A steep learning curve

Before Asher was born, I was pretty confident in my abilities to care for a baby. During my growing up years my mom always took care of other people’s kids and I was there to help get in the way and learn. And Collin and I have nieces and nephews galore. I’ve burped, rocked, changed, and played with more babies than I can remember. My sisters may have accused me of being a baby hog at more than one family gathering. So when I was pregnant, I was nervous about and preparing for the labor and delivery, but when it came to actually caring for our boy, I thought, “How hard can it be? We can totally do this.”

<I’m sure you are laughing at my naiveté right now. Go ahead. I’m laughing too.>

And then Asher was born. And we quickly found that there was more to it than we had anticipated. You don’t just feed the baby. We have to make decisions about when and what and how much to feed him. Wait a minute, this is way different than my sister passing off her little one and saying, “Here, feed him this.” We have to figure out how to get the boy to sleep and when he should go to sleep and for how long. And where. And how dark and warm and quiet is should or should not be in the room. But… I thought you just rocked him for half a minute and sang a song and that was it? Also, we thought that if we wanted to go somewhere and do something, we wouldn’t let him hold us back, we would just take him with us! But when you’re faced with the decision of staying home and keeping him happy or taking him somewhere and him getting so tired that he screams for an hour… well, you get the idea. Needless to say, we have been learning a ton in the past few months. I’m so grateful for the times my sisters and friends and other family members let me care for their little ones. I would be lost even more without those experiences.

We’ve been having a bit of a hard time figuring out sleep around here. We didn’t want to impose a strict routine on little Asher Henry, for lots of reasons: we want him to eat when he’s hungry, sleep when he’s tired, we wanted him to be flexible, etc. And we didn’t want to be THOSE people who can never go anywhere or do anything because their kid has to read 4.5 books, sing 3 songs, have a bath, and be asleep by 7.01pm every night. But in our efforts not to be those people, we turned into those people because our days are so unpredictable. And it just isn’t working. He’s not settled. We’re going stir crazy.

My mom said to me the other day, “Maybe he needs fewer naps.” Well, yes, that makes sense. He has been growing and changing and we have to adjust with him. So we are trying out a new schedule. Today is the first day. And it’s going beautifully so far. Wish us luck!

Smiley boy

Today Asher had a lively conversation with his mama. We think that he has started to get a little bit of a laugh… here’s the video.

11 Weeks

This week Asher is 11 weeks old, which made me think: when are you supposed to stop counting in weeks and start counting in months? “How old is your son?” “Well, he’s 37 weeks old this week… gosh how the time goes by… seems like just yesterday he was 33 weeks old.” While that would be funny, and I might still do it, I’d like to know where the cutoff is.

Anyways, we took some funny pics of Asher yesterday in his baseball cap…

First of all, I can’t believe how chunky he is getting… look at those legs!

“I’m street, y’all… watch out, or I’ll cut you.”

“Just kidding… I’m actually very sweet and adorable.”

“When I look at people like this it makes them love me :).”

Here’s his grumpy face…

He likes to sit on the couch and hold his hands :)

Here’s a few more from last week…

Bye for now…

The Embassy

Today we went into London to go to the US Embassy. Asher isn't officially a US citizen until we go and do a "Consular Report of Birth Abroad"... which basically means we fill in all these forms that say, "Hey, we're American y'all!" And then they say, "Oh, ok, well then your kid is American too." How exciting! It's a big day for Asher. Not only is he getting a Social Security number and a passport and citizenship and all that; it's also his very fist trip on a train! I'm pretty sure I know which one he was more excited about. We were sad that we couldn't take any pictures of his first train ride, but they don't allow phones or cameras or any electronics into the embassy, so we left our phones in Cambridge and hopped on the 7:15 morning train to Kings Cross.

Yikes it was early... Asher had woken up at 2, 3, and 5:30am, so by that time we just gave up and got up to get us ready to leave in time to catch the train. The commuters were out in full force, and the train was packed with people on their way to work... they were all dressed business savvy with their ipods and macbooks, or their fancy spreadsheets with lots of numbers... and everyone pretty much keeps to themselves and is very quiet. And here we come getting onto the train with a whole ton of baby stuff, barely dressed and hoping that our baby wouldn't scream the whole way to London. We were pretty apprehensive about the day, because Asher hasn't been sleeping well anywhere else but home, and no sleep equals upset baby.

