We spent Easter Sunday at Temple Square this year, and I have to say this tradition is one our little family needs to stick to. We used to do the same thing while I was growing up, and after doing it again this year I'm sold. A highlight was seeing thisEaster video the Church came out with in the Visitors Center. Though I had seen it online before, it was especially moving for some reason watching it again that morning with Charlie on my lap and Max by my side. I felt overwhelmed with my love for them and for my Savior.
Max and I have abstained from sugar for most of the year (special events not included), so I was especially excited when I found these these cute brown sack bunnies to fill with Cadbury eggs!
Believe it or not, this was the best picture out of all of them.
I could eat this blonde haired, blue eyed boy right up! (and his dad too, for that matter).
They make my world go round.
I'm pretty sure it was Jim Gaffigan who said, "I have more pictures of my children than my father ever looked at me." Hence, the onslaught of photos. Charlie is my favorite part of waking up. When I hear him stirring and start making his little noises next to me in his bassinet, I can't wait to be with him. He loves trying to make all sorts of sounds with his lips, sucking on his hand (video below), and getting tickles from his dad. We got our first giggle out of him a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon while I was changing his diaper, and it made me and Max both cry. Haha! What is this life?
Max landed his first paid research project (!!!) studying pediatric head trauma, and is working on co-publishing his first paper which he gets to be first author on. Like I've said before, he's ever the genius. He's also volunteering this semester at the Anatomy Academy and at the homeless clinic downtown. He works with a family practice doctor out in Stansbury Park (last time he helped with a cervix exam... thanks Aunt Cindy for preparing me for that one), and was just made a co-president of the U of U's Neurology interest group. Of course on top of all that he's my best friend, supportive husband, an amazing dad, and last but certainly not least, the king of curry. His curry is amazing, by the way, and clearly, so is he.
I, on the other hand, still consider it a feat I am walking again (I honestly didn't think I would be able to move again aside from maybe a shuffle). I won't get into the details on a public blog about what went on during delivery, but call me sometime and I'll tell you about it. The fact I'm still a walking and functioning human being only means MIRACLES HAPPEN.
All joking aside though, I'll be honest. I wasn't much of a "nurturer" growing up. I didn't like babysitting, I hated cooking, I can't craft or sew and I was never one to answer "a mom" when asked about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Frankly, I didn't know how I would feel about staying at home at first and raising children when the time came.
Now, before I go on let me say I know it's only been four months. But like I've asked most of my friends, am I just in the honeymoon phase? When does this feeling go away? Because becoming a mom has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. I might live on dry shampoo these days, but I've never felt more fulfilled or blessed or grateful in my entire life. I wish I could say this all so much more eloquently than I am, but it has truly been the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me. I can't imagine my life without having this little boy in it, or without being his mother. It feels like everything was always meant to be what it is right now.
Charlie has been our champion sleeper from pretty much the beginning. I heard all the horror stories about how exhausted I would be, (don't get me wrong, those first few weeks I thought I was going to die I was so tired), and I became even more worried about the thought of eventually sleep training that I read about 5 books in a week before he was ever born all about babies and sleeping and essentially surviving. Unfortunately, a lot of those books contradicted each other anyway, and it left me more confused than anything, but in the end, we were extremely lucky in that Charlie started sleeping soundly through the night early on without any coaching from us.
Anyway, one of the few things I did takeaway from those books was the importance of a bedtime routine; and out of all the things I thought about, it might sound silly that one of the things I did worry about was finding a special song to sing to Charlie every night. I can still remember the lullaby my mom sang to me when I was a little girl, and I wanted my own for Charlie too.
A few days after we were home from the hospital, I was up late one night feeding Charlie while watching White Christmas. When the part of the movie above started playing in the background, Charlie finally started drifting to sleep. It was almost like magic. Since then, it's become the one thing I do sing every night as I hold and rock him in his nursery. Though I can't do Bing Crosby or Rosemary Clooney any justice, I think it's just about the best lullaby there could ever be.
