tfl: The Flatiron Life

Olivia Elizabeth Tomaw is two and a half weeks old and, as I sit here with a nearly eight pound lump of sleeping love on my chest, I have a moment to recap the events of the last few weeks for you.

Saturday, August 7th, I began having moderate contractions at our annual neighborhood block party. I’d had episodes of similar contractions on and off for weeks, each fizzling out with some rest and hydration. Just the day before I had been to the midwife, who told me I showed no signs of imminent labor, and since Jonah had been forcibly removed at nearly a week past his due date, I was certain I had at least until the middle of the week to prepare for the birth. A couple of hours in the contractions became strong enough that I decided to go into the house to rest. I quickly sought relief in the bathtub and shower. They only came faster. I was still unconvinced that this was the day of reckoning, but put our reinforcements on notice anyway. By 11:00 p.m. all I could do was wail and dry heave vocalize through each contraction, so, still very skeptical, we decided to head to the hospital.

Before Jonah’s delivery Jacob and I made one false alarm trip to the hospital in the middle of the night and judging even by the security staff’s reactions, I could tell that this was a whole different game. I rolled out of the car and waddled as best I could into check-in. Heads nodded, door were opened for me and no time was wasted getting me into triage. The triage nurse checked my progress and asked about the results of my last check-up. When I told her that the day before I had been one centimeter dilated and not at all effaced, she told me that she didn’t think much had changed, but that since I’d had a prior c-section and was in so much pain, she didn’t think they would send me home. I cried tears of desperation, thinking I was either the biggest wimp ever to birth a baby or something was horribly wrong with my body and they’d usher me right in for the repeat c-section I wanted to avoid. When my midwife arrived a few minutes later, she checked my progress again and said that I was actually four centimeters dilated, 100% effaced and the baby’s head was low. Ta-da! That’s labor!

The next ten hours I worked with Jacob, my midwife and a delivery nurse on the most difficult and miraculous project of my life. I am so fortunate to have been so well supported during Olivia’s birth. Everything was very calm and I knew I was in good hands. At 11:08 a.m., after an hour and a half of pushing, Olivia came kicking into the world. I know women around the world give birth every day and many did right along with me, but wow. The feeling is indescribable and that tiny new face is the most beautiful thing in the world.

Our return home has gone very smoothly. Olivia is a calm and still very sleepy little girl. Jacob took a two week paternity leave and so Jonah, Olivia and I are just beginning to settle into a daytime routine. The most difficult thing about bringing home a new baby has been adjusting to a new understanding of Jonah. Nobody prepared us for the feeling that as we brought home our new baby girl we would lose our baby boy. After spending a few days cuddling a seven pound baby, wrapping our arms around a 30 pound boy is a completely different proposition. We had been quite comfortable with Jonah’s progress toward potty training until we started changing infant diapers again, then suddenly his felt like big man diapers and we found ourselves a little frustrated. But we have regained our balance and we’ve also seen Jonah embrace his new role as “big boy” in some delightful ways. The two week recovery period during which I was prohibited from lifting Jonah made him more physically independent and I now frequently hear him tell me very excitedly that he can do things all by himself.

I cannot imagine how our family dynamics will change over the next few months. We are so happy to have our little girl. Thank you friends and family for your support. You’re an important part of our children’s lives too.

Hello few and faithful readers. I know our blog has been comatose for the last few months, but the Tomaw family has been quite busy and this pregnant mom has been tired. However, we are in a season of change here and so I’m writing this post as much out of catharsis as a hope that I can draw you back to our blog. So in no particular order, here are the ch-ch-ch-changes. . .

I have left my job at Morningstar. When Jonah was born, I really enjoyed spending a full year bonding with and nursing him without the added stress of full-time employment, so I am looking forward to having that kind of time with the new baby, due any day now. It also happens to be in our financial best interest for me to stay home with two, so that made the decision relatively easy. My plan is to spend the time (that is the time not consumed by infant care and potty-training Jonah) working on some finance-oriented freelance writing and editing. I will miss Morningstar and my co-workers there terribly. I hope some day they will take me back, but for now it’s diaper changing and afternoons at the park for me.

Jacob is now managing his team at Orbitz. I am exceedingly proud of my husband. I think he will tell you that he now looks forward to far more meetings than he used to, but he enjoys his work and continues to be somewhat surprised that it is so valued. His career has advanced at quite a clip in the five years since we were engaged and his God-given talent and honest dedication to work and family is to thank for that.

