one year today

1/28/11 a year ago today we found out we were pregnant with you. even though you were planned, no one can ever prepare you for the feelings that consume you when you see that faint pink line getting darker.
According to my app ( yes there's an app for everything) my period was late but I didn't want to get my hopes up. dada suggested I wait until Feb 1st to take the test. he worried I'd be super disappointed. I agreed, but as I drove home from the store later i couldn't stop thinking about it and thought I'd burst if I waited one more minute let alone a day. So I covertly went to Walgreens and bought a test. My heart was racing, I prepared myself for "disappointment", told myself I was a big girl, just suck it up and try again. So I did what needed to be done and watched the stick and waited... Is that a double line?? I need more light even though it's a sunny afternoon.. Maybe my vision isn't 20/20! No that's a second line, oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh-repeat oh my gosh ?? times!! I didn't want to tell dada such news over the phone but needed to tell someone. I called aunt Chenai and she was obviously delighted. I told her maybe I'm not reading it right but she refused to doubt. next step was finding a gift bag to put the test in to wrap up nicely for dada. so off I went to the store and got dada for some lunch. I couldn't wait so I told him I had a present. he opened it and looked at me with a hesitant, blank, unsure cautious look. "is this what I think it is"-I paraphrase- he asked. yes dada it is, you're going to be a dad!!! we decided to buy another test just to make sure, it was too good to be true! hours later test two was definitely positive.
1/28/11 was a very good day!!

night night win-alleluia

on this day, this night you slept soundly on your own without needing me to hold you or strap you to me. big day today Zoe big day. too many changes in one week for a mother to take. changes that mean you're growing and boy it's happening too fast. but right now as I watch you sleep, i'm so proud and so delighted!! I can't stop grinning☺

how to be your mama??!!

i'll just be here eating my fist

you need me to what??





what's a cash register without a pack n play behind it

playtime with dada

diving into solid foods

one thing i've learned in the last 3.5 months is being your mom is an ongoing adventure of life's surprises. i have felt them more poignantly this year, yes all 20days of it. from going on vacation with you, and realizing there is no such thing as vacation with a newborn. it's not like you stop being a baby and all of a sudden you're feeding, changing and taking care of yourself, no the routine must stay the same for sake of all our sanity.
then upon getting back the very next day you and i started our morning-1:30/2pm routine of getting up earlier and being at the store alone while dada went to training for his Real Estate.
I always try not to freak myself out about situations before they happen, i find it too exhausting and as a new mom i'm even more aware of how much i need every ounce of energy. since i found out i was pregnant with you i have also made  it my daily mission to keep myself as positive and joyful as i can. i don't know how much you pick up from my moods so better safe than sorry, right?. so i started the night we got back by trying to get you back on the bottle, one word for that endeavour, maybe two SCREAMING DISASTER!! and i reacted like any normal cool collected mom would do, i screamed really loud-in my head-but i screamed!!and then i prayed. and have been doing so everyday more fervently.
there's a difference between knowing your a mom/entrepreneur and actually being one. yes i have to run the business but i most also be your mommy 24/7, and God knows that and showed his bottomless grace and compassion to us this last week and a half. everyday he showed me new ways to be your mom and still get the job done, we had a day or two where i might have screamed in my head, but overall i think today we can confidently say, well you can coo, that we did it. we played we ate, we laughed, you slept a lot-thankfully and we sold shoes. besides it's really hard for me to curl up in a little ball of self pity when i consider what my grandmothers- Ibvisayi Mary (your grandpa's mom) and Sarah( your grandma's mom)-did. Not only did they have 10 and 7 kids respectively, they would have a home birth, pull themselves by the boot straps and days later be back in the field tilling the land to feed their families with a baby strapped on their backs. and these fields weren't your everyday granny garden. they were as the word implies fields, as in acres. so working the field was like, actually was a full-time daily(except Sunday's) job. and they would maintain clean huts and living areas and yards and tend to their husbands. so i keep my two grandmothers that i loved dearly and from whom i  learned so much from  in mind and pull up my boot straps, and with you strapped on my chest i till my fields.

oh and ps: we started you on solids this week. yes that's a whole other screaming in my head blog. best we leave that for another day..

