Welcome, little Ziya.  You were born on the afternoon of December 5, and being there to greet you as you made your grand appearance was one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life.  Your mother is a warrior woman – she danced, bounced, and breathed her way through 11.5 hours of labor without any pain medication, and she gave birth to you a lot faster than the nurses or midwife expected her to!  Your father was there with her every step of the way and they are so thrilled that you are finally here out in the world with all of us.

Your name means Splendor, Light, Glow, and you are indeed a glowing light.  You are beautiful, with the softest dark brown hair I’ve ever felt, and a cute little nose that scrunches up when you are curious or hungry.  More than anything, you are very, very loved by so many people.  We’ll have lots of adventures in the years to come, so get some rest, drink some milk, and let your sweet light shine.

Mmm.  The Yokohama Mama veggie burger at The Vortex.  I love its cheesy, teriyaki, pineapple goodness on a Hawaiian bun.

I also love the dried fruit stalls in China.  Pick a fruit, any fruit…I bet you can find it in a colorful heap down a winding hutong in Beijing.

Mellow Mushroom veggie pizza… that’s pretty awesome, too.  We just had some last night.

Okay, enough with the food.  What is going on?  Have I dropped off the face of the earth?  Maybe just a little.  You see, this grad school business is VERY BUSY.  Plus, it is also VERY INTERESTING.  So, while I might not absolutely have to do all the readings and give it all 110%, well…this is what I want to be doing…probably for a good long chunk of my life.  So I’m going all out here.  And that leaves very little time for other stuff.  Like a social life.

I’ll figure out the right balance in another week or so.  But yeah- grad school consumes around 70% of my time these days.  I love it.  But I also have a GRA (research assistantship) and I have a part-time job, and that’s around 28% of my time.  Which only leaves 2% for everything else, if I’m doing the math correctly.

To top it all off, I caught a bit of a cold this weekend, so I needed to devote some time to recuperating, too.  I’ve gotten a lot better about listening to my body and putting my own needs first lately.  It involves a lot of saying no for the time being, but hopefully that, too, will change.  Setting boundaries…that’s what I’m about these days.  I had to step down as the Director of Program Support for StandUp, but fortunately we have another awesome volunteer ready to take over for me.  Whew!

Also, Anna and her doggie Roo stayed with us last week and that was super awesome.  She spoiled us with tons of goodies and I got to talk to baby Ziya and read her a story…I read in my Human Development book that newborns can recognize the voices they heard in utero, so I hope lil Ziya will recognize me once she’s out of Anna’s womb.  This whole child-growing/birthing thing fascinates me.  Really and truly.

I have yammered on enough for the night and I have more reading to do, as always, so off I go…  just wanted to reassure everyone that I am alive and almost-entirely-well!

Oh!  Also, these are muscadines and I had them for the first time ever on Saturday at Lauren and Doug’s dinner party (along with lots’n'lots of other totally delicious food).  They are gooooooood.  You should try some.

Now…I’m really going.  Bye!

Hmm, it’s taking longer than I expected to get the apartment all put together. We basically didn’t do any unpacking this past week. Woops! But today- I think today we will make some progress. Let’s hope so.

I think I should like to go back to El Myr and eat MORE FOOD. Cuz it’s good. And cheap. And good.

I should also like to do a lengthy post on how I feel about the current state of affairs in my home state of Georgia regarding midwives, homebirth, and the ridiculous lack of options for women who want to choose where and how they give birth.

But that’s for another day. For now I will enjoy cute pictures of my friend’s healthy, still-inside-her alien-baby and I will pounce on Mark in the hopes that he wakes up and cooks breakfast for us. Because he definitely makes way better omelettes than I.