One Year

While pregnant, I kept a private journal and wrote letters to ε, in that spirit, this is a love letter to my daughter the night before her first birthday:

Dear Jana:

As I put you to bed tonight, I had a moment, a flash.  I was putting a little girl to bed and thought, “how much you have changed in the 364 days since you’ve arrived.”  A year ago today, this eve, you were still inside me where you were nourished and protected. As you nursed, another moment, and I saw that 8lb newborn in your face and felt how small you were in my arms.  I hope you understand just how grateful I am that we have YOU.

Since you have come in to my life, time has played tricks on me.  The minutes and hours of the day pass so slowly, yet, I am sat here in disbelief that a year has gone by.  Or rather, it seems this journey to your first birthday started at the beginning of last year, almost two years you have been with me.

In nursing for a year now, I am still nourishing you.  I never thought I would love nursing so much and am not sure when we will stop.  It is a special time we have together, little games and songs, your smiling eyes and gaping grins on my skin.  And that laugh!  Oh, how you have that special laugh when you want or are about to have milk!  It is different from your giggles and squeals of delight.  It is your milk laugh!

I have spent a year with you in my arms, your soft breath in my ear.  Where others complain their little ones no longer want to cuddle, I have relished every second that you and I have snuggled.  You have been in my arms for just about every single one of your naps (with exception of the naps you have spent in your father’s arms).  I was sad when you grew to be too big for the co-sleeper bassinet, I missed looking over and having you at arm’s reach.  Now, I have no regrets that you sleep in our bed every night, even though you do take up much of the bed.

There are not sufficient words to describe my joy, my delight, my gratitude, for your mere existence.  You surprise me everyday with what you can do and learn and communicate to me.  I can not imagine life without you.  And I never thought that I would love being a mom so much.

Tonight I put you to bed, your last night as our baby, for tomorrow is your birthday and you will be our toddler.

Goodnight my little Bunny, sweet dreams!  Love,  Ma-ma.

Tour of Pittsburgh

Jana had some friend’s visiting her and she managed to see quite a bit of Pittsburgh along the way.

Her first trip to the zoo on Sunday yielded a chance meeting with an elephant:

Monday was her first encounter with the dinosaurs, minerals and bug rooms and bug folk at the Natural History Museum:

Today was a stroll around Phipps, which I had no idea so much work was being done that it seems twice as large as it used to be!

How Is It Nearly July?

We’ve been home for a few months now and it’s been a nearly seamless transition to life in the US.  It may have been a different story if we didn’t have our house to come home to, full of furniture and belongings we left behind.  The 3.25 years we spent abroad seems as if it were a bubble in our time line and we’ve slotted right back into place.  Only now as a tiny family.

I find I have days where I don’t even open up my laptop.  I’m not disconnected in any way, I have my trusty iPhone on me always.  My online time allocated to nap times when I’m not joining in on the napping.  Jana is not a sleeper, so I take advantage of those moments when I can steal a few winks for myself.  This also has meant the majority of photos I’ve been taking and posting are camera phone shots.  It’s easy, I have the phone on me always and I can instantly upload the photo or video on the spot.  I do now wish for a point and shoot camera that I can instantly upload from, just so the photos are of a better quality than the generally grainy phone shots.

We’re still not fully settled in since our belongings were delivered at the end of April.  We have a bottleneck for storage in our house.  It’s on the long list of projects Mark is working on during this “sabbatical” from working.  Once the workshop is finished, he has a kitchen to build, crib to fabricate, a dresser to finish, an attic to transform into a walk in closet (access from our room) and eventually a Lake House to build.  What is to be Jana’s room is still full of boxes and an extra two beds.  Our office is an impromtu clothes closet.  It will be nice to have a place for everything and everything in its place when all is said and done.

Here’s where this turn’s into a “Mommy Blog” where I go on and on about this tiny being that has consumed my time and who I clad in all manner of insect related baby clothes (pictured above, a 6.5 month old Jana who has two teeth and has been sitting up on her own for a month now).  As you might have inferred from above, Jana is sleeping in our room in a co-sleeper/bassinet next to my side of the bed.  Her clothes are taking up half of my dresser and the top of which is her changing table.  Mark has a design in mind for the crib, which she will be needing soon, being in the 90th percentile for length, she is outgrowing her current bed.  My dad started the work on the dresser that will be Jana’s.  It was my dresser when I was little and it belonged to my great grandmother.  Under the layers of paint, my dad discovered a gorgeous mahogany piece of furniture.  It will get a treatment to highlight it’s lovely qualities.

