Lord of the Rings – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

The Story of Baby Thea

A birth story of our little angel (and a slideshow of proud siblings & family!)

February 22, 2019

The Story of Baby Thea

If you’ve been following my blog, you know I was growing my seventh little angel.

Today, I get to write the story of her arrival!

On February 19^th, a beautiful Tuesday morning, my day started normally. During my 32 minute drive to work, the Baby started thinking there was not enough room and my body did the stretching contractions (Braxton-Hicks) that is very normal for me in the last month or two before birth. I didn’t think much of it, really. After my boss left for appointments, one of my office companions, Lily, a beautiful brown and white pittie belonging to my boss, started laying at my feet and wouldn’t let me go anywhere without her! This was a bit of a warning to me because Sheba (my Aussie mix) always does this to me when I’m in active labor. I left at one (normal time) to get to Christina and then my midwife appointment.

Christina had been babysitting, finished some errands at the college so she would be ready for the summer semester, caught the bus to 207 (the road I take into town), and was waiting for me. Along the way, my midwife texted to reschedule the appointment to Thursday and I laughed during my voice-text because I was very tired and that worked great for me. I added, “or when Baby is ready,” as a joke because my babies have all come on or after the due date. Everyone had been rooting for a February birth since the official “due date” was February 24^th, and except for Lucas, my wee ones were between 9 and 13 days “overdue” so I usually ignored the due date and just gave a general month (in this case, I’d been saying March).

I got Christina, teased her about driving (she’s recently received her learner’s permit), and we headed home. Sheba was acting odd, I was starving; Louis had made lasagna Monday so I ate a huge plate and took a short nap.

When I got to gym with Becky (her class is on Tuesday, the others are all Wednesday), the contractions were still there, but, like I said, that is normal for me. It had been happening off and on already for about a week and a half, so I just went about work because they were easy to ignore. Some friends and I chatted about babies as I was leaving, and someone said, “you know about your body by now, right?” I laughed, “each is different, but I’m still thinking March.”

Wow, was I wrong.

As Becky texted Christina and Louis to tell them we were off & headed to pick up Christina at CAP, Becky said, “Mom, I can’t drive us home, but if the baby keeps contracting like that, maybe Christina can.”

We laughed. Part of the driving restrictions on a learner’s permit forbid night driving for the first few months; but we always teased Christina that she’d have to drive home in the dark if I was in labor.

Home, I was starved, but my belly felt full after four strawberries. I took a shower and crashed. I kept waking up every couple hours, but I’m a light sleeper so that’s also normal. Each time, though, I noticed contractions. I’d check my phone just to see what time it was. Midnight. 1:40. 2:30. 3:50. At almost 4, I realized I was sweating and I decided to wait for fifteen minutes (so the water softener cycle was finished) and take a shower. The next glance at my watch showed 4:19. I took a shower and the first contraction after the water hit was very strong. I felt movement inside me. “Wow, you sure you’re ready?” I asked. I was sure that was just a fluke and usually the warm water calms contractions down. When the next two made my legs feel like jelly, I got out of the shower and crawled back into bed. The phone said 4:35. I wasn’t about to wake anyone or call Misti for three oddly strong contractions.

I tried to sleep. I had about two hours before I had to get ready for work.

At somewhere before 6am, I tried getting ready for work. I had to stop and breathe through contractions that were easy to time and I felt the baby moving slowly down inside of me. I was about to wake Louis but ended up stretching through a contraction. We have a mind link, I think. Louis woke up as I was stretching. He goes into mega cleaning and question mode. This is his serious mode. He has been through it enough to know we were going to have a baby this morning – or at least today. He told me to call Misti, he woke the kids up to help clean (normally, we clean before bed, but they had been in a non-cleaning mood the previous night), and directed the house with efficiency. I was restless, so kept walking around in between. Christina and Becky didn’t want to get out of bed. I went into the barracks to find out why not.

“Mom! You can’t have the baby in here!” Christina shrieked, covering her head.

“So, get up please and help Daddy with cleaning. Y’all should have done that last night. Once you finish, you can go back to bed, but he’s really stressing about the house and people coming so please help.”

No answer. I could feel another contraction creeping up. “Okay, you have about 20 seconds before I get another contraction and…”

Christina bolted, “MOM! I’m up! I’ll help Dad! GET CONTRACTIONS OUT OF MY ROOM!”

Becky was up too. Kimberly was definitely awake. Mission accomplished. I went back to the kitchen table. My “leave” alarm reminded me to text or call my boss. 6am though, I figured I should just text – plus I didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment.

