This is Us

Conversation This Morning

Published on by Lisa

Nick: Can you believe that TOMORROW we’ll know if we’re having a boy or girl?

Me: Truly, it’s unreal.

Nick: (staring at the ceiling in thought) Oh! I thought of something else that we might want to buy.

Me: In addition to the gazillion things – like a crib, stroller, rocker, bottles, diapers…

Nick: (turns to me with big, convincing eyes) No, I’m serious. I think we should probably buy one of those baby holder things.

Me: The one where the kid is strapped on to the parent, like in the front?

Nick: Yeah! Do you think we should get one of those?

Me: (quietly thinking) I don’t know. Do you want the front one or the back one?

Nick: (surprised) There’s more than one?

Me: Yes…I’ve seen the front one, where the kid is just dangling there and there’s the one on the back, kinda like a backpack. I’ve seen more men with the backpack version. It kinda looks like hiking gear, except for equipment, there’s a baby back there. I think men use it when running errands, like to the post office or something so their hands are free.

Nick: (perpetually skeptical) I don’t know about that back one. Do you think it’s safe?

Me: Probably about as safe as having your baby dangling in front of you without actually holding on it.

Nick: I just like the idea of always SEEING the baby. Like, what if I’m carrying the baby on my back and all of a sudden I think, ‘mhm, it’s kinda light back there,’ and then I check and the baby is gone? Or I reach behind me for something and then find someone trying to take the baby off my back?!

Me: (decidedly)The front carrier it is.

Yank the Umbilical Cord When You Need Something

Published on by Lisa

This weekend, Nick and I travled to Cincinnati for a wedding that I was shooting. Thanks to Julie Ryan, who referred me to a friend and co-worker, I was hired to work with a terrific couple for their August 1 wedding.

Now, I’ve shot weddings before and am co-shooting another one with a friend in a couple weeks, but this was one in which I had total responsibility from beginning to end with no back-up photographer, just moi. And Nick, who was my assistant.

The day was awesome but physically exhausting. I knew it was going to be a lot. I’m 4 months pregnant and not the same BOUNCY self as I normally am when unpregnant. But, I have lots of energy to give, still, and this wedding took all of it and then some. Basically from 10am – 10pm, I was shooting, directing, posing people, adjusting, crouching, and sweating like the world was my personal sauna. As I write this, Monday morning, my shoulders are still very sore and I can barely move my arms in a full circle with a small grimace. If you’d like a good shoulder/bicep/tricep workout, I’d suggest holding a DSL camera with an attached full lens and SB600 Nikon flash up to your face and running for 12 hours. See how awesome you feel. Let me know.

Overall, everything was great and only when I was going through one stressful moment did I feel any real sense of panic when my camera wasn’t cooperating with me. Usually an even-tempered digital gadget, my camera decided to have a temper tantrum for four minutes. My blood pressure sky rocketed to the blazing sun until I felt the little life inside me churning in the amniotic fluid, yanking on the umbilical cord for dear life and screaming, “MOM! BREATHE! I NEED OXYGEN!” And so, like the loving mother I am, I took a breath.

Nick as assistant and father to be could not have been more perfect. He chauffered me around from house, to church, to Eden Park, to reception with a car blasting air conditioning, cold water for me to drink waiting, and food so I didn’t pass out. He held groomsmen jackets, carried bridesmaid bouquets when the pictures didn’t call for flowers, and joked with the bridal party to relax everyone for the poses.

Nick carried my equipment, propped the church doors when no one in the recieving line did so the line flowed faster, spoke with the priests about the mass and regulations around flash photography, and took away my tripod when I was done with it.

More than one person asked, “Who is that cute guy with you? He’s not a guest is he? I don’t recognize him. IS HE YOUR HUSBAND?! HE’S SO CUTE.”

When someone compliments the good-looks of your spouse, it’s hard not to smile inside and shrug as if to say, “well, of course…”

But I just nod and say something along the lines of, “Yes, we’re married and yes, he is handsome.”

