~~ vida haifeña ~~

welcome to the world, alma june!

2007-11-27T17:14:00.000+02:00

~*~ alma june wallace was born in the early morning hours of november 27, 2007 ~*~

welcome to the world, baby cousin!

just a few days after akeva paz' first year birthday!

californ-eye-ay

2007-08-24T18:48:00.000+03:00

so, after yet another long pause in blogging, here are some photos for your enjoyment :)

we're visiting my family in california, and although we forgot the camera on all the important days (like akeva's first dip in the ocean!- so cute!), here are some everyday activities...

she's learning to wave :) and yes, those are SEVEN teeth in her mouth!

standing up and playing...

baths in the sink are the best :)

snoozin'....

for more photos...

2007-07-24T22:04:00.000+03:00

i am the WORST blogger... absolutely no updates! but fortunately my sister samantha has taken charge of making sure akeva's growth spurts are well documented :) check out her blog for recent pics!

a long time coming!

2007-06-25T02:00:00.000+03:00

it's been almost three months since i last posted photos, and a lot has happened since then!

akeva has grown two itsy bitsy teeth, a good sign that she's ready to eat "real" food...

which should always match her outfit ;) stylish girl that she is!

she's also learning to swim:

after a week of lessons, she's ready to go under the water, which is scary for me but fun for her:

i'll try to post more often :) promise!

happy naw-ruz!

2007-03-21T06:16:00.000+02:00

~*~ all dressed up in african garb for the new year ~*~

tonight was the turkeyville naw-ruz party, and i decided to make akevita a little african dress out of one of my headwraps... it came out really cute, but i should admit that i am a horrible seamstress and that the first version i made came out waay too small, so i had to add little panels on the side in order to get her in it... and then, once we got to the party, it started coming apart at the seams! ha! luckily, akeva is just sweet enough and small enough to pull off that raggedy look in style :)

at long last...

2007-03-09T01:55:00.000+02:00

a new post!

we've been moving into a new apartment for the last... i don't know... forever? seems like it anyway. moving is no fun and i don't recommend it, ever. just stay put is what i say! and periodically throw away all junk, so you don't end up with a ton of it... it seems to multiply on its own, so be careful...

once we're actually finished moving, i may post photos of the finished product... but seeing the rate our putting-things-away seems to be going, that may never happen...

akeva is growing and learning all sorts of new things... she is now a professional thumb-sucker and has even managed to roll over... she "talks" all the time, especially if i'm on the phone with someone, or if i'm listening to something with a lot of talking... tis very cute :)

for sammy :)

2007-02-18T02:23:00.001+02:00

here's your sobrinita in her pinguino shirt-- and, for once, not staring at the camera as if it were an alien about to abduct her!

so excited!

2007-02-13T04:58:00.000+02:00

here's a little laughter (which turns to serious contemplation) from akeva :)

(it should work now!)

~~ pancho ~~

2007-02-12T22:08:00.000+02:00

ayer hubieras cumplido 34 an~os... y hubieramos celebrado juntos, disfrutando del dia, y te hubiera dicho... "vieeeeejoo..."

es tan extran~o celebrar estos aniversarios, o mejor dicho, notar estos aniversarios... no se que hacer en estos dias, si estar feliz o triste, como recordarte de la manera mas apropriada, mas digna... ser tu viuda ha sido la experiencia mas dificil de mi vida, y seguira siendola...

pero

te sigo queriendo, porque fuiste, y eres, mi amor. pocos de los que visitan este sitio te conocieron... no conocieron tu risa contagiosa, que fuiste picaro total, que tus ojos brillaban cada vez que se te occurria una travesura... que tenias una voz tan profunda y hipnotizante, que son~abas con crear musica, que fuiste poeta. no supieron de tu magia, de tu manera de saber los secretos mas intimos de todos sin que ellos te dijeran nada... de tus man~as, tus silencios, tus locuras. te extran~o demasiado, y aunque han pasado tantos an~os, todavia espero que vas a aparecer en algun lugar, inesperadamente, con una sonrisa y con tus ojos brillando... con un piropo y un beso, que todo fue una ilusion...

pero

si fuese asi, la vida que tengo ahora, mi esposo, mi hijita preciosa, serian una ilusion tambien... asi que vuelvo a la realidad y te agradezco tu generosidad, que como mi angel guardian me has guiado hacia una vida tan plena, que sigues en mi vida, simplemente con otra forma, con otra realidad.

te amo, pancho, siempre.

feliz cumplean~os.

hmm...

