Today Max sucked his thumb. Twice! I did my best to stop him and then to distract him from noticing or remembering that he had accomplished such a feat! It’d really be better if he didn’t develop that habit.

The other event of the day was The Diapers Adventure. This involved two outfits, four diapers, and at least as many blankets ending up in the laundry basket and trash can within a 15-minute period. It also included a bonus spray for the couch. I thanked him for waiting a whole nine days before blessing us with this experience :)

Here is the post-diaper-adventure, pre-bath picture we meant to send (but never got around to sending) to Trevor at work to share how the day was going.

Wow I did not realize how tired I look until I saw this picture!

After it was all over, Max was so traumatized by the experience that he wouldn’t even eat and did nothing except look at me silently and tiredly with sad little eyes. And I wondered at what age he’ll start having tears when he cries, and I was so glad that today was not that day. I don’t think I could have handled it.

Trevor pointed out to me the very wise message on his shirt in this picture :)

(It’s a spoof on Nike shirt and it says “Just don’t”.)

Just kidding… we love every single bit of Max being here!

I guess he was just waiting on us to be ready, because as soon as we got all of his stuff, he came!

Maxwell Wade Higbee
Nov. 19, 2007 3:43 pm
6 lbs 5.7 oz 19 in

Other pictures are here!

For those who want the full story, here is our past week: So, we bought all that stuff on Saturday. Went to church on Sunday and made dinner. I slept horribly and woke up feeling vaguely crummy on Monday morning but seeing as how I was pretty used to feeling like that by then, I didn’t think much of it. I went to my regularly scheduled 36-week doctor appt on Monday, only to find out that I was already 6 cm and I didn’t even know! I was sent directly to the hospital at 10:30 am, trying to get ahold of Trevor while I was driving and trying to comprehend that we were having a baby that day. Thankfully he was able to get a ride from work. He showed up at noon, the anesthesiologist showed up for my epidural, and then I was 10 cm by 2:45 and he was born at 3:43, very small and purple and wonderful! He already looks older and cuter everyday. We came home on Wednesday afternoon and my mom got here on Thursday night. Unfortunately I got a spinal headache from the epidural which was a beast to deal with. It got really bad on Thursday, so on Friday we went back to the hospital, me losing my lunch all the way down the hallway, to get it patched. Now that I can sit up, see well, eat, and all that good stuff again, I am able to help take care of Max. I’m being grateful for what happened because it made me realize (I knew before, but to realize for real) how important it is to me to be able to take care of him myself.

I love him so much! And so does Trevor. It’s amazing how excited we feel for him to be excited about the world and to learn little things like how to sit up and what banana popsicles taste like. Right now I am even excited for him to learn to say “No”, although I’m sure I may change my mind by the time that happens! I think back on all those tons of pregnancy tests I kept dragging Trevor out to the store with me to buy; I wasted so many of them before they would have even worked, but I just couldn’t wait to know, and then we had to wait what seemed like forever for him to grow, and then somehow it’s now and he’s here. And I’m just so happy!

All in all things worked out really well. The timing couldn’t have been better (I am sure glad he didn’t wait until he was any bigger) and the surprise element made it much easier to get through, as when there is no time to worry you just do what you gotta do, and then you don’t have to worry because it’s already done! We are so happy that he is here and healthy and it is hard to believe that a week ago we didn’t know him. He looks very much like Trevor, but I’ve found some Me in him too :) My mom is taking care of all of us, and we’ve found time to decorate for Christmas! And I am not pregnant anymore. There is hope for being me again :) Yay!

Thanks to everyone for the comments, emails, food, gifts, etc. We appreciate it and it’s nice to have friends and family we can share him with. We wish you a late Happy Thanksgiving, and now, on to Christmas!

Yesterday was our bust-out-all-the-baby-stuff-in-one-day day. I’m so glad we finally got this done! And it’s a very good thing we did, too, because there’s maybe only three weeks to spare! Or less. Or more. Hopefully not more.

