Marian, LIVE!

It's a brave new world. I just figured out how to download video. Watching instructions: tilt head to the left and smile.

Honk If You Love Roadtrips

There are some people who can't resist the lure of the open road. It struck me as we enjoyed our fourteenth hour on the highway between DC and Chicago this past weekend that we might have given birth to one such free spirit. You slept and you cooed and smiled at all your adoring fans in the truck stops. You only really fussed when we got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic just outside of Chicago, and really, who could blame you?

Before your 2nd month of life you have already visited six states and the District of Columbia. In just three more weeks we will get to add 3 more states. I'm betting that before you are four months old you will have seen a full 12 states by car, roughly 25 percent of all the states there are to see; not bad my little wanderlust.

Cheeky Little Miss

Here you are on July 29th, one month old and starting to fill out.Same outfit, three weeks later. I don't think your dad needs to worry about your "brain circumfrence" any longer. And what are you storing in those cheeks?

Packing Up

When I was born my mom and dad brought me home to a house that I lived in until the day I left for college. A house that I came back to after I graduated from college (for just a short one year visit, mind you) the very same house that Momma Gerri lives in today. We never moved, not across town, much less across the country. I always felt more than a little sorry for the kids who showed up on the first day of school fresh off a moving truck from some distant place where I'm sure they'd left best friends, winning soccer teams and a house they really loved. I was also a little jealous, however, of the adventures these kids must have had and the opportunity they had to reinvent themselves when they landed in a new place. There's a lot of social baggage that comes with growing up with the same set of kids since kindergarten.

So maybe it's the lure of a new adventure that's kept me moving every couple of years since I left college. In the seven years that your dad and I have been together I have moved four times and if my last count is correct, he's moved eight (sometimes just to a new house in the same city). And now, we're introducing you to our semi-nomadic lifestyle. At the age of two an a half months, all your stuff will be packed up in cardboard boxes and U-Hauled to your next home. Strangely enough, back to the house that I grew up in.

It's odd to think that you'll have no memories of your first home, or even the city that's listed on your birth certificate; I so closely identify with my first home and city. When we come back to Washington DC, it will probably always be as tourists. We'll drive through Silver Spring and point out the condo building that housed you for your first two and a half months life life and we'll drive by the DC Birth Center to see the place you took your first breath (let's hope real hard that it will always be there). When you fill out your passport application you will write Washington, DC as your city of birth, but it may not mean much to you at all. Or perhaps, you will be proud to have been born in ournationscapital.

But you'll probably do lots of things I've never done or didn't do quite so young. I hope that moving far away from home isn't one of those things you do for a very, very long time. And when you do, I'd advise you to use professional movers. I swore I would never pack myself again and here I sit in one of our two rooms completely surrounded by boxes on one side. After calling ten different moving companies and exploring every option from a full-service move to a packing pod, we've decided to go-it-alone once again.

A few months ago I was driving out of the condo and down by the trash bins there were a ton of moving boxes. The one furthest to the outside was a large wardrobe box. On the outside of the box, scrawled in black marker, were two words: Chandelier & Cat. I'm afraid that person should have paid the extra money for a professional mover. I can't promise that our move will be fun but I can promise that you and Peanut will not be packed away with the chandeliers.

Waltzing with Marian

After almost seven weeks of not taking long naps during the day, you've switched things up on us. Perhaps it's a growth spurt (lord, help us if it is) but yesterday you snoozed through most of the morning and afternoon. Waking just in time for a romp in the park with Peanut and our neighbors.

I'll admit, it was nice to get a few things done around the house yesterday. I could do laundry without trying to balance you on one hip, I sat down and ate a real lunch and spent most of the day working on your birth story. I've decided that no one, not even me, will be interested in reading this birth story at the current level of detail I've provided. It's almost five single spaced pages and I haven't even gotten to the action yet!

I've also decided it's fruitless to try and bring this blog up to speed before I start writing in the present. I'll post a shortened version of your birth story when it's ready; but for now I need to talk about this morning.

You are a morning person, you clearly get that from your dad. Your morning smiles can bring us to our knees--they are big and gummy, spreading across your whole face and it's impossible to see them and not fall head over heels in love. And while a smile will stop me dead in my tracks, I usually feel a lot of pressure to get things done in the morning. There's the pumping, the laundry, the dishes from yesterday and the coffee (very, very important to me these days). So sometimes I put you in your little rainforest bouncing chair while I rush around the place. You played nicely for a while this morning but were soon put-out by the fake jungle noises and the water-feature with no water.

The Birthing 101 soundtrack I'd put together for labor was playing on the ipod (jockeying for auditory prominence with the forest noises). I plucked you from your jungle prison and we started waltzing. The song changed and "Ashokan Farewell" started wafting out. This is the song that your dad and and I waltzed to at our wedding and the song that led me down the aisle. You and I waltzed around the condo, out onto the balcony where a soft rain was falling, and you were happy. I love dancing with you little girl.

And now you're snoozing and I'm sipping coffee. Sometimes the dishes can wait while we waltz.

Pregnancy Condensed IV, Belly Shots

You grew here.

Pregnancy Condensed III, My Little Activist

I had the kind of pregnancy that makes a lot of women jealous. No morning sickness--I threw up just twice--no weird food aversions, no scares, normal weight gain and plenty of energy throughout. There were just a few things I found to complain about, and these didn't turn up until pretty close to the end. First, my ankles and feet were swollen beyond all recognition and the only shoes I could wear were those big fat Crocs. Second, I developed pregnancy carpal tunnel which meant that for the last two months of pregnancy, and well into a month after you were born, I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers on my right hand. Lastly, I had a tremendous amount of pelvic floor pressure. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that you were early, you'd been moving in that general direction for quite a while.