2007-01-28T02:09:00.000+02:00

here i was, trying to take one of those sweet "mama and child" photos, full of love and tendernes... but you can see very clearly what akeva thinks of cheesy posed pictures... jejejeje! ;)

p.s. aria, who has already proven many times over that she is much much better at this photo-taking/blogging thing, has posted some more pics of akeva-- check them out!

all smiles :D

2007-01-22T20:15:00.000+02:00

managed to catch her in the act :)
she's smiling a lot now, but trying to get a smile on camera is quite a task! ;)

photos, finally

2007-01-17T19:45:00.000+02:00

akeva and i went a-visitin' yesterday and aria took a bunch of photos of the cutenesses :)
check it out!

a baby story

2007-01-05T05:09:00.000+02:00

akeva is deeply asleep in patrik's arms right now, so i think i have a few minutes to tell the story of her birth :) she's been with us for six weeks now, and is growing like crazy, changing every day... i wish i had fresh photos to show, but our camera's batteries died (and going to the store is a major excursion these days! as is doing the dishes... jejeje) and our new computer (thank you philip! free computer at home is an AMAZING thing!) doesn't recognize our photo card reader... so i am still trying to figure out the whole photo thing... but, on to the story :)

at about three in the morning on wednesday, november 22, i woke up to pee (as i did several times every night during the last months of pregnancy) and began feeling waves of contractions coming every few minutes. i was so excited to be in labor, but feeling a little tentative since i had been having "false labor" every few days, so i went to bed and barely whispered to patrik that i thought i might be in labor... at that point the contractions really just felt like waves that would build up and die down, and i rode them with a big ol' smile on my face, so so so so so so so excited... after a couple hours of that, i decided i should call my mother so she could get on a plane and be with me in time for the delivery and then called my midwife to give her a heads-up that my labor had started... she told me to try to rest a little since it was still the middle of the night, and mentioned that she was just heading home after another woman's delivery... at around ten in the morning the midwife came over to the house to check me and saw that i was still just in the earliest part of my labor, so we decided she should head back home and sleep since she had been up all night with her other client, and i kept on laboring... my mom showed up around noon, having caught the last available seat on a plane on thanksgiving weekend, and joined my sister samantha (who just happened to be in town) in sending me happy thoughts as i rode through the contractions... aria also came to the house to join the party :) at around three in the afternoon (so that's 12 hours of labor, for anyone who might be counting!) the midwife came back to the house after her little rest and checked me out... at that point i was at about 6 centimeters and my labor was getting stronger... but kept "pausing"... i don't quite know how to explain it or know why it was happening, but i would get really good strong contractions, right on top of each other, and then my body would go into relaxation mode and i would stop getting very strong contractions... i was even able to sleep and rest, which was nice for me, but which slowed down my labor quite a bit. luckily my midwife was very patient and while i rested she took little naps as well or just visited with my family (at one point, i even think they all played a scrabble game! shows how mellow it was at the house... hehehe)

throughout my labor, patrik was amazing... luckily the gardens department in haifa and then working in landscaping here has kept him strong because i swear he carried me throughout the entire twenty-some hours... i kept leaning on him, or hanging on his arms as i squatted down, or having him hold me in the shower as i tried to let the water relax me... and at one point (maybe while i was sleeping?), he managed to go out and get a bunch of flowers and filled the bedroom with them... so when i was feeling the strongest contractions, i looked up and saw all these beautiful flowers that seemed to have appeared magically...

