An Open Letter To My Son In Honor of His Birthday

Dear James,

First, welcome to the world! I wanted to take the opportunity, as your new “old man” to give you some advice.

You have my condolences that your birthday is so close to Christmas, but frankly, we doubted you'd show up at all. The pleasure of this day mostly belongs to your mother and I, regardless of whatever fun or anticipation it may mean to you in future years. To us, you're the best Christmas present either of us has ever received.

And it's gifts and receiving that my first advice to you directly concerns.

As you get older you're going to hear a lot of people say something to the tune of “tis better to give than to receive.” Maybe this is new to you since, well, everything is new to you right now, but this is an old old old old chestnut. It doesn't get much more cliché than this.

But clichés serve a purpose. Clichés become clichés because they have value and are easily accessible. Right now, and for the next several years, you feel like you're the center of the universe, the star in your own movie. And we're all extras or, at best, play supporting roles. But at some point you're going to need to realize that everyone else feels the same way about themselves, and that we're all wrong at the same time. That means that at some point, like Luke Skywalker realizing that Vader is his Father, we realize that we're all living in an illusion. Thereafter, we half expect the world to be taken down like a used up movie set and casually destroyed. Nevertheless, we tend to be more usefull and happy people when we choose to live in the world as it is, not as we wish it was. So, while “tis better to give than to receive” is anything but original, it's a solid point well taken.

But at some point, you'll need to learn, or more precisely, re-learn how to receive. It's harder than it looks sometimes. In fact, one of the things that makes you so wonderful right now is your innocence, your ability to take what you're given without question.

Receiving gets harder as you get older. Over time, as the disappointments start to pile on, you might start to get the idea that anything good that comes into your life is an accident, like finding money in the street. But you need to know that nothing good is an accident. Everything good has a loving, intelligent, omnipotent source: God.

I offer this as my first piece of advice to you because the world will try to beat this idea right out of you. If what you get isn't so good, you'll be tempted blame yourself for it. Well, don't blame yourself. The world is messed up. (I would say don't blame me, that this is pretty much how it was when I got here, but that would sound as hollow to you as it does to me when it comes from the generations that came before me.) Bad things do happen, even if we don't deserve them. The easiest reaction along the path of least resistance is to conclude that we probably deserve those bad things after all. This world view may make sense on some level, and there's a certain serenity in being able to make sense of the world. I sympathize. But in this case, this way of thinking carries a terrible, painful price. Take my word for it: it's not worth it.

The price is cynicism. The price is a loss of innocence, that quality you possess right now which is one of the things making you such a celebrity in the family

So learn to receive. Giving gifts is supposed to teach us about unselfishness. But receiving gifts is supposed to teach us things too, things worth considering, especially when your birthday comes around, followed closely by Christmas. Receiving teaches us how to be innocent again, to accept the good things that come your way without asking 'what's the catch?' It teaches us wonder and gratitude. I beg you to try to hang on to these qualities. In a world of traffic jams, Amber alerts, war, recessions, depressions, tax hikes, and other daily hassles it can be easy to miss the miracles right under your nose.

If you can keep seeing the wonder of things, well, kid, you've got life's golden ticket. Don't ever let go of it. And the people who will try to talk you out of it's value are people who wish they still had theirs. Don't listen to them.

Magic does exist. I'm proof of that. So is your mom. So is every blessing that comes into your life, from your first kiss to your first-born child.

I close, echoing the advice of a writer name Roald Dahl:

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden is the most unlikely place. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”

So believe in magic, son. This is a good time of year for it.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

Love,

Dad

James Eugene Gunn

James Eugene Gunn was born Friday, December 16th at 3:38 pm. He was 8 lbs, 2 oz. and 20 inches long and held up like a real trooper through a rough delivery. We are so thrilled to have this new member of our family finally home with us. We'll add more photos and the full birth story later.

