Christmas 07

Squeakums first flight from Anchorage to Seattle went very well. He nursed while ascending and descending and had no problems with his ears. He was quite pleasant during the whole flight. There was a long layover in Seattle. During our second flight he was more ancy, but still very good.

We're home in the Bay Area for one week trying to see everyone, but time is short. Saturday we head to the Sierra's to Calla Lilly's family for our last week of vacation. Long haired BearHunter posed with his beautiful family at the YWAM Christmas party earlier this month. But now he has a mohawk which suits him well. He gets a mohawk once every few years. That's part of his wild side.

Strolling in the snow

The snows comes and goes. But our stroller isn't thwarted. This beauty is great offroad and in stores, with a nice tight radius. The clear cover keeps baby dry and warmer while still letting us see each other and the world around. It's beautiful to take a walk in the snow. This particular trail is a bit rugged, but it's the shortcut to the local Save-U-More.

Friends in Community

That's cold water! This sweet picture was taken this week during a Pixel Parade. That's like a modern version of a polaroid panic. When we were in youth group, that was an exciting team game where we'd race around town looking to take pictures of events or items worth certain points. This picture was worth 5000 points for "someone in water up to their waist." I think he threw on some fishing waders before hopping in. But the wave came up over the top and ran down inside the waders. Bummer!

Mom and baby with a recent graduate from our Discipleship Training School as she says good-bye.

Crib

We have a new-to-us crib, very exciting since Squeakums has been sleeping on the floor recently. He did better there than in his warped playpen. So a real crib with sides to contain him is wonderful. Today I picked up a bumper to soften the landing when he rolls into the sides.

And the fox photo is from BearHunter's AlCan trip he made recently. Took 'em four days or so to go from Seattle to here. They saw lots of wildlife, everything but bears!

Finally Fish Picture

As hoped for long ago, BearHunter's fine catch is now viewable. Pretty big, huh?

New Mom Haircut

There's frost today. And a 'new to us' green Subaru sitting in the parking lot. BearHunter flew to anchorage to check out this hot item from craig's list and drove it home that same night. Just what we were looking for, with a warranty as well.

So you always see moms with short hair. I thought previously that I wouldn't be one of those women that chops off my hair just because I had a baby. But then came the stage when he grabs my hair with his wet hand and squeezes intently or just stuffs my hair into his mouth. Babies' grips are surprisingly strong and it is difficult to remove my entangled hair from his hand. When this happens repeatedly, and at night, especially if I'm already tired or thin on patience, it made me consider the haircut idea.

So after much mulling over the idea and possible hairstyles. I asked BearHunter's permission to do the chop. He was amiable to the idea and pointed out some of his preferred styles from the photobook I was looking at. Of course his choices looked like high maintenance. I had enough cut to send to locks of love, my first time. So that's really cool. And we were both pleased with the outcome. I actually have a lot of curl when my hair went short this time. Now it's time to figure out how I'm going to style it quick 'n easy.

First Snow

TodaY WE HAD OUR FIRST SNOW. Squeakums loves being outside. I think he could tell there were white things falling in the air, but he didn't show much reaction. Not yet anyway. You can see him looking at it. The snow came, and stuck, but melted soon. It came and went a few times. We're praying for safety as our family drives back to Anchorage today in a vehicle without 4WD.

Here you also see BearHunter in his Alaskan boots swinging a golf ball off into the Bay. It's a pastime of our director and as we were hosting an out of state mission team, he treated them to a few swings each.

Fun Times With Family

We have just said goodbye to BearHunter's family. The girls stayed two weeks with us, but his dad only one. Squeakums loved all the attention and we enjoyed our times together. Here's some snapshots of everybody. The girls got to join our potato picking this week. We bagged about 5 HUGE sacks full for the YWAM base. The dark green figure is BearHunter's dad while they went gold panning in the rain.

Visitors

What a pleasure to see some familiar faces. Our friends from home came for a short four days. It was wonderful to have someone who came just to see us. We hung out, went to BearHunter's last football game which they won (for a winning season), chatted over food, and shared pregnancy stories. Their baby is due on CallaLily's birthday!

And BearHunter's side of the family also began their visit that same weekend. So Squeakums has met both sets of grandparents. This time we pulled out the video camera, wishing we had with my parents' as well. Grandpa flew home tonight, but Grams and Auntie are here one more week, Yeah!

Squeakums is changing and advancing so fast. He's now grabbing things on purpose to pull them to his mouth. Pushing himself up more (may start crawling soon who knows). He can roll over from his back or front. And he's attempting to sit up, but has quite a ways to go yet. I started taking an infant massage class with him. He was the star pupil, so cooperative. He must love massages like his mother :) I'm hoping through the massage class and other playgroup that I attend to meet some people in the community outside of church. It's hard to know how to meet others. There's only about 4 other babies in the group, but I think it's a perfect environment to make some new mommy friends.

