In which I explain my absence.

I have been absent from posting here for so long because we've been working on a move from the great white north of Minnesota down to the rolling plains of Kansas.

No, I'm lying. I'm just lazy. Also, I have a baby, and who knew that would take so much time, right?

But seriously, I will be back soon and I will be writing more. Some things will be handy, dandy lists or projects because we really and truly did move from Minnesota to Kansas, and we happen to be renting a very large, very old house that could use some love. And some things will be more personal--not that I have anything new to share at the moment.

So, as a short catch-up, here's what life has looked like since April.

Junior (we also call him Bing Bong) has grown leaps and bounds.

Phew! It literally feels like Bing Bong has gotten this big in the amount of time it took you to scroll through those pictures. I can't keep up with him!

Besides that, we experienced a change of seasons in Minnesota.

And then we moved to Kansas!

Pictures and thoughts and scenes from that time will follow shortly.

I'll be seeing y'all again soon, I promise!

Bringing Up Baby: Ten things no one tells you about your baby's first month

So, if you can believe it, Junior is finally one month old.

I don't think I can believe we're here. We've learned so much in these past four weeks, and there's still more to learn every single day. Things about raising a baby. Things about ourselves. Things about readjusting to a new normal. Some of these things were expected, but some of them most definitely were not.

From small little quirks to major paradigm shifts, here are ten of the things we learned this month.

The first snow....one year later.

*So this is technically the second snowfall, but it's the first REAL one and the first one that required us to shovel our driveway. I'm saying the other one didn't count. 

Last year I wrote a blog post called The First Snow. It was a hard post. It was a hard time. I had just miscarried our second child. We were stuck in a cold house in a cold town in a cold state hundreds and hundreds of miles away from family. The driveway needed to be shoveled. The days were short and sunshine seemed to have disappeared forever.

It was probably our lowest point last year. Personally, it was MY lowest point. It left me with questions and doubts that took a long time to put into words.

Flash forward: one year later.

In which I present Junior's birth story.

NOTE: This is a long post. I probably could have shortened it down, but I just dumped it all out here. You might want to take this in chunks. I apologize ahead of time for the wordiness.

Who doesn't love a good birth story? The pain, the joy, the tears, the laughter . . . it's all the stuff that makes for great drama.

I'm not sure about drama when it comes to our story, but it's got all of the things mentioned above--some more than others.

Now, a short disclaimer before I launch into the tale:

Childbirth, while miraculous and life-changing, is not a glamorous process. I'm not going to pull any punches here and I'm not going to use euphemisms or metaphors (OK, I'll probably use some metaphor, but just because I like it) to describe parts of the human body or the process of labor and delivery. If you're squeamish about that sort of thing, or if you don't want to hear words like "vagina" or "perineum" (whoops, got you!) then I'd encourage you to maybe find something else to read. For the rest of you, let's get into the good stuff.

Presenting Lil' Feisty.....

I'm hoping to post a long and detailed birth story later this week, but until then, may I present some news.

Lil' Feisty joined our family at 5:16 a.m. on Thursday, November 12. HE is a beautiful BOY! He weighed in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. and measured 21 in. long. According to the nurses that's a heavier baby and a very long baby. I don't know about all of that stuff, but I do know we think he's exactly as he's supposed to be.

His arrival was swift and on his own terms, and both he and I are doing well after the first week.

Now that we're home and figuring out this whole life-as-a-family-of-three thing together, we've already learned so much about ourselves and this precious little boy. He'll be called "Junior" here from now on.

Next week I hope to have a birth story up and posted for y'all.

Until then, keep it real, keep it warm, and keep it snuggly.