Jana continues to delight.  I’ve been cooking up a storm for her as she’s started in on solids.  As people who love to cook and eat, Jana will not have a bland palate from the start.  Everything is new and exciting.  Her first solid was an avocado.  She loves her pears with ginger, her apples with cinnamon, cherries with yogurt, mangoes, blueberries; her peas with zucchini and leeks.  She likes leeks in her other veggies to which I add to make them a little more savory and flavorful.  I made a carrot, sweet potato, chicken curry for her (steamed carrots, sweet potato, chicken, onion and garlic, added cinnamon, ginger, coriander and cumin) which she devours (served with barley cereal and prunes on the side it’s more like a tagine and super tasty!) Today was batch of butternut squash, turkey, garlic and sage that she ate with gusto and ate a lot!  I also cooked up a carrot, beef, onion, garlic and tarragon dinner which is frozen in six portions in tiny cups to try in the coming days.  My freezer is full of these mini portions of fruits, veg and dinners.

I can’t say enough good things about gDiapers, both the disposable inserts and the cloth. We’ve been cloth diapering at home which complements our EC’ing efforts nicely. We go weeks without having to deal with a dirty diaper, as Jana is very good about communicating her need to use the toilet (we started this at six weeks).  The EC’ing has been so easy to do, no complaints here.

Now we just need to get this baby to sleep more consistently.   I’m going on well over seven months of broken sleep (I did not sleep well in the last few months of pregnancy).  This has me in a “zombie mom” sleep deprived state at times. I would love to have more than 2.5 hours of sleep at a time. I feel like Robert Duval in “Apocalypse Now” where adds, “Some day, this war’s gonna end,” in the middle of some unimaginable scene. As I hallucinate in a half awake dream state that Mark can share some hilarious dialogue from if I don’t get around to posting about it, I add, “Some day, this baby’s gonna sleep.”

On To The Next Chapter

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened” -Dr. Seuss

I know I’ve been quiet in this space lately. I’ve been enjoying life with Jana and noting that my newborn is getting big. I had her in her car seat yesterday and all I could think was how big she looks, that my new baby is not so new anymore! (She’s three months old and weighed in at 5.32kg!)

Anyway, the above quote sums up well how I’m feeling lately. Our adventure living and working abroad is coming to an end. I’ve been running the gambit of emotions. We are excited to get home and start on projects and plans we’ve been making for the long term. Our families and friends are just going to go bonkers over Jana, she is so sweet and cute. So, yes, I’m happy. But I’ve also had many wistful and even weepy moments. I was in Henley the other day and was reminded of our visit there on our first trip over to England looking for flats. We stopped in a tea house right on the Thames and had Cream Tea. It’s so picturesque it’s twee. I ended up wondering why we didn’t venture into Henley more often, it’s so close.

Although it is ending abruptly on a sour note making us both want to get back to the US as quickly as possible, we had a good run of it. We traveled to over a dozen countries and experienced so much while we were here. We both owned our dream cars. We enjoyed the company of family and friends who came to visit. We’ve both made a number of fantastic friends who we’ll miss dearly. And I ended up having an amazing job at the Natural History Museum when it was looking like I wasn’t employable.

There is plenty I’ll miss. Particularly the village life, having shops and restaurants to walk to, the footpaths right outside our door, being so close to the Thames and surrounded by fields of flowers, sheep and woodlands. We’ll miss out on the bluebells this year, it would have been sweet to have photos of Jana in them. We will be back for visits, for sure, Jana will need to see her home land.

For over three years we made England our home, we started our family here. This has been an experience of a lifetime and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Next week we leave sunny England for winter in Pittsburgh. We’re going home with incredible memories, but have a new adventure ahead of us with Jana. It’s time to start the next chapter in our lives.

My Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Sometimes, I really like the photos I capture on my phone’s camera. I just wish it took better photos :)

Jana at 7 weeks 6 days!

The start of EC’ing

I know this isn’t very exciting to all, however, amongst much cheering and excitement this morning, Jana took her first poo in the toilet! Hurray for Elimination Communication!

Her signals have been clear from the start, but now that her digestive system is a little more mature and she isn’t giving us so many dirty nappies in one day. We were able to see a couple minutes ahead of time, that yes, we should sit her over the toilet.

One less dirty nappy to flush (we’re using gDiapers, the flushable nappy). It’s a first step, here’s to future successes!

2009 Year in Review

(better late than never, belated posting)

What a year we have had! Most of which dominated by one event. At the beginning of January, we decided to “pull the pin on that grenade” and go ahead and have a baby. In what seemed to be the longest pregnancy ever, starting with the twenty two weeks of nausea and vomiting, I eventually really enjoyed being pregnant. Epsilon got to be a very well traveled fetus, starting in Barcelona and making three trips to France, not too mention the day to day mundanity of flitting about England. Jana arrived two weeks late in December, a fantastic way to end the year.

