daddy's girl

verity is teething. maybe. she drools like crazy and is OBSESSED with chewing things, particularly this frozen teether (pictured above) in the shape of a foot. but we have yet to see any teeth.

also hilarious: she is obsessed with cups and drinks. as soon as she sees one of us pick up a drink, she tries to pounce on it. her eyes get really wide and she starts reaching out for the drink and opening her mouth. i have some video of this i need to share with you. i've tried to get her interested in a sippy cup so she stops trying to grab my coffee cup but she gets frustrated because she can't figure out how to get the liquid to come out of the sippy cup.

so we're having a lot of fun with her these days. she smiles a lot and laughs a ton and she is such a great, chill baby. and mark is still his funny self. here's one of our latest funny conversations:

me: guess what size pants verity is wearing
mark: um, i don't know...small? medium? large? how fun can this game be?
me: no. baby sizes are by AGE. guess what size her pants are.
mark: 10 months? 11 and a half months?
me: do you honestly think they sell clothes in size "11 and a half month olds"?

(by the way, she is 5 months old but was wearing 18 month pants. it's the cloth diapers- they make her bum huge.)

video of verity

well it's about time i bring you a video of verity. she IS over four months old now. so this is her. warning - this video may be boring to those of you who are not family or those who are not in the mood to watch a swinging infant talking to herself. also. it may give you a little motion sickness. i had to tape her in her swing because the time she talks the most is in the swing. and if she sees the video camera, it's all over. she gets quiet b/c she's so entranced with the camera. hence, the poor angle this is taken from. but maybe you'll like it anyway :)



and here's one with her face :)

goodbye house, we love you.

in case you somehow missed my massive facebook mailing, we are selling our house. we love our house and we love our neighborhood and we have enjoyed our time there. but times, they are a changin'. (we are staying in Charlotte. just looking for something different, something closer to my parents.) so, if you're looking for a new house, visit our blog and check it out: http://www.8300bristolford.blogspot.com/.

we are also offering a referral fee to any friend or family member who refers the person who ultimately buys our house. 300 smackers. so if you KNOW anyone looking for a house, send them our way. and then take a vacation (okay, a small vacation) on us.

it truly is a very pretty place :-)

homeade popcorn

soooo you were expecting a baby update. but no. what brought me back to the blog was the best popcorn i've ever tasted. and we made it home-ade. HA. why did we do this? a couple weeks ago i decided to get rid of my microwave. because "anything that gets that hot without fire must be from the devil." (ellen) haha, i don't know, maybe cooking food in the microwave is bad for you, maybe it's not. i mainly did it for the counter space. and i honestly haven't even missed it. hello, you can reheat everything on the stove or in the toaster oven. my only issue with no microwave was popcorn. we love popcorn. and we could no longer press our 'popcorn' button and have it ready in 2 mins and 30 seconds. so. last night at the store we bought some organic popping corn and tonight i used this recipe to make it on the stove top. the only thing i changed was that i used coconut oil instead of canola oil like she has in the recipe. it was AMAZING. (and by the way, i am loving coconut oil right now to cook with. it's delicious and allegedly really good for you. read about it here.)

okay, enough about the popcorn. here's some pics of the babe. :-)

and here are her 2 new achievements:
this week, we were sitting together and she was staring at her hand which was balled up in a fist. then she opened it up wide like she was giving someone a high five, and then she put it back in a fist. she did this a couple times. i watched her discover her hand! #2 is that yesterday i was holding my cell phone up to take a picture of her and she wouldn't take her eyes off of it. wherever i moved it, her eyes followed it. and that was the first time i'v seen her be able to follow something with her eyes. it's crazy watching a person do things for the first time.

verity at four weeks

now that i have a child, i am amazed at people who have children and still manage to blog. who has the time? not me. right now i often feel like i'm sleepwalking through my day. a LOT of days i find myself sitting on the couch in my sweatpants, having just made my coffee and eggs and it is noon. and i feel like i have not done anything yet. except fed and changed a baby of course.

anyway, i'd like to write more but i'm simply too tired. here are some pics of our sweet daughter with her grandma and great grandma. enjoy.

she's here

so on wednesday, my due date, i wrote a little prematurely that there was going to be no baby that day. i think i wrote that post about 7 am. and at 1:30 pm, my water broke. at 4 pm i started having contractions. and at 12:30 am on thursday morning, our baby daughter, verity pearl flanders was born. wow. here she is:



we got to the birth center at about 6:30 pm and my midwife lisa gave me some unfortunate news- no i was not as far along as i thought and no, i was not gonna have the baby in the next hour. she suggested we go walk around and get something to eat. so we went and walked through a nice neighborhood close to the birth center. it must have looked hilarious to people to see a very pregnant women having contractions on the sidewalk in front of your house. not to mention all the joggers that passed by us and a nine year old boy on a skateboard who i must have terrified. i mean, i was really having contractions. i threw up in front of someone's house. good thing we don't live in that neighborhood. then we went to food lion to get some snacks. had a few contractions in there. again, must have looked hilarious to people shopping in the store. i felt like i was about to die. but little did i know it was just the beginning.

we got back and a couple hours later, lisa checked me again and said i was complete and whenever i felt like pushing i should push. YES. this was music to my ears. and i felt like pushing. i pushed for about 2 hours. which felt like an extremely long time. with the help of mark, the most encouraging and amazing husband i know, and three excellent midwives, and god's grace and strength, i delivered her at 12:35 am thursday morning without any pain medication or epidural. it was thrilling.

today

so today is a big day. it's our 3 year anniversary. and also, i am due today. although i am pretty sure there is not going to be any baby action today. pearl seems to be taking her time. so we will probably go out to dinner at mama ricotta's to celebrate 3 yrs of marriage and i will order a salad and an entree AND a dessert and people will ask me, "when are you due?" and i'll say, "today," and they'll give me a wide-eyed look like, "wow, shouldn't you be at home in bed waiting for that baby to pop out?" i've been getting that look for the past week. people are so funny. as if being really pregnant means you shouldn't go to parties or to the grocery store.

i will also probably go to harris teeter today. twice. i mean it's super doubles week, and if i miss out today, i might lose my chance.

when i call people (i.e. my mom) i've started opening the conversation with, "hi, don't worry i'm not in labor." last week i called mark at work and he was with a customer but he answered and said, "are you okay?" and i was like, "yeah, i'm fine, you don't have to answer your phone when you're busy, i can leave a message." and he says, "uh, denise, you're 9 months pregnant. i have to answer my phone."

so any day now people, any day.