As I write this, you are asleep in the swing in front of me. This is what we call a MIRACLE. Month three has been the Month of No Daytime Sleeping. At all. Ever. Not even in the car seat.

The tradeoff is that you’ve been sleeping at night for several hours. Eight, even, that one time, and the next morning I ran a marathon backwards while singing showtunes. It’s almost worth it, the way you’re letting me sleep for more than two hours at a time. You don’t want me to put you down during the day, but at least I’m fairly rested while it’s happening.

Month three is also the Month You Found Your Voice. And oh, what a sweet voice it is. You are just bubbling over with sounds – coos and laughs and squeals and ahhs. We just sit and watch you talk. I could do it all day. Some of my favorite moments are when you’re hanging out with your dad, just talking away, and he’s asking you follow-up questions.

You: ohhhh-ahah-SQUEAL
Aaron: Really? Then what happened?
You: mmmmmmmmAH
Aaron: No. You’re kidding. How did you feel about that?
You: buh buh buh
Aaron: What do you think we should have for dinner?

You’ve really become an alert little person lately. You can hold your head up and steady, and you want to look around all the time. We’ve had strangely warm weather the past few weeks, so you and I have been taking walks around the neighborhood, you strapped to my chest and facing out at the world. Your eyes are wide and your mouth is open and I talk up a storm, trying to tell you about trees and colors and dogs and neighbors and sunshine. This is your world, girl. I want you to know it.

You love to ‘stand up’, pushing off on your feet while we hold you up. Your dad is convinced you’ll be walking any day now. We bought a bouncy thing that hangs from a doorway and allows you to sit up with your feet grazing the floor. One day you’ll use it to push off and jump and swing around. Today you use it to drool on.

I’m learning more and more how to work and be your mom. We have two awesome friends, Cristy and Becky, who take care of you a few days a week so I can go to meetings and sit at my computer for more than five seconds (see: no day sleeping). They are fantastic and I am so thankful for them and how much they seem to enjoy you. And you them.

Month three was a tough one for me. Lots of personal crisis stuff – what am I doing, is this still the right job, should I work at all, can we afford it. Ultimately, the question is this: What do I want my life to look like? I’m still working that out, sister. But I’m trying. We’re trying. And we’ll get there.

I love you, sweet cheeks. Thanks for being awesome.

Love,
Mama

We get asked a lot of questions about Campbell’s name. Where did it come from? Is it a family name? What does it mean? And the answer is… nowhere. no. nothing.

OK, that’s not entirely true. Aaron watches a show called Damages that has an actor named Campbell Scott on it. He saw it on screen one day and it stuck with him. He was pretty sold on it right away, actually. I took longer to convince. We wanted something that sounded like it could be anything – a writer, a doctor, a stay-at-home mom, a bum on the street. You know, whatever she wanted to be.

(The part where it doesn’t mean anything isn’t entirely true, either. According to the baby sites, Campbell means ‘crooked mouth.’)

I have a bit of a hang up about names. See, I’ve never liked mine. (Sorry, mom.) I don’t feel like it suits me. It sounds cheerleader-y, ditzy, stripper-y. Seriously. Anytime there are a bunch of women on TV trying to, like, win the love of Bret Michaels, I guarantee three of them will be named Brandi. Brandy. Brandie. Brandee. (That one’s the worst.)

So naming our little girl was a daunting task for me. I didn’t want to saddle her with something she hated. I wanted her to have options. But mostly, I didn’t want people to have an idea of who she was before they actually met her.

The longer we talked about Campbell, the more it grew on me. It sounds solid to me, grounded. There aren’t any famous and also trashy people named Campbell. It’s unique, but not crazy. It’s a word people know and know how to spell. I was starting to feel it. Then Aaron brought in the big guns – the middle name. Louise. After my grandmother.

This is my grandmother, Louise. (And my mom, Nelda.) (And me.)

