What a Year

    When I look back to January 2012, I was pregnant with our yet to be named baby girl and still in the throes of what they call "morning sickness" (although I prefer to call it "the most horrible all day nausea I've ever had in my life" sickness). Lorelei could only say a few words and phrases and still seemed like a baby to me.  Now fast forward to today and I have beautiful Camilla asleep next to me on the couch and Lorelei is singing the theme song to Dora the Explorer like she has been talking in full sentences her whole life.  It really is astonishing how human life is made and then grows in such rapid leaps and bounds.  My two girls are the best gift I could have ever asked of Santa.  And of course my girls wouldn't even be her without my wonderful husband, John, who shows me every day how much he loves me and our family.  If I ever give advice to a newly married couple (which I still feel we are although we celebrated our 5th anniversary this July), it would be to show each other their love every day with small acts of kindness. It could be making coffee in the morning, taking care of the kids on a Sunday morning so you can sleep in, or giving you the opportunity to take time for yourself after a busy day.
    We have had such a life changing year with the arrival of Camilla. Taking care of two kids is definitely double the laundry, diapers, and sleep deprivation, but it is also double the fun, love, and pure joy! Camilla is rolling all over the floor and has great eye-hand coordination when she grabs on to her toys and pacifier. She loves to play with her sister by grabbing her hair (this doesn't go over that well with Lorelei) and smiling and laughing.  I think she would win a Gerber baby contest with her bubbly personality and squeezable cheeks!
   Lorelei has had a year full of play dates with her friends, time with all her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, art class, and dance class.  She is starting a music class next month and hopefully will be out of diapers soon! She can use the toilet, but chooses not to, even when I try to bribe her with M&Ms and gummy bears.  She sleeps in her big girl bed all night, but once or so a night she calls for John to come to her room so she still gets her present for sleeping in her room and not coming into our room. She is such a smart cookie! 
    As far as John and I are concerned, we are loving life in a sleep deprived haze, but we know it is a short term phase, right?! We are able to go out to eat together once a month and reconnect just the two of us, which is so nice. Sometimes it is easy to fall into being Mama and Daddy all the time.  John has changed to another group in Woodward, so he is back in Loveland.  He loves having a shorter commute and feels recharged working on a different project. He tries to work on his CNC mill when there is kid-free time and also makes it to the gym after work as often as he can. He also spent a few days after work going up to the mountain properties with his friends to chop down trees, clear brush, and go fishing. I have been enjoying spending time with my group of friends I met last year. We all have kids the same ages and I feel so lucky to have a group of women to share stories, frustrations, have fun with the kids, and offer support as "stay home and work all day" moms. I enjoy going to zumba once a week to shake off those baby pounds and making new recipes in the kitchen.  I love to cook and learn about nutrition and I feel passionate about the health of my family.
     Last, but definitely not least, we would like to thank all our family and friends who have given us their love, support, and time this year!  I would like to especially thank our parents who have helped us in all facets of life... making us dinners, taking care of the girls, helping with laundry, and giving us their time, advice, and support.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I can't wait to see what 2013 brings us.

C4L30

Change is in the air.  It's not just that we are entering winter and have had our first snow that stuck, but Camilla and Lorelei are growing and changing faster than we can keep up with. Camilla is such a little ball of joy and energy. She loves to roll around the floor, play in her saucer (you know that chair that spins around a tray of toys), and smile and laugh with about anyone who lays eyes on her.  She especially cracks up around Lorelei and when I tickle her belly with kisses. Physically, she is getting so big that when I hold her to feed her, my arm always falls asleep under the weight of her head; I blame her, rather large head, on her father's genes. Although, we always say, "Big head, big brain!"  We don't have her doctor's appointment until next week, but I believe she must be tipping the scale at 15 lbs.  She is also chewing and sucking on almost all toys and fingers she can get her hands on. Teeth may be emerging soon.  She is such a sweet, happy, and mellow baby, but at night lately, we say her "inner Lorelei" is rearing her non-sleeping head because at 3 a.m. most mornings she is rolling around in her bassinet making pig/dinosaur type snorting noises.  She wants to eat and be held, for what seems, like the rest of the morning until she finally wakes around 6:30 a.m.  She is almost able to sit up on her own and right now she can hold herself up with the assistance of a boppy or bumbo (I love the names that are given to baby equipment!)  Lorelei is also continuing to change every month, which astounds me. I think I have her figured out, and then she learns a new skill or trick.  She has increased her running speed and I find it difficult to catch her these days. She thinks this is quite hilarious. John and her play a game at night where they run through the house as different animals. Her favorite seems to be the eagle. She also usually chooses to do things, that I normally wouldn't allow, when I'm feeding Camilla and can't get to her. Smart little cookie! She has mastered the Roku remote in order to channel surf her favorite shows (still Dora, and also Curious George and Sean the Sheep) and singing "The Farmer and the Dell". Recently, she has started to really pronounce her "R's", so instead of saying "Famer and the Dell" she really pronounces, "Farmer".  I take her to an art class once a week. It's been fun having special alone time with her.  I try to help her with her artwork, but she is still firmly in the, "I do it" stage.  This carries over to the kitchen now too. She says, "I want to watch you cook food", but she really means, "I'm going to make dinner". She is an expert mixer and pourer. I hope she soon learns how to use a knife and the stove so she can cook dinner for us (just kidding, Mom; definitely no knives until she is atleast 5!). Then she says at dinner, "You're a good cook. So yummy. So delicious." She is an independent firecracker and also a little sweetheart who loves to hug and kiss her family and friends and says, "I love you, Mommy. I love you Daddy. I love you Camilla", every night before bed.  Being a mom is such a joy and I'm so excited that two of my sister in laws will be having babies this May. Congratulations Ann Marie and Arella (and to you Dads, Josh and Justin!)

