Season's Greetings!

Happy Holidays Friends and Family! So it's December 19th and I think we might actually be getting some snow in Denver! Don't get me wrong, I have rather enjoyed wearing my Fall coat and not stuffing Eliza into a giant snow suit everyday, but snow for the holidays seems almost necessary. The Helgerahn's are staying in Colorado for Christmas. We will be celebrating with Thad's mom in her beautiful mountain home in Estes Park. Snow, fireplace, cats and dogs and horses a plenty, and family! And elk...lots and lots of elk.

Below is Eliza's annual school photo. It was taken just days before she rearranged the alignment of her front tooth (for more gory details, refer to the Love Celebration Letter ... link at the end of this post). I think you will agree that she is a doll whether or not her teeth are in the right place:

Little Lady Liza will be 2 years old in just two weeks. How cliche for me to ask, but where has the time gone? Two months ago we could understand a handful of words...and then someone flipped a switch and she speaks in full sentences. She knows colors, can sing the alphabet song (mostly), her favorite number is 6, her memory is ridiculous, she knows the names of her pets, the names of her friends and teachers at daycare, she knows that Santa says "Ha Ha Ho" (close enough), and so on. Surely these are all typical developmental milestones, but we think she is a genius! If only the YMCA had a gifted young toddler program (joking).

I leave you with glad tidings and good cheer. May your holidays be joyful and may the New Year bring you prosperity where you need it most. And as Thad says in the Love Celebration Letter, you have friends in Denver!

To read Thad's annual Love Celebration Letter, click below:
The 2012 Love Celebration Letter

And....We're Back!

Did I, or did I not, make a promise in the 2011 Love Celebration letter that this blog would be updated on a more frequent basis? Let me answer that for you...I did. Therefore, I am a big fat liar. Who knew raising a child while working full-time would be so challenging and time consuming...other than every mom in the entire universe?

BIG GIRL - Baby E is 21 months old. So I guess that would make her Toddler E, but I'm not on board with that nickname. It doesn't flow. We also call her E, Liza, EEEELiza, Ellliza, Baby Girl, Monkey, Miss E (or Missy), Lil E, etc. Mostly we call her everything except for her actual name, which might explain why she cannot tell us what her name is when asked. She can, however, tell us the names of her classmates without prompting; most recently we hear the name "Auby" (Aubrey) and "U-Waya" (Uriah)repeated over and over and over (and over).

GIRL TALK - Other than the names of two classmates I had no idea she was chummy with, Liza has opened up a can of Baby Talk all over the place. "Schorry" (sorry), book, bike, rock, ride, "Beebee" (baby), dog, shutup dog (ooops), shhhh dog, meow (her name for all of the cats), NO (her favorite), cuppy, shoes, uh-oh, and the list goes on. For real, at least two new words a day. It's all starting!

WORLD TRAVELER - We (mama and E) have recently returned from our 6th cross country trip. Thad and I took our first flights in our teens, and even then, it was like once for a very special occasion. E, on the other hand, has been on 22 airplanes (way too many connection flights) before she was 2. This last trip was, by far, the most difficult and painful. There are only so many hours in a day that a toddler can exercise patience. The flight from Denver to Minneapolis (1 hour and 45 minutes) is all she can manage (and that's a stretch). Needless to say, the 4 hour delay we experienced last week was unpleasant. I won't bore you with the technical details, but there were tears. Lots of tears. And mostly they were my tears. And I might start crying again while I reminisce, so I will stop. (But let me also tell you that there was poop, and it was gross...and it was Eliza, not me). I do not like the idea of buying a plane ticket for her in February, because honestly, she is tiny and I could fit three of her in that seat, but I will do it because that is the law. Good Lord, how do people have more than one child? And how am I not a raging alcoholic by now?

Let me leave you with an empty promise that I will update this blog. It's possible that I am speaking to no one, and that's okay, it's still therapeutic and for the love of all that is holy, it's milestone information for when I actually unwrap E's baby book and start filling in the details. (First word? If she's my child, it was probably something obscene).

And let me also leave you with this pseudo-senior-picture, taken in Gays Mills during Applefest last week:

She is a doll.

Video-A-Palooza

I have created a youtube playlist of the last 100 videos I have uploaded of Baby E. If you are so inclined, wander on over to youtube and take a look. Farewell...until I find the motivation to post again... Click Here for Baby E Overload

Photos ~ Photos ~ Photos

Eliza's Shutterfly is up-to-date. Check out her December and January photos!!

(Click Here): ELIZA!!

Overload (Mommy can't organize her thoughts)

Seriously, how do people do this? There are approximately one million things that need to get done and I would rather watch "House Bunny" on TBS, with commercials, than clean my bathroom or edit the thousands of photos I haven't been able to post to Shutterfly or clean the toxic litterboxes in the basement (those cats are organizing a strike as I write this). I have fooled myself into believing that a clean house is not priority (as if it were before Baby E made three). But when I sit on the living room rug to feed Eliza (because she no longer approves of her high chair), I can't help but notice all of the dog hair, cat hair, dirt, etc. that has made a permanent home in the worn down fibers of the 10 x 12 rug I was so fond of just 3.5 years ago. I tell myself (I PROMISE myself) that it's time for a new rug. But then the realist inside me says, "really, a new rug? why, so the dogs and cats and baby can shit all over that one too (figuratively, of course)? sure smart girl, spend your money on a new rug. awesome idea!". My inner voice is such a bitch.