We went to Sam’s, and Old Navy, and Walmart, and Target, and Babies R Us, and Baby Depot. We bought the car seat, and stroller, and changing table, and storage drawers, and mattress, and all kinds of clothes and other supplies, and the car was full!

Between what we’ve purchased and what we’ve received as gifts, here is his wardrobe (not spread out, sorry). His clothes are so little. I’m so excited for him to wear beanies, and little foot pajamas!

The only major purchase we are lacking is the glider chair. And we need sheets and bottles and stuff like that, but pretty much if he came now, it would be okay. We have a car seat to bring him home in. So life feels good.

His stroller/car seat is sitting there just begging me to take it out on a walk, and I have to keep reminding myself that it would be really silly to take out an empty stroller with us! But it just has such cute little dinosaurs (Trevor picked the pattern and loved it) and I’m so happy about how it’s just a stroller frame. It’ll be good until he outgrows the infant seat, at which point we’ll buy a regular stroller. And now we just have a light collapsible frame that we can easily transport until then, instead of a beast of a travel system contraption. It feels so smart.

We also did some Christmas shopping. And we went out to eat at CiCi’s pizza which was really fun. As we were leaving a store I said I wanted some pizza. I rarely want pizza, so this new development made Trevor really happy. He didn’t know where we were going to find a pizza place though, until we drove out of the parking lot and across the street, hello, a pizza place! And he said, “YES! The church is TRUE!” And even though that has nothing to do with it, it was funny and he loves CiCi’s and I was so happy we found a pizza place because he was so excited about it, and it was a good night.

They have good pizza, decent salad, and great cinnamon rolls for a $5 buffet. And all the workers are so happy, and when you leave they yell goodbye and thanks for coming, from across the room, so cheerfully.

It was a great day.

Just some of daily life!

Here is where I live. Wow I had no idea how easy I had it when I used to be able to sit down and stand up so easily.

Here is where Trevor lives. After previewing, he made me retake the picture with good posture. I love him.

You know we eat a lot of cereal and orange juice when after less than two days, this is what our dishwasher looks like! [The pan was from some ramen Trevor ate. I usually comment on how he shouldn't eat the stuff because it's so unhealthy, but just this morning I realized that when he does eat it, it's because I haven't provided him with any better options! So I decided I should just let it be :) ].

The handouts I made for this month’s YW Personal Progress night. They were really fun to put together. Most of the stuff was sitting on the counter and ready to go the day before, and I was so proud of myself for being ready ahead of time!

We have been sleeping on the couches/love sac every night for a long while now because it’s better for my back. And my legs. And my arms. And every part of my falling-apart body. Good thing usually nobody comes over, because our living room always looks like this!

Here is a very very attractive picture of me (busting out my amazing voice for a project of Trevor’s) in our recording studio a.k.a. blanketed closet. I really do enjoy being so useful in this endeavor of ours, despite how it appears!

Very soon, my Facebook Family gets to go from this:

to THIS!

This is very exciting.

Well maybe Max will be a different name. Like Nathan. I’m trying them out (if publishing them counts as trying them out) to see if I could handle it. My sister-in-law told me she couldn’t manage to call her son Cannon by his name for like the first three days of his life because it seemed too weird, but now it seems normal. And I agree, the name fits him perfectly! So maybe it just takes getting used to. When it comes down to it, it’s a lot harder trying to assign an identity to an entirely new person than one would think!

I love Pictures of the Week because good pictures always wake up your mind a little bit, and get you thinking about something. Just like a good book or a good movie. (Not like the brain-cell-killing music some people listen to in their apartment which always manages to be right next to ours. Okay, it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.) I don’t want to drag this post out down the page with big pictures, so I’ll let you visit the pages and browse on your own - but here’s a few I took note of recently; the cropped images are linked to the whole pictures:

This is seriously the coolest place to have school, ever!

Looks funny, but I feel bad enough about that, that it almost makes me like cats.

