Christopher Golden Reed

When we started thinking about kids a few years ago I would always ask Thomas what he'd want to name our kids. He always came up with some sort of play on words or a pun or something like Bookcase. We ended up with quite a hilarious list of things we will NEVER name our kids. When we found out we were expecting we had only a few names on our list of things we WOULD name our kids and of those there was only one boy name.

In general I have a few requirements for things we name our kids. I want their names to be traditionally spelled and pronounced, they can't be something made up, there will be no unnecessary Xs, Ys or Zs. I might be picky but I don't want my kids to have to constantly correct the pronunciation or spelling of their name. I also want their middle names to come from family, something that connects them to the legacy left by an ancestor.

In the end we landed on the name Christopher Golden Reed for our little Blob. He's named after three pretty incredible people.

Christopher

His first name comes from a man I knew while serving my mission in England. We met Christopher Gunn on a drizzly day in Troquay. From the moment we stepped foot into his humble flat we knew he was special. His time on this earth was limited and both he and Heavenly Father knew that. Chris lapped up the Gospel so quickly it was astounding. In many ways he'd been living it for most of his life. Chris embodied humility in every way. We looked forward to our lessons with him because we knew in the end we would walk out much more uplifted by him than he ever was by us. Just a few days before his scheduled baptism he found out that his cancer was back in full force. All he could say was how grateful he was that the method of chemo they were administering him would still allow him to be baptized on time. I've never seen anyone more peaceful and confident as he was the day he became a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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Chris Gunn died about 6 months after I came home from my mission. He had never married and had no children. He was buried in a natural cemetery, on a hill overlooking the beautiful seaside town of Torquay. When we visited that area of my mission in the spring of 2014 we stopped to find his grave site and honor him. I was surprised at how emotional I was when we finally found his simple headstone in that meadow. I was overcome with gratitude for the chance to have known Chris and to have taught him the Gospel. I knew then that Christoper was a name I would put right at the top of favorite names for future children. It ended up being the only boy name on that list so when we found out Blob was a boy it was an easy choice. I think we'll always use his full name, like Thomas-never Tom- does, or shorten it to Topher.

Golden

The middle name for our son comes from another person I have great reverence and honor for. My grandpa, Keith Golden Anderson. He had and interesting life even before he was born. His mother met with a man named J. Golden Kimball to discuss the difficult circumstances in which she found herself expecting a child. J. Golden was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in the LDS church at the time. He counseled my great grandma Goldie to keep her child even though it wouldn't be the easiest path. She did as he directed and my grandpa Keith Golden was born in August of 1929. He was raised by his grandparents and eventually adopted by them as well. He never really knew who his father was. I think it was these circumstances that made my grandpa so deeply value family connections in his later years.

J. Golden Kimball
Source

J. Golden Kimball was known for his sermons sprinkled with hells  and damns and if you knew my grandpa he was no different. They both had deep and abiding testimonies of the Gospel but they we country men. Gramps, as we called him, loved Diet Pepsi, horses and his grand kids. He taught us all how to ride a horse, weed a garden, decorate for Christmas and love the country. He had a short Swedish temper and could often be heard to bark, "Be still, dammit!" to which we just giggled and continued on with whatever mischief we were up to. He had the most legendary stories about being a real cowboy and in my eyes he was a true hero. Some of my most treasured memories are sitting on the front porch with him at night watching the stars and counting planes. We'd sip Diet Pepsi and sway in the porch swing. It was magic to me.

Gramps died just over 10 years ago and we all miss him dearly. At Thanksgiving the fall before he passed away he sat us all down and gave us some wise counsel. He wanted us to always make him proud, to always honor the Anderson name and make good choices with our lives. I don't think that is something I will ever forget and I hope to teach my son to honor the name he's given and make his ancestors proud.

Reed

The last name given to our son is Reed. This last name hasn't been in existence for very long- only a couple generations- since the  Hopi tribe members don't traditionally have last names. I am so excited that all of our kids will all have this name from their dad. I can't think of anyone who I love more in the whole world. Thomas is intelligent, he's witty and engaging to be around. He makes friends everywhere we go, he's courageous and hard working. He thinks of other people and will go out of his way to help someone or make them feel special. He's incredibly driven without ego and he is good to his very core.