Ministry: the football season has ended, allowing BearHunter to jump back into more projects at the base. His involvement with the football team was worthwhile. He was the only unpaid coach for the team (out of 6 coaches). He got to know some of the players better than others of course. And he plans to work with them next year as well. Some of the players attend our church occasionally. Now he has a format to relate to them when he sees them on Sundays.

Almost four months old

We're looking forward to some visitors this week. BearHunter's family, all but his brother, will be up here for two to three weeks. We know they'll all be doting on baby. Who knows, will mom get more rest or less than usual?

At the same time two of our California church friends are coming for a long weekend. Their baby is due on Calla Lily's birthday! It'll be fun to hang out with some people that we have deeper relationships with. I'm looking forward to the refreshment of good friends.

We've begun Communion dinners at the YWAM base. We've chosen Wednesday nights as our weekly time to devote a couple of hours to fellowshipping over a meal. And experience the Lord's supper similar to how it was for the first century church. Not just juice/wine and crackers, but a whole meal together. There is something special about lingering at the table over good food and conversations, everyone sharing with each other. We enjoyed our first time last week and hope it develops into a highlight of our week. To accommodate a family atmosphere, we moved the tables together so we can fit 12 around one large square. Once the rest of the school returns, we'll have to create a new dining space, but for now it works perfectly.

Ruby Raspberry Tummy

Ruby: as mentioned before, we added a ruby to each of our rings in honor of our baby's birth. Here's what our rings look like now.

Raspberry: next picture is raspberry picking BearHunter style. He likes to get right in there, down low where you can see the raspberries that others missed. At this time of year, there's still a few berries left. I just made another batch of raspberry rhubarb jam, as gifts for our speakers during the next lecture series in January. I've enjoyed canning jam this summer once my neighbor taught me how.

Tummy time: Squeakums has tummy time on the kitchen table frequently while I'm fixing myself something to eat, or washing up the dishes. He seems to get animated and enjoy it unless it's time for him to eat.

PTL

Today there was much rejoicing at our base. There's only two families here now, including ourselves The other staff and students are again off to Saint Lawrence Island and other parts of Alaska doing their different ministries. That's not the cause of our rejoicing. The exciting news was that we are getting some moose meat.

A friend who was given two roadkills will give some to us. Although we're on the want list for roadkills, we never seem to be at the top of the list. And another friend is donating to us half a moose, since it was illegally shot (they have to be a specific age and size to be legal). So that means we don't have to buy beef for awhile, which helps our food budget tremendously. And searching for good moose recipes will be fun! Got any? Send 'em my way.

Next exciting source of rejoicing is the provision for Calla Lily's dental work. It had been so long since I'd had a cleaning that I scheduled an exam and x-rays. That seemed the most important part of an exam. And when paying cash, I wanted to choose wisely. They discovered I needed a filling to be replaced; it had been improperly done in California a couple of years ago. I split my appointments over three months, to spread out the cost. We shared our need in our last newsletter and have had the cost covered by special donations. Looks like we'll have some extra, so BearHunter can go see the dentist as well. Praise God. By the way, I was apprehensive about getting in the chair since I have a history of being tolerant to the numbing shots and require repeat doses throughout procedures. However, thanks to prayers, I only needed one shot and it wasn't that bad. The dentist found some further decay due to the incomplete coverage of the last filling. But the work went smoothly with very little discomfort.

Blogspot says you can post videos now. But I haven't found the option on mine yet. Hopefully soon I'll be able to upload some brief clips of Squeakums. I know he's the most popular item on our site these days.

So what's up with the little guy? Well, he's clasping his hands and stuffing things, particularly blankets, in his mouth. He's squealing as well, and laughing a little bit. He's got his own little potty. We get him to use him sometimes, but frequently miss the window of opportunity.

Too cute to ignore

He's graduated to the next size of clothes now (3-6 months) and is sporting a striped onesie from a HeartChange friend. Thank you!

Dedication

Squeakums had his baby dedication at our church in Homer this Sunday, two days before he turned 3 months. Two other friends dedicated their babies as well.
He has discovered his fists recently and chews on them. He tries sucking his thumb with forefinger, but it usually turns into a full fist...or two fists.

We continue the diaper free work, though he's still fully in diapers. The first day was amazing as you read before. But that was followed by some very unsuccessful days. I get tired of holding him over the bucket when it takes him a long time to do his business. So we're ordering a plastic baby potty that he can atleast sit on. I'll just have to keep him upright with my legs or hands. Not sure how well it'll work, since he tends to arch and kick and cry sometimes when he feels the urge to go.