We should've known not to underestimate him... he was a perfect angel on the train. We navigated the London Underground with a little difficulty; strollers are not made for the Tube :). Finally, we made it to the embassy.

It was technically our first trip back to American soil in almost a year... there was a HUGE American flag waving over the top of the building and an equally giant gold eagle perched on the edge of the building. There was even an Oklahoma flag waving in the lineup :). All of it was enough to make the patriotism well up in us and we both spontaneously started singing, "You're a grand ole flag, you're a high flyin' flag, da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da..." We sang until we got into line and then is was better just to whistle rather than be the guy outside the embassy singing like a dorkus.

Security was pretty tight... the guys with guns were big, and their guns were big too, and the sight of the baby didn't seem to soften them up at all. In any case, we got in no problem... except for the part where they told us we needed to "test" the water in the baby bottle to prove it was water. Candice understood and took out the baby bottle; I thought he meant to test all the water, so I picked up our water bottle. Then we both started to take the lids off and he said, with a little shaking motion of his hand, "No, no, just put a little on your wrist and taste it." He was telling Candice that she could just shake the baby bottle instead of removing the lid... I thought he was talking to both of us, so I shrugged, and was like, "Well if you say so man." So I popped the cap off the 'sport lid' and shook it onto my wrist... of course, a TON of water came out and went all over the floor, then I tasted it off my wrist and thought to myself, "Well we all knew THAT was gonna happen, but I guess you gotta do what the security guy tells you, right?" The looks on the face of my wife and the security guard were enough to tell me I wasn't supposed to do that. Oh well, I was just following orders :).

So, when we finally got inside we were relieved to see that it was only 9:15 and our "appointment" was at 9:30. What a crock! They tell you that you've made an "appointment" to fool you into thinking you're actually going to see someone at 9:30 who is going to deal with your application. Wrong. You go into this room with about a hundred other people, most of whom are there with their tiny babies trying to do the same thing you are. On one side of the room there's a long row of "bank teller" windows and they just give you a number and tell you to wait. Basically, they don't care what your "appointment" time was, they'll just call your number after they finish with the other hundred people in the room with screaming babies. All in all, we were there for just under two hours, during which time we made several trips to different windows to drop off the applications, pay, answer questions, and then swear an oath. The oath part was pretty cool, but I thought they were going to make Asher swear an oath too, since, after all, HE was the one becoming the citizen. He didn't seem to care, though... in fact, he didn't seem to mind the room full of screaming babies either, because was a perfect angel (again) and slept in the carrier with me while I walked around judging all the other parents :).

When we left, I bid farewell to the big guys with guns and saluted the red, white, and blue. We were exhausted and went home straightaway… we all settle in for a nap, and Asher took the longest nap of his life. Mission accomplished. Now we can bring Asher into the United States… getting him back into the UK is another story altogether, one that we haven’t figured out quite yet :).

Mum’s birthday

Today I turn 28 years old. My first birthday as a mom. I told little Asher Henry that I only wanted one thing for my birthday: for him to have a good night’s sleep, thus giving us a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately, he did not deliver. Instead, he woke up at 2.45am and continued waking up on and off until his final wake up around 8.30am. The little guy just has a hard time getting to sleep and staying asleep.

While I fed Asher his morning bottle, Collin made quick work of whipping up some yummy blueberry pancakes! They were delicious and reminded us of Cracker Barrel. :) Collin was too cute. Apparently he had snuck downstairs last night to get all of the pancake ingredients measured out and ready to go. Sweetest.husband.ever.

This afternoon we were going to walk into town to get a sandwich for lunch, but it started raining so we jumped in the car for a drive. We joked about the lack of drive-thru places in England and I suddenly wished we were living in America with our small boy. Drive-thrus abound in middle America… food, drinks, the bank, pharmacy, post office, just about any errand you need to run can be done through your car window, with your sleeping baby in the back. Alas, we could only find one drive-thru and it happened to be McDonald's. Collin said he never thought he would see the day when I wanted to have McDonald's drive-thru for my birthday lunch (because I don't like McDonald's and it happens to be just about the last place I would ever choose to eat), but what's a girl to do with such limited options and a fussy baby falling asleep in the car seat? Whip through, order a diet coke, and get the show on the road so her sweet boy can nap, that's what.