I hope that our little boy grows up honoring the names we chose to give him. I hope he knows that he is one in a long line of strong, courageous and humble men.

The First Two Weeks

On December 1, 2015 at exactly 10:30 AM our little boy was born.

Christopher Golden Reed

I couldn't believe how immediately I fell in love with this boy! I guess I had been falling in love with him all along but when I actually held him in my arms it was a whole different story.

He has been such a good baby these past two weeks. He has learned to eat like a champ and sleeps five, six and sometimes seven hours a night. He loves to take naps on mom's chest and snuggle with dad while looking at the lights on the Christmas tree.

The first two weeks have flown by! I have loved being a mom way more than I expected to. I have loved every second with Christopher. I miss him like crazy when he sleeps all night and I can't wait till he wakes up so I can see him again. I love looking at his hairy little ears, back and thighs and kissing his chubby cheeks. He is so perfect!

Bringing him home to the nursery we'd spent so much time putting together was surreal. So many times I had walked by that room and imagined what it might be like to see a baby in the crib. It is so much better to see him there than I could have dreamed. I love spending time with him there.

My best friend, Melanie, came up from Texas for 5 days starting the day after we got home from the hospital and I can't even begin to say how enormous a blessing that was for us. She gave me such confidence in my abilities while she was here. She cooked and cleaned and changed so many diapers. She coached me on breastfeeding and snuggled Topher so we could nap during the day and sleep in.

How do you thank an angel for coming to help like that?

There have been a few days while dad was at work that Christopher and I didn't have anything to do so we just sat on the couch all day. That is heaven I tell you! We have changed so many diapers and been peed on almost daily.

Christopher wasn't a huge fan of sponge baths but sink baths are one of his favorite things.

Christopher is so content and happy, he has the sweetest disposition and I can't believe he is ours to keep forever and ever. 

How to Pass Time When Your Baby is Overdue

Paint your guest room. I thought that taping off all the trim the night the baby was due would somehow trick him into ruining our plans and coming that night. It didn't and we ended up painting the whole room on Thanksgiving morning.

^^ Notice the new paint, the bed frame assembly and new rug rolled up there. All part of passing the time.^^

Deep clean your front room. We moved all the furniture, cleaned the rug (it's a lot more intense than it sounds), made a place for the Christmas tree and put away all the things.

Drive to Maine and go shopping. We love the Crate & Barrel Outlet up in Kittery so we decided to make the trip up there and look around on black Friday. Once again, I thought making plans, especially far away from home, would somehow entice the baby to make a move but it didn't. We did end up with a nice new rug though.

Buy and put up your Christmas tree. We got all the decorations out and strung 7 strings of lights on that thing. We also put up all the other Christmas decor- we have a LOT of it!

Change out your bed frame in preparation for your new mattress to arrive. To be fair, Thomas did this one mostly on his own.

Walk around the mall. I think we did about three miles in one go there. I'm pretty sure all it did was rock the baby to sleep, he doesn't seem to be any more willing to make a move.

Go out to lunch with your husband. We try to do this every once in a while and since I am no longer working I had plenty of time to drive up to Andover and have a little Mexican food with him.

Walk around Target for an hour trying to find something interesting to buy. I only found one pair of cozy socks which cost $2. I didn't feel like waiting in line to buy just those so I left them in a cart and walked out of Target with nothing. How is that even a thing?!

**I finished writing this blog post the night that I ended up going into labor so maybe the Mexican food for lunch and walking around Target really did do something to get things moving**

Nursery Tour

One thing that everyone asks you when you are nearing the end of your pregnancy is, "are you ready?" I never know what to say because you just have no idea what to expect. You can think about it a lot and do all the research you can but until you experience it yourself I don't think you really have any idea how it is going to change your life.

Logistically I would say we're ready. We've spent hours upon hours picking out gear, painting, building things and organizing. We scoured Craigslist for a glider and a dresser. The dresser didn't work out and I still sort of want to light it on fire in the back yard. We ended up with one from Ikea in the end which makes me a little less stressed about things. We have a car seat, some clothes, somewhere for the baby to sleep. In that way I'd say we're ready. Ready for the single most life-changing event of our entire lives? Perhaps not fully.

Either way, my sisters have been begging for pictures of the nursery so here they are.