-Amy

Twiddling our thumbs

As of the beginning of this week, my pregnancy was officially full term. I recognize the miracle in this and definitely don't take it for granted; I am very grateful the baby is healthy and thriving. On the other hand, I have recently come to realize just how very impatient I actually am. I've been having steady contractions since about 15 weeks along, so the fact that they've recently started feeling more powerful doesn't really feel like much of a change. I've been dilating and effacing for a few weeks now, and as of a couple days ago was dilated to 3cm and 80% effaced.

I know, I know - that's good progress. The problem is that I keep going into what appears to be heavy, active labor, and then after several hard hours, it will just up and stop. I get to be one of those lucky women who experience a lot of prodromal labor, which means that my labor isn't false because it's doing something, but then it just stops in its tracks instead of continuing to get stronger. Fun. . . or something.

I'm praying that he decides to show his head soon (so to speak). I can't wait to meet our little munchkin, and these not-quite-so-false-alarms are getting old! For all those of you who have gone to your due date and beyond with your pregnancies, I have a new sympathy for your pain. I don't know how you have survived it, but I am seriously impressed with your super powers!

-Amy

NaNoWriMo 2011

Well, the month of November has officially begun. I think when most of us picture November we think of colorful falling leaves, lots of rain (at least here in the Pacific Northwest), and turkey with stuffing. But at least for Tom and me it just wouldn't be November without NaNoWriMo. This is the fourth year both of us have participated in this 30 day 50,000 word writing challenge. In spite of our nutty lives, it's always something we look forward to.

Every year on Halloween night we attend the Seattle kickoff party from about 10:00 pm to 2:00 am on November 1st at a local Denny's. This is apparently the 7th year they have had the party hosted there, and this year they had to close down the place to all other customers because there were so many of us in attendance. We filled up every chair and bench, and when more people kept coming, they ended up sitting cross-legged against every wall they could find just to be part of the event and have a place to write. The final count for this year's event was 160 people. considering the fact that the Denny's only seats about 145, it was a very full house!

They of course had the traditional countdown to midnight and then the crowd went absolutely silent except for the tapping of keyboards and scratching of pens on paper. After a few minutes, people started calling out every thousand words they had completed, but otherwise the noise stayed pretty minimal. As always, it was a good time. I'll admit this year I didn't make it anywhere near 2:00 am, though Tom and I both got that initial thousand words and then some before I dragged him out the door to go home.

In spite of the fact that I could go into labor this month, I'm determined that I'm going to finish the challenge this year. I guess that means I'd better try and finish early just in case.

Happy November, everybody!

-Amy

Ultrasound pictures from 10/06/11

Okay, so I realize I'm about a month late posting these pictures, but we were having some trouble with our scanner until today. My ob is having me do a lot of extra ultrasounds to keep an eye on the baby's size and growth patterns. Since he's looking so big, there's a chance they'll plan to take him early, but the doctor won't make that suggestion until we get closer to the delivery date. Back on October 6th, baby was weighing in at about 3 pounds 6 ounces, though average for that week is 2-2.5 pounds. He was also measuring in the 96th percentile (length of long bones, head, etc.), and my uterus measured a full 4 weeks ahead.


I love seeing how round he's getting these days, and I think the fist at his mouth is adorable, but I'll admit I'm pretty biased.

We have another ultrasound coming up on November 14th and they'll do more measurements then. If he's still growing at that rate I'm assuming he's going to be somewhere over 6 pounds by then. I'm still hoping to naturally go into labor sometime around the first or second week of December and not have to worry about cesarian or induction, but we'll have to see how it goes. We just want to bring home a healthy baby, whatever that takes.



-Amy

Latest baby pics

We got to go see our baby in a 3D ultrasound this afternoon, and that was a lot of fun. It's amazing how much bigger he is now than he was for the last couple of ultrasounds. This short video clip shows the circulation of the blood going through his heart.



