Completely Forgot BIG News!!!

It occurred to me right after I posted about Tatum's twelfth week that in Matt's third week of work he got a promotion!!!  

As some of you know, my dad works at MACU as well and helped Matt get his foot in the door.  Matt was placed at a different location from my dad which help him build his own reputation as a great employee on his own.  He went in with the mindset to really set his nose to the grindstone, and he certainly accomplished that! When he called me with the news I couldn't believe it! We were hoping for a promotion in the next six months, but never did I think it would have happened that fast!  It really was a God thing, because so many little "coincidences" had to come into play.

So congrats, my big wonderful Mountain Man! I'm so grateful for you to have a job that not just recognizes your talent, ability and character, but acts on it as well!

In other thoughts, we're temporarily living with my parents and so far its been working splendidly (right, Mom and Dad?).  They've obviously loved being able to see Tatum (oh, and us...) every day and its been really nice having extra hands to rock and feed and play with her.

Here's Miss Tatum with her Poppie learning how to hold a drumstick (she doesn't seem terribly interested):

And her Nonnie, singing some silly song:

And this is our temporary bedroom:

Tatum graduated from a bassinet to a pack n' play this last weekend, as she was too big for the bassinet anymore! She would stretch in her sleep and knock the sides of it and wake herself up!  The new pack n' play plus a mobile keeps her happy for loooong periods of time!

And I was taking this pic for the Colorado Currans who sent us this outfit, but it was too adorable not to share!

Tomorrow night is a costume party...stay tuned to see what Matt and I dress up as! (YES, I got Matt to dress up!!!)

Tatum's Twelfth Week

Hooray for twelve weeks of life!!!

Again, this week there were so many good pictures I had a hard time choosing!

She's a lady of many faces:

Contemplative.

Distressed.

Huh?

Dazed and Confused.

(but not like the movie)

Exuberant.

Happy-go-lucky.

She's generally a pretty happy and easy baby.  She laughs and giggles a lot, and thinks its especially funny when I sing her a lullaby at night to try to get her to sleep.

Oh, and I cut bangs.

I love having hair that grows ridiculously fast. I cut these last Thursday and had to cut them again yesterday!

And since this blog occasionally offers how-to's, I thought I'd offer my:

How to go grocery shopping with a baby.

1.  Get baby in car seat.

2. Drive to store.  Hope baby is sufficiently entertained by dangling toy to not cry.

3. Put baby in baby carrier or grocery cart.

4. Arm yourself with binkies and stupid faces you thought you'd never make in public.

5. Hope for the best.

That's all I got for ya.

Tatum's Eleventh Week and TLC's Biased Baby Story

Tatum is eleven weeks old!

This is the face she makes when she wants to sit up. You can almost hear her making the noise that Scrat the squirrel makes in Ice Age when he's reaching for the acorn...

I had to snap a couple of pics while I was setting up the fabric, because Roy and Tatum were both sitting up and watching me...

And we got her a Bumbo seat last week to help her sit up since she was NOT happy being either on her back or tummy or in the bouncer all the time.  She wants to be UP and see what is going on!  That can get a little hard on the arms, so this lovely device was welcomed in our house!

On to another subject:

Since moving to Oklahoma and temporarily living with my parents, I've had the luxury of being able to record and watch my favorite reality show--"What Not To Wear" on DVR.  Somehow I've managed to live the past year and a half without it, and just love the snarky comments by the hosts!

After the show, "A Baby Story" comes on so I usually see the previews and first few minutes of the show.  After two and a half weeks of watching this, I have to say how frustrated I am with such a narrow view of birth being presented.  

Y'all know how I gave birth to Tatum, and my thoughts on natural birth and birthing centers.  I'll say again that those are my choices, and they may not be the best choice for you.  I have nothing against hospital births, epidurals or C-sections as long as the mother making the decisions is adequately informed.  

And "A Baby Story" is far from giving a balanced, informational portrayal of births.

Every day the preview goes something like this:

Little background of the mom and dad. Smiling.  Holding hands walking in a park.

Labor starts (dum dum duuummmm).

Mom screaming in pain in labor.

Will she get to the hospital in time?

More screaming from mom.

Will the doctor get there in time?

Shot of the worried dad.

The baby's heart rate dropped--can they get him out in time?