He's finally sleeping longer at night. He's been gaining about half an hour each night the last few nights. Last night I had 6 1/2 hours between feeds! That was the longest ever. I hear it's called "sleeping through the night" when he hits 7 hours. Perhaps tonight. BearHunter doesn't even wake up to his moans or cries anymore until I've got him already on the changing table and his volume has increased dramatically. Guess I'm the lighter sleeper.

Diaper Free

Squeakums is cute still. He's getting more responsive with smiles and almost laughter to us. He is cooing most days and that's a blast to "talk" with him. He's 10 weeks old and weighs 12 pounds 8 ounces. They rechecked his hearing and he passed (again).

I've also begun a diaper free attempt. I read the book Diaper Free. And have been watching his elimination patterns, for schedules, verbal or body lanuage signs, etc. for a few weeks. Sometimes I'd lay him on a towel and just keep an eye out for when he went. Whenever I'd catch him going #1 or #2 I'd make a specific sound (psssss or grrrrrr). Within the last week or so he began having relatively dry nights and not pooping in every diaper. He does a big poop sometimes once a day or a whole bunch one day. Yesterday his big one was at 9:30am while feeding him. This morning he didn't go while feeding so I put him over a sitz bathtub and urged him to go by saying grrrrrr and making a grunting kind of sound. And he went a big one! I was so amazed. And then he peed in the tub as well. Wow! It worked. Throughout the rest of the day I got him to pee 6 times in the tub and to poop 4 times. It makes the whole process seem easy to have such a successful day. I keep him in diapers still. But I use FAR FEWER this way. And it's kind of fun and exciting. :)

Squeakums pictures

Shaving

BearHunter went through a transformation recently. From Grizzly Adams to Legolas (LOTR). Agree?

Squeakums in the Spotlight

1. These four ladies from church all had a baby GIRL in May or June. Squeakums is surrounded!
2. We had some visitors we knew from California who are up here volunteering at a Christian camp.
3 & 4. More adorable pictures showing his growth. He's getting long for his changing table now. And he is able to enjoy his bouncy chair which previously he'd cry whenever he was put in it.

Halibut Catch

So BearHunter hunted halibut and salmon this week and scored a rather large halibut. Hopefully a picture will come later. He went out with our pastor and another friend from church who's boat they used. In the first fifteen minutes he got the two biggest fish of the day. They estimate them at 60-80 pounds the first halibut, and 135 for the second! The larger was 5'4" long. Now that's a sweet sized fish. Even men who fish here for years don't get 'em that size. They didn't get any salmon however. At the end of the day, all three of them split the meat equally (we're Christians remember?), which meant BearHunter came home with perhaps 70 pounds of food. Our cook was very happy about that. Did you know halibut has a massive amount of protein, more than beef?

Squeakums (my chosen nickname for baby today) has started spitting up milk on a more regular basis. I guess he's around 10 pounds now. And excited that he's learning to fall asleep with briefer periods of crying. Yeah for Babywise and Baby Whisperer, our books about understanding your baby's communication and teaching your baby a schedule. He's sleeping better at night too. Less of a fussy period in the late evening.

More Baby Pix

That's our baby!

Baby is Here

First off, sorry it's been a month since we blogged. Life and internet access limitations have made it very difficult to get posts done. Here's the exciting news...

Our baby boy was born May 28, Memorial Day. He's already four weeks old today! That's what has kept me so busy. Besides being in the hospital for 9 days for our "special" birth experience.

I apparently had developed preeclampsia (protein in the urine and high blood pressure from pregnancy) which is dangerous to the baby and myself. The placenta can age prematurely and limit blood supply to the baby and for myself I could have a seizure at anytime. So due to those risks, I was induced at 38 weeks. It took two days of IV pitocin, then they broke my waters because I wasn't progressing much. Then within 5 hours I had my baby boy on my belly, no longer in my belly. BearHunter was so pleased and all smiles in all the pictures my doula took. I won't post them cuz they're pretty gory some of 'em.

I don't know what to screenname our baby for this blog. Any ideas? BabyBear is cute, but doesn't fit with BearHunter too well, eh? I call him squeakums and pumpkin at times. It's funny, in the first week or two I woke up dreaming about a mouse that was dead, but not really, in a drawer. Then realized it was my baby squeaking that made me dream about the mouse! He squeaks a lot.

And he's adorable when he wakes up from breastfeeding. His red face is thrown back as he arches and his two little arms automatically stretch up next to his face, elbows bent. And he pushes his little diapered butt back while curling in his legs. It's pretty much adorable. People say he has my (mom's) nose and mouth. When I saw this picture I had to agree. But he's got dad's big paws and tendency to kick and move as he's sleeping.

