Clara, bless her little baby heart, thinks she can walk. We discovered this when our friend Travis held her fingers while she ‘walked’ across our couch a few months ago. I laughed and said that Travis was just moving her feet…like a ventriloquist…Sam does not let me forget that confusing accusation.

My 4 1/2 month old daughter is pretty convinced of her mobility, and I’m obsessed with this song I heard on a tablet commercial, thus…this video!

Enjoy a peak at the rolls on those little Smoochie thighs – and also a guest appearance by my mommy cleavage.
You’re welcome. Or, I’m sorry, depending on how you came across this URL in the first place, I guess?

Have a happy day, friends 🙂

And by “sleep training,” I mean this:
 10 easy steps to do a really bad job at getting your baby to remember how to sleep through the night. 

1. Put Clara in her crib while she’s still awake. She’s fallen asleep on her own for months, in our room, so no big deal. Except now she’ll just sleep in her own room. Perfect.

2. Get emotional when my husband, the man who had not twenty minutes before assured me that he supports me in whatever I think is best for our daughter, rolls over in bed to tell me, “I hate not having her in here. It’s awful.”

3. Cry myself to sleep.

4. Stumble into the nursery at the 2 a.m. feeding cry. Try not to nurse her. Fail.

5. Sigh, throw back covers, and hurry into the nursery at the 3 a.m. not sure what is going on cry. Can’t handle her being so far away. Return humidifier, blankies, and baby to their proper station, right next to my side of the bed.

6.  Blearily shut myself and the baby back into the nursery at the 5 a.m. no reason at all cry. Try not to wake up Sam. Fail.

7. Supposedly devastated child pops her head off my shoulder and throws a BEAMING GRIN to her father as he walks through the nursery door. He tries not to laugh. Completely fails.

8. Hand baby to Sam. Announce that if they are so happy to see each other, then they can enjoy their time together. Fall back into bed.

9. Listen to Sam shush the baby back to sleep and put her beside us in bed.

10. Feeling as though I’ve been hit by a bus or perhaps drank the entire contents of a Las Vegas swim-up bar, I wake up beside this little unrepentent zebra in the morning:

I am tired. I am very, very tired. My daughter used to sleep all night, which means that I, too, used to sleep all night. And now we exist in some sort of Gauntanamo twilight zone, where Clara is President- nay, Dictator- and recently passed “enhanced interrogation techniques” legislation.

After speaking with her pediatrician (yes, the attractive one…he probably thinks I make up reasons to prolong her appointments) and my wise friend Hollie (who is currently raising twins a few weeks older than Clara), and reading Dr. Sears’ advice, and reading about Crying It Out, and laughing my way through this website  that Hollie recommended, here’s what I decided.

1. Clara is too young for sleep training. (4.5 months)
2. Clara is too small for sleep training. (12 lbs)
3. Clara keeps waiting to eat during the day, going almost seven hours at a time without any food at all. She wants the breastaraunt (not my term, but just fantastic), not the bottle. Which means she needs more food at night. Which means night nursing isn’t over.
4. Clara is an adorable, fun, talkative, dramatic, Smoochie doll baby who we are crazy about…but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed, every once in a while, to “feel stabby.” As the author of that great website so aptly puts it 🙂

I was surprised when Sam broke up with me on that June day all those years ago. I knew I was going to marry him, and here he was, ending our relationship.

It’s just the beginning, really. And if the first few chapters are meant to pull you in for the rest of the story…consider me hooked.

Now for a ridiculous slide show, wherein Samuel has hair, we wear too many costumes, 

and generally have a pretty great time together. 

Happy Five Year Anniversary, Mr. Horney! 

//www.youtube.com/get_player

I cannot tell you how many times in the last few months I have looked at something or somewhere or someone and thought to myself,
“You know what would make this even more beautiful? MY DAUGHTER.” 

Clara, I’d like to introduce you to a new season: winter. I know you are cold and wish I would take you back inside, but we must photograph these moments together. For posterity. And cuteness. You’ll understand someday…probably around the time you can feel your baby fingers again.
Love,
your terrible mother

I still have a year left of college. This would not be the case had I actually GONE TO CLASS my freshman year (insert imaginary slap here, right across 18 year old Jessie’s face). But alas, here I am, 26 years old and finishing up my degree. I took a few years off for a full time job running an after-school program, but I’ve been back to the books since last fall. Sam and I have put a lot of money and time into my education, and we’re both excited to finally be looking at the end.