I’m sure some of you more practical types might be thinking we could have just stayed at home and put Asher Henry down for a nap. Well, yes, yes, we could have, but he isn’t really into sleeping these days. More specifically, he isn’t into going to sleep. The car is what they call a sleep ‘prop’, which you’re not supposed to use. I’m going against my normal let’s-follow-the-rules mindset and embracing the do-what-it-takes motto. :)

We drove around a bit after the McDonald's stop and saw a lot of farmland outside of Cambridge. It was really calm and quiet and just lovely to ramble along the bumpy roads, whispering with my love as my baby love snoozed in the back.

Looks a lot like Oklahoma, doesn’t it?

Collin and I joked about what Facebook status updates we could use today:
For me:
McDonalds drive-thru for my birthday lunch. #spoiled;)
Or for Collin:
Taking my woman to the drive-thru at McDonalds for her birthday. #bigspender

I’m enjoying a quiet night at home with my boys.

Photo Shoot

Sorry we haven’t posted many Asher photos lately; here’s the latest.

Here’s him posing for the cover of ‘Baby Vogue’ magazine.

He thinks his mama is funny.

When you lay him on his tummy, he thinks about more serious things…

He makes this face a lot, I think it means, “What is that guy doing?”

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid…

My mohawk is awesome, but it looks a bit like a cowlick and kind of makes me look like the Gerber baby.

That’s enough pictures… put me to bed, daddy…

September 10, 2011

Today was a crazy day. Asher slept good last night, and woke up around 8am ready for the morning light. He gets sleepy within about an hour of waking up, so we tried to settle him into a little nap… then we tried again, and again… finally he took his ‘morning’ nap just before noon, and Candice and I made a quick sandwich for lunch and decided that we were completely out of food and desperately needed to go to Tesco (WalMart)… plus, we wanted to get out of the house. So, right when Asher woke up, we headed out the door and whisked away in the Happy Honda.

Carrying the little man around Tesco has been a good experience because he usually takes a little nap while he’s in the carrier. This time, however, Tesco was a madhouse with like a thousand people and it was a little too close to his eating time for a nap, so about 3/4 of the way through our Tesco run, Candice decided to go out to the car and feed Asher while I finished the shopping. We both felt like we’d had a pretty unsuccessful morning and afternoon so far… nothing was really working out like we’d planned (welcome to parenthood).

By the time I got finished checking out and got out to the car, I found Candice and the little man chilling in the front seat with the windows down just soaking up the sunlight (don’t try this in Oklahoma, a frozen lasagna left in the car during a Wal-Mart trip would be cooked, steamy, and ready to eat by the time you got out). Surprisingly, by the time Candice got Asher to the car to feed him, he was out cold, so she left him in the carrier and he was just sleeping on her chest – WIN! Apparently, all we have to do to get the kid to take a nap is bring him to Tesco on a Saturday, then leave and he’ll be so glad to be out of that place he’ll fall peacefully asleep :).

We sat and talked for a few minutes, then I decided to start the car because I was getting a bit toasty. I turned the key… nothing. “Oh no!” I thought, “C’mon girl, don’t let me down now!” I tried again… nothing. The battery was totally dead. It died a few weeks ago when the dome light stayed on for several days, and this time it must have had something to do with sitting in the car while the key was in it (it was probably already pretty low on juice). In any case… Asher was about to wake up, and I could just see us running around the parking lot with a screaming baby looking for someone to jump our car!

I acted fast. I ran into Tesco and bought jumper cables, instructing Candice not to let anyone park directly in front of us unless they were going to jump us (that sounds weird). I came out and searched for the perfect target to ask for help. A middle-aged woman loading her SUV… no, she’s probably headed somewhere important or has something frozen that needs to go home quickly. I looked around, everyone looked busy and occupied… then I saw them, our heroes. Two teenage guys who obviously had nothing better to do than stand behind their car and have a cigarette before driving aimlessly to nowhere in particular… perfect!

