Finally Home

After quite the birthing adventure, we are enjoying some R&R in the peace and quiet of our home and community.  We have been inundated with flowers, food, and homecoming kindness from our neighbors and friends, all while respecting our need for space and privacy.

Isaac seems to be enjoying the wireless life.  He is breast feeding like a champ and getting lots of skin to skin time with mom and dad.  The hospital kept him from becoming too sick, and we feel like now we finally get to start nursing him back to health in our home.  Literally.  I am a milk truck.  :)

Brian sporting his baby beard and our makeshift crib.  We aspire to be like the Finnish!

I am finally able to truly rest after the birth.  Brian is waiting on me and keeping me comfy while I lounge around and let my body recover.  All seems to be going well on that front, thankfully.  Maude agrees.

The Waiting Place

Although we do not have a baby in our midst yet, we have already received two gifts of meals from friends and are having no problem finding ways to fill our days as we wait.  Instead of thinking of this time as watching water boil, we are looking at it as a gift from our little one to use for some extra fun and good stuff!  

As a friend said yesterday, "At least this isn't like a job interview where you don't know if they're going to call you back."  We know we "got the job" - we just don't know the hire date :)

Mama-to-be on the "due date"

Our baby may not have arrived on the due date, but this little character did.  He seems to feel at home in our tree…we're still figuring out how to respond to that, haha!  Thankfully he and Maude have not yet crossed paths.

While we wait, we count rhubarb stalks and porcupine quills...

…and while baking a cobbler, I realize that I am dressed like a rhubarb stalk, albeit not as "stalk-like" these days :)

Maude chases butterflies in our yard, which is so cute our neighbor nicknamed her the "Anne Geddes dog" :)

Brian goes for long runs in the sunshine.  He even did a Sea Coast Relay out the road this past Saturday morning with some of his co-workers.  

Maude and I take long walks along the docks to say hi to all the tourists.  So many cruise shippers miss their dogs while on vacation and are more than happy to love on Maude.

And we cuddle.

And we actually pass by the new bbq food cart when it's open and pull in for some tasty pulled pork!  I ask the woman how hot the spicy sauce is (to help prompt the baby out) and she tells me in her best southern twang that what I really need to do is "go 4-wheelin' down Engineer's Cutoff Road - it's real bumpy" :)

We get to help our neighbors.  Here, Brian helps save Rosanne's lilac bush after her sewer pipe breaks and she has to tear up her deck.  An impromptu work party of neighbors ensues until 11:30pm, including my good-hearted hubby.  We were walking home from a date night and he passed by and asked what was going on and said, "I'll be right over!"  The next day, consequently, another neighbor went into the hospital and we were able to visit and bring them some food.  Lots of life happening on our corner!

And we "man-nest": also known as clearing out our small garage so that we can actually fit our car into it.  I can't tell you how happy this made Brian yesterday.  "Efficient use of space" = this man's joy :)

 

Community Cuteness

Our neighborhood is a sweet little community, filled with cute kiddos like these two:

Henry.  Henry is 4 years old and loves to ask me questions about the baby.  On this particular day, I heard a faint little knock on the door and found him simply wanting to "bring a treat for Brian and Anne" - a little flower and two pieces of candy.  He then peppered me with questions about the baby:  where is its head?  Where are its legs?  Is any of it up there ( pointing to my chest)? Is it hard for it to come out?  Where will it come out? (Meaning, where in our home...) he then tells me with that cute smile that he came out by the fireplace :)

This is Saana.  She is also 4 years old and comes to kiss my belly every time she sees me.  She also says things like, "Anne, when your baby grows and learns to talk, I will speak to it and it will speak back to me, right?"  This is a photo texted to me by her babysitter saying, "I am looking like Anne!" :)

This is the baby clothing we have been given from friends, near and far:

Here are Brian and Maude demonstrating good labor support :)

Brian's first triathlon!

Brian did his first triathlon yesterday!  It was a sprint distance, pool-swim triathlon: the perfect "starter" tri.  He convinced his buddy Zane to join him, and neither of them trained.  Brian, Zane, and another guy have been running together every Saturday morning for the past several weeks.  

My preggo self didn't get out the door in time to see the swim (it started at 7am on a Saturday morning), but thankfully I got there just in time to see Brian making his way toward the bike!  

It's Jebediah!  No, it's Grizzly!  Wait….it's BRIAN!

Maude was so excited to see Brian and give him some licks to cheer him on along the way.

 She knew he was running in blue and knew where the runners were coming in, and she sat patiently and watched for any runner in blue.  It was so funny to watch.  I had to let her go up to say hi to every person wearing blue, because she thought it was Brian and just got so excited.

 Here comes our man in blue!

Reflective Brian and Happy Zane

 Later in the day we took Maude for a walk out at the Shrine of St. Therese and saw our first whale of the season.  It was a beautiful sunny day to be out the road.

Pregnancy Pics at the Arboretum

Brian and I had our friends at the arboretum, Merril and Kelly, take some photos of us yesterday evening.  The arboretum is out the road, just about a half-hour from our house and is just a really beautiful setting.  They live at the arboretum year-round and Merril's full-time job is to maintain the landscaping.  Kelly obviously helps out with that, and also works at the university with Brian, which is how we met them.  As a hobby, Merril dabbles in photography and we thought he and the arboretum made the best combination for us to be able to creatively show this little one what it looked like (or, what we looked like?) with him/her in my belly.  As you can see, the belly is big and low and the countdown is feeling more real!    

Who's In There?

Waiting to find out the gender of this little one has provided lots of entertainment in observing people's guesses.

I have learned about all the old wives' tales that say either "girl" or "boy".  What am I craving?  How do I smell?  Am I carrying high or low?  What was my age and the month at conception?  Do I have acne or not?  How active is the baby in the womb? What kind of dreams have I had?

And here's the latest:  When my wedding rings hang on a string over my belly, do they move in a circle or back and forth in a straight line? (Here is my belly participating in this "test" over the weekend).  

Thankfully, we have some great names picked out either way, and we are so stoked to meet this person :)

Preggo Fitness!

My body has been good to me during this pregnancy, I am very happy to say.  I was able to do CrossFit through week 29.  I knew it was time to stop when the sound of the loud music from the gym ( as I walk in from the parking lot) made me feel tired instead of pumped up.  Metallica and third trimester don't jive well for me evidently.  Ha!

Here is Chad, the owner and lead coach.  He was nothing but awesome with me and I am sure is partly to blame for helping teach the baby some good swear words in utero :). He's a former wrestler, what can I say.  

Here are our good friends, Andy and Corinne.  They are my closest CrossFit buds, and I was sad to say goodbye to our morning workouts together!  

Here is a portion of the 5:30 am class that helped me last as long as I did.  Love it when fitness and community come together!

Now I swim, do yoga, and this workout video.  This gal is a French Canadian trapeze artist and Brian admittedly has a crush on her.  She kicks my butt, so I'm ok with it :)