Misti showed up (can’t remember if the house was clean, but based on the voices and giggling and a movie being on, I’d guess it was straightened). Mom was on the way, she told us she had to be at one of my brother’s promotions at 8am. The girls had turned on “The Two Towers” and as Louis walked by during the Uruk-hai production scene and he ordered, “Turn that off, you can see a real birth soon enough.” I can’t remember if the result was “Wild Kratts” or “Dumbo” but there was something far less messy on the tv a minute later. (I did hear one of the teenagers or preteens quip, “Mom will sound like an orc.” Louis and I laughed. We’re nerds.)

By 8:30, I was immune to the world. I heard Misti’s voice, smelled Louis (I was leaning on him), and faintly heard background voices. I was focused on this job.

8:42am and our little one came into the world, veiled. Misti took the bag off and the Baby screamed to test the limit of her lungs! (We didn’t know Baby was a “she” just yet!) Baby opened her eyes fully and stared up at me. Then she screamed to rattle the roof again. The dogs were barking. We discovered our Baby was Thea!

Welcome to our crazy world, Theadora Taliesyn Tart. You are loved and cherished!

Theadora (after her great-grandfather Melvin Theodore Pearson) means “gifted by God” and Taliesyn (feminine form of your grandfather’s favorite character from a Celtic legend) means, “one with the shining brow, one who sings wisdom.” And Daddy chose the nickname “Thea” because he likes it. (Your uncle texted that he’d call you “3T” – yes, Daddy searched for two “T” names we both liked!) I kept both names the same length, since that’s what we’ve done – all of the children’s names have the same number of letters in the first name and middle name. Theadora 8 letters, Taliesyn 8 letters – told you we are nerds.

Mom (Grandma Joanne in the pictures) came back with a shower of baby girl goodies! (And, yes, this is why she’s in such cute clothes once we managed to get them on her!)

Theadora, I pray you always feel the love of your family as you wiggle your way up to adulthood. I pray you feel the warmth and see the light of God’s love reflected in the faces of your sisters and brother, mother and father, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins. We have accepted the honor of being your guides to lead you to Jesus, to raise you in love, and to give you room to find, develop, and follow the passion of life God has rooted within you. You are a daughter of God, a precious gift to us, and chosen to bring light through your smile.

Becky said I can’t post a baby story without her pictures! So here is a little slideshow:

Lucas kept trying to “pet” and “kiss” Baby Thea

20190220_1029118265629499958905990 — Lucas said “you are my love, Baby Thea!”

Christina and Becky are already vying for who gets the baby

This is Christina’s favorite from Thea’s birthday

20190220_0955464507561949649824245 — Thea and Mommy

Hope this brought you a smile!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

The Coldest Day

When you’ve worked almost two years to get a harvest and a deep freeze threatens; you save the navel oranges! Jaquline’s Birthday Story

January 4, 2019

The Coldest Day

This is story of the coldest day for us in winter 2009-2010:

It was the second winter in the farm house. We loved that house because there were twelve citrus trees, a huge ancient fig tree, an Asian pear tree, tons of mulberry, pecan, and oak trees, an old neglected trio of muscadine grape vines on the arbor, and blackberry vines in thickets around the perimeter fence.

We had worked feeding and tending each of the trees for almost two years. Most had given us hearty thanks in the form of yummy, sweet fruit. Well, the pecans actually were eaten by the over abundant squirrel population and one of the orange trees was sour so when we wanted lemonade we actually just popped off six of those giant sour oranges and made orangeade instead. It was light yellow in color and except for a slight orange flavor; the girls thought it was lemonade!

There were two tangerines, one pink grapefruit, three yellow grapefruit, one tangelo, two small orange, one lime, and one sour orange tree that had given us fruit after the first winter. Since it had been a mild winter with no deep freezes, the fruit was sweet and had set on the trees over spring as we harvested it in perfectly manageable sets.

Only the navel orange hadn’t yielded fruit. Until this year. It was so loaded we had to support the weaker limbs with stilts despite heavy pruning during the summer! We were so excited because we’d been told it was the sweetest fruit but almost never had a crop. It looked like we had accomplished our goal!

But this winter had only just started.

We’d already had almost a week of mild freezes – just enough for frost, but not enough to freeze the fruit. Grandma Jeanette had called them “sugar freezes.” Now I knew that was because citrus fruit needs five to seven days of light freezes to sweeten. However, the one deep freeze could destroy the whole crop as it would freeze the fruit through the skins and rot them. We had watered down each tree carefully just before sunrise after each of the light freezes, but the forecast said tomorrow, January 7, 2010, we would wake to temperatures below 28 degrees. In our little area, we sunk two to four degrees below what the news said every time.

This would be a fruit-killing deep freeze.

And of all our citrus, the navel orange had the thinnest skin so would be the most affected.

I determined we would harvest all that fruit today.

