What day is it?

Before Jackson entered my life, I was really looking forward to maternity leave. Yes, I was excited about the new baby but I was also excited about 16 weeks off of work with nothing on my schedule and a lot of time to reflect and ponder a whole slew of things. People at work kept telling me that they thought I'd have a problem "checking out." But not only was I totally ready to check out, I was excited about it. No offense to my co-workers, but I really haven't thought about you much!

These last two and a half weeks have been the fastest of my entire life. With Chad at home and our family out of town for the last several days, each day has started blending into the next. I actually love it, but I'm completely baffled by it at the same time.

Let's just say having a newborn does not enable any level of efficiency. ("Tell me about it," all of you are saying who already have children.) How I'm home all day and can't find time to make my bed or do one load of laundry or put away the Christmas gifts or wash the dishes is absolutely beyond me. But between eating and burping and calming and changing diapers, I'm amazed at how little time I have on my hands. With a rare moment of silence around here, I find myself counting down the clock until Jackson has to eat again (at the moment, we've got 87 minutes to go) while feverishly cleaning off the kitchen counter tops, writing thank-you notes, taking Lucy out or shooting off a few quick emails. I've never been so unproductive, but so busy!

I have a completely new appreciation of parents. Specifically, those who blow-dry their hair and put on make-up and look cute, not tired. (Though the sleeping part really is getting better.) The last time I consciously left the house attempting to look cute was a week ago when we went to a friend's holiday potluck and it was a three-hour production to make that happen.

As we plod through the surreal experience of life with a newborn, I find myself wondering: How do people do this while taking care of older kids? How do people do this who have twins? How do people do this without family nearby?

Last night, Chad and I were sitting around the tree listening to Christmas music after making dinner. After a few minutes of silence, he looked at me reflectively. I was waiting for something profound.

"What day is it?"

[Pause. My wheels started turning. Slowly.]

It's Saturday, I said. Remember? You're going to go down to Ramparts tomorrow and watch the Bears game.

"Oh right," he said.

My, how things have changed.

And, right on cue, the baby wakes up...

I'll be home for Christmas

I've kind of been dreading today. When we found out we were having a December baby, we were quick to determine that Christmas back home would be difficult, if not impossible. If we were even still considering heading home, the decision to have Chad's ACL surgery pre-Christmas was the nail in that proverbial coffin. The idea of not spending Christmas back home made me so sad, but I'm smart enough to realize that a 14-hour drive home with a baby who needs to eat every three hours sounds miserable...and the logistical challenges would have been way too much.

What are we doing on Christmas Day? Instead of our traditional six Christmases (two sets of parents and four sets of grandparents), we're having...one. Just the three of us.

No driving around and around to make every family Christmas. No huge meals. No chaos of kids and piles of presents. No Christmas morning brunch with my grandparents. No Christmas dinner at Chad's grandparents, or stockings at my parents, or chicken noodle soup on Christmas night. No Christmas Eve service at my church to catch up with old friends or driving around looking at Christmas lights. No Christmas memories that I've had for the past 32 years.

Even though life could not be better and I can't even begin to count all my blessings, everything I'm missing out on today is making a tiny little hole in my heart.

This Christmas is different - in both a bittersweet and exhilarating way. Today, the three of us are literally playing things by ear: opening a few gifts and making a scaled-back Christmas dinner. If it's nice, I'll take Lucy on a walk. If I'm tired, maybe I'll nap. If we're looking for things to do, perhaps we'll pop in a Christmas movie.

Regardless, we won't be home for Christmas - or maybe we will be. At some point I suppose, "home" stops being where you're from and starts being where you are. And this year, we are where we're supposed to be - just the three of us, making new memories and starting new traditions.

(But we'll be in Illinois next year!)

The infant and the invalid

There are times in our lives that both Chad and I are too ambitious for our own good. So when we made the decision to have Chad's ACL surgery right before Christmas, and right after our family had gone home for the holidays, we were definitely wearing rose-colored glasses. In the past 24 hours I imagine both of us have wondered, "What on earth were we thinking?"

The good news is that every millisecond is easier than the last and I really am happy that the surgery is over. But in the moments when I was trying to figure out if I should take Lucy for a walk, feed Jackson, get Chad his pain pills or move his equipment around the house, clean up from last night's dinner, or finish laundry, I have revised my "one day at a time" mantra to "one minute at a time."

And, as is always the case, today has been better than yesterday. Lucy and I headed out on a much-needed walk this afternoon and the two least self-sufficient people in our household stayed home to keep each other company. I think they look quite content, in fact.

One day at a time

It's been a pretty crazy few days.

Most of you who read this know by now that our lovingly-named "Buster" arrived just a few hours after my last blog post. Who knew that he was just waiting for me to update my blog before deciding to make his appearance? (That whole experience makes for quite a story, which I promise to share - sans gory details - in the next few weeks.)

Buster's real name is Jackson Robert Davis and he entered the world at 7:38 p.m. on December 9 at an impressive 8 pounds, 9 ounces. ("I never in a million years thought you were having a baby that big," my OB said when it was over.) We're all perfectly healthy and learning a lot about each other. I have realized, however, that I should have pulled at least one all-nighter in college because nothing ever prepared me for the lack of sleep we got for the first two nights.