I loved the idea of using a family name, and Campbell Louise flows so well. I was excited to honor my Mawmaw, the lady who took care of her giant family and raised my mom and introduced us to chocolate pie. Plus, she’d had a great nickname – Tootsie. Toots. Totally cute for a baby girl.

Then my Mawmaw got sick. She had a stroke, and then another one. She lost use of the right side of her body. She started forgetting who people were. A blood clot. A broken hip. She started talking to people who had died years ago. She got a little better, then a little worse. She couldn’t swallow food. When asked, she would say her name was “Number 29″. It was rough on my family, especially my mom. It was hard for me to be so far away from them.

Mawmaw passed away on November first. Her body had just had enough. The service was scheduled for the following Saturday. My mom was freaking out that Campbell would come sometime that week. I spent a lot of time talking to my stomach, asking her to please just hold out. Stay in there until after the funeral. The service was at 11am on Saturday. I started having contractions at noon.

The original Toots and Toots the Second missed each other on earth by just a few days. But I like to think they’ve got a connection.

We have made it two months. Two months! Can you believe it? I can’t, truly. It’s not just that I feel like we were driving to the hospital with major contractions about five seconds ago, I feel like I just saw that plus sign on the test yesterday.

You hear a lot when you’re pregnant about how quickly the time will go by once the baby is born. “You won’t believe it!” they say, usually adding, “You’ll blink and she’ll be four years old!” I’m not sure what the sentiment is that they are trying to get across when they say those things. Slow down and enjoy it? The bad parts will be over before you know it? I wish my kids were still that small? I’m so glad my kids are bigger now? I don’t know. But I do know that while I feel like you just got here, we’ve had several moments that felt never ending.

Like the 3am feedings that ended not with you falling back asleep, but with you screaming your head off for two hours. Like driving around at midnight with you in the carseat in hopes that the motion would lull you to sleep. Like daylong fussy periods when you and I are home alone and I don’t know how to settle you down.

But, oh, there are such sweet times, too. Watching you with your grandparents, four people who are willing to make themselves look as foolish as possible in hopes of making you smile. We haven’t had the heart to tell them your smiles are mostly gas-related at this point. Falling asleep on the couch with you on my chest. Putting you in all the cute little outfits everyone gave you before you were born. Reading stories, smiling at the ceiling fan, taking walks, laughing at Daddy. Introducing you to all our friends. Learning how to incorporate you into our lives.

You and I have gotten pretty good at going out in public together. We’ve been to the grocery store, Target, the mall. I’ve fed you all over town. I’ve changed you in dressing rooms where you have shot pee all over clothes that I may or may not have left in the room. (Don’t tell anyone.)

People ask us a lot if we miss out old life, the freedom we had to go out and do whatever we wanted. It’s a weird question, I think. Are they asking if we regret having you? If we’d rather be at the movies than at home with you? What if we said yes?

We waited a long time to have you, girl. We’ve been married almost ten years. Most of our friends have a couple of kids by now. But the waiting gave us the time to just BE. We grew up together. We learned how to build the life we really wanted to live. And then we added you into that mix. I don’t see a divide between the ‘old’ life and the ‘new’ life. It’s just the next right thing. That’s all we can do. The next right thing.

You are fabulous, sweet girl, and we are thrilled to know you.

Love,
Mama

Nicknames: sweet cheeks, darling, sugar, honey, baby girl, toots

Favorites: the swing, the playmat, laying on the changing pad, looking at the dot paintings on the living room wall

Not a Fan: changing clothes, wearing socks, the bouncy chair, the bulb syringe

Aaron gave me a Kindle for my birthday in August. I wasn’t sure if I would like using it, but it has turned out to be one of the coolest things I have. It makes it so easy to take your reading with you, you can check out library books, and any classic novels are free to download. Plus, you can read with one hand, a skill I have found very useful these past couple of months. I love it.