We didn’t do school lessons, but immediately after milking the cow and feeding the chickens, we tugged the blue fruit bucket (a giant plastic washtub that held about 12 bushels) over to the tree and started picking. I sent Christina and Rebeccah into the tree. At 6 and 4 they were already experts at climbing through citrus trees avoiding the horridly sharp thorns. They scrambled up and out to get the highest fruit. We worked on for hours, singing and laughing. And my belly contracted. I was 41 weeks pregnant.

After her work was over, Grandma Joanne showed up. Seems there’s this old wives tale that if you reach up a lot while you’re pregnant, your baby will be all wrapped up in their cord. (Maybe so, as 2-year-old Kimberly, who was racing around tossing fruit her sisters plopped on the ground into the bucket, had been born with her cord around her neck. I hung clothes out on a line her whole pregnancy.) I told her I wasn’t wasting this fruit. I offered her a bag. She didn’t think that was funny. We were almost done. We were on our third bucket and there were only a few scattered edge pickings left. Rebeccah had decided they were unreachable. That was why I was on the ladder to get them. Christina was busy, putting the last bucket’s goodies into some of the fruit boxes in the garage.

Using the ladder and 4-prong rake (the girls call it the hand-tiller or the fruit-grabber depending on which use we were employing), we managed to get all of the succulent fruit off of that beautiful tree.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. For the first time I watched all three “Lord of the Rings” extended editions back to back in the bed as I tried to sleep. Baby was coming.

Early morning on the coldest day of our winter of 2009-2010, Jaquline Ellouise Tart was born.

Jaquline and Grandma Joanne – Jaquline is less than an hour old.

Christina and Louis made us sweet, fresh orange juice for celebration drinks! (And yes, Jaquline was born with a cord so long the midwife and her assistant measured it to confirm it was the longest they’d ever seen – and it was wrapped around her neck “like a winter scarf,” according to our midwife but was too long to pose a risk.)

Jaquline and Lucas with leaves!

Jaquline with Daddy at a football game!

Jaquline will be nine in a few days… and the story of the navel oranges picked the day before her birth is one of her favorites! She also loves the part about how she chose to be born on the coldest day that hit our house that winter.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Growing Up Gaming

When your family loves board games, nerdy movies, books, and video games, you’re probably Growing Up Gaming…

August 10, 2018

Growing Up Gaming

When you are born into a family that loves board games (Risk, Catan, Life, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Poker are serious around here), discusses Star Ocean and Nancy Drew mysteries as if they are reality (if you walk in and we’re discussing Ned, Bess, and George and whose clue to follow, that’s Nancy Drew, but if we’re debating the character traits of Claude, Dias, and Leon, that’s Star Ocean), gets into serious nerd debates (you know, book versus movie for classics and bouncing theories about Rey’s parents, Gandalf’s childhood, or what cool stories Superman had as a youngster doing chores), and it’s pretty routine to hear someone say, “no, no, he’s a book person,” (unless both parties know the book, which is more common) you are likely to grow up gaming, reading, and being rather serious about such fun.

This is a family thing, since there has probably not been a get together where the verbatim replay of “Meat’s back on the menu” by the uncles and the older cousins didn’t happen. (It’s entertaining, but a bit freaky if you don’t know the movie!)

For me, it was Zork, Teddy Boy, and 3D Adventure (Atari, the huge ducks or dragons that ate you and the castles where you saved the blocks).

My younger siblings introduced me to Playstation (Star Ocean and Legend of the Dragoon) as an 18-year-old. That was cool, except I kept trying to look around the monitor screen instead of turn the view with the controller! My kids know both of those… with their Playstation 2.

We are rather old school when it comes to games… the newest is probably Minecraft. It’s a building exploration game that the girls create elaborate homes and castles in since they can’t run out of bricks (we have a finite amount of Legos and their imaginations are way bigger than the few bricks we have). We actually have two old computers and keep them up because they run our 90s games (and the educational software I own runs on 32 bit instead of the new 64).

It’s always easier to learn something when you smash your head in between their head and the screen…

Lucas considers himself very independent. He likes to load the girls’ Minecraft lands and explore their castles (they call it “destroy” the castles – just like with Legos).

He is very happy when someone discovers him doing this.

(Game rules say electronics after dark… notice the daylight?)

Christina thinks it’s hilarious and calls him “gamer dude” when she sees him with the game phone that was put away for the daytime.

I’m going to slide back into the gaming world… a furious game of Pictionary is happening on the kitchen table right now – and even Lucas is jumping around as Becky sketches two triangles, a round thing, and dozens of dots… this is supposed to represent “Star Wars.”

And this is supposed to be peanut butter… Becky yelps, “Can’t you see Peter Pan?” and circled it…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: Lord of the Rings

The Story of Baby Thea

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The Coldest Day

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Growing Up Gaming

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