In no time we had the car jumped and we were on our way, Asher had just ate and we were about to pull out when…. blowout! And no, I’m not talking about one of our tires. I’m talking about another kind of blowout altogether… and when I say blowout, I mean BUH.LOH.OWT! We spent the next 10 minutes or so in a flurry of cleaning activity, all the while making various exclamations to Asher about the extent of his little disaster. He thought it was really funny that he ruined his cute outfit and we had to strip him down and dress him again.

Okay… so we FINALLY left the Tesco parking lot and headed home. We unloaded the groceries and Candice said she wanted to go for a drive, I agreed since I figured we would be charging the battery all along. We loaded right back into the Happy Honda and set off for our drive to nowhere. The UK is a great place for wandering drives. There are all sorts of interesting, small, windy roads leading between and around villages in the outskirts of Cambridge. We went from one village to the next, enjoying the picturesque countryside in between (it’s mostly flat like Oklahoma, which makes it feel home-ish).

Asher fell asleep in the car, and we knew if we stopped driving he would wake up, so we just kept driving and chatted about this and that. We ended up driving to Anglesey Abbey, an old country manor not far from Cambridge. It’s a ‘National Trust’ site, which means they’ve made it into kind of a ‘state park’ tourist attraction and charge you to get in. We just wanted to check it out and figured we wouldn’t go in, but when we got there, we realized it was the annual ‘Heritage Open Day’ and everyone gets in free! The crazy coincidence was that, without realizing it, we had gone out for a drive exactly a year ago and had also decided on a whim to visit another national trust site where it happened to be the one weekend a year where people get in free. To top it all off, we got there just as Asher was waking up from his car-nap, which happened to be 15 minutes before they stop letting people in, so we had a good 45 minutes to grab a drink and walk around enjoying all the pretty gardens (they do gardens really well in this country).

Me in front of the main house :)

This is probably the best picture I’ve ever taken with my phone… and it was totally by accident. The light was exactly right, one of the really rare moments when you get ready to take a picture and everything aligns perfectly for a brilliant shot: the sky is cloudy and dramatic so it’s not too bright that it throws off the rest of the picture, the sun peaked through the clouds for only about 5 seconds at the perfect angle to throw sunlight on the face of the house, and I just happened to be in the right spot to frame the grass nicely in the foreground. (I wish I’d had a better camera with me!)

So, as it turned out, the day that started off not going according to plan eventually came together perfectly once we’d thrown our plans out the window. In the end, I guess it’s a little bit like this picture… not one part of it was planned, but it came together brilliantly at just the right moments.

Tomatoes and September

We had the bright idea of planting a few things earlier this year in hopes that we might find gardening fun and rewarding. It was cool at first… of course, the lettuce is always the first stuff to come in, and picking a bit of fresh lettuce for our salads was pretty fun. I kept things reasonably well watered… that is… before we had a child.

Now, the last thing on our minds is, “Did we water the plants today?” And not only that, but we planted the garden back when we actually planned for and cooked real meals for dinner. We’ve gotten into the habit these days of using the short time we have in the evenings to scramble together just enough to get us by… this allows us to go to bed as early as possible. In other words, sleep is the priority, not food. This means that even though I’ve had some really nice looking tomatoes on my tomato plants for a while now, I haven’t gotten the chance to go and pick them. Today, however, I decided I’d make a salad and use only the tomatoes from the garden. I picked a bunch… I was surprised at how many still looked alright. It’s really a testament to the kind British weather rather than my gardening skills. In any case, here’s the result :)… and the salad, by the way, was yummy.

Don’t they look good!

On a related note… summer is over here in Cambridge :(. Sadly, autumn comes pretty early in the UK, and even though we’ll probably have several more nice days, I’ve already noticed the autumn chill hitting the air. I was less sad about this than I normally am. Normally, I’m very upset that summer is ending.

This year, however, I’ve decided that September is actually a really nice month to be in Cambridge (or to visit if you’re looking to!). The weather is still fair, the leaves start to turn all sorts of really beautiful colors against the buildings, most of the tourists have cleared out, the students haven’t arrived yet… all in all, it’s just a very quiet, serene, picturesque place to be. Thanks be to God… for my kid and my wife, for the tomatoes, for the seasons, and for a pretty nice sunset tonight.