I participated in making a video for an exhibit in the new Darwin Center. Capping off my tour of duty at the NHM before going on maternity leave by meeting Prince William and participating in the opening of the Darwin Center.

Jana’s arrival completely overshadowed our three year anniversary of moving to England (December 1st). This will be our fourth winter here. It still feels like we’ve only just arrived. That first walk down the footpath behind our house is so fresh in my mind. But that may be because I/we walk on it so much.

Jana is the best souvenir we could be bringing home from our time spent living here.

Two Weeks Old!

Jana is two weeks old today and she got to experience her first real snow! This is only the sixth day of snow we have seen in England in the four winters we have lived here. Jana is bundled up warm in the blanket Mammam (her great grandmother) knit for her and the hat I knit for her from the same bamboo yarn:

International Visitors

Jana has had her first international visitors, her grandparents Z, my parents, are visiting from the U.S. just to see her! We have had a lovely visit and Jana has enjoyed many snuggles (10 days old):

Introducing Jana Elise!

Jana Elise Denovich!

8:00 am GMT, 8.3 lbs via c-section (long story to come). She’s healthy, perfect and just beautiful!

Thursday, December 3.

T plus 13 days. Alright Epsilon, we either load up our packs and make the ascent on our own in the next couple of hours or we are left to take the ski lift.

Wednesday, December 2.

T plus 12 days. nope. No baby yet. Still holed up at base camp. The grandparents to be have arrived. Their original travel plans would have had them returning home today!

Tuesday, December 1.

T plus 11 days. There you go Epsilon, it’s after midnight, you are going to be a December baby. A Decemberist?

Monday, November 30.

T plus 10 days. After another sherpa visit, we were inching up the mountain, but progress has stalled. Will try setting a baited trap of pierogies to coerce her out.

Log addendum: It’s still November, Epsilon, we still have time to have our chance of planting our flag at the peak this month. I know base camp is cozy, but let’s go already!

Sunday, November 29.

T plus 9 days. Seriously Epsilon, what’s your plan here? Are you going to be a December baby? Are you going to be three weeks younger than your buddy Finn?!

Alternate log entry c/o Mark: “This could be our last night together, just the two of us,” we say to each other just before bed for the fifteenth consecutive night.

Saturday, November 28.

T plus 8 days. Alright Epsilon, our sherpa tells us we’ve made a little bit of progress up to the mountain peak, but you still don’t seem to want to leave the confines of the comfy accomodations at base camp. I’m starting to get a bit of cabin fever myself.

Friday, November 27.

T plus 7 days. We’ve been climbing this mountain for 41 weeks, Epsilon, and stuck in at the summit base camp for several of them. Our sherpa was helping another climber yesterday, so we wait for her arrival this morning. Hopefully with news that conditions are ripe for the final ascent!

Thursday, November 26.

T plus 6 days. It’s Thanksgiving. Would be nice to have Epsilon join us today. Have a meeting with the Sherpa later today. Will probably talk ascent strategy for the coming week. Baked and already partook of some pumpkin pie last night.

Wednesday, November 25.

T plus 5 days. Provisions for both an easy and full Thanksgiving arrive today, in case Epsilon decides to make an appearance, we’ll be ready. The sun is actually out, I lost track of how many dark, rainy, windy days we’ve had keeping us hunkered down at base camp.

log addendum: It’s the afternoon and still no sign of labour. Starting in on the cooking getting the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie out of the way.

Tuesday, November 24.

T plus 4 days. Yep. Still pregnant. Actually slept well last night, well, after I fell asleep after four this morning (after having sushi at 2am and pineapple at 3am). We’re still solidly stuck in at base camp. Hoping desperately we don’t make it to our next sherpa visit on Thursday.

Monday, November 23.

T plus 3 days. As much as I enjoy backrubs and hot chocolate at 3:30 in the morning, base camp would be a happier and more comfortable place if Epsilon would join us on the outside.

Sunday, November 22.

T plus 2 days. Watching favorite movie last night didn’t inspire Epsilon, was hoping the “Flight of the Valkyries” scene of Apocalypse Now would have got her moving. Nope, she’s still as snug as a bug in a rug at base camp.

Saturday, November 21.

T plus 1 day. Up late listening to foxes yelping and what I can only guess was a Lapwing calling right outside my window. Epsilon showing no signs of budging from base camp today. Hopefully the grey lifts before sundown for a vigorous constitutional down the wooded trail and back.

Saturday, November 21.

T plus 1 day. It’s after midnight. I’m officially overdue despite my efforts to convince Epsilon otherwise.