Marriage
We hope our combo birth/marriage announcement was a nice surprise for most of you. When we moved in together Mike began making my lunches for work and he didn’t seem to mind how I looked in the morning. I showered him with insane affection and sincerely found his gaseous melodies amusing; there was simply no question that we belonged together. But we’re both cautious people so we waited until the time seemed more than right to tie up those lose legal ends.

When the time came, we called upon our friend Jake Bell to lead an intimate ceremony on the cliffs overlooking La Jolla Beach. Jake, who just recently graduated from law school, was given the title of Deputy Marriage Commisioner for 24 hours by the state of California so he could legally unite us. As the sun was setting, Jake read a poem and we said our own vows, made up on the spot. I was more than seven months pregnant so I could feel August moving the whole time, making me even more delirious with excitement. An older couple that was sitting a few feet away and witnessed the event congratulated us and said that fifty years ago they had eloped themselves. The gentleman told me he was sure their presence at our ceremony is a good omen.
(For more wedding photos go HERE) Thanks Jake for being our Deputy and our photographer!

Birth
August was born healthy and happy and has pretty much been that way since. My labor was a series of confirmations of Murphy’s Law in many ways, however. Irregular contractions, argumentative midwives, no sleep for over 24 hours and being rerouted from our natural birth friendly hospital to an unfamiliar county hospital emergency room with the only doctor in the practice I didn’t want, in the middle of the night was not at all the circumstance I had envisioned in our natural birth classes and I really wondered if under all the stress I could pull it off without an epidural. But by the time we arrived at our destination, my previous 26 or so ours of labor at home had left me with not a lot to do except push. So push I did for the next 3 hours. Finally, with the help of a little suction, August was plopped on my chest at 3:37 am. Piece of cake!

Mike and I were both overwhelmed. She was beautiful and sweet, calming at the sound of Mike’s voice and from that moment to this day, we have heard the same compliment over and over: She is so alert, so perceptive.

From the very beginning, I wanted to get August into the world with as little medical intervention as possible. Though I can be quite a wimp when it comes to physical pain, I felt very strongly that I owed it to her to give her the best first impression of this world that I can give. And, well, I’m also afraid of doctors. I had to do natural labor because I trust my instincts and my body far more than those who claim to give us modern medicine.

I do believe that some of who she is now is a direct result of both of us having been free of any drugs during the labor and those first days after. But make no mistake – birthing a baby is a LOT of serious work and I could not have done it without Mike holding me up (literally) through that full day of contractions and continually encouraging me and protecting me during it all.

Meeting the Family
The first family member to meet August besides us was my mother who was sweetly keeping quiet in my labor room bathroom while August was being born. I still cannot believe she managed to stay in there while I screamed at the top of my lungs during the last few minutes. She is a champ to respect my wishes when I was clearly insane. It’s even more unbelievable that mom was here in CA for a week waiting for me to go into labor and had just enough time to hold her granddaughter for the first time before having to catch her return flight back to Oklahoma. August is my parents seventh grandchild, so I guess they are getting pretty used to things like this.

Since then August has made a lot of friends. She’s been coast to coast, having visited NJ and got to meet all the Janiak and Maltz families. Mike’s parents and sister came for a visit last month. They took turns pushing August around in her stroller and holding her up like a sack full of gold. Her laughter and smiles can bring a bear to his knees, I’m sure, though we did not test this at the San Diego Zoo when we went. In July she got to meet her Aunt Alice, my sister and her 2nd uncle Dan who just moved to Seaside, CA. August also has met up with the DiNero’s (famous for getting August hooked on Baby Einstein videos) and the Cardaci’s who stopped by in May.

She’s also hung out at the beach and art shows and spent a lot of time downtown being the metro baby that she is. She particularly seems to enjoy being at parties where she’s the center of attention as long as no one minds of she falls asleep during the middle of it.

Speaking of titles… our friends really enjoy calling August by her first and second names. “August Moon”. My dad has taken to calling her Auggie and out of laziness I write Augs a lot. For clarity’s sake my sister’s husband who is well over six feet tall will be Big Uncle Dan. Grandma Janiak is now affectionately known as Ma Lynn and Grandpa Janiak will be Pops. My dad has long been Papa and though my mom has long been Grandma, I look forward to hearing what creative name August will give her.