As with many challenges, I couldn’t have done it without Nick’s unyielding support, sound advice, and unwavering belief in my artistic perspective. To create art, to see something beyond what most people see, you have to believe in your own capacity to create something amazing. To do that, you have to relax. Nick does an unparalleled job of relaxing me, helping me remember why I decided to pursue this passion of mine, and believe in me.

Gracias, mi amor.

We left the reception at 10pm and headed to wish my friend Mary Kay a Happy 30th Birthday. We could only stay a brief 30 minutes or so because we were off to Cleveland from there. Still kind of wired from the day, we rode in silence back up north and I soon drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep in the passenger seat. Dreamy scenes floated across my brain of backdrops, family portraits, tuxes, dresses, and flowers. At 3am, we arrived home and I could barely make it into the house. My body hated me. The baby, I knew, hated me.

Nick, juiced up from caffeine, opened the windows and rolled the bed down for me where I collapsed. My muscles decided to stiffen up and not work and I laid in bed wondering how I could be so fatigued and unable to return sleep.

My poor abused spouse descended from his iced coffee high and fell into a deep sleep while I realized at 5am that I was not able to sleep. My stomach growled. The baby growled.

I tiptoed to the kitchen and stared at the dismal display of food options in our regridgerador. We’d been out of town for four weekends which means no serious grocery shopping had occurred in over month.

A toasted English muffin with cheese was my 5am breakfast snack. Once in my belly, I drifted off to sleep.

Sunday was a much needed day of being in Cleveland, seeing our house in the daylight hours of a weekend, and breathing in the rare Sunday morning air from our own bedroom, our own church, our own backyard. We quietly worked on landscaping, finding escape in the pruning of our trees, uprooting overgrown weeds, and catching up with our neighbors. It felt wonderful to be home.

Instead of restaurant food, fast food, or eating at someone else’s dinner table, we made simple spaghetti for dinner and loved sinking into our own couches and watching rented movies while we sifted through mail and aired out the house.

I hate cliches. I hate cliches as much as I hate ignorance, snobby attitudes, and drivers who turn without using their turn signal, but I must use a cliche this one time and one time only:

truly

there’s no place like home.

Mood Swings

Published on by Lisa

Last night I woke up at 5am with a terrible pain jetting across my stomach and the driest mouth in the free world.

I was moaning and wailing and then crying helplessly on my side of the bed, looking pathetically at Nick who was sleeping soundlessly on his side.

I guess after I scooted down the bed like an old lady, holding my stomach like it was going to fall off my body and grabbing Nick’s right leg like a hand rail to guide me toward the edge of the mattress, he woke up.

“What do you need, babe?” He sounded wide awake.

I start practicing deep breaths even though I haven’t taken any birthing classes, “I just need some water.” Nick gets up and tries to help me up but I tell him to get back in bed.

Poor guy.

I trapse to the kitchen and run the water bill into the hundreds as I turn into a camel with a pink bathrobe draped on my shoulders. I drink glass after glass of water. I can’t get enough.

Now I am wide awake.

I think about the past few days. My temper’s been flaring over small things. Then I get weepy. Then I’m elated. Then I am depressed because I don’t know why I’m sad. Then I’m elated again.

So, today at work, I look up, “Symptoms for Week 14 in Pregnancy.”

After reading this is what I text to Nick at work:
“I read today that it’s COMPLETELY normal to have severe mood swings as pregnancy progresses and it’s probably all hormones.”

Nick texts back, “Well, that’s exciting.”

Poor guy.

The pregnancy so far, physically, has been uneventful – just the way we like it. Other than my emotions being everywhere, I haven’t been sick (knock on wood) save a handful of bad headaches, and my energy is returning to where I am able to exercise somewhat regularly without problems or fatigue.

