Goodbye for now, Nonna

My beloved Nonna, my dad's mom, passed away on December 16th. I have been wanting to post about this for days, but have had a difficult time finding the words to accurately describe what a wonderful woman my Nonna was, and how much she meant to me.

I wanted her to be around to see my next baby, and any more. I wanted her to get to spend more time with Tim, because he never got to travel as much as I did to visit her. I wanted her to always be just a phone call away. I know she was worn out, in more ways than one. Her eyesight was a particular frustration for her, as with its degeneration she had lost the ability to do many of the things she loved, especially cooking, crocheting, sewing, and in general, doing things for her family.

My Nonna was the nicest lady you could probably ever meet, but she wasn't only kind, she was strong. She was widowed at age 37 with 5 young children. She had two sets of twins, and one "singlet", my Uncle Joe. After delivering my dad and Uncle John, she was blind for about 10 days after. She nursed her first husband through lung cancer until his death. She outlived all of her three younger siblings, and I'm sure, many of her dear friends. She had an unshakable faith in God and in God's will, even though I imagine it wasn't always easy as she faced her trials.

I will miss hearing her stories. I will miss calling her on the phone and having her tell me that I'm such a natural mother that it seems like I've already had six children. I will miss her hugs, and her special, clean scent. I will miss going to stay with her and taking her to the beauty salon to get her hair and nails done. I will try to remember, when I'm having a tough day as a mother, that she told me her fondest memories were of the days when she was raising her young children.

We had a really nice conversation a couple of weeks before she died. She had fallen, and had a stroke, and I knew I had to go see her. I sat by her bedside, and unlike the day before, she seemed to recognize me and was able to say some things. She took my hand and said, "Hi", and kissed it. I started bawling. She shook her head and said, "I love you". I told her that I loved her too, and that she was very special to me. She held my hand and said, "Very important to me". I told her that I knew she couldn't say everything that she wanted to but that I remembered everything she had said to me, and I would do my best to follow all the good advice she'd given me. Before I left she told me, "I love you with all my heart". This is also how my dad has always told me he loves me. It was the best goodbye I could hope for from a beautiful lady that I look forward to meeting again someday.

I am so grateful for the knowledge and assurance that I have of the life after this one, of resurrection, of families getting to be together forever. Especially at this time of year I am so overwhelmingly thankful for Jesus Christ, the humble babe born in a manger, our perfect example, who gave his life so freely so that we could all, including my Nonna, live again.

Me, Nonna, my mom, in front of the Newport LDS Temple.

Nonna, my Uncle Joe, at her home in Huntington Landmark, celebrating my brother's 22nd birthday.

Me, Nonna, my little sister Jamie, celebrating my Nonna's 87th birthday.

My cousins Rena, Jennifer, Nonna, me, Aunt Mary.

I know this picture is blurry, but I like it because she's smiling.

With her and her sister's namesake, Lily Margaret, Christmas 2009.

Lily, Nonna, Jamie.

Again with Lily in April 2010.

Expectant

Well, to make up for the seriously lackluster blog posts and general boring-ness of my blog lately...I would like to announce that I'm pregnant. It's the perfect excuse, right? We are very excited! I'm due on my birthday, June 27th. We are thrilled to welcome a new little one into our lives and can't wait for Lily to be a big sister. If anyone is struggling on the math, I'm 12 weeks along and Lily and the baby will be 21 months apart.

Love to you all!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night

Sometimes your baby gets a stomach bug and wakes up 6 times in a night. It's not that fun. I hope it doesn't happen to you. We needed to take some family pictures the next day, and these are some of my favorite. And yes, Lily is wearing her zebra print jacket with lime green leggings. We were tired, remember? Since we don't do Christmas cards because I'm super lazy, you'll have to be satisfied with this family picture in front of Tim's future office. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Chubby Baby Love

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting more regularly. Things have been a little crazy over here at Camp Rauch, due in part to the fact that Tim's new practice is finally scheduled to open in January! This has meant lots of work for Tim and some for me, although I wish I could be more helpful. I'm sure I'll become much more knowledgeable about dental practices as we go through this process but I'm not a lot of help at this point. We are very excited for this new chapter to begin.

Anyway...on to pictures of my chubs baby. I never want to forget her adorable baby chubbiness. I love it so much. I will work on a more interesting post at some point, but here's some baby love to feast your eyes on.