C2L28 Part 2

These last few months have been full of fun, laundry, cuddles, and spit up. In other words, it's life with a new baby. Things are going smoothly now that we know how to operate with two kids. John takes one, I take the other, leaving two exhausted parents! But we love it all the same. Somehow I've managed to handle them both when John is at work and still keep my sanity. That might be because Camilla is a model baby. She sleeps, eats, and poops like a pro.  She smiles, gurgles, and laughs when she is awake and is getting so big so fast! To keep her happy all we have to do is talk to her, swaddle her, and give her a paci. She is such a sweetie. Lorelei is such a good helper and is learning to sleep in her own big girl bed.She says things like, "That's delicious!" and "Camilla's smiling at me". She now reads books to me and twirls her hair as she falls asleep. She sings songs to Camilla and is in a dance class this month. John will be working in a new group at Woodward starting in November and this also means he will be in Loveland. We look forward to shorter work days (minus the commute to Fort Collins) and a few lunches a week with us! As for me, the girls obviously keep me busy, but I still have time to see friends and family, and I feel blessed every day that I am able to stay home with the girls during these early years. I'm fully recovered from Camilla's entrance into this world and am focusing on my health, which includes jogging, zumba, and eating not so much ice cream!

Not 30 yet

Today I'm 29. At one time or another everyone has been asked, "Where do you think you will be in 10 years?" It's always a puzzling question that gets a pretty generic answer: I'll be working, married, with kids, or I'll be traveling, opening myself up to new possibilities and adventures. But now that it's been 10 years later, those generic answers have such vivid and real qualities. When I entered the teacher workforce, I had all these ideals and perceptions about what being a teacher would be like. I would create these mind blowing lessons that would open up a world of possibilities and wonder to bright-eyed children waiting to learn from me. The reality was more like hoping every day I would send my students home with at least one new thought or understanding of a subject. I was pretty hard on myself. Always feeling like I was failing someone or that my shortfalls would damage a young person's sense of accomplishment. Looking back, I know I did my best and I hope all my students will look back at their 4th grade teacher with good feelings and respect for what I tried to do each and every day. The next step in my 10 year plan was marriage. I always thought I would marry in my late 20s early 30s, because who at 21 years old knows what they want. Except, when I met (or should I say opened my eyes) to my best friend's older brother, John, I knew we had something special. With John, I've learned to really love myself because he loved me for exactly who I was. Now I strive to be a better person for him and now my two beautiful daughters. When Lorelei and Camilla came into this world, for the first time, I felt like I had done something truly amazing. They are both so unique and special and I hope I can raise them to love themselves the way I love them. That is what a parent's job boils down to. In the end, they will make their own decisions in life, but if they can look back on their childhood for guidance, I will truly feel like I did what I was meant to do in this lifetime. I know as they grow older, I will need to find my place in this world without them or John as the focal points. I hope I find a way to achieve joy by helping others as I pursue a passion yet to be decided. I'm sure there will be many adventures to come and I can write about those after the next 10 years. When I think about myself 10 years ago when someone asked me this question, I don't think I would have believed it possible that I would have made all those generic answers come true in the most beautiful way.