But the belly bulge is peaking and I’m NOT repeat NOT going to be posting any ridiculous pictures of my pregnancy stomach. I think that’s something a former anorexic patient decided to do once she began a healthy pregnancy and gained weight. No…call me reserved or a little shy, the only one who gets the side angles are me and my full length mirror.

Big weekend approaching. Family Borchers is heading south to Charleston for our family vacation. I am looking forward to literature that doesn’t matter, games of Tripoly, and yapping my head off with the Borchers.

Another plus about being pregnant — for this trip, instead of driving the 11 hours and stopping every hour to either use the bathroom or stretch my legs, I’m flying while the rest of the clan hits the road. Ahh, I’m too pampered….

4th of July Weekend Recap!

Published on by Lisa

Our 4th of July weekend was terrific. It was terrific in a kind of firecracker way, not big boom fireworks kind of way.

Nick came back from his week long service trip Friday afternoon and we both needed a quiet evening at home before a long weekend of activities. So we made dinner and rented Revolutionary Road and invited our friend Alexis over who brought three boxes of ice cream to share. We feasted on just mint chocolate chip and gave the movie a B rating for compelling themes but mediocre acting. Nick, who obviously read the book, kept commenting how much one loses in cinema as compared to literature. He likes to rub it in that he’s such a book worm.

That night, I think I fell asleep face down in my pillow. I was exhausted.

Saturday afternoon was spent cleaning up the house, running errands, and enjoying the beautiful weather. I know my energy level is depleting as my pregnancy marches on when I have to take a 1 hour nap after mowing the lawn. Apprehensive as my Dad on prom night, Nick wondered if it would be safe for me to mow the lawn. I assured him that as long as he can rev the motor up for me, I can take care of the rest.

The jittering and jostling may have taken more out of me than I would care to admit, but I laid on the couch afterward and fell asleep. Snoring as loud as the mower itself.

Then we headed off to Christina and Brian Emerson’s for a BBQ. Nick dominated at cornhole while I ate a hamburger like I’ve never eaten before. My appetite, to put it lightly, fluctuates. Somedays I can barely swallow three grapes without feeling like a stuffed cabbage. Other days I feel like eating a rhino would not suffice. Saturday was a rhino kind of day.

Then we watched the fireworks and I got all sappy and happy sitting on the lawn and thinking how by next year, we’ll have a little live firework in the flesh of our own.

Sunday afternoon was spent in Canton, Ohio where Nick and I went to a baptism reception. My highschool friend, Becca, married and now lives in England but her son, Logan was baptized here in her hometown and had a gathering to celebrate the little tyke’s induction to the holy Kingdom. I saw a bunch of highschool buds and it was great to catch up after so many years.

And that was our weekend.

Upcoming weekends are going to N-U-T-S.
July 11-15 Borchers’ family vaca to Charleston, SC
July 17-19 Russia bound for Staci Condon’s wedding
July 24 -26 Russia bound for Abby Cordonnier’s wedding
July 31 – Aug. 2 Cincy bound for a wedding I’m shooting (like, for money!)

And if you’re wondering how everything else is going — all I can say is the God honest truth: splendid.

Nick is wonderful.
I am wonderful.
Baby is wonderful.

(You are wonderful, too, in case you need a pick me up.)

So Much for a Quiet Pregnancy

Published on by Lisa

As the second trimester of pregnancy is underway, Nick and I have settled (somewhat) into a mental stability together about our impending parenthood. While the baby was a wonderful planned event, there truly is nothing that can prepare you for the words, “We’re pregnant,” “We’re having a baby,” or anything along those lines. Week by week, as the news softens from joyous shock to ecstatic reality, we’ve been sharing the news with more and more people in our lives.

To me, it’s now commonplace to let people know that we’re expecting. It’s been over three months and every conversation tends to revolve around preparing for the bundle of joy in six months. But nothing, I repeat nothing, could prepare us for when we walked into church this morning.