The list:

1. Evenings At Five – Gail Godwin
2. The Storm – Frederick Buechner
3. It’s Really All About God – Samir Selmanovic
4. A Passage to India – EM Forster
5. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally – Marcus Borg
6. Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton
7. One Day – David Nicholls
8. Lament For a Son – Nicholas Wolterstorff
9. The Whole World Over – Julia Glass
10. The Widower’s Tale – Julia Glass
11. Evolving in Monkey Town – Rachel Held Evans
12. Suite Scarlett – Maureen Johnson
13. Mr. Bedford and the Muses – Gail Godwin
14. The Three Weissmanns of Westport – Cathleen Schine
15. Better Safe Than Sued: Keeping Your Students and Ministry Alive – Jack Crabtree
16. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
17. Saving Jesus From the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus – Robin Meyers
18. 13 Little Blue Envelopes – Maureen Johnson
19. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
20. Spoiled – Heather Cocks
21. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
22. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
23. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
24. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang – Chelsea Handler
25. Queen of the Underworld – Gail Godwin
26. Bossypants – Tina Fey
27. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – Helen Simonson
28. Alice I Have Been – Melanie Benjamin
29. When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead
30. Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven – Fannie Flagg
31. Standing in the Rainbow – Fannie Flagg
32. I Still Dream About You – Fannie Flagg
33. Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading – Nina Sankovitch
34. Is Everyone Hanging Out With Me? And Other Concerns – Mindy Kaling
35. Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby

So. Blogging. I miss it.

I spent most of 2011 growing the cutest baby there has ever been. It was also my busiest and biggest year professionally. I decided about halfway through that I wasn’t going to feel bad about not keeping this thing up. I was writing, just not anything I wanted to share. So I kept up my good things lists and called it good.

I’d like to get back in the habit, though. I want to make a point to record what’s happening around here and what’s going on in my head. I’m already two months in to this mothering thing and I want to remember how it’s going. So far it’s a blur of waking up at all hours and Brothers and Sisters reruns and baby cheeks and coffee ice cream.

So we’ll see.

I am really excited about this year. Life with our little girl has been pretty amazing so far. She’s so awesome. Lots of fun things are on the horizon personally and professionally. I’m learning how to be a mom and a pastor at the same time. I’m trying to figure out how to still be me and not just be Campbell’s mom.

Does WordPress have an app? Can I blog from my phone at 3am? That might help me make this happen.

Dec 1 – Ran errands with CeeLo and we both survived.
Dec 2 – I discovered disco baby pants.
Dec 3 – Took Campbell to meet Santa.
Dec 4 – Really beautiful music in church.
Dec 5 – Restful day at home with Campbell watching Gilmore Girls reruns.
Dec 6 – Delicious and trashy Taco Bell dinner.
Dec 7 – Rocked out all our Christmas shopping online during one baby nap.
Dec 8 – I discovered kids consignment stores.
Dec 9 – Successful trip to the mall with the kid, including a feeding.
Dec 10 – Sushi lunch with a friend.
Dec 11 – Really lovely Christmas music service at church.
Dec 12 – Youth Christmas service. So much fun.
Dec 13 – Went to staff meeting for the first time in two months, didn’t die.
Dec 14 – Fun youth staff dinner.
Dec 15 – Big lock in shopping trip with Aaron and Campbell.
Dec 16 – First ever youth group lock in! Nerf tag in the worship center and a high school only room, win.
Dec 17 – Lock in is over! Everyone survived! Adults are tired but want to do it again!
Dec 18 – Lunch after church with our home from college kids.
Dec 19 – Fun leadership party followed by packing CeeLo up for her first ever overnight drive to Texas.
Dec 20 – Survived the drive, hung out with my family, so restful and fun.
Dec 21 – Dinner with Aaron’s brother and his wife and daughter. So nice to get to hang with them outside of major family time.
Dec 22 – High school friend night! Kids everywhere! So fun!
Dec 23 – Spent the day with my favorite college friend Nikki.
Dec 24 – Lovely day baking and wrapping gifts and watching football and warning store clerks about my dad’s imminent arrival.
Dec 25 – The most relaxing Christmas day of my life.
Dec 26 – Chicken fried chicken. Biscuits. Whole bowls of gravy for each person.
Dec 27 – Chopped brisket, grilled sausage, white bread, sweet tea.
Dec 28 – Overnight drive home. HOOOOOME.
Dec 29 – Campbell was super fussy so we put her in the car and got donuts. Win-win.
Dec 30 – Relaxing day with our little family.
Dec 31 – Fun, chilled out New Year’s Eve with good friends. Also, baby tutu.