Crying shot of mom

Shot of some nurse running.

One parting scream with some creative camera zooming.

In two and a half weeks I've seen only one attempt at a natural birth, and she couldn't handle the pain and went with an epidural.  Every description of un-medicated labor is "torture," "my belly ripping apart," or "unbearable." All of them have been in the hospital.  About 80% of the women were given pitocin. Every single one I've seen had an epidural. And quite a few were given emergency C-sections.

Now let's say you're pregnant.  And, being into everything baby, you watch A Baby Story every day.  How do you think this would shape your view of labor and birth?  From just watching it I would say:

1. Labor must be too painful to manage on your own.

2. The hospital is your only option in where to give birth.

3.  Labor is scary stuff.

Not a very well-balanced view of labor.  We're not a society where women are present for other women's labors and birth. In other cultures, its mothers and other women and midwives who witness and support other women during birth.  You would grow up seeing your mother, sisters, aunts give birth.  Consequentially, when it came time for you to give birth, you would have real life examples for what to expect.  If you learn from this reality TV-show, your view of labor and birth would be quite biased because its just that--a TV show.

And good TV is drama.
And drama =  money.

I just checked the TV schedule and did a few quick searches.

In 70 episodes, there was 1 home birth.  2 water births, one was "rethought." 5 mentions of "couple wants a drug-free birth," but 4 of them "rethought" it.

Not exactly a ton of variety there.

The number one question I get when people hear I delivered a baby that was half an ounce shy of ten pounds without drugs is "Didn't it hurt???"

Well, yeah.  A lot.  Not gonna lie there. And yes, there were moments I was scared.

But you know what?  It was totally doable. I had my moments of weakness where my midwife looked me in the eyes and helped me pull it together, but overall it wasn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. And I'll do it again, Lord willing.  In fact, I'd rather go through labor than a week long migraine!


So come on, TLC, and show some more natural births.  More birth centers. More home births. More midwives.  More water births.  Because while medicated hospital births are the majority in this country, there are other options.

Tatum's Tenth Week

Big girl at ten weeks!

She has gone through another growth spurt and feels much heavier--I'm curious how much she weighs now! Look at the rolls on those cute little legs!!!

And we had so much fun taking this week's pictures, I had a hard time picking which one to use! Here's a little photo reel of her varied expressions (I basically was just holding the shutter down!)

I know I'm terribly biased but isn't she just INCREDIBLY CUTE?!?!?!

In other Curran/Palmer household news, last night held two hilarious events.

1.

I bought Tatum and Roy matching Halloween costumes.

I couldn't resist.

Here's ONE glimpse...

We've gone bananas! Hahahahahahah!

The first time we put it on Roy I laughed so hard I cried and nearly peed in my pants!  He just stood there, not moving, wondering what in the heck we had done to him!  Tatum wasn't so happy with her costume either, but this is one of my first moments as a parent to take pictures that she'll be embarrassed of in 13 years!

2.

After the bunch of bananas had peeled off their costumes, I heard a:

GET A BOWL!

in a high pitched yell from my mom.  Followed by a calm

Why? What do you need a bowl for?

from my dad.

JUST GET ME A BOWL QUICK!

she yelled again, her pitch getting higher.

What is is for?

My dad asked again, quite calmly. At this point I had made it to the laundry room where my mom was and saw the liquid laundry detergent pouring out of the container and into a laundry basket and about to overrun the holes in the side, and then here came Matt with a bowl to help out.

A small cereal bowl.

For the second time that day I laughed so hard I cried.

My mom is in the room struggling to contain sticky flowing detergent and begging for a bowl and my dad is standing there asking what she needs a bowl for and Matt comes running with the only size bowl he knows to find!

And then for the next twenty minutes my mom slowly ladled detergent back into the container.

A bowl would have been so much easier.

And so things at the Curran/Palmer household are going along swimmingly for the time being.  Its really nice to have two more ready and willing sets of hands to take Tatum so I can shower or eat or that thing you do with your teeth...what is that? Brushing them? Oh yeah. That. Its great when that happens. :-)

A Little More Rock n' Roll

Finally.  I've been running around trying to unpack, organize, take care of Tatum who hasn't been feeling so well, and get settled into this next (short) chapter of living with my parents for a month or two. 

Pant, pant, pant.

