Like a dandelion

EIGHT WEEKS AND GROWING FAST

Emma was born at 7lbs3oz and 20" long.  Now, at two months old (nearly), she is 13lbs1oz and 22" long! We have retired her newborn jersey and the 0-3 months sized clothing is snug. Her three month clothing has a tailored fit and 6 month clothing fits comfortably with space to squirm. We have also retired her napper that was in her crib because she is too long for it.

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

Emma maintains head control for seconds of time when held looking over my shoulder. She rolled from her tummy to her back. When on her tummy she can support her upper body with forearms and push her head up to 90 degrees with her chin perpendicular to the floor. She can also do a micro-push-up from that position, elevating her rib cage and elbows off the floor. This morning (3/30/2013) she shifted with her arms and legs while on her tummy so she could be facing a light-up toy that was at her hip's side in the crib - she was facing it with her head nearly up against it once she stopped moving.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Emma can bring both hands to her mouth to suck them, puts her index finger in her mouth, rubs her eyes when sleepy, grasps an object that touches her hand, though she doesn't yet reach for one. She is fascinated with her hands.

SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL SKILLS

Emma calms herself by sucking her hand, cries when left alone, is more attached to Mommy and Daddy than to others, recognizes Mommy as food source, enjoys social interactions in limits (no more than 2 minutes of non-stop interaction).

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Emma coos, gurgles, squeals with glee, and grins when smiled at or talked to. She cries to indicate her different needs and stops crying when she knows we've guess her need correctly (e.g., when placed on the changing table, when picked up and adjusted to feeding position). She enjoys experimenting with how loud she can joyfully scream in the morning.

Holi color-wala, Batman!

Being that people here are celebrating Holi, I couldn't resist the title... for those of you who aren't familiar with the old TV show Batman, his sidekick, Robin, would always exclaim things like this.

Imagine you live in a place with no snow to have snowball fights, no paintball, and no water park. Well, they have combined here what we love about all those three things: they chuck watery powdered paints at each other in this spring festival.  It leaves the city -in some places- very colorful.

Matt and a friend went out the night before Holi thinking that they would explore part of the city and not get ambushed by color walas, but they were wrong! While videoing an early parade of people be-decked in splashed colors, one man in the parade took note of them and came over to smear paint on both of their foreheads. As he was doing this, several other men followed and began chucking paint on Matt and his friend.

All in all, I enjoyed this vicariously through Matt because Emma and I stayed home that day and the next to avoid the paint party. When she gets bigger, she will LOVE this... they even have slip-n-slides of colored water and encourage the kids to get as painted up as possible. How fun!

Palm Sunday

After a nearly two month hiatus, we returned to church today for Palm Sunday.  The church across the road is pastored by a friend of ours.  I want to clarify something -- we haven't been avoiding church, but people LOVE babies here and that includes touching and handling them.  We wanted to make sure that Emma was old enough and healthy enough to handle ...um... being handled.

It was a great service.  She kicked and grinned through the musical part, ate through half the sermon, and slept through the remainder of the service.  She woke after the crowds left in time to smile at our pastor friend and coo for some other friends.

She didn't like walking back home in the baby carrier.  The temperature is rising here and was in the upper 90s on our way home.  The high this week says it will be 106F.  We haven't turned on our air conditioners in the remainder of the house, yet, but this might be the week we start running it at midday.

Here are a couple of pictures from today:

GETTING LOVED ON BY FRIENDS

RELAXING AFTER CHURCH

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We all know the story.  A girl enters a house, nitpicks around until she finds the things she can live with in it, and discards the rest, leaving the house in shambles.  There are other details, but that is the skeleton... oh, and not to forget the bears who survey the aftermath and get upset.

Someone enters your home and their words tear apart what, for you, was lovely and fit your family perfectly.   I think hurt feelings and defensiveness come to all new mamas, wherever they live, when we are confronted with unsolicited advice, criticism, and worst of all doubts about our abilities to correctly raise and nurture our child.

This is where we found ourselves during a visit we had from a family this week.  Goldilocks in this case was the wife of my husband's friend - a very direct young woman with two children. The details of those words are not important, but the lesson our Father gave to me afterward (and a bit of humor) were the blessing.

I need to forgive as I have been forgiven much and have been freely offered grace.  This is the same grace He is extending to this family, to the woman who hurt my feelings that night.  My Father wants for this woman to come to know Him and to bring beauty to the ashes of her life, joy where there is hurting, and freedom where there is guilt and shame.

I did not react to her the way the mama bear in the story of Goldilocks reacted to her destruction of the home she had so lovingly set up.  I was upset and vented to my husband afterward, prayed, and told a couple of friends afterward, though.

In retrospect, this young woman saw some things that she did not have a cultural framework for and had to in good conscience react to them because she was taught to do things differently.  We always would choose to do what our doctor or mama had taught us to do, right?  When that is challenged in practice by another, we react.  Plain and simple -- though not easy when you're called out for being the one who deterred from normative mothering.  Thankfully, though, the Father showed me that it was partially catty and partially because this woman struggles with bitterness.

On the up side, our daughters had a lovely time together which melted both of our hearts...

 ...and their exit was particularly comical from a safety standpoint.

Emma's Grand Entrance

Emma arrived a week before our due date.  I had heard that first time moms' babies come late, and so we had started walking a lot that week to try and provoke Emma to come on time.  

On February 1, 2013, contractions started at 1:30am and were regular.  I knew to wait, though, because I'd had these pains before in December and nothing came of them.  My water broke at 3:30am, though.  I informed Matt, "my water broke. We get to meet her today!" 

Since we were one week early, our bag was not fully packed and turned into two bags.  At 6:30am, a cab arrived and its bewildered driver was informed by my husband that "my wife is in labor, drive slow and avoid potholes."  Bug-eyed, he opened the door for me and chauffeured us to Cloud Nine (the hospital where we delivered - no joke!)

DURING EARLY LABOR AT CLOUD NINE

We had a 29 hour natural childbirth, with two medication assists: a Tylenol supository at 1am on 2/2/2013, and laughing gas for a while after 5am to help me relax and get from 8cm to 9cm so I could start pushing.  Other than these and the local anesthetic prior to my episiotomy, I was medication-free.  

EMMA'S GRAND ENTRANCE - JUST AS SHE WAS HANDED TO US

I had five significant attendants: my mother-in-law who arrived on the scene during transition and was a strength alongside and a medical sounding board for me, a precious lady friend who was pretty much a doula for us from 11am to 11pm, a nurse who checked Emma's heart rate every hour on the hour so I wouldn't have to be hooked up to machines or IV fluids, a nurse who pressed on my fundus at the peak of contractions as I was pushing, and my amazing five-star doctor

THE DAY AFTER EMMA WAS BORN 

Emma arrived completely complication-free.  I had no idea that birth could be that drama-less... though transition is pretty dramatic, pushing was not.  The assist I got from the nurse pushing on my fundus and the doctor's expert guiding of Emma's head and shoulders (knees and toes) got Emma from crowning to fully born in only one push.  From the start of pushing to her arrival into the world, 10-15 minutes transpired!  Praise the Lord!

OUR DOCTOR 

EMMA KATE

FEBRUARY 2, 2013

7LBS 3OZ, 20" 

MOM-IN-LAW, HUSBAND, AND I WITH EMMA