There were a few days in November, and then this happened.

Campbell Louise Manes, born November 6, 2011 at 1:18am
9 pounds, 21.5 inches
super awesome

So I could make a list, but they would all be the same. Hung out with Campbell. Took a nap, fed Campbell. Spent a lot of time looking at Campbell and talking about how awesome she is. Kissed Campbell’s fat little cheeks.

I have lots more to say about it all. Maybe one day I’ll actually post about it.

She totally rules.

Oct 1 – Loooooong hectic crazy day. For me. Great for the kids on the retreat.
Oct 2 – Survived the weekend, took a four-hour nap, went to bed two hours later.
Oct 3 – Church baby shower! So overwhelmed with love and support and generosity.
Oct 4 – Spent the afternoon sorting gifts and returning multiples. So much awesome.
Oct 5 – Really fun baby shopping trip with Aaron. He is hilariously cute about this whole thing.
Oct 6 – Fun lunch with a kid who moved away. Fried chicken!
Oct 7 – Chill night at home.
Oct 8 – Fun Saturday out with Aaron.
Oct 9 – Movie date. With Aaron, but also with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling.
Oct 10 – Good youth group discussion about wealth and need.
Oct 11 – One month til baby!
Oct 12 – Spontaneous dinner date and the discovery of Crossfit competitions on ESPN.
Oct 13 – Hospital tour and baby class! It’s getting real, y’all.
Oct 14 – Super awesome shower with my favorite people. Marche and Etsy. Great party.
Oct 15 – Lots of baby prep work, including the purchase of stretchy silver denim leggings.
Oct 16 – Baby laundry! Probably the only time I’ll think it’s cute!
Oct 17 – Day off from youth group = steaks on the grill.
Oct 18 – This video entered my life: http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation/video/Treat-Yourself/1362182
Oct 19 – We met with our awesome new pediatrician. Bow tie and stripey socks on an old doctor guy? Yes.
Oct 20 – Ultrasound and Indian buffet! Fun day.
Oct 21 – Super fun Halloween party. We went as Beyonce and Jay-Z. Obviously.
Oct 22 – Fun fall festival at the church.
Oct 23 – Baby craft day!
Oct 24 – What I thought would be a rough youth night turned out pretty good.
Oct 25 – Long tiring day, made better by a solo lunch with a book.
Oct 26 – We thought my water broke. It didn’t. Then we ate tacos and went to a Waterdeep show. There was a whole-room singalong to Sweet River Roll. I cried.
Oct 27 – Doctor says baby is coming any day!
Oct 28 – Avetts!
Oct 29 – Lazy day. Trying to take advantage of our last non-parent weekends.
Oct 30 – Got some AMAZING new chairs for the living room. It’s like we’re grown ups.
Oct 31 – Youth group Halloween party! So fun.