all this lasted about 24 hours before the exciting (and scary) part of it happened... in the middle of the next night, i started having very painful back labor, so the midwife gave me a series of shots in my back of distilled water... there's something about the balance of water in your body that makes injecting pure water into it take away pain (i'm sure there's a much more scientific way of putting that)... BUT before it takes away the pain it causes the MOST EXTREME pain EVER for about a minute... needless to say, that minute lasts an eternity... i screamed like crazy for the first and only time during labor when she gave me that series of shots... but it allowed me to not feel the pain of back labor for a few hours, which was a great relief... then, at about three in the morning, the back labor came back, and the only thing i could think of to do (since i was NOT going to get those shots again... EVER) was to try to get the baby to move... so i concentrated as hard as i could and centered my thoughts on akeva, telling her to please turn around so that she would be in the correct position... and suddenly, i felt her move and the pain was gone... it was an amazing feeling to be connected to her in that way...

but then, the midwife checked the baby's heartrate and it had gone WAY down after she turned... she thought maybe the baby was in distress, so she called 911 to transfer me to a hospital... i have never felt more terrified in my life then when i thought there was a possibility that something was wrong... the tears started coming and i started praying and then started begging pancho to help me from the next world... suddenly the house was full of people-- paramedics, police, firemen... it felt like 50 people had responded to the 911 call, all asking me questions and trying to get me on a stretcher in order to go to the hospital in the ambulance... plus my mom and sam and mary lou (the midwife) all trying to figure out the logistics of how to get to the hospital, and patrik holding my hand looking terrified too... eventually i got into the ambulance and we bumped and banged all the way to the hospital (ambulances really should have better shock systems... hmph) ... i was wheeled to the delivery room, where i was hooked up to all sorts of machines and given an IV for dehydration, and after what seemed like half an hour (but i'm sure was longer), i pushed out a tiny little creature :)

pushing was such a relief after all the contractions... being able to DO something and feel a release of pressure is wonderful after so many hours of feeling like you have no control over your body... yum.

akeva came out hungry hungry hungry, and even started sucking on teh midwife's finger when just her head had come out and i was getting ready to push the rest of her out... after being born she was put on a table near me where they made sure she wasn't in distress and where patrik got to cut the umbilical cord... and then they brought me this little bundle with big big eyes wide open and a tiny little mouth ready to eat... she began eating immediately and didn't let go until we had to move to the recovery room a few hours later :) and she still LOVES to eat :)

my midwife keeps asking if i'm happy with how the birth turned out, since it was so different than what i had planned or ever imagined... and although i still want to experience having a baby at home in water, i am so happy that she is healthy and that the hospital staff was able to help us... it ended up that she probably would have been fine being born at home, since her heart rate went right back up to normal immediately and she hadn't swallowed any meconium, but i'm glad we played it safe... and it was nice to see what a hospital birth is like, and to notice what i appreciated and what i felt could have been improved in the hospital, if any day i end up working in one as a midwife... i have to say, they have some cool "toys", like this bar they put on the bed for you to brace your legs against as your push, or the beds that recline and sit up, which make nursing so much easier :)

and now we have this perfect little baby girl... :)

new pics :)

2007-01-02T05:57:00.000+02:00

it's been almost a month since my last post! eek! life with baby means no free hands for typing... that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it ;) but patrik is holding her right now, so i'm taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up a little...

akeva is growing like crazy and getting more beautiful every day... she's starting to figure out how to smile back and is very alert... when she's awake :) and because i've started to get threatening emails about how i never post pictures of her, here are some from my sister's wedding:

she slept soundly for all the photos... but cried like a maniac during the entire ceremony!

as the tiniest bridesmaid, i had to make sure she matched the bride's color scheme...

