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"La la la la. Da da da da. [Grunting] [Blows a raspberry] Hiiiii ya!"
-Evey, 6 months old

A typical day in the life of my sweet little Evey when she was 6 months old:
5:00am - up for a quick nurse, then back to bed with Mama and Daddy.
8:00am - Good morning! Hungry again.
8:30am - Mama takes a shower. Evey sits in the hall and grabs at socks on the floor.
9:00am - Eat some big girl food. Breakfast includes rice cereal (only for the 1st few days of trying out solid foods. Too boring), banana (not anymore - her tummy can't handle them), pears (oh the joy of pears!), mango (her mind was blown the 1st time she had mango).
9:30am - Get dressed. Plays in her airplane jungle gym thing. Shakes toys and puts them in her mouth, then shakes them again.
10:00am - Mama has to leave for work. Fuss when getting strapped into carseat. Loves her pacifier. Falls asleep on the way to Torrie's.
10:30am - 3:30pm - Plays and naps and eats and plays at Torrie's.
4:00pm - Home for a snack. Lights up when Daddy comes home from school.
4:30pm - 5:30pm - Baby elevator, hanging upside down, sitting on Daddy's shoulders, and general silliness.
5:30pm - Dinner! Evey loves her squash and sweet potatoes and avocados. Makes a mess and tries to take the spoon away to feed herself.
6:00pm - 7:00pm - Errands with Mama and Daddy. Makes everyone at the stores fall instantly in love with her.
7:00pm - Evey's favorite time of day. Bath time! Splashing around in the big girl tub, biting her rubber duckie, and smiles all around. Fusses when it's all done. Eats and goes to sleep in her crib, easy as pie.

Sometimes I get this weird out-of-body feeling when I hear my name. Like it's me, but it's not really me, like I exist outside of myself. Sometimes when I look at Evey and she locks eyes with me I get the same feeling. Like for a split second we know each perfectly and can understand each other. Sometimes I think about when she and her future siblings grow up about what they'll remember about me as their young mother and what they'll think about when they see pictures of us. I think about Evey's siblings a lot. I want her to know that the only reason we want to have more kids is because she is such a good one herself. So when she gets upset with her younger siblings, she should know that it's her fault they're even around.


But I don't know if I want Evey to know this...we didn't get her a single thing for her first Christmas. Not one toy, not one special outfit. Instead we ate a bunch of food and stayed in our pajamas all day and cuddled with her on the couch. We knew she wouldn't care about not having any gifts. At 5 months old she was really just starting to get into toys anyway. She put everything in her mouth and growled and laughed. She made the funniest sounds (she was really good with her "O" ones).


Evey was getting better at imitating us when we made certain noises. When we'd repeat them back again to her, she'd grin and you could almost see the inner workings of brain trying to figure it all out. She'd be splashing around in her baby tub and we'd be saying, "Ooh" and "Boo" and "Boogly boogly" over and over, and then the light would go off and she would say, "Ooooooh," and naturally we'd be overcome with joy. If only everyone could get as excited about the little things. If only we could always love bath time and snuggle time. If only Christmas could always mean just some waffle sticks and zipper skin oranges and pj's and movies all day. If only life could always stay simple and sweet like it does with a 5 month old.

It is the neatest thing to see how a baby’s personality emerges. They’re just blobs at first, little nothings, and then you start getting these little glimpses. By the time Evey was 4 months old we knew just what kind of baby she was going to be – happy, smiling, easy-going. At that point she was sitting up on her own, but she still loved to stand. She was still spitting up like crazy. She loved bath time and kicked and splashed around. When I would pick her up at Torrie’s she did what we called “Full Body Smiles:” she straightened up and curled her toes and patted her legs and just had the biggest toothless smile on her face. I remember one night J wanted to go wake her up just so we could hang out with her (we didn’t; we let her sleep).

