicaps, my dad and brother - ever the relaxed gentlemen, kept a positive attitude, laughed as umbrellas flipped and pants got soaked.

We had a very nice visit - one we had hoped would be marked by the arrival of our little girl, but wasn't. We spent a lot of time sitting in warm restaurants, eating delicious food, and in a theater, enjoying some mindless entertainment. It was thrilling to see my dad so excited for his first grandbaby, sharing his enthusiasm with folks at the movie theater, at Home Depot, and a restaurant or two. Witnessing this kind of love we already share for our little lady makes Michael and I so thrilled for her birth.

Henry is getting ready to graduate from college, and every time he visits, I press him to move up to New York. I love spending time with him, with his relaxed, easy-going manner and nerdy enthusiasm for biology and (occasionally) history. My dream is to have him in the City, somewhere close by where we can meet for tea or coffee, where we can host him for a weekly dinner, where he can get to know his niece and she can know him. There is the slightest possibility that he will make his way up here after graduation. I'm holding out hope...

In the meantime, Dad and I compared stomachs this weekend - Dad is in red, I'm in white. Who's winning??:

Weight Gain

My effort this morning to plump up our little one:

Blerg

The 37-Week Melt Down

Well, it finally happened. I had my hormone-induced (please, Lord, let that have been hormone-induced) pregnancy melt down. Yesterday, while walking around and making my way through our typical Sunday routine, I heard from many a stranger about what I can and can't do because I'm pregnant, about how pregnant I really look, about how much labor is going to hurt, about how my life will change when the baby arrives. At the farmers market, when the seven millionth woman looked at me, asked me when I'm due, pointed to her loud, obnoxious kids and said, "Good luck. It's crazy," my flip switched. I came home, laid down on our bed, and started crying. Hysterically crying. Ugly, gasping-for-air crying.

Michael immediately came to my side to start comforting me, and in about three minutes we were both laughing at how ridiculous these tears were (okay, maybe closer to five minutes...). Our lives are certainly about to be upended, but as Michael keeps reminding me, it will be fun! And we'll have a little one to share the insanity with!

I feel insanely big now, and pretty uncomfortable. I'm ready for this little girl to come on out and meet the world. She's officially full-term, which is thrilling. Of course, our doctors office doesn't induce until you are 42-weeks along, which is still FIVE weeks away. That is utterly terrifying. But I'm hoping she decides to join us sooner, rather than later, now that she's done baking and is focused on getting big.

So here's me at 37-weeks:

And, when I finally dried my eyes and calmed down yesterday, I realized Michael was making headway on the baby's room! He washed all our baby supplies, so they are ready to cloth and comfort our girl. And he got our crib all set up to look like this:


It doesn't get much cuter!

Dreaming

Can we go back here????

Preparations

Well, this baby's arrival is within sight! We have less than one month to go - at least, that's what we're hoping (26 days until her due date). Michael and I spent this weekend preparing, just in case she arrives early. We now have a mattress for the crib, diaper wipes, onesies, an adorable dress from BabyGap, an infant car seat and all the trimmings that we can anticipate. I'm still on the lookout for a good sling (any suggestions?), and the hospital bag needs to be packed, but we're doing pretty darn well, overall.

And now it's nearly impossible to think about anything else. We have baby things throughout the apartment - books on sleep training and making our little one the happiest of them all, strollers in the hallways, diapers in the living room, and her bedroom littered with supplies. Because of my size, it's now impossible to do any task without being reminded how very pregnant I am, as getting up and down, walking after being stationary, even being stationary, induces some discomfort somewhere.

I have an insane amount to get done at work before this baby arrives. This type of transition is such a difficult one. I need to stay committed and focused to get things done, but I also need to start letting go, should I have to leave work tomorrow. I am so grateful to my job and my colleagues - they are all so excited and supportive.

Oh, baby girl, we can't wait to meet you!