~*~

we've been in california for about a week now and are flying back to albuquerque tomorrow, if'n there's no snow... i guess there was a big storm a couple days ago, so we had to stay in LA a little longer than planned. the wedding was a big family reunion (and our family is now much much bigger and louder and funner thanks to the addition of my sister's new stepsons-- check out her blog for more info)... here's a pic of us three sisters and the now-complete set of brothers-in-law... diverse group, eh? ;)

and here's my favorite moment from the wedding... sergio making samantha (and everyone else present) weep with his sweet words about how much he cares for her :*)

~~ joyful news ~~

2006-12-01T21:56:00.000+02:00

patrik and i are overjoyed to share the news

of the birth into this world of

akeva paz nkouaga

born on thursday 23 november 2006

just before sunrise

~*~

...thank you for all your prayers and warm wishes...

so i guess people do check this blog... :D

2006-11-16T22:25:00.000+02:00

my friend aria recently put this "sitemeter" thingy on the bottom of my blog, which lets me know how many people visit the site and where they are checking from (there's even someone from japan- adri?) it's all very cool and high-tech, and also makes me feel incredibly guilty that people are checking to see if i've written ANYTHING and of course, i haven't! eek!

so, here goes another update! :)

this is how i feel lately, feeling very round and moon-goddessy, baby growing and growing and me waiting and waiting...

i'm hoping the baby comes soon, since i'm so anxious to meet her and see who she is and figure out how to be a mama! but so far she seems pretty content to just keep swishing around inside me, staying warm and squeezing my internal organs :) i guess the womb is a pretty cushy place, but i keep trying to convince her to come see this world ~ hopefully she'll become intrigued enough pretty soon!

i've been getting the house ready for the birth, setting up the birthing tub, getting everything ready for the baby... luckily friends have been incredibly generous with baby things, and so many have had babies recently and happen to have so much STUFF that normally costs so much money that they're letting me use or keep... it's weird to be in the states, where it seems you need STUFF for everything you do, and having a baby is no exception... when i went to register for baby gifts (also a very US thing to do), the list of things that the store gave me as "necessary" was a whole little book, and when i finished scanning all the cute little items that i though i could ever need or want, they printed out a list of "things you can't do without that you haven't registered for"... it just seems so strange that such a little creature should need so many huge things... and that around the world women are having babies and raising them fine without all this stuff... hmm. but, being here, our house has slowly started filling up with all sorts of trinkets for the baby, some which are pretty cool, i have to admit. like a crib that attaches to our bed so that the baby is sleeping with us, but without being in the path of drowsy arms and legs, or all sorts of slings and things for carrying the baby, or the "hooterhider" my sister sent so i can nurse in public without offending or shocking anyone with them hooters of mine :)

but now the house is ready for the baby, patrik and i are ready for the baby, my mom is ready, just a phone call away in order to get on a plane to be here when the baby comes... just waiting for the baby to be ready :) soon, i hope...

~*~

2006-10-27T22:56:00.000+02:00

here i am again, with no photos... teehee!

today my midwife came by to help get our house ready for the birth :) so exciting! she brought by the birthing tub and explained how to set it up and how to fill it and everything, and did her normal examination of my belly (baby is doing great, which is always nice to hear!) and then we just talked and talked about midwifery and how to pursue it as a calling, and how it's affected her life... twas a nice visit :)

not much else is new around here... patrik has been at his new job for about a week now, and even though it's really long hours doing hard manual labour, he's happy and liking it :) he comes home EXHAUSTED every day though! such a difference from the two months we've spent sitting around the house doing not much of anything! (which, by the way, is still what my day consists of... nada nada nada... just growing a baby and watching too much tv...)

pics of belly

2006-10-16T20:46:00.000+02:00

halo all :)

i'm a-growin' and a-growin', and though i haven't figured out how to upload photos onto my blog from here, my friend aria has some photos of my ever-increasing girth on her blog... check it out if'n you like!

all is well here, still job hunting for patrik and getting the house ready for a mini-family reunion this weekend... my mom and grandmother and sister and sister's fiancee and sister's fiancee's son will be visiting albuquerque this weekend (and we're having a baby shower to celebrate! woohoo!) so we'll have a full house... but that's the best type of house, isn't it? :)

i'm missing haifa a lot lately, so any emails from all you bwc'ers would be great! i don't have anyone's address (i got in the habit of having outlook just automatically filling them in at work, so now i have NO idea what anyone's address is...) but here's mine: snugglylion@yahoo.com...

big hugs!

i'm becoming terrible at this...