You might be wondering why I didn’t wait to have a baby until after I graduated, to which I say, “Dad, is that you?” Here’s the thing. I knew I could finish school with one baby. Probably not two. So we decided to try and get this family started, and I would work hard to graduate before another Horney made their way into the world. Granted, it probably would have been easier if I’d waited, but you guys. Look at her.

Worth it. Totally worth it.

I’m taking an intersession class that started today. Intersession classes earn you 3 credits in 3 weeks, which makes for a bananas work load. It will make the rest of my spring semester more open to be home with Smoochie, so again- totally worth it. But it’s also a little complicated for breastfeeding.

Yep. Here’s comes a boob story.

Today at school, I found myself standing with my shirt pulled up and a baby bottle attached to my chest, the steady pulsing of my breast pump echoing across the cracked tile and cold ceramic toilet of the last stall in the women’s restroom. We had a 15 minute break during our 3 hour writing class, and I needed to take care of my milking as quickly as possible. In a stall. With an electric pump. The similarities to a dairy farm were so astounding, you could have sizzled a brand across my ass and called me Bessie and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

As I closed my eyes and thought about my daughter, conjuring up how she smells and feels in my arms when I nurse (I’d heard that helps when trying to pump) I tried to ignore the other patrons coming in and out of the bathroom, peeing and flushing right next to me and my little lactation station. The break drew to an end and I willed my milk to hurry and finish squirting into the bottle so I could get back to class on time. I heard someone washing their hands, and waited for the tell-tale squeak of the door to shut as they left. Instead, I heard a woman’s voice.

“Are you pumping milk?”

I opened my eyes in surprise. And embarrassment.

“Yeah, I am.” I laughed a little to make myself feel less mortified.

The unseen woman paused, then spoke again.

“Listen- my name is (  ) and my office is down the hall. (she gave me the office number) You can pump in there if you want to, anytime at all. I have a private space for you to sit with a nice view of the river, and a little fridge you can keep your milk in until you’re done with class. Come by anytime and let me know what you need, ok? It’s better than doing it in a bathroom, believe me. Been there, done that, and I totally understand.  I’d love to help you if you need it. It’s hard being a new mom. (Gives me her name and office number again, then leaves.)

As the door squeaked close behind her, I zipped up my pumping equipment and lifted my bag off the hook on the back of the stall door. I had cried twice on the way to school that morning, not including the crying I did before I left my house. It’s not that I think Clara won’t be ok with other people- I have the best group of friends and family you could imagine, all willing to watch her anytime- it’s just that, this is the end of a special time in my life. I’ll never be a first time mom again. I’ll never have four months at home with just my sweet daughter, getting to know each other and falling head over heels in love. I have to go out in the world. I have to finish school, and I have to be me without always having her.

So when a stranger talks to me through a closed bathroom stall door and offers a quiet place to pump breastmilk, my nutrition for a little girl who I miss so much my heart might stop in the middle of class…I’m thankful. Thankful for kind people. Thankful for the friends and family watching my baby. Thankful for my husband and his commitment to my dreams. But most of all, I’m thankful for a heavenly Father who knew just what I needed to get through this first day of school.  And who knows just what I need to get through every day. Thank you Lord.

Horney readers: Whether you hear the sad sound of a breast pump in a bathroom or know a friend who could use a hand, take the chance to be kind. The world needs it.

Smooch and I need it. 🙂
Love you guys.

It’s the kind of winter afternoon that fills my house with the bright reflection of snow covered yards, and this is on my tv.

My baby is tucked into my bed (she prefers to sleep like a grown up-  pillow and blankets included), while my brother and his wife lounge around our house. They’re here on holiday break, visiting from Boston and making the whole gem state feel a little bit cheerier.
So.
My list today was supposed to be “stuff I could’ve done better.” But for goodness sakes, I’m feeling much too happy to list all of that business. ‘Cause yeah, there are more than a few things…anyways, instead, I present:

Choosing Joy 
or
“new stuff i loved this year”

1. i love the show Parenthood. Good golly that’s a well-written program. If you don’t laugh and cry at every episode- clean up your life.

2. i loved my radio production class last spring. The projects from that class are some of my favorite from all of college.
Here’s a link to a few of them in case anyone is interested. And by anyone I definitely mean my mom.
name the baby
i believe in regrets

3. i love hearing and reading other people’s birth stories. There is something about being big pregnant that makes other women want to tell you about their own labors and deliveries. I know this can be annoying to some girls, but it brought me such joy to hear about babies being born. Every single one of us is a miracle, and that ought to be celebrated through story telling. It’s like this one last vestige of oral history keeping, passed down from moms to daughters and friends and neighbors, a global tribe of women rejoicing with one another. I don’t care if you had an epidural at the hospital, chanted songs during your home birth, or finally got the phone call from an adoption agency that your baby was officially YOURS; I want to hear about it.

