Month: February 2025

This year has been my Jesus year, my age 33 year. My mom always jokingly said to family friends when they turned 33 that Jesus, at age 33, completed his life’s work, turned water into wine, walked on water, and raised from the dead – what are you going to do this year?

So, I prepared myself for my own Jesus year, though it was far down the road when I first started considering it. As of today, I have walked on Water Street, and I have walked on a glacier, which is, in fact, water. I helped my Opa create wine from grapes we picked (on the side of the road, in fact, quite possibly somewhat illegally, now that I consider it), and I created a chemical compound structure for water and turned it into the one for alcohol. And I brought back to life the dead border to my now-husband’s back patio by tilling the soil and planting a beautiful and blooming garden that lives to this day, and – now, this is the biggest one of them all and the one at which I still am amazed and for which shall be forever grateful and in awe of my capacity to do it – I made and birthed a baby girl, our daughter. God’s hand was certainly in all of these, and it was through Him that I did any of them. And this is especially so with the last of them.

So, here I end my Jesus year, and in complete gratitude for these awesome and blessed 33 years.

Thank you, God. May you grant me ever-growing love and many, many more blessed years with my beautiful family. Thank you for everything. Please, heal me and my family, make my husband and my daughter and me well, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

It now seems like it is actually bigger than it was… in other words, I’m working on not panicking right now. The midwife said to stop the Tylenol and Advil for 24 hours to see what happens – there’s a chance they’re masking symptoms of something that isn’t doing too hot. So far, I haven’t had any new symptoms (aside from the larger and firmer belly region, that is).

God, heal my body, please. Release me of these fears that are attempting to rise within me. Make me and my baby and my husband well and safe, please, and keep us so. Thank you for our home and family. Help us always to be our best selves voluntarily. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

My belly has been very jelly-like thus far. However, tonight, I noticed that it seems to be kind of firm. It is still sticking out a lot, though, and almost seems to be more than it was yesterday. This is all when I am standing. And there are two spots, one on either side, that are like a cross between a golf ball and a tennis ball (in size) beneath the surface, slightly protruding.

Is this all just the abdomen coming back together normally?

When I’m lying down, my belly still feels somewhat jelly-like, but it is definitely more dense and heavy than it had been.

I went without the medicine for two doses, and it ended up aching and hurting in the whole belly region, so I went back on the medicine. Perhaps I can cut it in half in another couple days, as it wasn’t as horrible as it had been before without medicine. But it still sucked big time as soon as I tried to move at all.

God, heal me and the baby and my husband, please. Make us well and keep us safe and together, please. Help us to use our good health and well-being to be our best selves and to share your love in the world. Grant us always kind words with one another. Help our family to be rooted in you. Keep us safe, please. Thank you for this family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

P.S. Today has been Tuesday. That means that our baby is four weeks old now. Wild. Thank you, God. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

How is it that, on one night, 70° is far too cool, but then, on the next night, 70° feels uncomfortably hot???

All due to the outside temperature’s being drastically different between the two nights.

Well… welcome to Houston.

God, make us well, please, and keep us safe and together, please. Help us to communicate with love, both with ourselves individually and with one another. Thank you for the success of my husband’s test today. Please, help him to find newly the confidence he has earned and deserves. In your name, I pray. Amen.

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I sent a message to my cousins today to let them know about the first singing I had done to my newborn baby. I thought they would be delighted to know that I found myself singing to the baby yesterday for the first time. My husband asked me how I knew the song, and wasn’t it a screamo song?
Turns out, without paying much attention, I had started singing her the Richard Cheese version of “Down with the sickness”.

For those who don’t know, “Down with the sickness” is, indeed, a screamo song, and a rather intense one at that. Richard Cheese is/was an artist who took songs and made a smooth jazz version of them, borderline elevator music or waiting room versions at times. His version of “Down with the sickness” was the first example my cousins had shared with me when they told me about him, and it has always stuck with me.