We decided on the front room upstairs in our house. It has a great little dormer that just begs for a pile of pillows and a stack of books. 

Thomas put the crib together months ago one Saturday morning, he just woke up and decided it was time. It took him 5 trips to 3 different hardware stores to get it all done. We bought from some friends of ours who were moving and they couldn't find the hardware it had come with so we had to find our own. I think Thomas loved working on it though. We had to add the Darth Vader pillow in the crib- I couldn't leave it in the store when I saw it- along with the clam shell crochet blanket I made.

We painted the oars over there to add to the nautical theme of the room. Thomas did the one on the left and I did the one on the right. I loved working on things like that for the baby. The glider we scored on Craigslist might be my favorite thing. We looked high and low for something that would look nice and was high quality. It also had to fit up our stairs which is something we've learned we always have to check when buying things for our house. I was giddy when we found this puppy!

We added a picture from our wedding that used to hang in our living room. I think it's very fitting that it says "You're my favorite" because this kid is our favorite. It's okay to have a favorite kid right? He's our only one so far so I think we're good. Just in case he gets too full of himself though we added this sign to the nursery too:

I am pretty sure my Auntie Kathy has said this to me a hundred times over the years.

And that's about it. Every time I look in there I still can't believe that there will be another human living in our house before we know it. I don't know if we're ready for him yet but we are sure excited to meet him! (I am writing this on my due date so I hope to see him sooner than later...)

Come on baby boy! We're waiting for you!

Third Trimester Wrap Up

As I only have about 3 weeks left before this baby is here I figured I should write a little bit about how this third trimester has been. I think it's been the one where I have seen the most change. I went from thinking that hardly anyone could notice my belly to how could anyone miss this thing! I feel like the weeks have absolutely flown by and I can hardly believe that we have such a short time left before we get to meet this little creature we call Blob. (We actually have had a name picked out for a while but until I actually see his face I can't be certain that's who he is)

As the baby has gotten bigger his movements have become so much more pronounced and at times painful. It feels like there is a real baby in there! I think I even held on to his foot the other night when he was really stretching out. That made the whole thing a lot more baby and a less blob to me.

28 Weeks

26 Weeks

My body is definitely feeling the effects of trying to hold onto Blob. I have zero core strength left and if I stand or walk for too long I can feel the muscles at the top and bottom of my belly start to panic. My hips have totally lost all control of themselves. I sat on the couch Indian style for an hour or two the other night crocheting and the next day I was almost completely lame. I felt like my legs were barely hanging onto the rest of my body.

32 Weeks

31 Weeks

I feel like I've been a little more emotional the last few weeks, more so than at any other time in this pregnancy. I just keep anticipating that moment of holding little Blob for the first time and it stirs up a crazy mix of love, anxiety and excitement. I don't know if I have necessarily been one of those people who feels a super strong bond with the baby before it's born. He's just sort of in there doing his thing and that's cool with me. I know that will change once I see his little face and get to hold him in my arms though.

36 Weeks

35 Weeks

 When you're obviously pregnant people treat you differently. It's not always a good thing, you get strange glances and comments wherever you go but it often pays off. We were downtown at one of our favorite restaurants and I really wanted their butternut squash ravioli. The only problem was that they didn't have it on the dinner menu that night, it had been on the lunch menu though. I pointed to my stomach and asked the server if there was any way the kitchen could make it for me. A few minutes later I was being served butternut squash ravioli. 

37 Weeks

The absolute BEST thing about being pregnant has been watching Thomas really embrace becoming a dad. At first I think we were both a little terrified of what was coming although it's something we'd been waiting on for a while. The other night we were driving and talking about how there are only a few weeks left and Thomas said, "It's like a dream come true, isn't it? I'm getting so excited!" 

I love listening to him talk to our baby and say goodbye to him when he leaves for work and goodnight to him in the evenings. People are always halfway warning us that our lives are about to change FOREVER! and Thomas just seems to not mind that so much. Yes, it will be different and we will be parents for the rest of eternity but isn't that just the greatest thing you can imagine doing? I know we'll be in poop up to our eyes, I know it's extremely challenging but I am so glad that Thomas and I get to do it all together. He's my best friend and he's going to be a great dad!

Thomas has been working so hard in the nursery- putting up shelves and curtains, building the crib and getting everything ready.