One of our friends came up to our pew to hug us. Since we hadn’t seen Jennifer in a long time, the embrace didn’t feel anything new or strange. But when she pulled away from us she says, “It’s nice to see you guys on the front cover of the bulletin.”

And there it was, for the world to read that we’re expecting.

Now, since Nick works for the parish, it makes sense and it is quite the lovely feeling of having a community of people share the wonder and happiness of our first pregnancy.

It just took me awhile to get used to have people know me inadvertently through Nick. All I know about them is that that they are very genuine and nice people. And it feels great to be supported.

So, we grabbed the bulletin, and scanned the pastor’s notes, I smiled up at Nick and said, “Well, so much for a quiet pregnancy.”

Nick replied, “Like this was going to be a quiet pregnancy anyway.”

The Soggy Pillow Drama Continues

Published on by Lisa

I haven’t watched soap operas in full episodes since high school. Specifically, Days of Our Lives. Before Tivo and DVRing, we had to – can you believe this – TAPE something on tv if you were going to miss it when it was aired. Thankfully, for those who live in 2009, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you want. Nick and I don’t have cable, a flatscreen, or fancy shmancy anything. We just watch basic tv channels and go with the flow of life. We’re content and happy (and cheap) like that.

So, it was quite the rare day today that I – in between jobs and have some free time – got to sit my pregnant butt down and just relax. After a hectic weekend of company, hosting, dinners, and sun, I felt the need – physically and emotionally – to just chill. And chill I did.

Within 25 minutes of watching, I got caught up on Days and started wondering how Nick was doing on his mission trip. Since he doesn’t have phone reception, we’re unable to communicate this week. So you can imagine my surprise when I hear my phone buzz with the receipt of a text message. From Nick, it says he has reception for one hour a day and to text updates. Knowing he meant updates about life and not Days of Our Lives, I tried to tell him in 160 characters that I missed him and all is well with me and Baby.

Out of nowhere, the flood gates break and I’m crying.

My sister, who is kindly staying with me this week to keep me company in the big house while I’m alone, sighs and rolls her eyes at me, “Oh, get a grip!”

I frown at her and blame it on pregnancy hormones.

In addition to missing his overall presence and love…Who’s going to beg me to make popcorn at 10 o’clock at night? Who’s going to leave granola bar wrappers on the counter? Who’s going to mow the grass? Who’s going to make me laugh right before I fall asleep? Who’s going to listen and actually care about my latest rant on life and social justice?

Sometimes when our beloved temporarily vanishes from our lives, it gives us the clarity to recognize the million and one ways they bring joy in the details of daily co-habitation, everyday love. Nick is just one of those people who is just too easy to love and separation can be difficult. Especially when this baby inside me is making me weepy by just watching Days of Our Lives.

The Year is 2100

Published on by Lisa

Last night I came home from work at roughly 9:30pm. Driving in a rental, I pulled up and saw Nick sprawled on the couch, watching our old but new to us TV (huge applause to Nick’s cousin, Abby Cordonnier and fiancee for selling us a monstrously large and much improved telly) with an intent look on his face. I was chatting on the phone with Kelly, Nick’s sister, about the joys and woes of the growing Pinto Bean in my belly.

As I babble, I observe Nick is flipping the channel between some NBC news special on the White House and an ABC special program about what the earth will look like in the year 2100. After I got off the phone, Nick scooted closer to me and says, “It’s good your home. I was about to kill myself after watching this,” he referenced the Earth 2100 show.

I sat down to watch.

In the next 20 minutes, I watched the most depressing and strange story which told a part cartoon, part computerized tale that predicted what the world will become should we continue in our fossil fuel consuming ways. The southern states of the USA were desert, the coasts were in perpetual threat of flooding, and everyone was hoodlums with shopping carts on the side of the road, hitch hiking their way to Canada. I felt like I wanted to just bury my head in a sand dune and hope for a quick death. That or drink myself into an oblivion.