So, when my baby was crying over digestive issues, waiting for her system to release the gassy poop inside her, crying a sort of Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! while I bounced her up and down on her feet to help, I found myself somewhat copying her cries in a more upbeat way, suddenly singing the Oo-a-a a-a-a a-a-a a-a-a! part of that song and just continuing onward!

It was awesome and enjoyable and hilarious. And my husband asked me not to sing the song anymore after I’d told him the version I was singing, because he said it was stupid (or something like that, anyway). Haha

We shall see what the future holds in my singing front. Now that it’s in my head, I can’t promise it won’t pop out automatically from time to time(!).

For those who want a listen:

Original version by Disturbed

Richard Cheese version

Thank you, God, for this wonderful silliness. Make us well, please, and keep us safe, my husband and baby especially, please. Thank you for this family. In your name, I pray. Amen.

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Tonight, I stayed up late, basically, staring lovingly at our baby as she slept on my lap in various positions. When my husband got home from the gym – can we just acknowledge that I have a husband and that that is wonderful!? – he went and showered and then came and lay down next to us on the mattress that is still in our living room. Technically, we watched more of Downton Abbey. But it was mostly that the three of us – the baby being passed out, of course – just hung out together in bed for a while, and it was quite nice. It wasn’t snuggling, but something like it, hanging there together under blankets, lounging.

I very much enjoyed it and am grateful for the relaxed time we had together for a while. We haven’t really had times like that lately, not in quite a while, really.

Thank you, God. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Occasionally, I hear my mom in the other room, talking softly and sweetly to the baby, as though she were whispering sweet nothings to the baby. The baby occasionally coos back cutely. It is almost like a conversation. Whenever I focus in and actually listen to what my mom is saying, I discover the same thing: Encouraging phrases about pooping. The most common one, of course, is her saying, “You got anymore?”

It is both hilarious and adorable, and I love it.

Post-a-day 2025

I am improving, though absolutely had to get back on the full dosage of the Tylenol and Advil after I tried halving them yesterday – my whole belly region is still very much not okay yet, and I could barely move yesterday by afternoon without the full dosage of medicine. The baby seems to be getting better at nursing in greater quantities, though she still is sorting out digestive struggles.

God, please continue to help us improve, and keep us in your love. Make us well, keep us safe, and be always with us clearly, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

I can hear them both talking, addressing me… they’re telling me that I need to wake up, because it’s time to nurse the baby… I stir slightly.

But what are they talking about? She’s right here. I feel the heat of her up against me as I lie on my left side, carefully cradling her, cuddling her while she nurses… It is always so cozy and lovely when she nurses like this and we get to snuggle…

They keep addressing me, wanting a response from me (more than I have given thus far, anyway). They tell me, ‘Here – take her,’ and I don’t understand. I wrench my eyes open. Through the blur, I see one of them holding the baby. I turn my senses to what I’d thought was the baby. I tell them I’d thought I was nursing her. We all process together…

I was cuddling the stuffed elephant while sleeping. Not the baby.

While this was not the first time for me of having thought I was nursing the baby, only to find that I was just cuddling a stuffed animal (it had always been the stuffed dog previously), it was the first time I’d said the words aloud about the situation. Somehow, it was one of the funniest things for all of us.

My mom was so tickled, she brought it back up several times after the fact. Because it is funny to have someone think she’s nursing a baby but it turns out she’s half asleep and it’s a stuffed elephant. I still laugh when I think about it.

Post-a-day 2025

We still had indigestion today, but it seemed a bit more manageable, somehow. We stayed in bed until almost 11 this morning – do recall that we were up every 1.5-3 hours all night long to feed and burp the baby and change its diaper – and that helped both me and my husband physically and emotionally. Mentally, we both wanted to be able to be up and about before then. However, I embraced the rest I managed to get doing things this way. The last hour and a half or two were spent cuddling my daughter, so that was an extra bonus. My husband was still annoyed by the late sleep, but he rolled with it in the end.

Well, my brain is done functioning for today, so that’s apparently all I have to say about that(!).

Post-a-day 2025