Our Mother's Day Herb Garden

This Mother's Day was a special one for me. Not only have I felt liberated from the PTSD that plagued my transition to motherhood, but I had my mother in town for the weekend, an adorable, active toddler who loves his mama and a loving husband, I got to plant an herb garden in the disgustingly overgrown, weed filled flowerbed at the entrance of my apartment.

I didn't take a before picture, but this is what it looks like now:


In the conceptual stages of our garden, I hadn't planned on it being mostly an herb garden, but found that dual functionality of herbs to be appealing to me. Many of the herbs we chose to plant also have beautiful, colorful flowers that will cover the ground in a rich blanket of fragrant, beautiful, medicinal, and culinary useful flora.

Planted in the garden is:

Lavendar
Rosemary
Echinacea
Spearmint
California Poppy
Thyme
Anice
Calendula
Nasturium
Lemon Balm
Tulips

Many of them can be used in cooking, herbal baths, teas and tinctures for a variety of remedies and immune supportive purposes.

I'm happy to have a little spot of earth to call my own garden. For added effect, I placed rocks at the edge of the garden along the concrete border.

The seeds that were planted should be sprouting early June, so I will be pleasantly surprised to see how they grow and if my attempts at following the planting instructions actually yield plants. That's the really challenge!!

Hopefully, I'll be able to post after pictures as things grow up. And then I'll be able to boast of all the relaxing herbal baths, and fresh herbs used in my cooking, and the pretty garden that will bring a smile to my face as I walk in my front door.

Update on Willem

He learned to run last month, and to climb on everything. He's danced on tables a few times because he discovered he could climb on top of them. He'll dance whenever he hears music, sees me dancing (especially when I practice my Irish dance steps), and he'll even dance if you say the word "Dance." He also waves whenever we leave anywhere or see cars or people go by. I started calling him my little beauty queen because its like he's on parade as he alternates waving hands and then waves with both hands at the same time. This last week he starting saying "Hi" when he waves to people or if someone says hi to him. Today I heard him talk to me in English for the first time when he said Hi in response to me. He also says Yeah (or uh-huh), Hey, in addition to mama and dada. He uses sign language to tell me he wants milk, and I'm hoping that he'll start saying milk sometime soon. He loves to play on the playground and he's trying to figure out how to ride a tricycle, use a skateboard and how to play with the big kids in our neighborhood. I'd say with all that going on, he's a really busy 14 month old! And its a ton of fun.

Research Updates and Willem too!

Our life pretty much revolves around three things: fish, birth and Willem. Peter has been busy in the lab. It felt like pulling teeth getting the juvenile fish experiments done. After two months of hard, lab intensive work, Peter completed that data set of 40 baby fish. At the end of the day, he'd come home and tell me about the fish. Then I'd tell him about the silly cute things that Willem did that day. And then I'd tell him about what I did when Willem was napping. Since I'm waiting for my survey to get participants, I haven't had much to do on my thesis research.

So instead I've been busy researching my new interest: birth practices. I recently started a blog that chronicles my findings, feelings and opinions. The link to that is descentintomotherhood.blogspot.com I'm even on my way to a book of poetry! Before last month, the last time I wrote a poem was in high school. I guess that emotional hardship and suffering brings out the poet in me. Most of the poems have been an expression of the difficulty I've had with post traumatic stress after Willem's birth. Not that giving birth was so traumatic, but fighting with hospital staff over my bodily integrity and autonomy was. I also recently became a volunteer for the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) on their project "The Birth Survey". So Peter has heard alot about birth, too much if you ask him. Hence the blog.

But back to Peter. Last week, he went to California and collected more fish for his research. In one day, they hauled in over 100 hundred of the fish they needed, and then packed them into coolers and shipped them FedEX overnight. Lucky him, he got a one week break from experiments and is now back trying to complete two more data sets by the end of the school year. And then its off to Bodega Bay again for summer research. Hopefully, he'll get those data sets done later this month or early April and then have the remainder of next quarter to study for generals that will be coming up this fall. And then when he passes those, he'll be a PhD candidate!

As for my thesis research, its going well. I started collecting responses last week and I've already got 169 participants! That's more than enough to start my analysis. There's a distinct possibility that I'll be able to have my thesis written up before classes this summer, and then I'll defend it while I'm in Hawaii! Please pray that does happen.

As for Willem (I know that's the real reason why anyone reads this blog, and I've been slacking in photos and video of him), he is doing great! He learned to run a couple of weeks ago, and then climb on furniture this last week, and today he was working on running backwards. He's realized that he loves playgrounds, especially sliding down slides headfirst. Every week, we will alternate playing on the playground behind our apartment with the playground in the shopping center behind our complex, and the zoo, or Woodland Park playground. On sunny days, he plays in the fountains at U Village. And almost everyday (sometimes twice daily!), he takes me on walks to U village too. He knows the way and takes me there frequently. He loves to watch the cars, and especially the trucks go by. I promise I'll post pictures soon.

Tagged to do the Marriage Meme

What is his name? Peter Willem.

How long have you been married? It will be 4 years in August.

How long did you date? We met at the end of January in 2004. DTR'd in early March. Decided to marry each other in early April (at General Conference on Temple Square) and then got engaged end of May. Married Aug. It depends how you want to count that, but we say we dated for eight months.

Who eats more sweets? Cross out sweets and say chocolate. And that's Peter, by far.

