We Have a Water Baby!

If anyone knows Ricky and me, they know how much we just love the water.  We spend our weekends on the boat on the river, enjoy swimming, spend our vacations at beach resorts and talk about retiring in an area surrounded by water.  We are just so thrilled to learn that our son, probably enjoys the water more than we do.









During Grant's first bath at the hospital we were shocked that when the nurse was scrubbing him down and dosing his head under the faucet he just closed his eyes and appeared to be completely relaxed.  This has continued during every bath thus far.  As long as the water is warm, Grant is a happy camper in the water.  He truly enjoys bath time and only cries when you take him out and the air is cooler than the bath water.

                                                       

About to go swimming for the first time!

Taking a snooze under the bimini top while the boat is anchored.

We decided that it was time to take him on the boat. A little soon some may think, but when we found a Coast Guard approved infant life jacket we knew it was time.  Ricky decided that prior to taking a boat ride with this uncomfortable looking preserver, we would try it out my parents pool.  Well, he LOVED it!  He literally fell asleep wearing it in the pool and continued to sleep for 30 minutes just floating around. When his little feet began resembling raisins we took him out of the pool so he could continue his nap in the shade.  The next day we tested it out on the boat.  Again, he LOVED it, and slept for the entire 30 minute boat ride.  We have since let him swim and few more times and have taken him on the boat once more, and each time has been a complete success.  We know that once he starts walking that locks on the door and an alarm in the pool will be imperative as I think he would live in the water if we let him. 

The wild ponies on the beach-so beautiful.

We took another boat trip just days later to visit Assateague Island and see the ponies.  We spent only moments on the beach due to the warm temperatures and not wanting Grant to have sun exposure.  We did relax on the boat under the cover and just rocked back and forth in the cool breeze.

Happy Dad, enjoying his day off collecting berries at the beach.

Happy Boys on the sand.

Lovin' this water baby!

           

Grant Meets the Inspiration for His Name

If there was a word to describe my grandfather it would be gentleman.  They should have his picture next to the word in every dictionary ever published.  Harris Dolan is 92 and has experienced so much in his life time that I think it would take my entire life time to learn everything that that he has been through.  He and I have a very special bond because I am his only grand daughter and his youngest grand child.  He is so honorable, kind, generous, intelligent, respectful and adores his family so much and would do anything for them.

Each time I spend time with my grandfather, I learn another lesson about life and he provides advice that carries a lot of weight in my life.  During a conversation a year or so ago, the topic of names was discussed and how in his lifetime he saw a theme where names more often than not, shaped the future of the person.  It is human nature to visualize someones appearance when hearing a name and many times we are not even close to how the person actually looks, yet we continue to do it in the future.  This also tends to hold weight when we receive resumes for a job opening, choose a doctor, and even when deciding if we should go on a first date.  I would provide examples but the intent is not to offend anyone or make a misjudgement myself.  So in this memorable conversation with my grandmother, unfortunately my grandfather probably does not recall it, he explained how men especially with one syllable names or nick names that they predominately went by, they tended to be more successful, likable, popular and well respected.  I will give an example of this because I know lots of successful men with one syllable; Jim, John, Bob, Rob, Mark, Rick, James, Tom, Bill, Ken, Matt, Luke, Dave and the list goes on.  Why do I bring this up?  I mentioned that I had considered naming a future child (I was not pregnant at the time) Harrison.  He explained that not only was it not one syllable as most successful men are, that if we shortened it to Harris like him or Harry, the child would be made fun of.  He was teased throughout elementary school and referred to as "Harry-ass"because his name was Harris.  

When Ricky (who goes by Rick most of the time) and I were trying to figure out what to call our little boy we knew it had to be one syllable.  We also wanted Harris to be a part of his name as it is very important to us.  So we just fell in love with Grant, and Harrison just sounded so good together.  Once we decided on the name it occurred to us that these were the last names of our nation's 9th and 18th presidents, who were also successful people.  

We were very fortunate to spend July 4th with my grandfather and he had the opportunity to meet Grant Harrison for the first time. We hope my Pop Pop is correct and that he is successful and that he has an extremely bright future.   

