The Great Race ... to the Altar!

Here is our wedding story ... a bit late!

For those of you who know Drew well, spontaneous is probably one of the top five adjectives that you could use to describe him.  He has more than once in our two years together decided on a Saturday morning that we should go camping or drive to Mexico.  In fact, he would like to bring his mountain and road bike and climbing and camping gear everywhere with him just incase he has the chance or opportunity to do one or all of these activities.  

So it is only in retrospect that it became abundantly clear that I should have known that the only way Drew and I would get married would be on the spur of the moment.  We decided Friday and got married Saturday, and Drew's parents, grandmother, and brother get a thousand gold stars for jumping on a plane (his parents and grandma from Houston and David from Denver where he was rock climbing) just hours later to be there. My parents and Aunt Maryanne and cousin Noelle and her fiance Rick were also there, but they only had to drive from Los Angeles.  My brothers would have been there, except as Nicholas put it best, they needed more than 24 hours notice to attend one in a lifetime (twice in my case) events (they had prepaid Valentine's Day plans).  My grandmother and Uncle Tom made out best in this hair-brained scheme since they live in Las Vegas.

It was Friday the 13th and after taking the baby to the doctor for his check-up and the dog to the vet for an ear infection and picking up the jeep from getting its brakes done, we decided to get married in Vegas the next day. If that isn't romantic enough, while Drew and Owen took a nap and Laila jumped on and off the couch hopped up on pain killers for her ear, I booked our wedding chapel reservation on-line. We would get married at the same chapel my brother and cousin got married.  There is also a long list of celebrities who have been married there (most recently notably Billie Bob and Angelina) but we all know how long those marriages lasted. 

Saturday morning we loaded up the dog and baby in the Jeep and made the brave 6 hour trek across the desert. Drew called his entire phone book breaking the news as I drove. At one point, we contemplated being stranded until retirement somewhere that made Baker look like a booming metropolis when Owen had a screaming fit and decided he was done with mommy and daddy's wedding weekend.  It was right about then that I perfected the art of breastfeeding while hovering over Owen's carseat (be advised fellow breastfeeders this is probably the technique that helped me develop a pinched nerve in my back).

By the time we arrived in Vegas, it was afternoon and we went straight to the Clark County Clerk's office where we got our marriage license.  They had lines set up around the building like a Disneyland ride to accommodate all of the couples getting hitched in Sin City on V-day (open 24 hours from Friday through Sunday).  We of course were the only ones in line with a baby, but Owen wasn't the only child there to celebrate mom and dad's wedding.  One couple was there with their two children to get remarried after their previous divorce.  

With marriage license in tow, we headed to grandma's house (wedding central). After two trips to the airport (thanks to my Dad!), everyone had arrived. Owen got to meet his great grandma Joan and was surrounded family.  At one point I realized that Owen had three grandmothers hovering over him while I changed his diaper.

After this brief respite, we were off to the mall to find me a wedding dress. That's right, just hours before our 11 pm nuptials Drew, Owen and I were off to the mall to try to find me a dress. It is about this time that I started to regret postponing my postpartum diet.  Never did I imagine I would be weaving my baby and stroller through shoppers and dress racks at a frantic rate trying to find a wedding dress that would not only accommodate a nursing bra but post-baby pudge.  With no time to spare, we grabbed some pizza to go and power jogged out of the mall and into the Jeep in Vegas Strip traffic.

Once we were checked in at the Tropicana (the only hotel on the Strip that had a room last minute-besides the Venetian that had a $5,000 a night suite), we had 20 minutes to shower and dress before we left in the limo for the chapel.  And mercifully Owen slept through all the chaos.  

We then arrived at the chapel and waited for my parents to arrive.  And then we waited some more.  Even though my brother had been married at the same chapel somehow my parents managed to get lost. Even worse, they had my blind grandmother as a back seat driver. As she explained, "I don't have to be able to see to know the difference between a left turn and a right turn!" Drew nervously checked his iPhone.  If they didn't hurry up, we weren't going to get married on Valentine's day.  We sat in the gazebo in the chilly night air, while Drew's grandmother stayed toasty in the limo.  Several couples got married ahead of us as we waited (about 15 minutes).  Even in the middle of the night, there was a steady line of the too young and inebriated getting married on Valentine's day in Vegas.  Our Little Chapel of the West married more than 80 couples in that one day. As I recall, we were the 86th.  