4. i love “wearing” my baby. Ok, so there is this bizarre subculture of people who believe that “wearing your baby” is the only way to give them hope for their future (my phrasing, not theirs). I think this is crazy talk, and I’m sort of embarrassed to admit how much I adore wearing my baby in a sling, but I do. There is nothing as sweet as her warm body next to mine as I clean up my house, or make a phone call, or go for a walk. It’s also convenient. So there you go: I’m a closet attachment weirdo.

5. i love a certain bunny chair. Who- tell me who- could have ever told me how strong my feelings would be towards this fuzzy little haven with floppy ears and whimsical flute solos? No one. That’s who.

6. i love clara noelle, of course. 

Happy Sunday, Horney readers 🙂

In honor of the pending new year, I’ve decided to write myself a few lists. A list has many uses, and I intend to exploit them all. Today’s list is handy for:

Being Reflective
or
“a list of things that surprised me last year”

1. I like being at my house. You might even call me a homebody. Previous to this year, I never would have assigned myself such a, shall we say, introverted nomenclature. And don’t get me wrong, I still love a raucous party, but GOOD GOLLY I love quiet days at my house with my kid and my husband and a couple of sandwiches. Which begs us to examine this observance: Am I getting old?

2. Being pregnant was harder than giving birth. Like, a thousand times harder. I’ve always had it switched around in my head, that pregnancy would be this tender moment in time between me and my unborn child, back-lit by some sort of holy glow, and childbirth a hard fought war of vaginal walls and anguished, sweaty cursing. Nay, I tell you. Nay. Pregnancy is 20 weeks of excitement, centered around one exhilarating gender reveal ultrasound, followed by 18 more weeks of rapid weight gain off set by hormonal imbalance and reclusive tendencies, wrapped up with 2 weeks of ungodly torturous sleepless nights of ‘fake labor.’
BUT THEN.
Then you go through labor. Then you have contractions that are actually DOING something, and then you get to push that baby right on out, that glorious slippery moment when you become a mom, not just a round tub of impatience and stretch marks. There’s a pretty clear moment in our lives when we begin to long for children; for some people that means getting pregnant, for some it means adoption, and for some it might mean waiting and waiting. But from here? From where I’m standing? None of it really matters once you hold that kid in your arms. It is the end all of end all of shout out loud joy.

16 weeks: still fun

20 weeks: yay it’s a girl!

27 weeks: oh, pregnancy is just adorable, huh?

38 weeks: this is for real.

39 weeks: i will be pregnant forever.

oh hey Clara Horney. hey. we love you.

3. Sam is a really good dad. I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming. Sam’s parents raised all of their kids to be kind, loving people, especially towards children. But for some reason I always imagined myself as the “main” parent around here, the one who would sort of take charge in the child-rearing department (especially with a newborn.) But it turns out that Samuel is one hell of a father. A diaper changing, bath giving, song singing, bounce to sleep kind of a guy who makes me proud every day. He doesn’t just love our baby; he loves being a daddy. I mean, YUM, you know what I’m saying?

4. Being a mom is important. Honestly, having a baby seemed like a step down for any ambition I had in my life. I figured it was a necessary demotion in order to build our family, and someday I’d get right back into the thick of making a real difference in the world. But let me tell you- when you are a mom, you are changing the world. I am amazed when I look around at my friends and family as they struggle to raise obedient kids who have compassion and big dreams. We are working to give the world the best gift we have to offer: a generation of people who want to do what is right. Moms and Dads have an important job, and it is not to be taken lightly. Take heart, my friends! These days are short and fast and ours for the taking!

So says the girl in the sailor suit down there.

Tomorrow’s list: Stuff I could’ve done better. 

Well, well. Here we are, four months into your life.
Four months.
122 days.
2, 928 hours.

It’s incredible, really. One year ago I was sitting in this very kitchen, dreaming and dreaming of you. Worrying. Wondering. You were growing a heart, and my heart was growing (along with my belly). I couldn’t imagine a life with you in it, this tiny baby heart full of my own blood and life.

The new year shot off and suddenly I was very, very pregnant. From my round face to my tired feet and all the swollen parts in between, I was with child.
  I was with you, child.
And then, dear daughter, it was time. My breath caught and my muscles did miracles they never knew before, and our whole world burst with joy at your teeny tiny arrival.