We have decided to leave The First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple and join St. John’s Lutheran Church near our neighborhood on the north side of the city. I know to some this will sound about as life-changing as if we switched mechanics, but this was an extremely difficult decision and in some ways still weighs on me the most. The Temple has been an integral part of our lives over the last five years and we have made some great friends that have been like family to us. The discussions we’ve had with educated and thoughtful peers at The Temple helped us form evermore concrete ideas about our faith and its role in our family life. As we promised at Jonah’s baptism to nurture him in the Christian faith, it became imperative for us to ensure that we were providing him a clear direction and absolute certainty in his salvation by Grace. We are blessed to have now found this at St. John’s and while we hope to maintain the relationships we have established at The Temple and continue as brothers and sisters in Christ with its congregants, we also look forward to our new beginning as Confessional Lutherans.

Oh yes, and the biggest change yet to come will be the birth of our daughter. It’s not that this event is not top-of-mind, but all of the preceding changes have been in preparation for her arrival. We can hardly wait to see her and touch her for the first time and we ask for your prayers in this event above all the others.

And now back to the waiting. . .

I keep hearing and reading things in the news that make me think of something worth blogging about. Unfortunately on my vocation list blogging comes after two items that have grown in effort.

Jonah is very in tune with nature when it comes to sleeping. As we go through spring and into summer he starts to wake earlier and earlier. This week he has woke up at 5 (when Jos and I awake) twice and not long after 6 twice. This means some of my chores and blogging time in the morning is reduced so I can practice the more important vocation of father.

Just below father is the vocation of worker. While my official title is still “Sr. Software Engineer”, my Team Lead moved to a different role at the beginning of April, and I have been serving as acting Team Lead.

When my former boss suggested I apply for his position, I was a little apprehensive. I really enjoy writing code. It is a great artistic outlet for me. I knew that while not all manager become crazy pointy haired bosses, they definitely loose the ability to code.

I have to revised this analysis some now. I still have the ability, but I have significantly less time. Even just as the acting boss, there is a lot of time taken up with managerial task. Also my other team members are relatively new to the team, so I also serve as mentor. I still feel like I am productive, but it cannot be measured in lines of code.

I do hope to find a little bit of time, for now here is the Jonah-Monster.

Jonah removes a section of track from his train set and is then upset that the track does not connect. Jacob shows Jonah that he has the piece he needs to fix it. Jonah replaces the missing piece.

Jacob: “That was a great make work project that you just did, Jonah. Did anybody benefit from that?”

Jonah looking very guilty drops his head a little and sheepishly says “No.”

We are odd balls.

One of the great things about not having cable TV is that we would have to work at watching political theater.  This means I have a time to finally tag some photos for Christmas.

Asleep on Mommy, originally uploaded by flatiron32.

We, The Tomaws, are expecting baby number two in August. I am coming up to the end of my first trimester and my belly seems to think I’m six months pregnant. Perfect strangers feel comfortable congratulating me, so it’s hardly practical to keep it a secret any longer.

It was difficult to find an appropriate picture for this post, but this one took me right back to the early days with Jonah; The days when our lives began to change for good. Looking back, I don’t even know how we used to fill our time. I know we used to consider ourselves busy people, but how was that even possible?

Things were tough and very overwhelming in the beginning. Jonah was not the easiest infant, but slowly he grew and each day got a little easier and now he’s this awesome little person who talks to us. Asside from his weird aversion to eating food, Jonah is a piece of cake now. This can mean only one thing. It’s time to start over.

IMG_1820, originally uploaded by flatiron32.

This is Jonah and his friend Nathan dressed as sheep for our church’s Christmas pageant. These costumes are adorable and ingenious. The babies mostly thought they looked hilarious and didn’t try to undress themselves at all, which is impressive for a bunch of two-year-olds. The little lambs didn’t end up getting much stage time and since Jacob helped guide them, it mostly looked like he was standing at the front of the church in his bathrobe for no reason. The parents were happy, though, and that is what matters.

It may have seemed like a small gesture to you, but I sincerely thank all of you who have sent Jonah cards for various occasions over the last year. Jonah loves them! In the evenings I still take out some of the Easter and Halloween cards that we received and Jonah carries them around the house and tells Jacob and I about the images on the cards. This has been a great way to teach the babe new words.

So with a second birthday, Christmas and the New Year right around the corner, since our toy chest overfloweth, I invite friends and family to send cards, post cards, anything with some fun imagery on it, to Jonah. I am planning to start a scrapbook for him so that he can leaf through and tell us all about ‘em. You’ll make his day, I promise.

IMG_1741, originally uploaded by flatiron32.

Jonah had a great Halloween. There were a few scary moments – an Anakin Skywalker mask that just didn’t make sense and a crazy moving skeleton decoration in one yard – that brought tears, but mostly Jonah thought it was really funny to see people all dressed up.

Instead of giving the world a Coke, my good will gesture would be to send you all a hug from Jonah in this costume, it couldn’t possibly be better if Winne-the-Pooh himself were there to hug you.