Eventually grandma's car pulled into the parking lot.  It had hardly come to a stop, when I saw my father jump out and race to the chapel doors.  We of course weren't in the chapel yet. The couple ahead of us was, and if he hadn't eventually heard us shouting then he wouldn't have barged in on their wedding.

Well from there those of you who watched our wedding via webcam know the story.  It was about 2 minutes long, our pastor looked like Chubbs in Happy Gilmore, and the memorable moment was when he said that it was time to exchange the rings, and Drew and I turned to him and said, "We don't have any rings!" But then Drew pulled a loner ring from my grandmother out of his pocket and smiled and gave his vows to me. I didn't get to give Drew my vows since I didn't have a ring, I guess. And in a flash it was over. We were Mr. and Mrs. Wilson! 

Back at the Tropicana, Mom stayed in the hotel room with Owen who had incidentally slept until right before the ceremony when the usher tried to move his stroller out of the aisle.  He chugged a bottle in Aunt Maryanne's lap through the entire ceremony.  

After the wedding, Drew and I wandered around the strip for a couple hours, shared Krispy Kream Donut holes (our wedding cake of sorts), and at 4 am when Owen was waking up for his next feeding we headed back to our room.

We snuggled in bed the three of us, a legal family as sanctioned by the State of Nevada, exhausted and fulfilled. We had just completed the Great Race to the Altar and were beginning the next phase of the rest of our lives, a family forever.

The Weigh In

While we were at the doctor for my check up today, we weighed Owen. With his diaper and clothes on, he weighed 12 pounds and 7.9 ounces.  And of course he is nursing while I type this.

The Hungry, Hungry Baby Gremlin

Owen two weeks ago demonstrating some serious chub. In his defense, it is a very unflattering angle.

Owen smiling in the bath with Dad this weekend

When Owen was born at 7 pounds 1 ounce, I thought perhaps he would be a lean baby like his cousin Lucienne.  His legs were even too skinny for the newborn diaper covers that were meant to fit the tiniest babies.  Well that is certainly no longer the case. As you might have read in our previous blog entry, Owen has replaced sleep at night with marathon nursing sessions that have resulted in some serious chub. We all swear that he actually wakes up from a nap fatter. How is this possible?  He is nursing the entire time he is sleeping, which means that mom is not sleeping at all. I usually pride myself in learning my students' names right away, but this semester I don't seem to have the brain cells to remember much of anything, let alone 60 names.  It now appears that Owen will take after Drew in the chub department.  I wasn't a skinny baby either. The neighborhood kids called me Cheeks.

We call him a gremlin because the entire time he is nursing and sleeping he makes these guttural/nasal grunting noises that sound like a gremlin munching electronics in the middle of the ngight.  This doesn't bother me since I have already abandoned the hope of sleep at night, but Drew and Laila aren't fans of this development.  

Owen is gooing and giggling up a storm these days. He wakes up with the biggest smile on his face cooing, unless he's famished. In that case, he will cry "nuh! nuh! nuh!" or "hungeeeee!"  which of course we translate into "nurse" or "hungry." Yes this may be a creative leap, but my mom swears that he is saying nurse or hungry, but the skeptic should keep in mind that she sees faces in banana bites and any number of animals in the contours of clouds. No she doesn't take psychedelic drugs, in case you were wondering. She's just an artist.  It's where I get my flare for the dramatic.

For all the sleepless nights, you would think that Owen is sleeping all day, but in fact he isn't.  Mommy was a serious nap resister, and at 9 weeks Owen has started a grass roots organization to unite with babies everywhere to resist the oppressive sleep regimens imposed by weary parents. Vive le resistance. Their logo is of the single baby fist raised in defiance from the prison bars of the crib.  

In all seriousness, Owen began his radical education (sorry republican relatives) by attending two lectures this past week given by Keith Harmon Snow, who has been working as an independent journalist and human rights witness in the Congo.  His work can be found at www.allthingspass.com and more information about the Ugandan genocide and civil war in the Congo can be found at www.cegun.org.  Unfortunately we learned that these conflicts are being fueled by Western corporate interests.  I am hoping to have my English classes this summer do a service learning project with the Campaign to End Genocide in Uganda Now, which ties in perfectly with the global reader and its emphasis on colonialism and globalization that I currently use.  