So, here we are.
Four months.
122 days.
2, 928 hours later.

You’ve started screeching these past few days. It’s an awful noise that makes us laugh (almost) every time. You love to talk. You love to sit on my lap- you’d sit there forever if I’d let you. You hate being hungry. You hate being patient. You hate your carseat. Your temper, loud and fast and shocking, comes straight from your daddy. Your babble, happy and social and demanding, is just like your mama. Your blue eyes, lovely enough to draw compliments from everyone we meet- those are from both of your grandpas.

We have NEVER been so happy. Never. You are a delight beyond measure, the light of every day, the name we whisper across the dark of our bedroom when we talk as we fall asleep at night. You are beautiful and I fear all of the things that will one day hurt you, especially me. You are selfish because you are human, and we pray that one day you’ll know the King who will redeem your heart.

You are our little girl. We loved you before we ever met you, Clara Noelle, and the pleasure of your acquaintance has simply become greater with every kiss, night without sleep, wiggle of your eyebrows, and every fit you throw. And after four lightening fast months, 122 difficult and wonderful days, and 2, 928 hours of getting to you know you, here’s what we’ve decided:

You’re worth every gosh darn second.

we lovelovelove you.
mama and daddy

I recently deactivated my facebook account. Around here we’re calling it “a facebook fast” (Sam Horney is happy, that guy isn’t a real facebook fan).  I didn’t actually delete my account, because I fully plan on logging back in one of these days, but for now it is a welcome reprieve from a constant stream of opinions and chatter. I love social media, and consider it an important facet in this century of relationships, but sometimes it is just. too. much. And I’ve found, in all honesty, that since I became a mother, my skin is somehow much less thick than it used to be. I’m really bothered by what people think of me, and any negative comments or messages that I receive dig much deeper than they used to. Before Clara arrived. Before my heart lived outside my chest. Before I felt so gosh darn vulnerable all the time.

So, I’m taking a break. And I’ve noticed some changes already.

My home, somehow, seems much quieter. The only voices allowed in here right now belong to my husband, my daughter, and the people who make a phone call or stop by. Archaic? Yes. Good for my scattered head and thoughts? Definitely.

I feel a sense of calm. I know that there are lots of ways to communicate with people, and I enjoy every single one of them. (Says the girl writing a blog about leaving facebook. Somebody slap me.)
But don’t you think that all of these fun new ways to connect with each other can actually dillute the meaningful things we have to share? I get overwhelmed with all of this pressure and commentary and bizarre false intimacy that I allow in my life. And it’s like, I don’t have the SPACE for anyone or anything else to exist.
That’s how I feel, anyways.
But when I step back for a minute; when I refocus on the actual center of the Universe, who also happens to be my Creator, I remember a few truths.
First, God will sustain me. He is the source of my energy.
Second, when I use my energy to make decisions that please Him, I get MORE energy.
It’s in that place where I close in, where I try to protect myself from injury or strife, that I become exhausted. And there’s no space for anyone else in there. But when I step out of my own fears, and act like the true, VALUED version of myself, the one who is loved beyond loved beyond loved? I have exactly what I need to love others. And all the space in the world to do it.
Amazing.

There are small moments to notice.  
It turns out that breastfeeding is this magical moment in time when you are actually expected to slow down. You have to sit. You have to free up your hands. You simply have to stop. And I have learned something in those quiet times with my daughter in my arms.

  We need those moments.  

Not just we, nursing mothers: we, everyone. There is a quiet kind of gratitude that exists in that pause. I can hear the churning of my washing machine, and be thankful for clean clothes. I notice the winter sunlight fading through the bedroom window, and am thankful for a warm house. The weight of my child against my chest is a thankful that exists on a whole other parallel, but it is only in the quiet that I can really feel her heart beating against mine. And like a photographer with one minute of light left in the day, or a traveller about to turn towards home, we must CAPTURE that moment. We must see what we are thankful for, we must say it aloud, we must swirl it on our tongues and run it through our fingers until the memory of this moment – hard or easy or desperate or lovely- is so marinated in our thanks that there is room for nothing else.

No worry.
No anger.
No fear.

Those things right there? They need air to live, and when we take that air and turn into a breath of quiet thanks…they go away. 

Oh my friends, let’s capture those moments. You might not need to turn off facebook. You might not need to nurse a hungry baby every few hours.
 But stop anyways.
Sit down for a second. Listen. And count your blessings, one by one.

I’m right there with you, counting away.