So how, may I ask, do I work 40 hours a week, commute 6.5 hours a week, take care of my baby, clean my house, communicate with my husband, finish my thesis (that clock couldn't be ticking any louder), and start exercising to lose the 15 ridiculously stubborn pounds that attached themselves to my thighs during pregnancy and refuse to leave? I'm well aware that every mother in America has asked these same questions and that it works itself out eventually. I just haven't figured it all out yet and I'm a little stressed because Eliza is already 13 months old.

Holy Shit! Eliza is already 13 months old. What? Wasn't I just blogging about how fat and pregnant I was? 13 months old - walking/running - dancing up a storm at the slightest suggestion of a song - drinking out of a sippy cup - and calling every living creature "kee-kee" (which, obviously, is kitty). No clue how 13 months escaped me. Thankfully I take too many photos, because I cannot clearly recall the last 13 minutes let alone 13 months.

That little girl is a doll, and she knows it! Thad and I love her to pieces. All of her grandparents and extended family love her to pieces. The day care teachers love her to pieces. People who have never met her love her to pieces. We are talking spoiled bloody rotten with love. She deserves every last bit of it, for sure. I wish every child knew what it felt like to be Baby E!

Okay, my thoughts are jumbled and "House Bunny" is starting to get good (I just heard the line "eyes are the nipples of the face"). I'm going to finish the beer I started drinking over an hour ago and possibly make a list of tasks that I will surely complete this weekend. In actuality, I will exchange the jeans I'm wearing for some PJ pants...brush my teeth (I can always wash my face tomorrow)...grab the book I've been trying to finish for over a month...and fall fast asleep with said book unopened on the nightstand. Peace out.

(Below is a photo of E. I wish she knew how to use that vacuum cleaner in the background...)

Stay Tuned....

....because 2012 is going to be an amazing year!!

She's Here!! (Part One: Labor and Delivery)

Well, technically, she's been here for over five weeks...but who's counting?

Baby Helgerahn (aka Eliza Caroline Helgerson-Rahn) was FINALLY born after what seemed like 12 years of pregnancy. I'm not going to lie, being pregnant was awful (and I say this after having a very normal, healthy pregnancy). I was not prepared for how HUGE I would get (see below) and I was definitely not prepared for childbirth (despite the abundant amount of books I read and moms I interviewed). Check out mega-Kate:



Eliza was not interested in providing us with a very needed 2010 tax break. I'm not sure she realizes how freaking expensive her daycare is going to be. Perhaps if she knew, she would have made more of an effort to be born. Unfortunately, she appears to have inherited my stellar procrastination skills. During my late December prenatal appointment, the nurse practitioner offered an induction date of 1/1/11 (one week after the 12/25/10 due date). Had I known what an induction entailed, I might have waited to see if Eliza would arrive on her own. Live and Learn!

Here is a quick and dirty description of my induction: show up, lay in a hospital bed, get all kinds of crap hooked up onto (and inside of) your body, no ability to get out of bed, waking up every 15 minutes thanks to the blood pressure cuff, 20 hours of contractions that resulted in only 6.5cm of dilation (yes...I opted for the epidural after 2 hours of pitocin-induced INTENSE contractions that happened every 1 to 3 minutes), then ultimately a C-Section. To protect the reader, I'm not going to comment on the barfing, the starving, the crying, the bitching, the catheter, and the body parts and body fluids that my mom and Thad got to witness. Believe me...it's for your own good. Below is a photo that captures the above experience (it was taken about 14 hours into the whole ordeal):



Guess how puffy and swollen you get after 20 hours of IV fluid intake? Words can't describe it...that's how puffy you get. Okay...so my pregnancy, labor, and delivery experience really sucked...that has probably become very apparent by now. As I anticipated, however, the whole experience was surely worth it. Little lady Eliza Caroline was born with 10 fingers and 10 toes and an overall bill of good health. Thad got to see her and hold her first, which was to be expected with a C-Section delivery. He was initially concerned about her purple skin tone, but his worries subsided after a few minutes when her purple skin turned a sweet shade of pink.





The hospital stay was uneventful, but we were BEYOND happy to be discharged and I was beyond happy to take a shower (because seriously, could the bathrooms in a hospital be any more ridiculous?). We are forever grateful to Grandma T and Grandpa Aaron for house-sitting and pet-sitting while we were in the hospital. Kona and Buster are especially grateful and were super-depressed when they went back to Wisconsin.

For more photos of beautiful Eliza, check out her Shutterfly page:
ELIZA!!
This page will be updated about every two weeks with new and exciting photos!!