At any rate, life has changed in our house and all for the better, but some of those changes are surprising even to me. Here's one example: those of you who know me know I'm a huge fan of lists. I have a list for everything: bills to pay, things to do, items to pack (or unpack, as the case may be), Christmas presents to wrap, etc. The first few days we were home from the hospital, I had no list. Nothing. All I wanted to do - and all I did - was hold Jackson and sleep. Selfish, I know, but I think he's really cute and we were lucky enough to have about a zillion friends and family bringing us more food than we could ever eat.

Since then, I've made lists but they're not exactly ambitious. And I'm ok if they don't get done. Yesterday, my list consisted of taking Jackson to the doctor, sending three emails and vacuuming. (ie: The "vacuum" box never got checked last night so our friends who came over with dinner in exchange for some baby-ogling likely saw a few tufts of dog hair accumulating in the corners. The old me would have freaked out. The new me said, eehhh...oh well.) Today, I hope to fill out some paperwork for our HR department at work, update my blog [check], and make dinner. Hardly impressive by "old me" standards.

Along with this ambivalence toward completing my lists has come a total change in perspective. Instead of getting ahead of myself and thinking "big picture" and "long term," I have forced myself to focus in the moment, not only because I want to soak in as much of this as possible but also because it makes things seem so much less overwhelming.

Sometimes in the middle of the night your mind starts playing tricks on you because it's so quiet and you're suffering from a lack of sleep, and it's easy to let the questions come. I've worried about everything from whether Jackson has a fever to wishing he wouldn't grow up so fast (pretty sure that was on Day 3...). So my new mantra, and all that I've been telling myself over and over, is that we are taking this "One day at a time."

We are going to make it through this one really horrible 3 a.m. diaper-changing experience where Jackson is peeing all over himself and screaming and I am fumbling around trying to figure out what to dress him in next. We are going to make it through the logistical hurdles of figuring out who is taking Lucy out for exercise or finishing our Christmas shopping or filling out our life insurance paperwork. And we are going to make a special note to soak up the amazing experiences, like one peaceful moment yesterday morning after we got home from the pediatrician where I just said "forget the vacuuming" and a sleepy Jackson and I laid down for an hour and took a nap - or the millisecond when I came out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth to find Chad holding Jackson, both sound asleep from total exhaustion, with the exact. same. expression on their faces. Those are the best moments, and I think I'd miss them if I was too busy focusing on what I needed to do tomorrow or after my maternity leave or five years from now.

I really do love this new outlook. I think it's been the first time in my life that I can remember that I'm not planning something down the road. This might mean that I may not get through my lists - appreciate the special state of disarray of my house if you come to visit, or at least don't look too closely in the corners - but it's amazingly refreshing to be able to focus on something so in-the-moment that you realize pretty much everything else can wait. Especially vacuuming.

Though you wouldn't know it, I am here

I'd like apologize to everyone for my Mom's lack of attention to her blog.  Despite what you may be thinking, I have in fact arrived.  Someday Mom might update this site again, but until then I thought I'd say hello.

Any day now, Buster

You know you've really neglected your blog when your own grandmother calls to remind you that you've been slacking off. (Hi, Grandma. Thanks for checking in!)

Ok, how many times can I say this without sounding like a broken record? It's not that I haven't wanted to blog or that I have nothing to say. It's actually the opposite: I have so much to say that I don't know where to start.

Here's what has happened in the last month, all of which warrants its own blog post but I'm currently feeling both overwhelmed and lazy so I'm going with an update through bullets:

• My friends threw me an amazing shower (see Buster's little hat and mittens from his Grandma Margaret)
• I found out that I'm going to be an aunt in May! Congrats, RT and Paul! We can't wait to meet "Yogi". (Where my brother comes up with these stupid nicknames I have no idea but we will eventually pay him back.)
• Chad had his meniscus repaired. Compared to last year's ACL surgery, it was a total breeze. ACL surgery for his left knee is scheduled for December 22. He is currently going to physical therapy so often that he got a t-shirt for "perfect attendance" last month. Not kidding.
• We went to a cabin in the Shenandoah with my sisters and their husbands as my birthday present. I can honestly say I've stayed in a barn! The weather was perfect and we spent two days playing cards, games and eating. A lot.
• Janice and Nick hosted an incredible Thanksgiving. Evening entertainment consisted of finding objects (ie: hot cups of coffee, glasses of wine, etc.) that would balance on my gigantic belly.
• Black Friday and Cyber Monday came and went. I worked. A lot. I even did my share of TV, though my clothing options were much more limited.

And that brings us to today, for the most part. This is Buster's due date. While I never expected an early baby, I have been giving this child the benefit of the doubt and told myself over the past few weeks that Buster is waiting to arrive until:

• The furniture gets delivered
• We go to a childbirth class, take a tour of the hospital, and choose a pediatrician
• His clothes get washed
• My hospital bag gets packed
• The Christmas tree and decorations are put up and the boxes go back to the attic
• We make a final decision on his name
• The car seat gets installed
• We spackle and paint the hallway and complete a zillion other household projects, much to Chad's chagrin
• We go out for our "Last Supper" (as we called our evening out last Saturday night)

Now that those tasks are all done, I hope he's not waiting for it to warm up outside because that doesn't appear to be happening for some time. So on his due date, the date I have had circled on my mental calendar for the last nine months or so, I sit. And I try to remind myself that the days I work now will be more days I have off later, that even though I'm not sleeping much I am also totally on my own schedule, and that every day that goes by without a baby is one more day I get to think about how amazing it's going to be to meet him!