Tennessee or Bust

Well, I have always told Brian that I can handle living anywhere as long as there is a J-Crew and a Trader Joe's (my self-described markers of adequate civilization). I guess one out of two isn't bad. The state we're headed to for the next four years apparently doesn't believe in Trader Joe's--YET anyway! It also didn't exist in Richmond until I moved here and emailed the company every week begging them to open one here. They finally did last year and I like to think I played a small part in getting it here. :) You better believe I will immediately resume my "new location" email campaign to the company.

So, where are we headed? Knoxville, Tennessee. Crazy. I never thought I'd live that far south in a million years. Was it my first choice? No. But it was Brian's and it makes me happy/proud of him that his years of hard work paid off to get him exactly where he wanted to be. The good news is that we have family there (for another year anyway--but maybe they'll love living by us so much they'll change their minds and stay longer?) and that makes a huge difference wherever you go. The bad news is that I'll be leaving my precious Virginia behind. I'll probably cry for a good few months until I adjust to life in a new state. But, it shouldn't take long when the city has views like this (it reminds me of Richmond):

I guess moving there also means I'll have to start pretending I'm interested in football--these people are obsessed with their football team!

Ready or not, Tennessee, here we come! Please be kind to us!

7 Weeks

I'm pretty sure he keeps getting cuter . . .

This is the reason I have trouble sleeping when he sleeps and that nothing around my house gets done: the adorable chubbiness just sucks me in and before I know it I have been staring at him for hours!

No pain no gain

Out of all the advice I've received over the past few months, why didn't anyone warn me about the potential hazards that carrying around a car seat (already 10 lbs on its own) with a 10 lb infant (yes, he's already 10 lbs at 6 weeks old) can cause to an already bad back? I'm probably just publicizing what a huge whimp I am, but really, that should come as no surprise. Seriously, I feel like one of those characters in a cartoon/movie who leans forward to pick something up and arches out in pain "Oh my back!!!" because their back has just gone out! I thought you had to be a 50-year-old man for that to happen (sorry, Dad!).

Oh-well, at least this little guy is happy and I suppose that's all that matters . . .

Three Weeks

Our sweet baby James will be three weeks old tomorrow. I don't know what we did to deserve it, but somehow we got a really good baby. He sleeps great at night already, he generally only cries for the obvious reasons, he can sleep almost anywhere through all sorts of noises, etc. I really have no complaints. In fact, I'm kind of paranoid that any day now he is going to pull a 360 on us and transform from a sweet little baby into a colicky one, but that is another story . . . One fun thing we've discovered about little James is that he loves music, especially Christmas music. A particular favorite is "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." If he even gets a tiny bit fussy all I have to do is start singing and he will almost immediately calm down (good thing he doesn't know yet how horrible my voice is). The only problem is that I seem to have forgotten the words to most children's songs. I can't get through the intro to "Rudolph" without naming Comet at least 2-3 times; "Rock-a-bye Baby" (you know, "in the tree top") has completely taken on a life of its own. I sat and tried to figure it out with Brian for about 5 minutes yesterday and neither of us could come up with the right words (I'll google the lyrics later). I even tried to sing a couple songs my grandmother used to sing to us when we were little and all they did was made me teary eyed missing my grandma (the squirrel and pigeon song for any cousins reading this). Until I reacquaint myself with songs from my childhood, do you think he'll mind if we sing him Black Eyed Peas instead? "I gotta feeling" that tonight's gonna be a good night?

Our Little Guy

My mom has had some fun (sometimes too much fun) taking pictures of our little guy this week. Every day she'll put him in a new outfit and snap some shots. Here are a few of my favorites . . .

For all those who know baby James as "Chuck"--this one is for you. Thanks to Brian's mom, he now has a toy truck named Chuck.

Some day he'll be excited about Christmas . . .

This is my personal favorite (Thanks, Mom!):

Chubby Cheeks

About a month before this little guy was born (by the way, he is now officially James) we had our last ultrasound that showed undeniably super chubby cheeks. I tried to take it easy with the milkshakes after that, but I couldn't help it . . . sorry little James, they suit you though and now I wouldn't change them for anything!

Here he is coming home from the hospital yesterday (I'm too tired to rotate the picture). He slept the entire way home.

I just want to kiss those cheeks all the time!


This is from this morning. He has periods every day where he is really alert and wide-eyed and just wants to stare at everything in the room.

This is also from this morning. Nap time in the car seat. It's the only way I've been able to get any sleep! He loves to have his hands up by his face.

That is it for now. I'm going to take a nap. I'm sorry to every mother out there who I thought was being a wuss by not getting as much sleep as usual. I got maybe 2 hours last night. He's worth it though.

At last . . .

We learned yesterday that it doesn't really matter how you come into the world, as long as you get here safe and sound. After a failed attempt at an induction (who knew that was even possible?), and, of course after many, many prayers, our beautiful little boy finally arrived via c-section last night around 6:30 p.m. Nothing yesterday went as I had planned/hoped. But what in life really does? As much as I never wanted to have a c-section, the experience made me grateful for modern day medicine and that women now actually have options during birth. Without these options, and without guidance from Above, I am convinced the ending might not have been a happy one.

The process started on Sunday night when they started me on pitocin. Although I sat through hours of painful contractions (over 14 hours to be exact, on the highest level of pitocin possible), I still wasn't making any progress the next day and all we could do was wait and wait . . .

And wait some more . . . (thank goodness for sisters).Around 5 p.m. on Monday, with still no progress, we finally made the decision to go ahead with a c-section. Apparently it's extremely rare to be on that level of pitocin for so long and to stay dilated (or should I say un-dilated) to a ZERO. Many tears and prayers later convinced us that a c-section was the right thing to do. The fact that we had made the right choice was confirmed even more after this little guy made his debut and the doctor informed us of several other factors she discovered while performing the c-section that would have prevented a natural birth anyway (I'll spare the details). God definitely played a role in this process and I could never adequately describe my gratitude to Him or to family and friends who said prayers on our behalf. All the stress and frustration were worth it when this little guy came into view:

Brian is already smitten with his son and I am convinced the two will soon be joined at the hip. It's so cute watching him be a dad. After his delivery, all he would say was "He's perfect, just perfect!" It melted my heart. It took me awhile to convince him that maybe I could hold him, too? I guess after carrying him for 9 months, Brian thought I needed a break. Although we're not entirely sure what to do with him once we take him home, we already can't imagine our lives without him.
Although he's only a day old, he already seems to have an easy going personality and has only cried a handful of times (never lasting more than 2 minutes). I hope he stays this way!

James Brian Richman (don't hold us to this -- it's still subject to change)

Born November 30, 2009

8 lbs, 20 inches long

Although none of this happened as we planned, it was all worth it. Even though I didn't get a chance to yell at Brian during the middle of labor that "I'm never doing this again!!!" I think he already knows that I would do it all over in a heartbeat for this little guy.