Dear Dumplings — 12 Weeks: Baby Bucket List

Mama, Macchu Piccu 2004
Yes, it was on my Bucket List

Dear Dumplings,

We saw you this week on Mon­day.  I have an entire 35-minute video of the scan.  I have decided not to post it because, well, in all hon­esty you both look like space aliens.  Please don’t hold this against me when you’re 40.  When you get old enough to view this video, I am cer­tain you will agree.  Don’t worry.  I am sav­ing it for you.  Two copies.

I have to tell you, it is pretty amaz­ing what you can see at only 12-weeks and 1-day old.  Har­low, you are still the mover and the shaker.  Harper, you are quite the lit­tle zen sleeper.  We think we know both of the sexes, but it’s not 100%.  When we are sure, I’ll write about it.  In the mean­time, the doc­tor said you are both per­fect.  He lit­er­ally used that word.  Of course, I could have told him that — but don’t let it go to your head.

We saw all the hemi­spheres of your brains, your spine, you lit­tle eyes and noses.  Really, you look just like lit­tle alien peo­ple.  Har­low, I think you have your Daddy’s neck.

This week you are a lit­tle bit big­ger than a key lime and weigh slightly more than a 1/2 an ounce each.  You are appar­ently begin­ning to demon­strate reflexes with grasp­ing, suck­ing and hic­cups.  I won­der what I am doing to give you hic­cups?  I do not enjoy hic­cups.  I can’t imag­ine you do either.

We get to see you next week, too!  I am hop­ing we can con­firm your sex.  I am ready to start sewing.

Before I ram­ble any fur­ther into this let­ter, I just want to thank both of you.  Thank you for choos­ing me to be your Mama and your Daddy to be your Daddy.  It’s an awe­some respon­si­bil­ity, and one I will never take lightly.  I’ll also try to not over-think it, but I made need some help on this.

We all three went to Chaz’s yoga class for the first time since the night before Dr. K trans­ferred you into your Mama.  We did go on a yoga retreat about a month ago, but as far as my reg­u­lar flow yoga class — Wednes­day was my first go at it.  It was hot and sweaty and hard.  I had such a good time on Wednes­day; I decided to go to Ellen’s class on Thurs­day.  Today is Fri­day and we are tired.  I can feel all of those mus­cles in my arms scream­ing at me.

There were moments in both yoga classes when I thought; what am I doing here?  I should be home drink­ing a banana shake … or bet­ter yet, we should be asleep. 

All of that incred­i­ble strength I had in my upper body at the end of my 67 days on the mat was lin­ger­ing.  It was not totally gone, but given the fact that my breasts weigh more and my tummy is pop­ping out — yoga is going to take some get­ting used to in this new body.  I could feel you rum­bling around in there through­out the class.  I think you like yoga.  The good news is, I was not nau­seous.  I had the energy to get through it, even though I had to mod­ify some things and do more Child’s poses than I ever did before.  But that’s okay, because you know what?  I’m build­ing a cou­ple of per­fect dumplings.

As I type these let­ters I keep think­ing about what I would want to know about from my own Mama or my Maw­maw or Memom?  What would I ask them if I were a dumpling in the womb?  I don’t know really.  I can only think about what I wish I knew at 43.  Dumplings aren’t sup­posed to have ques­tions yet; they’re too busy in there learn­ing to hic­cup and wave.

In life, each chap­ter arrives at dif­fer­ent times for dif­fer­ent peo­ple. Some peo­ple get mar­ried early and have a baby and then they go back to school and become a den­tist (like your Grandma Kay).  Some peo­ple go to school and get estab­lished in their career and then they start a fam­ily.  Some peo­ple decide they’re hav­ing too much fun on their own to mess with all of that fam­ily stuff.  And some peo­ple, like your Daddy and me, do a whole bunch of things for a long time and then we have babies.

I hon­estly do not think there is a right way or a wrong way — as long as you obey the law and all.  There is your way and ulti­mately, that is the best way for the jour­ney you are trav­el­ing in this life.  We each have a unique path, and for this, we should all be grateful.

I was look­ing through some old papers the other day and I found my Bucket List I had writ­ten when I was about 27-years old.  A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die.  I have always liked hav­ing a bucket list.  I think goals and dreams are good for peo­ple to have, it keeps you young and active and always work­ing towards some­thing.  Maybe some­day you’ll have a bucket list of your own?

As I looked through my old Bucket List, I decided it needed some updat­ing.  I am not going to share it all with you today, but I will tell you about the first five things on the list.  Before start­ing on the triv­ial (but fun) stuff — I wrote down the five most impor­tant things to achieve in my life.  I decided if I never swam with dol­phins or went on a African safari, I would be okay.  How­ever, the first five items are more of my life’s work, as opposed to a sim­ple list of things to do.

1.)  Make health a top priority

2.)  Raise healthy, happy, curi­ous and kind children

3.)  Find our for­ever home and make it our dream home

4.)  Work towards liv­ing debt free

5.)  Try to honor God, our par­ents and our his­tory in every­thing we do

See, these are all things I never thought about when I was 25 — per­haps I was start­ing to think about them at 35, a lit­tle.  As I wrote them down, I thought this is my life’s work; not a Bucket List.  So that is my ‘Life’s Work’ List, which may or may not be a new sort of list.  I have no idea.

Just remem­ber as you go through life, peo­ple will impart all sorts of wis­dom and ideas about how you should and why you should do cer­tain things.  There are some impor­tant things I wish I had known and done, and as you get older, I will focus on telling you those.  If you are any­thing like your Mama, you will prob­a­bly nod and smile – then do what­ever your heart is telling you to do.  Your Daddy was a lit­tle bet­ter at lis­ten­ing to his par­ents, so I secretly hope you are more like him in that regard.

Even now, as I get ready to bring two per­fect dumplings into the world, I real­ize friends and fam­ily and ran­dom peo­ple on the street are never done giv­ing you advice and ideas.   After only 12-weeks I have already received count­less emails on how to get you to sleep, eat, stop nau­sea, where to shop, how to shop and so much more.  I am thrilled for the infor­ma­tion, and I have luck­ily found a way to file it so I do not get overloaded.

Every week I find more amaz­ing blogs of cre­ative women doing inspir­ing things.  This week I found a web­site called Aes­thetic Nest.  Wow.  She really knows how to throw a cool birth­day party.  When that time comes, look out!

In the mean­time, we’ll keep going to yoga and attempt to make healthy food choices – and most impor­tantly, I’ll try to savor all the moments I can between the nau­sea and exhaus­tion.  It is slowly but surely get­ting better.

I hope I didn’t over­load you today.   Maybe it was a lit­tle too much shar­ing for one let­ter.  Ah, well.  Get used to it.

Love,

Mama