Unfortunately, tech wasn't able to get any other video clips because the baby wasn't being very cooperative. Still, we at least got some fun profile shots.

Here you can see the profile of his face and his cute left chubby cheek. There on the right side of the picture is his left arm reaching up over his head, and his right arm, umbilical cord, and right leg are blocking the view of the front of his face.


Hi, Mom and Dad! He was determined to show us every angle of his hands and keep everything else covered up.

Image of the heartbeat, measuring a good and steady 144 beats per minute. The colors on the photo are like the ones in the video clip, just showing the circulation of the blood through the heart.

Sucking on his hand as we try to get him angled for the 3D shots.


Good strong leg bones getting ready for another kick


Brain activity. Once again the colors are showing the circulation of blood through the brain.

Here's another profile shot, though he's turned his head even further away from us. Notice that he's sticking out his tongue in this one.

I think the part that made me laugh the hardest during this experience was when he not only had both arms and hands, a length of umbilical cord, and his leg and foot all covering his face. For at least a few seconds we even got to see him playing with the umbilical cord with his toes. With toes like that he must be related to me, the little monkey!

-Amy

Family photo shoot

One of our friends was wanting to practice her photography skills and asked us to do a maternity photo shoot. We went to a lovely place about 5 miles away from our house called Kubota Gardens. If you live anywhere near the Seattle area, I'd recommend you take some time to go check it out.


We thought this would be a good opportunity to get some family pictures as well as get some good belly shots. We usually do a couple's shoot sometime near the end of the year for our Christmas pictures, but we're assuming that this Christmas we'll be a little too distracted to think about it.



Thanks again, Kelly for an enjoyable time taking pictures and walking around the Japanese gardens.

-Amy

It's a . . .

We finally had our ultrasound this past Friday, August 12th. I scheduled it for the morning, because I was sure I would go crazy waiting for an afternoon appointment.

Surprisingly, instead of getting there really early - which I was afraid we would do - we barely made it in time for our appointment. This was due in part to the fact that both of the elevators near our apartment chose that morning to be broken down. We had to get pretty creative using stairs and a third elevator that's not anywhere near us just to get down to the car.

We got to look at our beautiful baby for around half an hour. The ultrasound tech looked at all of the bones, organs, and placenta just to make sure things were looking functional and properly developed. Everything looked beautiful and she was able to get some good photos. This one below was actually to measure the placenta, and the little one just happened to have a foot right next to it, so we got a nice foot shot.

The surprise of the morning was when she got the following shot, which made the gender rather obvious:

Since Tom and I had both thought it was going to be a girl, we started laughing. This, of course, made the baby kick me more, lol. He's been a pretty active kid for quite awhile. The midwife didn't believe I had started feeling movement just before 15 weeks, but I was certain that's what I was feeling. Now in the ultrasound we came to discover that our little boy is so big he's measuring about two weeks ahead of average. It's no wonder I felt him so early! It looks like he will probably NEVER be wearing newborn size clothes, but I guess since his daddy was 10.5 pounds as a baby I shouldn't be surprised. Here's a shot that shows a little of his action:

Sometime in the next few weeks we're going to get to have a 3D ultrasound done as well (and get paid for it, how can you complain about that?). We're looking forward to seeing our little guy a little more clearly.

-Amy

Depoe Bay Trip

We just got back from a very relaxing trip down to the Oregon coast. Tom's dad put us and his siblings up for a few days right within view of the water, and we all had a great time.


There wasn't quite enough room for all of us in his timeshare, so Tom and I stayed just up the road in a little cottage-like hotel. It was so nice to get away for a long weekend and do a whole lot of nothing.

This was the view from the condo's patio. We got to hear the waves crashing and birds calling 24/7.

John, Abby, and Merrill


All of the adults but me chose to go on a whale watching tour. I was SO very glad I had opted out. I stayed back and watched our 2 year old niece Lorena and got nauseated just when they told me about how much the boat had rocked when they'd gone out.