For Thanksgiving we went to Othello to take some pictures of a friend’s family, and then headed over to Spokane to see the grandparents and Uncle Pat. Evey was such a good little traveler. On Sunday evening, as I was preparing to head back to work the next day, I was just dreading it. This wasn’t the life that I wanted. I didn’t want to be a full-time working mom. It seemed cruel that just when Evey was getting awesome was when I had to go back to work. I knew that depression was setting in again and finally I knew it was time to get some outside help. I called a psychiatrist and set an appointment for later that week. I knew J was getting frustrated with me because he had done everything right and I still wasn’t myself. But I didn’t know what to do anymore – everything overwhelmed me, even dirty dishes in the sink.

I sullenly went to work the following morning. My boss came out of her office and said she needed to speak to me. She was very matter-of-fact and said that the company could no longer afford to keep me on full-time. They would need to cut my hours back to 25 until we picked up more work. On my way to feed Evey at my lunch I totally panicked. I was sobbing by the time I got to Torrie’s house. I spent that afternoon just processing what was happening, mulling over how we were going to pay our bills. By the time I got home I realized that this was actually a blessing. I had been saying for a month that a part-time job would be perfect for me, and now here it was, forced upon me. My mind started filling with all of the things that I could do in the mornings when I wouldn’t have to be to work.

My 1st morning off I cleaned the bathroom. The 2nd morning I slept in with Evey. I cancelled my appointment with the psychiatrist.

On September 18th it was our 5 year wedding anniversary and Evey’s 1st day at Torrie’s house. I wanted to get her used to being there a little bit at a time, even though I wasn’t going back to work until October 4th. J and I went out to lunch at Lunchbox Laboratory and rented a canoe on Lake Washington. Renting a canoe was the only thing we could think of that we couldn’t do with a baby in tow. At this point we’d gone on several little trips (and one big one), gone to Ikea and Costco (numerous times), done the zoo and trekked through Pike’s Place Market. Evey was proving herself to be an easy baby, contrary to what we’d believed early on. We’d hear stories of how other babies were doing things, or not doing things, and it just made us more and more grateful to have such a good kiddo. Despite her bald head.

There was something looming on my horizon, though. I had known from Day 1 of the pregnancy that I was going to have to return to work but as the date drew nearer, I worried more and more. It didn’t seem fair, that just when Evey was really getting awesome, that I would have to leave her. It didn’t seem fair, that other mothers got to stay home and cook dinner and clean the house. It didn’t seem fair, that those stay-at-home moms complained about how busy they were, what with their trips to the zoo and walking around Target during the day and going to playgroups. It didn’t seem fair, that I had paid my dues and finished school early and worked my way through it, while J didn’t have to. All those overwhelming, suffocating feelings came back again.

It wasn’t that I missed Evey while I was at work. It was that I was angry that I had to be there. I took a lot of that anger out on J, but he was so patient. He cooked dinner so many times, and I can’t tell you how happy I was to come home to a clean kitchen and clean laundry. He made me breakfast most mornings, too, just like my dad did when I was in high school. But I was still overwhelmed and frustrated at how my life, my 1st foray into motherhood, was turning out. You don’t get to do these things over.

Evey loved being at Torrie’s house. They went on walks and played and she became fast friends with Torrie’s son, True, who is 6 months older. She also developed a crush on Alex, who is 15 and talks to her and sometimes even plays his guitar for her. Torrie and Evey went to Shilo’s school and to the grocery store. She sat in the swing in the back yard while the other kids jumped on the trampoline. She shared all of her smiles and funny noises she was just starting to make with Jordan. Evey wasn’t missing out on anything, just me.

Evey's 2nd month of life started with her 1st vacation, a drive down Whidbey Island. She was such a good car traveler, hardly ever fussed and just fell right asleep. When she was only a couple weeks old we started using a pacifier, just so I could get a break. It took her a long time to get the hang of it, and several different brands, but during her 2nd month she really took to it (especially at night). And speaking of sleeping, she was a champion sleeper. At 6 weeks she woke up at 3am for a quick feeding, then again at 6am, then up for the day at 9am. She only cried when she was hungry or tired and gave us a smile towards the end of that month. It was such a relief.