Our Next Move
These first months of August’s life were not at all what our friends and family told us they would be like. However, they were as difficult as we expected them to be simply because we lack the support here in California that most parents come to rely upon to get them through the adjustment period. While our friends are great people, they are also mostly single people with busy lives and the babysitting offers have proved to be more theory than reality. Truth be told, I suppose we are extremely particular about who babysits anyway. Not that our friends are incompetent –not by any means. But we realized quickly that no one can replace family.

That being said, the day is fast approaching when we will leave this “Golden State” and move to the Garden State where we can drop August off at her grandparents house on those evenings when want to go to child inappropriate places, like say, a restaurant that uses real tablecloths. We considered all the obvious places to move once we realized that the phrase “It takes a village…” wasn’t joke. Aside from Mike’s large family being there, in the end we chose NJ for three reasons 1) The career opportunities for Mike are endless being so close to NYC 2) Future writing opportunities for me are greater on the east coast and 3) The schools in NJ are some of the best in the country. Both of us love California and will miss it, but we feel we made the best choice for August. Hopefully she won’t hold this move against us when she is an angst-ridden teenager whose only joy in life is surfing.

Our hope is to cut out of here October 16th. We’ll be staying with Mike’s parents in Middletown for a while until we buy what we hope will be our “house to grow old in”. That or we might rent for another year.

Latest News
Meanwhile, we are scrapping together nickels and dimes and enjoying our last weeks as Californians. Mike is negotiating with his present employer (which he really likes) to remain on the payroll, working remotely after we leave. Cross your fingers, say a prayer or rub your rosary; he may get to work from home, get a promotion, a good raise AND set himself up to help them open their east coast branch in the next few years. This would be heaven for us. We’ll let you know how it turns out.

Other exciting news is that August just had her six month check up and the doctor has given her a clean bill of health. I believe he even used the word “perfect” but I’m trying not to let it go to my head. He also said that any minute she’ll be crawling. My friend Stephanie tells me that we will then need to sell most of our belongings and rearrange the house. I’m sure she’s right. There is nothing our little piranha does not love to slime up with her fountain of drool.

Although she’s usually nicer than a grandma full of Vicodin, August is no pushover either. The one battle she keeps losing is that with her teeth. Teething is proof that God got a little distracted when deciding how humans grow. Had he been thinking this through, he would have realized that teething pain completely erases the sweetness of babies as well as the precious sleep of parents, albeit temporarily. She has two bottom teeth already and the two top ones are mercilessly pushing at her gums now. She is almost equally frustrated with the small fact that she cannot yet walk on her own. Refusing to face this reality she lunges at whatever she wants trusting that one of us will catch her. She’s been lucky so far.

Aside from catching my drooling, laughing, lunging, gorgeous baby, I spend my time doing our abundance of laundry, walking, trying to keep up my website and unfortunately, going to the doctor. This Monday I will have outpatient surgery to have a nasty lump removed from my right breast. This will be the 2nd time I’ve had this done, though the first surgery was 14 years ago. The lump is not likely cancerous, but it was pretty bothersome when I was trying to breastfeed August. It’s being removed as a precaution and also with the hope that if/when we get some sleep again, we might want to have another child someday who will surely need a fully functioning milk cafeteria. My sister is coming down to help with August while I recover. (Bless her!) Frankly, I’m looking forward to vegging out for a few hours. Still a few hours are all I can take, as I recently admitted to Mike that I have a serious addiction to the adorableness of our daughter. I am either slowly losing my mind or I am enjoying being a mom.

Thanks Again

As we mentioned in our announcement, August received more than her share of generous gifts. Personally, I was overwhelmed at times with the kindness of so many friends, family, and even strangers who sent a gift or a card of well wishes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It’s amazing to us how loved August is and in turn, how loved we are. We realize we are so blessed to be on this crazy journey with you all and we can’t think of anything we’ve done to deserve such happiness. Nevertheless, not a day goes by that we don’t say it out loud how truly lucky and happy we are.

In closing, we hope to see most of our CA friends at Tim and Michelle’s wedding on 10/15 (Yay Tim & Michelle!) so we can say a last goodbye. That, or give us a call and we’ll meet up before the big move. As for you NJ people, we’ll see you very soon. We hope you enjoy the pictures and keep up the communication with us!