Him and Her: 5 Surprising Things About Being New Parents

To continue what we started in 2013 with Him and Her: 5 Surprising Things About Marriage, for our second anniversary we're sharing 5 most surprising things about our latest great adventure: Parenting.

Photo credit: Kent Davis, December 30th 2014

Her

1. Breastfeeding, like the rest of parenting, is 10X harder than you think it's going to be. I am honestly surprised the human race has perpetuated itself this long.


2. Possibly because I'm the least sentimental person I know, I didn't bond with Noah right away. At first everything is so surreal and it felt like I was caring for someone else's baby. For the first two months, I didn't even get the 'it's so hard but worth it' feeling. Even though I was happy to have him healthy and whole I was just stuck with the 'it's so hard' part. I mean, cognitively, I knew it was worth it (for celestial and old age purposes) but I didn't feel it emotionally. It's been a slow process that's still building.


3. I didn't know that almost every conversation I would have with Carter from the moment Noah was born would revolve around how Noah is sooooooo CUTE. And that I would like it. He's deliciously adorable. Also, I have a lot more conversations with strangers since Noah was born.


4. I'm totally one of those moms who watches video of my baby after he's gone to bed, even after I've spent all day with him. He's an addiction and I'm in denial.


5. Carter is a hilariously (and adorably) protective father. If the people sitting next to us in church cough, Carter is already whisking Noah away. He told me the night we brought Noah home from the hospital he remembers wishing he had driven a less bumpy road home. Watching Carter become a father has been a particularly sweet part of this adventure.

Him

1. Baby doesn't even freakin' know how to sleep!


2. Before we had Noah, I thought we would let the baby play on the floor by himself when he was awake and then put him in his crib to sleep when he was tired. I had no idea that we would have to rock him to sleep then hold him the entire time or that he would get bored when there aren't people around to entertain him.


3. Seriously, babies don't know how to sleep.


4. You can always hear when Noah poops.


5. I always say parenting is more work that I thought it would be and it's sweeter than I thought it would be.

Here's to one more year of marriage! And may the next one be a good one too. Happy Anniversary, Carter Kent Davis!

New York! New York!

The best part about living in New York is having so many strangers tell me congratulations and offering up their subway seats to me! There's no better way to make this pregnant lady happy. The housekeepers in my building are especially hilarious. They always call me mama in their heavy Mexican accents, "Rest, mama, it's too hot" or "Mama, take it easy." It quickly became obvious that they don't speak very much English.

"Where you from?"
"My mom is from Korea."
"Where you having the baby?"
"I'm going back to Utah."
"Oh, not going back to Korea? You have the baby in New York,  it will be a citizen."
"Well, I'm having the baby in Utah so he will be a citizen...and I'm a citizen."
"Have baby in New York. It will be citizen."
"...Ok."

That conversation is, in a lot of ways, representative of life in NY, in that the range in the human experience is overwhelming.  I'm here relaxing in New York for the summer while these ladies work menial jobs, only wishing for their children to be citizens. And don't even get me started on homelessness.

Despite my earlier reluctance to move here, I love New York, too. Did you know 1 in 50 people in the U.S. live in New York City? Apparently, it can't be helped! It's a disease and I've caught the bug. We live in the Upper West Side right next to Central Park. It's practically a dream come true! I'm talking, long strolls in the park at firefly dusk and mid-morning breakfast picnics. Soooo dreamy.

So in short, Carter and I would be happy to come back to New York for a couple of years but we have other considerations that might get in the way of that. Ultimately, our future family and Carter's career are our priorities. We're not sure right now what that means for our next couple years but we've called upon the oracle of Delphi and we are waiting for the response. I guess, let you know when we get it?

p.s. Those pictures were actually taken a month ago. Right now I'm at 30 weeks!

Him and Her: 5 Surprising Things About Marriage

In honor of our one-year anniversary, I thought we'd share some aspects of marriage that have been most surprising to us.

Her

1. Carter really doesn't understand that time of the month and I really can't explain it to him. He grew up with mostly brothers so I don't know how to tell him that, yes, I am furious over my lost sock and no, I'm not insane.
2. My parents and siblings repeatedly warned Carter about my just-woke-up self. To illustrate: I almost slapped my college roommate in the face when she was too zealous about waking me up. I wish that was an exaggeration. In a nice twist of fate, I'm usually extra-lovey to Carter in the mornings. Carter says I either wake up really happy or really mad.
3. I've always heard that money is the most contentious topic between spouses and now I really believe it. Not that we've ever argued about money; we usually agree on spending habits and yada yada. But MAN is it stressful.
4. We never run out of things to talk about! We totally should because we only spend 6 hours a day away from each other. Not that much happens in six hours! I guess we got married for a reason.
5. I totally don't believe that the first year of marriage is the hardest. This has been the best year of my life! And the transition to living together has been a breeze. 

Him

1. Whitney has the most vivid dreams. I guess I knew this when we were engaged because she would tell me about them, but it gets to a new level to wake up with her and have her tell me about all these crazy things. I mean, in her dreams really crazy things happen, like her being an assassin. I wake up in the morning and she has gone to a crazy place and done crazy things, and I just slept. 
2. Even though I think Whitney is the perfect size she is always talking about how she is not. It blows my mind. It doesn't matter how many times I tell her she is the perfect size, she always believes she isn't.
3. Whitney loves her plants. She has some plants she leaves on the dresser, and she calls them her planties. The hilarious thing is how much she talks about her planties. I cannot tell you how many mornings one of the first things that comes out of Whitney's mouth is "we gotta open the windows for my planties!" If action is not taken immediately, the planties will surely die. 
4. Before I was married, Whitney's dad and sister warned me about Whitney right when she wakes up in the morning. I thought maybe it could be bad, but actually Whitney is usually really snuggly and soo cute in the mornings. There are the occasional mornings where she is really upset about something pretty crazy, but most of the time she often just wants to stay in bed and it is wonderful!
5. I always imagined marriage would be great, but in reality it is so much better.  I tell Whitney all the time this is true. It is so amazing to not have to go home at night, to be able to stay together, live together, go through things together. It's amazing.