Who said "I Love You" first? FUNNY STORY! At BYU we were in the same stake and we planned on going to stake conference together (this was March-ish). I called him to coordinate our plans and left message on his phone. At the end of the message, out of habit and familiarity, I said, "Okay love you, bye." And then I gasped. Mortified, I called my mom and then my best friend and told them in shock and embarrassment that I told him I loved him, and I didn't mean to! I thought for sure he was going to be scared off. I of course, worried about it through out the whole conference session and then afterwards, talking in the car, I sheepishly asked if he had heard anything weird in my message I left him. He told me no and then I asked more directly. He said he figured I said it like I say it to all of my friends and that he didn't mind. I think that's when we then decided that it was safe to say I love you to each other.


Who is taller? Peter, but not by much.

Who can sing better? Me. Definitely.

Who is smarter? Depends. He's got science and math covered. I've got sociology, language and humanities.

Who does the laundry? We both do. I love it when he folds my laundry for me.

Who pays the bills? I do. I'm better at staying on top of it.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does. I used to but then we switched once we started sharing the bed with Willem and I spend most of everynight side sleeping.

Who mows the lawn? UW landscaping.

Who cooks dinner? Recently, its been Peter more often.

Who drives? I drive more often because Peter is usually riding his bike places, but when we drive together, I let him drive because he really enjoys it and loves our car (whom we call Beau).

Who is more stubborn? Um. That's a tough one.

Who kissed who first? It was mutual. I guess we both knew thats what we wanted and it was the time to get it over with. We'd been resisting for a few days at that point. Well, more accurately, I waited for him to make the move because I didn't want to come on too strong and I really had this intention to not get there in the relationship early on.

Who asked who out first? He did. He wrote me the song, "Will You Go Out With Me? and recorded it with his friends and put it on a CD.

Who proposed? He did, but it was a technicality, by the time he actually put the ring on my finger, we already had the date scheduled with the temple and were in the middle of wedding preparations.

Who has more siblings? Peter. Not hard to do since I'm an only child.

Who wears the pants? We'll say it this way: When mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy.

Who do I tag? Everyone I would tag has already done it, so no one!

How do you play?

Excellent news! Jenne got permission to start collecting responses to her survey for her thesis.

If you are a married parent with at least one child under the age of 8 in your home, you are invited to participate.

The link to the survey is here: Parent Child Play and Couple Play in Married Families

Thank you for your participation!

Shutterfly Photo Books

For our family's Christmas presents this year, we put together a book of Willem's first year. We used www.shutterfly.com to print and design the book. We waited until Willem's birthday party to finish the book. That way everyone could get a book with the full first year, not just his birth to November. Its finished now and we've gotten the first copies of the book. We really like it.

We also got an extra that will be Willem's. We plan on doing a first year book like this for each of our children. Peter and I will keep a copy but then each child will have a copy of their own.

I'm also working on designing a wedding book with pictures of our wedding and the story of how we met. That will be our Valentine's present to each other this year.

Using shutterfly.com for these books is really easy and they look so good when printed.

I'm awake!

Today, I was downstairs while Willem was napping. He had been asleep for about 2 hours so I knew he'd be waking up soon. Above my head, I heard a thump. But no crying, no baby coos could be heard over the monitor. Then I heard footsteps. I walked to the stairs and looked up. And there was a very excied baby standing at the top of the stairs!

That's a pretty cool trick if you ask me.

So far this year

Updates from us:

We moved. Our new apartment is much bigger, so we are more comfortable where we are. The neighborhood is much nicer as well: a play ground right out side our back door, friends as neighbors, closer to campus and the walking trail and not on a busy street. However, we are looking forward to moving as soon as we can. For two reasons: to get Indie back (he's living in Las Vegas with my sister in law) and because we want to buy a house or condo soon.

Willem is almost 1 year old! Last weekend, we had his first birthday party. Both grandmas flew in for the party and spent some time with us. So sad, Willem was sick for the week before his party, so we partied without him. He did join us at the end for cake and a couple of pictures. The party was a luau in good Hawaiian style. And I have officially earned the designation of Haole Hawaiian because I make mean Kahlua pork in a crock pot!



In the last week, my thesis proposal was approved so I have the go-ahead to conduct my study. The next step is to get approval from Human Subjects (a technicality to conducting research with human participants) With a little bit of luck, the thesis will be done in time to graduate with my classmates in December.

That's what's been going on with us. Peter is working away at getting some publications out (hopefully he'll get two this year). I'm getting ready to go back to Hawaii for my last summer of classes and my good friend, Dominique, is going to play nanny to Willem while I'm in class. I'm excited for that time spent in paradise with my Chunka and Dom.

And the move is on

Ahead of schedule, we are moving into family housing ASAP. Thankfully, we have the whole month of November to get everything moved, a washer and dryer and kitchen table and chairs purchased. And for Thanksgiving, Jenne's mom and grandpa are coming to visit. And (this makes my day) this weekend is a three day weekend, sweet!

And in other moving news, Willem is a mover and a shaker. He officially walked (4 steps to Jenne and six steps from Jenne to the sofa) the day before his 9 month birthday. He primarily crawls for his transportation but he toddles around frrquently.

First Steps and Other News

Today is the announcement that Willem has officially taken his first steps. Shawnette saw his first successful step without falling down and today, Erka watched Willem take his first two steps, one foot and then the other. He seems to like showing off for friends instead of his Muti and Vati. So he has stepped and he's working on walking. Its funny to us that we have an 8 month old toddler.

Other news is that we will be moving to UW Family Housing next month (on Thanksgiving no less!). That is really good news for us because we will have a bigger apartment, be closer to school and pay less in rent each month, as well as being closer to friends who already live in the UW Housing community.

The thesis for Jenne's M.Ed. is coming along. The hope is that she will defend her proposal next month and start data collection at the beginning of the year.