Just thinking of Tony. Maybe when he gets to Afghanistan in February, this guy will get to come home.

This one made me think about how they probably hadn’t been allowed to drink in a long time, for the sake of staying healthy and focusing on their world-series jobs and all that… they were probably really excited to finally just chill out and party. And then I thought how sometimes, we think we just have to make it to the end of something and then we can finally be done with it. And sometimes that’s true and good. I’m glad they were having a good time! But I’m glad the gospel isn’t like that. I’m so glad the way I live isn’t really a life of restrictions as it may seem to some. It’s not a matter of just suffering through some rules, waiting for a reward - it’s a matter of who I become. The things we do aren’t just a test, they are the very essence of and process of building the reward. I love understanding how commandments are blessings, and even in eternity we’ll still live the same way. It won’t be, “Sweet, I made it, now I can relax and do whatever I want.” It will be, “I finally became my best self, capable of living this kind of happiness.” And we’ll just keep building on that because commandments keep us free. The real kind of freedom. And I’m grateful for that.

Although I must say, I greatly appreciate the ability to eat in a restaurant at all right now… Before I couldn’t stand the thought of restaurant food, and in a few months from now I’ll be lucky to get three warm bites in before he starts throwing my silverware!

Tonight was the last night of The Office… :( I am going to start singing, “All I want for Christmas is The Office back, The Office back…”

I remember the first time I realized that waking up early could be fun. Who knows how old I was - definitely still in Primary - but we were driving to the airport in Albany (we must have been flying to Utah I assume; it’s the only place we ever flew) and we had to get up at 2 or 3 a.m. I remember thinking that the house looked so cozy with the lights on inside and mom in the bathroom busily packing up the toothpaste, when it was so dark outside. My other siblings didn’t wake up as fast as me. I didn’t want them to because I loved how quietly productive my parents were being. I bet most of what made it seem so cool was the excitement of our adventure; driving far in the mornings meant there might be dry sugar cereal or donut holes and Sunny Delight for breakfast! I managed to secure the right seat in the far back of the van - the most coveted seat up for grabs by us minors, because it had a cup holder, window space to support a pillow, and all that leg room for stretching out and maybe sticking ones toes up near Daniel’s nose (or whoever was the baby at the time!). I remember feeling so special that we got to be awake when the stars were still shining. And as we drove down the highway fast and alone, I pictured all the other people still in their beds. And I began to love the dark morning. Seminary took that out of me for a while. But now it’s back.

I love the morning because we wake up before the sun rises. I love the morning because it’s the best time for inspiration. I love the morning because I get to feel productive before going back to sleep; it’s like this burst of energy before I crash again. I do everything I can to have a perfect house by the time I send Trevor off to work (and then I computer until I crash, yes that should be a verb). One can get so much done before breakfast! I feel like maybe my body just decided to turn into a mom body, because this has only happened while I’ve been pregnant and my mom was always up and doing really early. I imagine it’s the only time to get anything done when you have kids.

I also love the morning because it means I don’t have to lay back down again on my right side on the blasted couch for yet another 90-minute stretch of sleeping. For once I can stay up! Mostly I just hate the night-time these days and therefore procrastinate going to bed for as long as possible. There have never been so many times in my life I was glad to see the clock turn 6 a.m. And then it’s, “Yay, Trevor! Wake up, wake up!” I love waking up with my best friend every morning. That is entirely one of the best things about marriage.

I also love the morning because in the mornings you can (legitimately) eat breakfast food (it’s not like I don’t for every other meal too). Hands down the most exciting meal of the day.

Also in the morning you get good quotes:

Me: “If I make pancakes for breakfast, will you eat them?”
Trevor: “Yeah! I love pancakes. Well, I love your pancakes.”
Me: “Yeah. They’re fat.”
Trevor: “They’re fat, and they’re good. Hey, just like you!”

Me: “I look like a beast.”
Trevor: “No you don’t.”
Me: “Look at me!”
Trevor: “No, you don’t…. Yeah you do.”