365 Days of Everything Georgia

December 17, 2010 - Is the Box Cooler Than Its Contents?

>> December 25, 2010 – fun, Holidays, toys

The Christmas gifts from other family members have been arriving with some regularity, and today a humongous box was on the front steps. I was so excited to see those classic red words down the side, "Radio Flyer." Yipee!! Georgia was getting her Radio Flyer wagon. My father had sent it to my little lovely.

Of course, Georgia can't have the wagon until Christmas, but the box it came in is another story. It's like two gifts in one.

December 16, 2010 - Proof of Life

>> – pets

In case you were wondering, fish #3 is still swimming. Yes, in his tank and not the toilet bowl.

Here's proof:

December 15, 2010 - Clean Clothes Bandit

>> – fun, growing

Georgia is drawn to clean clothes like a magnet is drawn to metal. Clean clothes set down anywhere... zziipp... Georgia is on them.

Today I set them down on the dining room table, just out of her reach... or so I thought. Darn that growing! She stretched and stretched until her little finger tips worked a pair of pj's to the edge and down they came, pulling a few other items with them.

I don't know if she's trying to put them on here or if she's decided the pj's need the same treatment as her stuffed monkey, but apparently there's something happening here.

Silly little monkey.

December 14, 2010 - Christmas in the Mail

>> – Holidays

In a complete 180 from last year, I WILL have my Christmas cards out in a timely fashion this year. I'm just going to blame last year on a certain baby who was two months old at the time and keeping her mama very busy.

So without further adieu, here is this year's Christmas card - most of which are addressed and will be in the mail tomorrow. Yipee!

December 13, 2010 - What, You Don't Wrestle with Your Monkey?

>> – fun, toys

We're talking stuffed monkeys here folks. Georgia has taken to wrestling hers lately and giving him hell. (forgive the soft-focused picture)

The monkey was Georgia's before she was even born. She was quite the mover in my belly, so I called her my little monkey (lovingly in the daytime hours, maybe a little less at 3 a.m.). Thus her daddy set out to find her the perfect stuffed monkey and wound up at the zoo.

Voila! Perfectly adorable monkey, that is if Georgia doesn't rip his head off.

December 12, 2010 - OH... MY... GOSH!!!!

>> – growing

It all started with Georgia entertaining us with this weird stance...

Then... she... walked!!!!!!!

My baby took three steps and my husband actually caught it on camera. He was holding the camera sideways, which I still don't understand, but it doesn't matter. We have proof. My baby girl walked!

And then she did it again, two steps this time. And she did it all by herself. I couldn't be prouder.

December 11, 2010 - If an Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away...

... what about the dentist? OK, this was just a preliminary visit, no problems, but Georgia saw the dentist for the first time today!

Of course it snowed quite a bit the morning we had to drive there. So while we waited, Georgia and her daddy watched the snow fall.

And we played with some games in the waiting area...

Then it was time for the dentist chair... or the laps of daddy and the doctor - a little more child-friendly.

And she did so well. Doc says everything looks great in that adorable little mouth of hers.

Georgia's Birth Story

The timing of Georgia's birth, in a way, came out of a journey to death. I'd like to think with every death comes new life, and for me, Georgia is that life. She is my saving grace and has kept me breathing when my lungs were screaming to stop, screaming to drown in my own self-pity.

My husband and I decided to try for Georgia just a few months after our walk down the aisle. You see, my mom had been diagnosed with incurable Ovarian Cancer, so I wanted a baby soon. I wanted a baby while there was still time to have my mother there as I brought a new being into the world, to see my mother hold her granddaughter, to ask my mom which of my baby features my daughter bore, to lean on my mother when I had those "new mom" questions and for so many other moments I had played out in my thoughts over and over again through the years.

My husband and I were thrilled to soon find out our little Georgia was growing inside of me, rounding out my belly day by day, pushing tiny feet into my sides, entertaining us with a neverending chorus of hiccups. We went to the doctor's appointments, the baby classes, took the hospital tour and had everything ready for the day we brought our darling home in Omaha, Nebraska.

It's funny though, life seems to fight our planning and always chooses its own course - and so it did. When my belly was just shy of 38 weeks round, the day came. After a 52-year-long life, which was as bright as they come, my mother faded away. She died on Sunday, October 11, 2009.

Early Monday morning, with my doctor's permission, my husband and I got on a plane to fly home to Georgia for my mom's funeral. We got off the plane in Atlanta around 3 p.m. Twelve hours later, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, I was sleeping at my parents' house. As I lay in the home where my mom had been just days before, that journey toward life took a leap. My water broke and the contractions started coming within minutes. We were more than a thousand miles away from our doctor, our hospital and our house.

So off to the local hospital we went in the dark of night, my husband driving my mom's SUV and not having a clue where he was going. I had to give him directions between contractions. We arrived at the hospital and didn't even know what entrance to go to. We found locked doors twice before finding the right entrance, and yeah, I floundered up to both locked doors!

We checked in and by the time we got to a room, I turned around and there were my sister, brother and cousin in the room with my husband and I and my other sister and father were on the way. We had thought we'd be delivering in Omaha with just my husband and I and the calming classical CD's I'd burned. I guess my mom had other ideas.

So there we were, in the hospital where two years earlier they had cut cancer from my mother, in the hospital where my two nieces were born, in the hospital where my delivery nurse had also been my sister's bridesmaid - there surrounded by those who love me most and the memory of one who just couldn't stay long enough to make it. I delivered Georgia Katherine at 10:46 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs. and 8 ounces.

We left the hospital on Wednesday with a borrowed car seat, a bag full of borrowed baby clothes, a lot of flowers and hearts bursting with every emotion you can possibly imagine. We arrived at my parents' house to a borrowed crib, borrowed baby supplies and relatives arriving in town with funeral clothes and baby gifts packed in their suitcases. On Friday, my daughter and I looked down on my mother in her casket, and on Saturday we buried her. It's the only time my daughter every saw her grandmother.

My mother fought hard to live long enough to meet her granddaughter and in the end, she missed the date by two days. But life doesn't stop, and it's the beauty of my daughter's life that keeps me smiling. And oh how her life makes me smile. I like to believe whenever I'm holding my daughter and she's starring off into the distance, over my shoulder, that she's seeing my mom - a guardian angel for both of us - and that they are already the best of friends.

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