C2L28

C2L28 (Camilla 2 Months Old; Lorelei 28 Months Old) How funny time is. Not long ago I was counting down the days to what seemed like the longest pregnancy of all time (I think all pregnant women probably say this)and now Camilla is two months old and it went by like a blink. A really sleep deprived, joyous, difficult, and beautifully amazing blink. Lorelei has adjusted so well to Camilla, so much so that she thinks she is one of her babies and even attempted, successfully I might add, to carry her and put her in her car seat! She has been in a very healthy, and expected, mommy-needy phase, but still loves to play with her Daddy, Grandparents, extended family, and friends, as long as I am close at hand. I love it and feel guilty about it all at the same time. It's true what they say, you have equal room in your heart for all your children, but you don't always feel like you have the ability to make the equal amount of time for each. And I just have two children. Good luck to the mother on that TLC show that has like nineteen kids. I don't know how she does it, just the basics like feeding and clothing them all, let alone having individual attention for each. All I can do is strive to give them each loving and special attention, teach them right from wrong, and let them become who they are meant to be. Along the way I will try to impart to them some helpful guidance on how to be kind, respectful to others and themselves, and find passion in their lives. As a two year old, Lorelei continues to be make me laugh, push my buttons, surprise me, test me, and bring such fun and love to my life. Every time she says a complete sentence I am taken aback by home much she has grown in the past 6 months. When she tells me things that I know she learned from us, it reminds me how much she has listened and learned. Some of my favorite phrases from her have been: "Put Camilla down and pick Lorelei up", "I wanta more cookie, Mommy", "I love you", and "Pepe is stinky from the skunk, but Ama give her a bath and now she is clean". She plays so well with her friends and family and you can tell how much she loves them when she says good-bye to them with a hug and kiss and then talks about how much fun she had with them. She can sing her ABC's and count from 1-20. She breaks out in song throughout the day. I wonder where she gets that from (John of course!). We go to the park most days and she is such a daredevil. Luckily she is pretty coordinated and is able to climb up most ladders and stairs without help. She also likes to use the teeter totter as a balance beam! I say she has her mother's eye hand coordination and her father's running speed. I still love to watch her play outside and laugh with such adorable giggles and screams. She is so loveable, smart, and beautiful. Camilla has developed so much in just a few months. She is such a mellow, compliant, and sweet baby. I never knew it could be so easy to get a baby to sleep. She loves to be swaddled, given a pacifier, and she is off in dreamland. No jiggling, dancing, swishing, or non-stop movement required. She can hold her head up and smiles at us most of the day. The only crying she does is when she needs a diaper change or Mama's milk. She enjoys her baths and watching her musical mobile. It makes my heart smile when Lorelei and Camilla lay on the play mat together and smile and laugh. I can already tell they are going to be such good friends and close sisters. I cherish the quiet morning hours when I get to rock her and feed her before anyone else gets up. We have our alone time to snuggle and be together. I will always treasure these moments and memories and I look forward to what they will be doing a few months from now. Moreover, I just want to be present each day, embrace it for what it is; whether it is a calm, lazy day around the house or loud, chaotic party with friends and family, because that is really what life is about... I couldn't be happier.

Camilla Jana Patricia Karspeck

We welcomed baby girl Camilla on July 7th, 2012 at 3:58 a.m. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 5 oz and 20 inches long. It was another extraordinary event in my life that I will never forget. In order for you to get a clear picture of Camilla's entrance into this world, let me start from the beginning. On Friday, the 6th, I woke up knowing that my baby's birth story was beginning... at least I thought so. Contractions were fairly strong at about 6-8 minutes apart, but I was handling them pretty well. Lorelei awoke shortly after and preceded to mimick my labor positions on the floor with me. She will one day be very adept at yoga because she can already do upward dog, cat arch, and child's pose. She was with me every step of the way. Until, contractions started getting closer together and stronger. I thought for sure we would be at the hospital by late morning. We called my dad to come and take Lorelei so John and I could have some time to pack and focus on the impending labor that I felt ready for. Shortly after Dad left with Lorelei, the contractions started slowing down and by 3 p.m., I was able to take a 2 hour nap and the contractions were non-existent. As the evening wore on, contractions continued at about 10 minutes apart. John insisted that I try and get some sleep around 11, deducing that whether or not I was having the baby, it would help to have a little rest. However, Camilla had other plans. From midnight to 1:45 a.m. contractions progressed quickly from 10 minutes apart, to 6 minutes apart, 3 minutes, and then finally 1-2 minutes. John quickly got the car packed, again, and we arrived at the hospital about 5 minutes and 3 hard contractions later. Getting checked in and up to the room was quite a task as I had to hop out of the wheelchair and hold on to John every contraction. Sitting was too painful. As the nurse finally got us to our room, there were about five nurses, including two that were at the birth of Lorelei, writing down our info, putting wrist tags on us, and attempting to get an IV cap in my arm (I was pricked about five times, and they still weren't able to get it in; I have the bruises to show for it), all during intense transition-phase contractions. They even had me sign papers through my haze. Who knows what I was signing my name to, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get in the jet tub to hopefully help me relax. Before I got in the tub, my exam showed I was 6 cm dilated. I was somewhat disappointed that I was only that far along after 18 hours of labor, but I just kept my focus and kept thinking my baby would be here soon. And she would be. After only an hour in the tub, I was 9 1/2 cm dilated and ready to push. I got in the bed, and with the help of John's soothing words that "our daughter would be here soon" and "just take my time and breathe" I saw the birth of my second daughter after a half an hour and a couple of painful screams of determination ( I think I even said, "Get it out of me"; I think I was trying to encourage myself to push harder). It was as I remembered with Lorelei; a feeling of pure joy and bliss, and also, relief that it was over and our daughter was here. I got to hold my new baby in my arms as the nurses cleaned her up, John cut the cord, and I was able to nurse right away. Birthing my two girls have been the most empowering and beautiful experiences of my life.