love
your ever-learning mother

it's raining cousins

So last week we made our way to Texas so you could meet your aunts, uncles and cousins. i was a little nervous about how you were going to handle the trip especially since we had a layover.ayaya!! The funniest part was watching the faces of lone fliers, especially the guys, when they saw us. You could almost hear them thinking..i hope i don't have to sit next to a baby. I thought it was hilarious especially when you uncharacteristically woke suddenly from your slumber and started screeching.Not crying screeching. Oh the looks were priceless, i was almost proud. But you were a trooper, on our first leg as i pulled you out of the moby the lady sitting behind us exclaimed "oh my gosh it's a baby" apparently you were so good they didn't even hear you. and that's pretty much the response we got on all four flights. You were either cooing, eating and mostly sleeping. I thanked you a thousand times for being such a good traveller.Again mommy appreciates you. The trip was beyond delightful, seeing your cousins was great for mama and dada and watching them with you made my heart sing. I think you were unanimously loved, especially by cousin Jenny of course and her mom, your aunt danai. They literally were fighting over you it was hilarious to watch!!
Here some highlights of fun times with your cousins...

aunt danai loving on you..she literally grabbed you from my arms

hugs from uncle guppy-no one calls him by his name anymore
he's just guppy since cousin jenni could talk and assigned him the name

you got your ears pierced!!! i was sweating so bad by the end of it.
you only cried for maybe a minute and you looked around and saw your
cousins beaming at you and you smiled:) jenni said she was embarrasses because she cried longer
at 8 years old..very funny

cousin jenny reading your favorite book and some of her own once
she noticed you liked it

she just couldn't get enough of you

kisses from cousin jaden

dada playing with cousin emerie at lunch at the restaurant uncle tinki manages

aunt jess holding you so mama can eat

they just wanted to hold. even though taken separately, ari kept asking if he could
see the picture i took of him and jenni holding you:) adorable. apparently ari likes babies



cousins ari and jenny-bff's waiting to ride the carousel



cousin alex playing with jenny and jaden..creative boy
-a belt, a laundry tub= a way to entertain the little ones

hanging with emerie

emerie, ari, jenny, zoe,jaden and josh=makes mama's heart overflow

at the airport ready to go home

2012 resolution

Deuteronomy 6:3-10,12-15,17-18 (NLT)
Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. [4] "Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. [5] And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. [6] And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. [7] Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. [8] Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. [9] Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. [10] "The Lord your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give you when he made a vow to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a land with large, prosperous cities that you did not build. [12] be careful not to forget the Lord, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. [13] You must fear the Lord your God and serve him. When you take an oath, you must use only his name. [14] "You must not worship any of the gods of neighboring nations, [15] for the Lord your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you, and he will wipe you from the face of the earth. [17] You must diligently obey the commands of the Lord your God-all the laws and decrees he has given you. [18] Do what is right and good in the Lord's sight, so all will go well with you. Then you will enter and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to give your ancestors.

three months of sheer delight

Yay!! You're three months old today and I'm sooo super delighted. It's been a whirlwind of functioning on less sleep than I ever thought I'd function on since late study nights in high school and university; introduction to breast feeding-nothing prepares you for that; the realization that yes you really aren't prepared for the reality of a baby until she's there and it's go time; learning to be a mom/business owner with the outward veneer of calm when each day I pray Lord teach me to do this right; learning to be a mom and a wife; and best of all watching you blossom before my eyes and I get to a front row seat all day everyday -PRICELESS

So of course I had to make it a day of a first, so today you had your first visit to Barnes and Noble and I'm happy to say you're definitely my baby. The way tour face and eyes light up with each page turn, and the way you try and turn the pages....uggghh my heart wept with delight. It reminded my of how your grandparents loved hearing us read books to them. And my favorite was when after work grandma would cook dinner and grandpa would take the four of us to the local library for an hour or so, so we could read and find books to borrow, while he caught up world news-USA Today; The British Guardian etc. it was so much fun, I remember as we drove away sometimes as the sunset and looking out at the sunset filled with anticipation at what a lovely read I had sitting in my lap. Such memories, looking forward to creating more with you:)

Happy new year Zoe

where's my food dada??

oooh mama i like your yum yum's

your new friend tiger gets kisses

The best thing that happened to us in 2011 was your arrival and we are so excited to celebrate a new year with our wonderful gift. We started entering into 2012 with your first restaurant experience and your were absolutely great. You sat and absorbed your surroundings and checked in with us with a look and went right back to looking at the trees surrounding the patio the fireplace and anything else your curious eyes would capture.
Of course aunt Chenai came to celebrate the new year cuddling you. We're looking forward to an awesome and eventful 2012 with our bundle of delightful joy.
Happy new year baby girl!!!