Spontaneous - and how I'm not, but I try to be

Yesterday was one of those days where getting legitimately "ready" for the day - showering, blow-drying hair, putting on deodorant (kidding!), makeup - seemed like way too much work. Probably because in order to shower I have to remove the toilet plunger, the toilet brush, the trash can, and the toilet paper roll from the bathroom. Then I have to pile a bunch of toys in the bathroom in the hopes that Lily will be entertained by them. Then I get to amuse Lily by pounding back on the shower door when her little hands, and sometimes face, come over to try to figure out what the heck mommy is doing in there.

I was all set to head out to Target and Five Guys after to meet Aunt Wendy in my awesome St. George Triathlon sweatshirt (which asks, "DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?), sweat pants, and running shoes. No makeup. Nasty hair. It was a good look, but then I felt bad for Wendy having to sit with me so I took the sweatshirt off and put on my track jacket with the bleach stain (ahhh much better!) and put on some makeup. I kept on the Elroy Half Marathon shirt which is a lovely lime green and advertises the apple dumpling you get at the end of the race. Nothing but class, people, nothing but class.

So Wendy and I are enjoying some delicious burgers, and Lily in particular is ecstatic that her lunch consists of only beef and potatoes (really, it was the happiest she'd been all day), and I was maybe whining a little bit. Tim was going out of town to Phoenix for a conference. I wanted to go too but didn't feel like driving the round trip of 12 hours with Lily for just a day's worth of Phoenix, and Tim's sister Ashleigh wasn't even going to be in town. Waaaahhh what a hard life I have. Not really at all. Anyway, I promise I wasn't fishing for this, but Wendy then offered to watch Lily for the next two days so that we could go.

I had to pause.

I had never been away from Lily for more than 6 hours. I had NEVER left her overnight. Usually doing something like this would have taken weeks of mental preparation and repeated self-assurances that it's going to be ok. Because it's not like I don't trust Wendy. She's the best! I had no doubt Lily would be in great hands and have a good time. No, of course it's the extra crazy things that come to mind. Tim and I are totally going to die or be horribly injured while away from her! And all because I thought a little time by myself would be fun. Selfish, selfish Mommy!

I told her I would think about it. Then I remembered my other child: Dirk! I can't leave! No one wants to take care of Dirk! He's a total pain! But then Cameron said he'd take care of Dirk. I was running out of excuses. I texted Tim with the news that we could get away together! What did he think? He wasn't able to respond. Clearly he didn't want me to come. Yep, I should just stay home. After all I had made big plans! A movie night! A run with a friend!

How did I become this person so paralyzed with anxiety? I resolved to pack. Packing wouldn't hurt anything and I could always unpack. I packed Lily and Dirk up. Dirk of course picked up on the anxiety and followed me around, stressed, nosing at his treats in a bag. Lily pooped instead of taking an afternoon nap. Sigh. Then she watched the Signing Times DVD ummm maybe 4 times in a row while I continued to prepare. I was really going to do this. I was going to be spontaneous. I can't complain, I reasoned, when I was given the opportunity to get away for a little bit.

So here I am, in Phoenix, the day stretched ahead of me to fill however I want.

Thanks so much to Wendy and Cameron. See you on Saturday, Lily-girl!

Dirk...maybe Cameron will adopt you.

I Promise That My Baby Smiles

It's just a little tricky to capture it on camera sometimes. She is almost always super happy when she wakes up in the morning.

This is from our walk this morning. She is very into pointing right now.

Siblings.

Halloween 2010

My friend Jess requested cute Halloween pictures and stories of Lily. We got a couple of cute pictures, but Lily wasn't really that into Halloween this year. We went to a fun party on Saturday night, but she was pretty tired. She's teething and getting over a cold, which means mom and dad were pretty tired too.

I had planned to take her around the neighborhood on Sunday night to trick or treat a little, but she was in bed by 6:45. Then she slept in this morning until 8:30. That's a nice story, if not a cute one. Anyway, here's the little unsmiling peacock.

Yah, awesome windblown hair, I know.

Here's my Prince Charming all decked out for his work theme. Check out the sweet costume Aunt Wendy made. I feel like we should blow this up poster-sized and put it in his operatories with the caption, "Together we can defeat tartar!" Perhaps this is why we have a professional interior decorator for his office.