What We Are Up To

My favorite picture of Carter and his favorite picture of me. #hottiez

If you are wondering what we are up to...so am I (lame joke). There should be a college class called 'Making Life Decisions' where someone (not me) plans out your life decisions for you and then everything goes according to plan. That's the hard part really: having everything go according to plan. So far Carter and I are only slightly above putting all our life choices in a throwback MASH game and letting fate decide.

This post is probably only as relevant as November 24th 2013 because we change our minds literally everyday. Not an exaggeration.

Carter is both the smartest and the craziest person I know. He'll be graduating in April 2015 with a double major in Math and Economics AND a double minor in Computer Science and Statistics. After that he's leaving reality forever to get a PhD in Finance, preferably at MIT, Stanford, Harvard, or University of Chicago, in that order. I'm rooting for Stanford because CALIFORNIA. Carter's very lofty ambitions make me very happy but also a little sad because it means we'll probably be living in East Coast apartments forever (also not an exaggeration). When I told this to a lady in my ward, she told me that they lived at Wymount for 7 years and loved it!!!

I'm currently working as a Teaching Assistant for a boy's group home and I love it! Originally, I took this job even though it's only part time because I was planning to get a Secondary Science Teaching License in Utah but...well, see above. Between my graduation last April and now, my plans have oscillated like a yo-yo, though now I've settled on getting a second Bachelors degree from BYU-Idaho online in Web Design and Development! Not very many people I know think this is a great idea and even part of me thinks I should grow up and get a real job at a bank or insurance company. I'm set on it, though, mostly because it feels so right. And 'feeling right' has to count for something?

After almost 6 months of investigating different web design/web development programs, I thought it wasn't in the cards. "Oh well, maybe someday when Carter is a university professor," I thought. I even enrolled and paid tuition at Utah Valley University, but withdrew a month later because the whole situation felt all wrong. AND THEN at church I saw an ad for the BYU-I online program. It was inexpensive and timely and even BETTER than all the other expensive programs I had looked at. Unlike my short time as as student of UVU, everything came along smoothly and I'm starting Winter Semester 2014 and hopefully finishing Spring 2015!

The need for this degree mostly comes from a need for a marketable skill that I could support our 4 imaginary children with. Unfortunately, neuroscience is totally NOT useful unless you are going to medical/dental school and I am not. Carter and I attend a family ward where I visit teach 4 ladies with my two companions. GET THIS: All of the women I visit teach AND my companions have non-traditional family situations. One lady was in a car accident where her husband and son were killed, leaving her with 6 (or 5?) young children and disabled legs. She's now much older and lives with her best friend and daughter and grandchildren who both work to support them. Another lady is married to a man disabled by short term memory loss fifteen years ago. She works to support them, her son, her mother, and her brother. The third lady went through 2 divorces years ago leaving her to care for 2 year-old daughter alone. And that's JUST the ladies we visit teach! We don't even live in a low income area (fairly mid-range)! I mean, is this a sign from the universe?? Should I be concerned?!

Carter says:
I ate carots all day long. That's when my dog ate chicken nuggets and french fries and boom, the cheese balls came out of nowhere. Very fun and awesome. I love duckies too. plug the burger are nice and then the dragon ate my green apple, and i was like what, apples come in green? I love wood that smokes bacon. Salmon is weird stuff, sometimes they are fishies and sometimes salmon is a kind of food served in restaurants and I was like, what? crazy. Deep frying turkies is crazy. Notra Dame is crazy and I don't know what to do about it.

See what I mean? He's totally nuts.

Do You Want to See Some Bridals?

Do you wanna?

Unsurprisingly, I'm much less obsessed with wedding pictures now that I have some of my own. It's a tragedy really, because I end up never looking at mine. We did have beautiful formals, but I wish they had been a little more Pacific Northwest giant pines and a little less Utah sagebrush. They have a very editorial feel, though.

THIS IS MY WEDDING DAY

If we're in the spirit of regrets and disappointments here then I could probably tell you that I wish I hadn't taken my mom's advice and that I had styled my own hair. I wish I would have ordered my dress in white so I could find some GLAMOROUS elbow-length gloves that would match. Annnnd if I'm being really honest than the venues and catering were also a bit much (did I say that???). But tell me, what's a wedding without a Bridezilla? really, tell me. is it nice?

In a different spirit (apparently a spirit of cliches), my wedding was also perfect, because I got married. As it turns out, weddings are not about flowers and cakes and perfect get-aways with sparklers. BREAKING NEWS. Despite my week of non-stop breakdowns, I floated on cloud nine all day. I was untouchable and it was magic.

In other breaking news, marriage is actually really great and not horrible and life-ruining. So that's been nice for me.

P.S. I usually retro-date my posts because the pressure of posting on time is oppressive, but I've always wondered how that works out with blogger. Do you see my posts come up in your feed on June 26th 2013 or December 15th 2012? Help a blogger out, will ya?