In March, just about three months before you arrived, I helped organize a massive demonstration against the war in Iraq. The day before the event it was 70 degrees and beautiful in DC; the day of the event it was sleeting and below freezing. Still, we managed to fill the National Cathedral with almost 4,000 people and then marched to the White House where over 200 people participated in acts of civil disobedience. Your dad and I decided it was enough for you to participate in your first march on Washington in the womb but going to jail in utero was not the best idea. I loved the idea that you were making the journey down the frozen streets of DC with me.

Your political activism didn't stop there. You turned up in a God's Politics blog post for Sojourners and it turned out to be one of the most commented-on blogs on the whole site. Some folks asked me if I felt bad about "using" you for political purposes. I did not.

And just three weeks before you were born you were on national (maybe international) television at a candidates forum on CNN focused on religion and poverty. Sojourners and CNN hosted the event and when 7 minutes before show time our VIP guests in the second row, aisle seats had not shown up I sat down. John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were about three feet away from us during the evening. Apparently the cameras liked focusing on the pregnant woman on the second row.

I think it is fitting that on the morning I found out you were coming I was heading to an advocacy meeting on the Hill. On the day you arrived I was supposed to be attending a meeting about mobilizing religious voters to prioritize poverty. You've got politics in your blood girl.

Pregnancy Condensed II, Missing Poppa Joe

Not every day was a happy one. Four days after I found out I was pregnant, I went home to Atlanta to visit your grandparents--Momma Gerri and Poppa Joe. It was supposed to be just a weekend visit but it turned into a much longer, much sadder stay. On the morning I was supposed to fly back to DC, Poppa Joe got really sick and I took him to the hospital. He never came back home again and died ten days later of a blood infection.

He knew about you. I told him you were on the way the morning that he died and I know that he heard me. Sweet girl, he loved you as much as he loved me (which is a considerable amount, trust me). And I am so very, very sad that you never got a chance to have him tickle you or call Dr. Finklestein for a consultation about what happens to little girls that don't eat all their spinach (not that this will be a problem, of course). Oh, the stories you will hear about Poppa Joe. I can't wait to start telling them.

I've added a picture of your grandfather holding one of my favorite babies (pre-you, of course). If he were here , he'd be spending a lot of time holding you just like this.

Pregnancy Condensed I, That Says "Pregnant"

You weren't the easiest baby to have. We had been actively thinking about having you for about a year and a half before you decided to come together. There was just something about a soft Mexican breeze across the balcony of a six story marble mansion overlooking a cliff into the ocean, cold margaritas and fresh guacamole every day that spelled "the-time-is-right."

So about two weeks after coming back to the US, when I was already late for a meeting on Capitol Hill concerning the right of all children to affordable health care, I decided to take a pregnancy test. There were a few hopeful signs: dark blue veins across my chest and a bit of spotting at a weird time that convinced me that testing five days early wasn't crazy.

And there it was...two lines. Peanut was the only one home to celebrate the moment with me. I cried, just a little, and called your dad but was glad when he didn't answer.

I sat through the long meeting, an extra pregnancy test burning a hole in my bag, and was thrilled to leave as soon as it was over. The gum I was chewing made me feel a little sick; gum would do that through the remainder of my pregnancy.

Your dad called just in time for me to get off the Metro downtown and I suggested we meet for lunch. We went to Pangaea Market and Cafe, a fair trade craft store down the street from his office. As soon as we got there I went into the bathroom and did another test. I hadn't had much to drink that morning and the results were less than stunning. I was pretty sure there was another line but it wasn't clear enough to go waving around the restaurant. I put it in the zipper pocket of my bag and walked back out.

Michael knew something was distracting me and asked what was going on. I told him I thought
I might be pregnant and explained the tests. I pulled the one out of my bag and he could definitely see the second line. He got a little teary eyed, I tried to urge caution, and we both sat there with little grins on our faces imagining the life that stretched out before us.

I walked around all day thinking--"if this pregnancy doesn't stick, at least I've had this one day. I've seen the double lines."

I spent $35 more dollars on pregnancy tests that day and they were glaringly positive. We were having you.

Making Marian

If I were the kind of mother I always imagined I would be, I'd have started this blog about 10 months ago, sometimes after this picture was taken of me and your dad in Mexico. Instead, here you sit on my lap squirming wildly (your feet keep hitting the space bar) smelling ever so faintly of spoiled milk. The dog is not walked, the car is not picked up from the shop, the heat index is rising, and it's a code orange air quality day. In a few minutes I will change you, strap you close to my chest (where I'm sure the heat index is even more unfavorable) and walk you and Peanut to the auto repair shop to pick up our newly aligned car.

See, love, I always imagined that I would write your birth story while I was sipping coffee on a porch somewhere, you sleeping calmly by my side. I would spend most of the day remembering every detail so that one day you could read the play-by-play of how you entered this place. Instead, it looks like it's going to happen after I walk to G&S Automotive and before I rush off to work for a meeting on how we might "Vote out Poverty."

Welcome to the world Marian Katherine Ard Waller. My first words of wisdom-- things don't always play out quite the way you imagined they would. And usually, that's okay.