In other news, we are still waiting for Drew's surgery to be scheduled. Will keep everyone posted.  

Mom Goes Back to Work-Grandma to the Rescue

Well ... as I am sure I could start out any of our blog entries, the past few weeks have been busy.  Owen is growing at a rapid rate. We don't know how much he weighs since he doesn't go back to the doctor until next Friday. I could stand on the scale with him, but that would require me standing on the scale, and as curious as we are about just how fat he actually is, I'm not curious enough to also find out how much I weigh. 

 

The biggest developments over the past few weeks are that Owen is now a smiling giggle monster (more on his monster-like features later) and I went back to work with the start of the spring semester January 26.  As fellow moms reading this know, it has been a challenging two weeks on all accounts.  This transition, however, has been bearable because my mom Eleanor has generously packed her hybrid with a week's supply of cookies, clothes, and Greek & Japanese language CDs, books, and dictionaries and made the three hour drive to San Diego on Sunday nights to spend the work week with us taking care of Owen while I am at school and helping out in the mornings and evenings so that I can prepare my lectures.  And this isn't because she doesn't have a full life of demands at home including my dad (he accounts for many layers of demands: emotional, professional, and making frequent pots of coffee) a 2 acre garden threatening to overtake the house and neighborhood, 2 geriatric horses that regularly try to die and are the bane of our geriatric vet, 4 spoiled kitties, and a barking dog that rubs the last nerve of the litigious neighbor who should have never moved to the country. After rereading that description, perhaps her time with us isn't that altruistic after all.  

In all seriousness, we are so blessed to have her help.  On the eve of me returning to school (I teach mornings Monday through Thursday) Owen decided to stop sleeping at nights, so some days he doesn't even know that I am gone because he sleeps right through it--it's exhausting staying up all night!  But even if he sleeps through it, Owen and grandma spend their mornings in Balboa park, an amazing park located north of downtown San Diego in the heart of the city.  My college campus backs up the park, so they drop me off and then park and wander through the gardens and numerous museums. At this point, Owen would much prefer to be outside in the gardens than in the museums.  Owen has become a regular at the Norwegian House, where the old ladies have offered him membership, despite his Finnish heritage.  If Owen sleeps, grandma sits and studies her Greek (she and my dad will be traveling there in June).

I know spending the week with us means that many things that should be getting done at home are not getting done and that grandpa is wandering aimless and lonely without his other half (I joke that grandma left him for a younger man), but it has been wonderful to have her help.  My mom has always believed that a mother's place is at home with her baby, and it has been a very hard decision for me to return to work.  Of course the debate I have had with myself over this issue is purely rhetorical since we need my income, and should Drew eventually get out of the Navy it's important for me to have a job that can provide health insurance for all of us.  The decision to continue teaching has been further complicated by the fact that I enjoy what I do and believe in it.  I would like to think that I am working to make the world that Owen will inherit a better one, which isn't to say that I am not jealous of my girlfriends who have the privilege to be full-time moms and I hate that we live in a society that makes the choice to care for my child a privilege. 

My mom joined an amazing community of mothers when I was born and 30 years later she is still friends with the women from her Mommy and Me class.  I don't get to join one of those groups for stay at home moms, instead I will find community with the mothers who go to work and talk about their babies.  There are no easy choices, all I can say is that in the end I would not be able to do the most agonizing thing--walk away from my screaming baby--unless I knew he was going to get as much love, care, and respect as I would give him, and we are all, most of all Owen, so fortunate that his grandma is there for him.  

When Drew has surgery (we are waiting for them to schedule it), grandma Kerry will travel from Texas, and we are eagerly awaiting her arrival, so that she can also get her much deserved Owen time.  We know she wishes she lived closer so that she could watch him or that she and grandma Eleanor could arm wrestle over who got him which days.  I definitely don't fall into the Bible thumper category, but I can't think of a better word than blessed to describe how lucky Owen is to have been born into a world with so many people who love and support him and us too as we muddle through this adventure of parenthood.