I asked my brother (who has been living in Oklahoma since August) what he thought of the place, and he said:

If Orange County is techno and hip hop, Oklahoma is a little more country and rock n' roll.

Great comparison.  And I have to say I'm enjoying a little more rock n' roll in my life.

When I walked to Walmart with Tatum in a stroller, four women stopped to oogle and fawn over her in the 10 minutes I spent in the store.  I hadn't realized in Seattle people hardly ever commented on her...it was almost like the stroller was invisible (especially in the mall on labor day weekend...yikes).

A neighbor came over with banana bread batter all over her clothes and asked to borrow a loaf pan.  I invited her in while I looked for one and she just chatted away and promised to bring us some bread before hurrying away with a "thank y'all!"  In the year and a half we lived in an apartment in Seattle no one ever borrowed anything...and I was too shy to ask to borrow anything myself.

Matt was in customer service workshops yesterday and said it was so refreshing that when a funny video clip was shown, people weren't too cool to laugh.  And I mean, really laugh loud.

So week one of Oklahoma living, and we're liking it a lot.  Its supposed to thunder and lightning today, which is awesome.  While Seattle may have had rain, I can count on one hand the times I heard thunder in nearly three years. I like me some weather.

Anyways, here's a couple pics of my Tater Tot...the camera has mostly been on the shelf this past week while we've been getting situated!

I am so blessed to have a husband who provides for me to be a stay at home mom.  Yesterday when she obviously wasn't feeling great, I could just sit in a rocking chair and hold her until she fell asleep, and then keep on holding her.  Last night Matt and I got our first real date night in 10 weeks, and I got to (tearfully) thank him for that. You don't get those moments back.

And so we're here.  Hokey Okies just rock n' rollin our baby, and loving it.

Tatum's Ninth Week

WE MADE IT TO OKLAHOMA! And since we're in the heartland of good ole' Americana I thought Old Glory would be appropriate for this weeks picture (actually it was my mom's idea):

I just got internet in our room so I'm reconnected to the technological world again.  These past few weeks have been great, exhausting, wonderful, hard, energizing, tiring and SUCH an experience!

Through it all, Tatum has been SUCH a little trooper! She got overwhelmed and had her melt-downs, but then again so did I.  I'll tell you later about the danged Taco Bell in Flagstaff, but let's just say Tatum might have more long suffering than I have.

We arrived in Edmond, OK last Saturday night and my brother and Dad got to meet Tatum for the first time

She did/does have her first little cold, and no wonder going through seven states and meeting well over 100 people in a week and a half! But we're taking it easy now and on the mend.

Matt started his job on Monday and really thinks he is going to enjoy it.  He even has his own office!  He's excited to be able to help people, and get to see the fruit of it as well.  Part of what he always liked working at REI was hearing people's stories--where they were going camping or what river they were going to kayak.  But at MACU not only does he get to talk to people and hear their stories, but keep in contact with them and see them go through a program and get their degree.  We definitely feel this was the right move for us.

That's all I've got energy for tonight--I'd better try to get to sleep while the baby girl is asleep!

Tatum's Eighth Week

That's an odd word to spell.

Eighth. 

But here she is at eight weeks old! The hi-lighted part shows the route we're taking from Seattle to Edmond, Oklahoma.  

Roy decided since she was a bit fussy on the floor that she needed a kiss to cheer her up...

I'm not sure she appreciated it...

To date we've had 10 get-togethers for people to meet our little Tater Tot, and met nearly 100 people for the first time!

Today we're in Prescott Valley, AZ with Ammah for two days of rest.  Hallelujah!  Those long days in the car are hard on a little one!

Last weekend Matt and I were able to have our first date sans baby! Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dave watched her while we went to lunch and for a walk around the lake.

Tatum did great, but apparently Roy was anxious for us to get back.

Oh, and here are the shots that Matt's cousin, Jacob, took of Tatum. He really is a talented photographer, painter, graphic designer and all around artist.  You can see some more of his photography on his blog, Jacob Reid Design Photography.

We've been so blessed to have so many people SO excited to meet our baby girl! Thank you to everyone who has arranged your schedules to accommodate us, driven long distances to see us, invited us and our very large and bossy dog into your homes and hosted gatherings of people, and loved on us and our Tatum. We have only two more days of driving until we reach our new home!