2006-10-03T23:18:00.000+02:00

i doubt anyone ever looks at this blog anymore, but i thought i'd update anyway... :)

still no photos (sorry-- no computer at home and i have NO idea how to download photos at the public library without them being saved to the harddrive for random people to look at... scaaaaarry...), but one of these days i'll figure out a way... i know there's a couple of folks anxious to see my ever-growing belly (it's HUGE!) and we just moved into a new house which i'm pretty sure my mamita wants photos of too...

we are now officially living in albuquerque, new mexico, renting a cute little house from my future brother-in-law, which is perfect cuz it's completely furnished so we don't have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff... patrik is looking for work and i'm enjoying a ridiculous amount of leisure time... growing a baby has made me incredibly lazy... hehehe...

we've gone to a couple of baha'i activities since we got here, and it's so nice for me to see everyone again, and to see the amount of change that has occured in the mindset of the community... being away for a year and a half lets me see the growth spurt that has taken place, and appreciate how different things are! so exciting!

anyway, that's about it (really! we're not doing much...)-- i'll try to post more often...

much love...

~~ finally, a new post ~~

2006-09-07T04:55:00.001+03:00

general updates on our life... let's see...

i am beyond pregnant... belly growing and growing, baby dancing and dancing, me waddling and waddling more and more... ! so excited, actually :) it's a bizarre wonderful feeling to grow a tiny little person inside me-- highly recommend it!

we've been in the states for a few weeks now, missing the holy land a lot, but slowly getting used to this new place... we've been living with my parents and grandmother in southern california (near the beach, which is lovely... went today and was quite refreshing!) and enjoying a vacationish lifestyle... sleeping late, lounging around a lot, eating well... happysigh.

we'll be moving to albuquerque, new mexico in about a week and a half... yay! we went to visit a couple weeks ago (click on aria's link to see photos of our visit) and felt much more at home there than in LA, so off we go!

that's about it, actually... !

safe and sound...

2006-08-18T03:28:00.000+03:00

just a little note that we arrived safely in california a few days ago, have been sleeping and relaxing ever since!
more later...

leaving sooner...

2006-08-11T07:46:00.000+03:00

so, change in plans... patrik was able to go pick up his passport yesterday afternoon, so we decided to leave a few days earlier. we'll be leaving early sunday morning for LA, rather than wednesday. ... so last night we did some wickedquick cleaning of the flat and final packing, and today is our last day at work... tomorrow we'll just relax and try to spend as much time at the shrines as possible, and then... we're off. it's a strange strange feeling to be leaving, i gotta say. exciting, but sad.

smooth sailing from here on out (i hope!)

2006-08-09T09:12:00.000+03:00

our trip to tel aviv yesterday was successful! patrik's visa was approved, so now we are just waiting to hear back from the embassy about when we can go pick up his passport (hmm... it seems throughout all this it has been "and now we are just waiting for [fill in the blank]"...) it seems, though, that everything is going smoothly... we have reservations for a flight to los angeles early next week, though we might have to change the date if anything gets delayed with the passport. keep those fingers crossed...

scary night ~ happy morning

2006-08-07T11:54:00.000+03:00

yeah... so last night a rocket hit directly across the street from us.

VERY loud.

VERY scary.

i cried.

lots more rockets kept falling in the city, making it seem like the world was falling apart. but then, it was quiet, and we counted all our fingers and toes and baby bumps and everything was accounted for.

we're ok.

we're safe.

we slept soundly afterwards.

~*~

and so then this morning, a happy suprise... the embassy called us (yes! and not the other way around! it's a MIRACLE!) and said they have the paper they needed in hand so we can go tomorrow to finish up our paperwork!

VERY exciting.

VERY relieving.

i did a happy dance.

it's looking promising at the moment and i will write more tomorrow about how it goes... hopefully all will be well and we can travel soon.

we're happy.

we're cautiously excited.

we will most definitely sleep soundly tonight.

~~ sending you a birthday wish ~~

2006-08-06T16:04:00.000+03:00

happy birthday sweet samita!

...wish i was there with you...

hope you had a marvelous day!!!

~*~ vida haifeña ~*~