Jeremy, Abby, and Lorena at Agate Beach


Overlook by Beverly Beach. (Haha, I just noticed that this is the one picture of myself I posted on this blog and my baby bump is all covered up by my jacket)


Lighthouse next to Agate Beach


Lorena with her favorite uncle, John. They were inseparable - when we were getting packed up to leave, she kept making him pick her up or hold her hand, because she knew he was about to leave. It was adorable :)


panoramic view off one of the beaches in the area


Tom and Lorena. She had to keep getting on and off the bench at this lookout. She liked pushing on the bolts and pretending they were buttons. I said "beep" once when she did this, so she started going around pushing them and saying "beet!"





close ups on a squirrel and seagull. There was wildlife everywhere we went, which made for a nice soundtrack.


Beautiful sunset over the ocean. This was a great way to spend our last night in Oregon.

-Amy

Summer and Dan's wedding - 6/10/11

I'm horribly behind posting anything this year. My sister Summer got married to her sweetheart Daniel Gull on June 10th and I still haven't posted any of those pictures, so here we go.


They got married in the LDS Manti Temple in Utah. There were probably 30 or so people there at the ceremony, and a whole lot more at the luncheon and reception later that evening.


It was a whirlwind trip for me. Tom had finals that week so I had to make the trip by myself. It was stressful, but very nice to see all of my siblings. For the second time this year, we were all together in the same place at the same time.


We're all thrilled for them. Isn't she a beautiful bride?


Congratulations, Summer and Dan!

-Amy

Kool-Aid Party

Well, now that I'm a few weeks into the second trimester, I'm thrilled to report that my morning sickness has backed off to almost nothing. Though I've had more excitement than I wanted this past few weeks, the baby is doing great. I started feeling movement a few days ago, which was pretty exciting :)

Since I've been down more than I would like lately, I've been working on several different crafts to keep my hands occupied. I always have a few knitting projects I'm working on, and I've been doing some embroidery as well, but I decided to try something new last night.



I had some natural colored ivory yarn sitting in my knitting case waiting for me to do something with it, so I decided to try my hand at yarn dying for the first time. I found some directions online for dying yarn with kool-aid, so I had Tom run to the store and grab me a bunch of packets of kool-aid to make some red and yellow dyes. It wasn't nearly as messy a process as I thought it would be, though I had to send Tom back to the store for more kool-aid when I was halfway through the process because the color just wasn't as developed as I wanted it to be.



I didn't exactly get the colors I was expecting, but I'm rather proud of my new balls of yarn. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to make out of them.


-Amy

Waiting for Fuzzyhead

We've been lousy at keeping up our blog this year. Tom started back into school full time the first week of January, and he's usually the one who writes these posts. He's doing really well - got a 4.0 the first quarter. Now he has finals coming up again in another couple of weeks and it looks like he'll pull out another one. I'm such a proud wife - he's been working so hard!

In other exciting news, it's happened at last, just when we were about to content ourselves with the cold reality that it would never happen: we're having a baby. That little shadow on the upper right of the ultrasound is growing into our baby (taken a few weeks ago). It has a heartbeat, fingers, toes, and even a gender-neutral nickname: Fuzzyhead.

Our brains have just been awhirl with all the implications of this news and what it will mean in terms of changing our lives. Mostly, though, we're just flat-out excited. Appropriately, the little Gunn is due within a week of Christmas. This will be one unforgettable Christmas.

I'm nine and a half weeks along and we've had a blast telling family and friends, fantasizing about the future, pondering possible names, and even gathering up a few things to prepare. In fact we bought a stroller and car-seat travel set on Craigslist recently. Having it around our place is a regular reminder of the huge changes ahead.

Tom feels confident that it'll be a girl. I go back and forth, but we'll both be thrilled either way.

We're so blessed. We're a little scared about the changes coming, but mostly we're just grateful our family is going to grow.

-Amy