“Ugh,” I grunted at Nick, “it IS a good thing I came home when I did. You might have put a bullet to your noggin if you were alone watching the world go to shit.”

We tried to focus on something else to cheer ourselves up from the morbidity of 2100 and impending doom of human life.

Nick asked, “Did you see our new car?”

Yesterday, we had our insurance agent shop and find us a car. When they find one that fits your general description, s/he will arrange a test drive and get the car to us for inspection. If we like it, we buy it on the spot. It’s a nice FREE service from Nationwide. (Nick asked the agent 3 times to make sure it was FREE.)

Our used but new to us (do you see a theme emerging yet?) car is 2006 Honda Accord, blue, with a non-descript gray interior. According to Nick, back in his seminary days, one of the older priests drove an Accord and Nick told himself, “If ever someday I have a lot of money, I’m going to buy an Accord.”

I don’t know anyone whose car fantasies began in the parking lot of a Cincinnati seminary.

As Nick retold me his vow to buy an Accord someday, I jested, “Well, we are just rolling in the millions these days, so let’s pull the trigger. It’s now or never.”

The test drive was scheduled at 2pm yesterday and I was not able to get off work. Nick was hesitant to be the only one driving/inspecting the car, but I told him, “Look, this will be the second biggest purchase you have to make without me. Remember, we bought our house without my ever seeing it. Now it’ll also be our car.”

The Accord runs beautifully.

We returned our rental last night and then drove around Cleveland, frequently getting lost because we are the two most geographically challenged people in the midwest.

“I like it,” I told Nick. “Good job.”

Nick muses, “This thing is going to last forever. I mean, it’s an ACCORD. It’s supposed to run forever. For real, the world is going to collapse on itself in 2100, but this car is still going to be running.”

Is the World Ready?

Published on by Lisa

Everyone who knows keeps asking, “Are you ready?”

And all I keep thinking, “Are WE ready? It’s more like is the WORLD ready for another human who is 1/2 me and 1/2 Nick?”

Yes, friends, family, and loved ones, the day has finally arrived, if you haven’t already guessed from small leaks (or as Nick would say, “…the weakest links in our circuit of family and friends,”) that we are expecting a little one to grace our lives and expand the family. I am pregnant!

Oh, the anticipation…oh the relief of FINALLY being able to blog and write about the past 9 weeks.

Let me tell you, keeping a secret is just not my thing, especially when it’s so joyous!

Roughly 7 weeks ago, I knew I was pregnant even before those stick tests told me so. Here were the big clues:

1) I’ve been a deep sleeper since I was born. I can sleep through a hurricane. Out of nowhere, I start waking up in the middle of the night, uncomfortable.

2) I start getting horrible abdominal gas pains and my body is bloated like a marshmallow.

3) Everything, even the taste of water, is bitter and tastes like liver in my mouth.

4) I feel, how shall you say, different.

I just freaking knew. I mean, I just knew. But 6 pregnancy tests later, it was confirmed and what a day it was….

It was a Sunday. I woke up at 6am because I couldn’t sleep (remember clue #1) and Nick woke up about an hour later to find me sitting up in bed, thinking. I took the test and left the stick in the bathroom, yelling at Nick to get out of the bathroom, “WE WON’T LOOK AT IT! WE WON’T LOOK AT IT! IT’LL BE TORTURE! LET’S GO TO ANOTHER ROOM FOR TWO MINUTES!”

So we go to the bedroom and pace the floor. Well, Nick paces the floor and starts blabbering about the 101 reasons why the test could be false negative and we should look at the chances of it being wrong and how we should definitely take another one tomorrow and how so many factors could disrupt the accuracy of the results…When Nick is reasoning aloud really fast, he makes me even more nervous because he’s never nervous.