37 Week Art

Yeah, we reached full-term 37 weeks! Now baby is definitely ready for the world. The midwife thinks it's around 6 pounds. Now it's just a waiting game for real labor to start. I'm totally free to return to normal activities. Though I took a short walk to the grocery store yesterday and found myself completely exhausted when I returned. They checked my blood iron level yesterday to see if I need supplements, I haven't heard the results yet. But being tired in third trimester is also normal. I've been sleeping pretty well, thanks to a lavendar sachet my doula made for me. I still wake between 3-4am most every night, but can fall asleep again afterwards.

BearHunter used my belly for a pregnancy art palette. It's supposed to be a rabbit drawing, but looks more like a cat to me!

Bear Hunt

So there's finally a bear-hunting story. Unfortunately, BearHunter didn't happen to go! On Saturday one of our staff went out to test his new scope, and ended up on a bearhunting excursion. He and his friend found themselves perched just 30 yards above a two year old black bear. So they shot it and hauled it out. They donated the meat to the base and are getting the hide tanned. As cook, I now have the chance to use bearmeat in various recipes instead of moose or beef. I think it will work fine for fajitas or sloppy joes or stews. :) BearHunter and the staff who helped get the bear were the only two available to cut up the meat. Though he was bummed to miss the opportunity to go, BearHunter enjoyed cutting up the meat (with his new knife) and doing a taste test. Apparently younger bear tastes much better than older ones, and less likely to taste fishy. This little guy, which weighed around 200 pounds, tasted just fine, not gamey at all.

36 Week Milestone

Today we reached 36 weeks gestation. Praise God. Thank you, friends, for your prayers. Now if we have the little one, it's not so risky. Of course, the midwives still want us to reach full term, 37 weeks, for the best outcome.

I'm off of bed rest now, though still not allowed to be on my feet for long periods of time, or to hike or jog, etc. But last night I had a lot of contractions after being up more than I should have, so I'm not eager to jump into a full schedule. I'm blessed to live on a YWAM base where other people can fill in for me, and take care of me. I don't have to start my cooking work again until I feel ready. Everyone is very gracious and wants us to have a healthy baby. Our friend, two doors down, was just inventorying in his mind whether he has the tools he'd need to deliver my baby IN CASE it came really fast and we gave birth here at the base. He's delivered a few babies in his firefighting career. He said he does have what he'd need, not that he's wanting to have to do that!

BearHunter is hoping to do bearhunting this weekend. Just as an observer, he doesn't have a local hunting license yet. We'll see if that opportunity pans out. He tried his hand at chasing pheasants the other day, but he didn't get any on his first attempt. He was out there with his buffalo horn slingshot from Thailand (I think). The pheasants are seen frequently now walking around peoples' properties. Still see girl moose around, too.

Today BearHunter is working on installing a deck with the other staff here, for a local pastor. He's learning a lot from that process and loves being outside working hard. It doesn't hurt that the ladies bake cookes for them while they work! Now I wish I was over there!

Bed Resting

I went into the hospital twice this week for some fetal monitoring. Apparently I had started to dilate already and was having frequent contractions. After drinking lots of juice and water, I did better. After my second time there, they had some lab results ready that indicated my risk for an immediate birth was low. So I got to go home again to more bed rest. I may be on this modified bed rest for 2 to 3 weeks. We'll see tomorrow what they say at my regular prenatal appointment.

Baby has gotten really active again, pushing a lot on my tummy. The head is already engaging to zero station (moving into the pelvis). And the body is now on my left side, but facing forward and upside down. So all the hand and leg movements are felt on my right, and on my bladder. It's fun to watch my tummy move with baby. I get winded easily from small effort and am often tired. But now I get to nap as much as I want. I get to read and watch movies now and have some down time. The others living here have picked up the cooking duties. I still work the menu and make the grocery list.

By the way, I watched Facing the Giants over the weekend. It was a really good movie; well made and I cried a few times and laughed.

So it's unusual for a first time mom to be 80% effaced already (meaning my cervix has really thinned out) and I'm likely to have an early delivery. I'm almost 35 weeks along. Possibly it'll be a May baby, instead of June 7. I pray that the baby's not born until it's fully developed and ready, closer to 36 or 37 weeks if not later than that.
-CallaLily

Spring photos

First picture is of the two students on my kitchen crew for the past three months. They were great. Now they are in Outreach Phase in Saint Lawrence Island.

Second photo was taken at a neighbor's house where I happily housesat for a week recently. Amazing view of the moutains out the living room, eh? I sat and read and napped many hours by that window that week. It's not always so clear and sunshiny, but that week everything was beautiful.

-CallaLily