She was so funny, though, because we would only get a period of smiles right after she ate, and then it was back to serious baby. J would swaddle her up and then balance her on his hand (which must have contributed to her being able to sit up in her Bumbo chair that month). She hated tummy time and still got the hiccups almost everyday (just like she did in the womb).

J's mom came to visit when Evey was 5 weeks old. It was an interesting couple weeks, and I wish I could say that having a baby gave me and J more patience. But the highlight was at the end of her stay we all went to Port Townsend on a beautiful, sunny Saturday. Janice left that Sunday, and that Monday was J's 1st day of unemployment. Evey and I were so happy to have him home with us. We left the next week for a nice looong trip down the coast. We went to Westport and Seaside and Cannon Beach and Garibaldi and Tillamook and Portland - all of our favorite places. I loved being able to share those things with Evey, even if she wasn't really cognizant of what was happening. It made me realize what all those people had been talking about, that having a child meant experiencing the world all over again.

I've already posted about the day that Evey was born. But I didn't write down much more of what happened after that. Those 1st couple weeks were extremely difficult for me. Having to set an alarm to wake up every 2 hours to feed Evey was hard. Then having her take an hour to eat was hard. Feeling full of milk and full of extra weight was hard. Not being able to sit up in bed without help was hard. I stood in the shower one day and cried. I said a prayer in which I said that I would go through her birth a hundred more times if I didn't have to go through those early weeks. I didn't know what to do and no one could help me. As my mother put it, "You're the mom now." Because no one was expecting for me to have a c-section, no one was really prepared for the recovery. I didn't change Evey's diaper until she was 2 weeks old. When she cried she was brought to me. I didn't really have to tend to her needs and the thought of doing so overwhelmed me. It sounds harsh, but when she cried, I felt nothing. I just felt like I was going through the motions of motherhood. I realize now that I had more than just a case of the "baby blues."

I talked to my sister Allie a lot. She'd had a c-section before and she told me that only women who have had them will understand what it's like. She said that when you stand up for the 1st time after, it's a badge of honor. Other people kept telling me that having children was just the best thing ever and they swore that it got better. When I went back to the midwives for our 1st post-birth check-up, I asked my mother to wait in the lobby. Val came into the room and asked me, "How are you doing?" I just sobbed. "It's so hard," I cried, "and not in the ways that I thought it would be." We talked and she suggested getting outside and talking a walk everyday and talking some B vitamins. We talked about J and how paranoid I was that each morning he left for work would be the last time I would see him alive. It was a fear that kept me up at night. She again promised me that motherhood would get better. When she weighed Evey to see if her weight had returned, we found that it had, and then some. I cried in relief - I wouldn't have to wake her up to eat anymore.

When Evey was almost 2 weeks old I asked Allie how on earth she did it. She has 3 kids (and now pregnant with her 4th - woohoo!!). I said that I felt out of control. She said, "Set the schedule." She gave her kids a bath every night to help them get into a pattern of night time vs. day time. J and I thought she was a genius. We got everything ready that night and gave Evey a bath, then I nursed her and put her in her crib. She still woke up a couple times that night, and for the next 2 nights, but holy crap, by the third night she slept from 8pm until 1am! It was such a blessing for us to get at least a 4 hour stretch of sleep.

The heat of those 1st 2 weeks was almost unbearable. Me and J and my mom and Evey went to the mall at night just to walk around somewhere with air conditioning. It was so so hot. But things were starting to improve. The next 2 weeks were filled with walks in the neighborhood, trips to Costco, baby acne (Evey had it so bad), blown out diapers, and sticking with that bath time routine. On her 1 month birthday we took a trip to Whidbey Island. She slept almost the whole way. Though I didn't totally feel like myself at that point, it felt like it was close.