When two minutes are up, I charge into the bathroom and see a very large PLUS sign and worldlessly go up to the Papa to be and present the test two feet above my head, aka, Nick’s eye level. Never, in all the years I’ve loved Nick, ever saw his face look so purely joyous and excited (not even when he married me, imagine that…). We didn’t say a word, just hugged for a long time while I started to cry of course.

Then we flopped ourselves on our bed and were quiet. Finally, I broke out and said, “So, there’s a baby inside me and we’re gonna be parents.”

Nick flops over to look at me, “I know, it’s crazy isn’t it?”

“Crazy? Try insane and unthinkable. WE. US. WE ARE GOING TO BE PARENTS. Like, a life is OUR responsibility.”

But nothing could taint our joy, disbelief, and excitement.

Nick left for El Salvador two days after our big news and it was torture not to tell anyone. So I burned the secret to my sister, Christina here in Cleveland, and my mom. I was DYING to tell someone and Nick was gone for 5 days. I just couldn’t wander the world without anyone to share it with.

We’ve had two doctors appointments and everything looks excellent. We already heard the baby’s heartbeat and are floored by each little miracle of our little pinto bean growing inside me. It’s so wonderful and simultaneously terrifying.

A lot of people wonder how we told people so early. Our doctors warned us that we shouldn’t spill the beans until the 11th week or so. Nick and I thought awhile about that and then finally came to our conclusion: understandably, you don’t want to get everyone excited when there’s such a chance of miscarriage. But, all the people in our lives who we trust and would want to know we had a miscarriage would also want to know if we were pregnant. The same people we’d turn to in times of sadness are the same people we’d turn to share our miracle. And so we decided to tell folks around 6 weeks and pray for a safe journey for our little one.

We tried to tell as many people face to face as we could, but alas, life is complicated and news travels fast.

Little Pinto is expected to come into the world January 1, 2010.

So, like I said…it’s not a matter if WE’RE ready, but is the world ready?

Bet You Didn’t Know

Published on by Lisa

A new series I’m starting on the blog — small factoids that I think are trivial and therefore entertaining about Nick and I….

I bet you didn’t know that I can’t stand those lion statues that some people place in front of their houses. I think they’re pretentious and weird. What if I just started putting sculptures of rhinos on my lawn?

Lions? Lions.

Nick says, “Oh, I love ’em! I think they’re great. But they need to be big lions, not those pissy small ones in front of a small house. If the house is big, the lions need to be big, too.”

What do you think?

Bike Shop Talk

Published on by Lisa

I had a free and open day. Nick was off in the afternoon.

You have two lovebirds, free as real birds, and a 70 some degree day in April? That’s good stuff right there.

We returned to our tennis practices. Or, shall I say, Nick lightly hitting the ball to me and I return it with full force while he watches it wail over the fence behind him. he’s such a good sport.

Then we went bike shopping.

Often when we shop together, it turns into a conversation about things other than what we’re shopping for. For instance, after we walked into the bike shop and learned about the different styles and amenities that come with the bikes, we thanked the sales associates and walked out into the bright sunshine.

When we were about 10 steps from the door, our conversation goes something like this:

Me: Sometimes I think it would be funny if there could be a big blimp above our heads that shows our real thoughts and what we’re thinking when someone is talking to us?

Nick: Like ‘Pop-Up Video?’
He makes the funny pop up noises to illustrate.

Me: (laughing) Yeah, exactly!

Nick: So, it’d be like –

Me: (laughing harder and interrupting him) It’d be like when he showed us that first bike that was $400, my blimp would pop up and read, “Mhm, that’s about $350 too expensive.”

Nick: I think it’d be hilarious if you could see two pop-ups at the same time. Yours would read, ‘Mhm, that’s $350 too much,’ and mine would read, ‘Mhm, looks like we’re not buying anything today.’

**If you’d like to see a fine example of the entertainment that comes with pop-up video, click here to watch a tune with Rick Astley. Doesn’t come with the fun pop up noise though… **