Sept 1 – Really good discussion in book club.
Sept 2 – This baby is coming in ten weeks. TEN WEEKS.
Sept 3 – Aaron’s brother and his wife and daughther came to visit! Delicious brunch followed by Sweet Cici’s.
Sept 4 – Delicious lunch and the Warhol exhibit at the Frist with the family.
Sept 5 – Toured the Ryman and walked downtown with the family, then a fun night with friends.
Sept 6 – Very productive day.
Sept 7 – Coworker was driving me insane and I didn’t kill ANYONE.
Sept 8 – Fellow book club member was driving me insane and I didn’t kill ANYONE.
Sept 9 – Great girls night out with a new friend.
Sept 10 – Two new youth events, nerf dart tag and spa makeover night, were big successes.
Sept 11 – Lazy football nap day.
Sept 12 – Good discussion in youth group.
Sept 13 – I killed it at the Missoni sale at Target AND we left for vacation. Fabulous day.
Sept 14 – Savannah! Waffles, trolleys, old church tours, nap, gorgeous city, parmesan grits, river walk, gourmet ice cream.
Sept 15 – Cemetery tour! Beach! Sushi!
Sept 16 – Started furnishing the nursery at IKEA.
Sept 17 – Made pumpkin molasses cookies for a fun barbecue with friends.
Sept 18 – Great hangout with friends, and COACH WON THE EMMY.
Sept 19 – One of my volunteers spoke in youth group for the first time and did a great job.
Sept 20 – Got a ton of work done for fall retreat.
Sept 21 – Sold the guest room furniture! It’s nursery time!
Sept 22 – We started painting the nursery. And by we, I mean Aaron.
Sept 23 – Kari came to town! We saw a haunted hitchhiker! Women’s retreat begins!
Sept 24 – Great day at the retreat with Susan Isaacs, brisket tacos, late night girl time.
Sept 25 – Yet another football nap day. I love Sundays.
Sept 26 – Really good discussion in small group about what it means to be part of the bigger picture.
Sept 27 – Made the official Week Of Retreat To Do List.
Sept 28 – Justin Beiber was in town resulting in hilarious texts from my girls as they chased him around.
Sept 29 – Went to a gender reveal party for a friend. Our girl’s BFF is going to be a BOY.
Sept 30 – The first ever GPYG fall retreat began. Great first night.

I know how much you’re all dying to know what I did every day. Two months ago. 2011 is totally the year of my blog.

Aug 1 – Reading lunch at Zoe’s. Delicious and informative.
Aug 2 – Great youth staff meeting. This year is going to be great.
Aug 3 – Got Spotify. I feel cool and stressed out.
Aug 4 – Holiday World!
Aug 5 – Cleaned house while listening to a custom playlist made by Mike.
Aug 6 – Late night sushi date.
Aug 7 – Giant relay race for upcoming 6th graders! So much fun.
Aug 8 – Fall kick off cookout!
Aug 9 – Dinner with the college kids.
Aug 10 – Great birthday! Tiramisu, awesome gifts, and a night out dancing to an 80s cover band.
Aug 11 – I survived the glucose test! I don’t know if I passed, but I did not pass OUT.
Aug 12 – Finally bought some real maternity clothes AND a sushi/donut date.
Aug 13 – Lots of vintage furniture shopping with Aaron.
Aug 14 – Relaxing nap day.
Aug 15 – First youth service of the school year! And I passed the glucose test!
Aug 16 – I was a few minutes late to get breakfast at Chick-Fil-A but they gave me chicken minis ANYWAY.
Aug 17 – FINALLY cleaned out my office from moving in. Six months ago.
Aug 18 – My friend Allison came through town. Great visit, delicious food, REISLING-PEAR SORBET.
Aug 19 – Bonded with a friend over a shared knowledge of random Barenaked Ladies lyrics.
Aug 20 – Delicious dinner at a new indian restaurant.
Aug 21 – Really beautiful music service at church.
Aug 22 – First high school girls small group of the semester. Love those girls so much.
Aug 23 – Dinner with one of my favorite college girls.
Aug 24 – Aaron got a great new client.
Aug 25 – Flew to Texas! Lunch with mom! Swimming!
Aug 26 – So. Much. Shopping.
Aug 27 – Baby shower with my high school friends and their moms. So thankful to still be close with them.
Aug 28 – Family baby shower. So many tiny pink outfits. And rainbow jello.
Aug 29 – Meeting with all the new youth parents. So excited about this year.
Aug 30 – Met with our new small group for the first time. Hoping to make some new friends.
Aug 31 – Fun catch up dinner with good friends. Also, lamb.