Celebrations

Exhausted after a night of partying!

Grant arrived just in time to celebrate Father's Day, Ricky's birthday and Ricky's farewell from VMAQ-1.  Something tells me this kid is going to be just like his parents, in that he isn't going to miss out on a good time!  If there's a party or a celebration, he'll make sure he's there.

The "Farewell" also known as a Hail and Bail was hosted by our dear friends Chase and Amanda Rose whom we just love to pieces.  Amanda and I went through the last deployment together as Chase and Ricky became good friends flying around the world.  The celebration was bittersweet for us but we truly had a wonderful time.  It was catered by a local Mexican restaurant and the beer and wine was just a flowin'.  Ricky received wonderful remarks from both his good friend Matt Oberdorfer and his CO, LtCol Chandler "Sweet pea" Seagraves.  Both brought tears to our eyes and there was no question, that Ricky "Rico" would be truly missed in the ready room.

Amanda-I just love this girl-a true blessing in our lives.

Grant and his Daddy

World's Best Sister!

Three generations of Burias...three beautiful smiles.

Father's Day was a perfect day for Ricky and his dad.  We ended the contemporary service at church which was light and musical and very relaxing.  Immediately following, Ricky and his dad took off for a round of golf while the ladies and Grant went shopping in New Bern.  We ended up back at the house that evening for a nice Father's Day dinner with paper plates, plastic ware as all of our kitchen items were in the family room in brown boxes.  We're glad Ricky was able to spend this time with his dad and son.  Once we arrived in Maryland, we treated my dad to an evening out at the renowned restaurant, The Grove Market.  It was fantastic and we highly recommend anyone visiting the the Ocean City area to try it.  It is a quant restaurant where there are no menus, you have no idea what anything costs, the chairs dont match, the tables are all different and the food is simply amazing.  

Two VERY proud abuelos.

A happy family, even Luke is smiling.

Despite not having his family around, Ricky's birthday turned out to be pretty special as he had his military family surrounding him as well as his sister.  Grant and I left immediately after the movers took our furniture and headed to Maryland so Ricky spent his birthday cleaning and painting-sounds fun huh?  He was staying with our close friends Matt and Rebecca so Rebecca made sure to make Ricky and special birthday dinner followed by attending an open house for our friend Alex who just opened a cupcake shop.  Ricky was in heaven.  Later in the week, he went to his favorite restaurant called the Chef and the Farmer with Matt, Rebecca and his sister Cathy.  I really appreciate them ensuring that he had a wonderful birthday, since I was unable to make that happen.

Our First Wedding as a Family of Three

It works out quite well when you have a family event occur shortly after having a baby because everyone who hasn't had the opportunity to see the baby gets to.  As much as we love having visitors and going to visit our friends and family, scheduling it and fitting everyone in, gets more challenging every time.  One of the most important people a the wedding was my grandmother, Mom Mom Theresa.  I have been anxious for her to meet Grant since the day he was born, as she truly means the world to me.  On June 23rd my cousin Lisa got married in Ocean City.  The wedding ceremony was perfect in every way and the reception was just incredible.  We are so thrilled for Lisa and Lucas and we know that they will have a beautiful life together.  

Mom Mom Theresa and Mrs. Peggy Layton-these are two incredible women in our lives and we were so excited for them to meet Grant.  We think my grandmother looks pretty proud to be holding that little guy!

Grant in my cousin Michele's arms, quite content.

GiGi and her sweet baby Grant.

Our first wedding as a family of three!

 

The Move

Ricky and I was just so thrilled, blessed and thankful that Master Grant made his arrival a couple of weeks earlier.  Since he arrived on the 20th, we had few more days of breathing room and time for tons of visitors.  When June 1st arrived the real fun began.  As characteristic of the Marine Corps, they tend to request the presence of their service members at the most inopportune times to go to the most inopportune places.  Fortunately for us, they hooked us up on the duty station by sending us to Virginia allowing me to be close to family and friends while raising this new baby.  The downside is that Ricky was given these orders in April for a July arrival.  This seems reasonable, right?  We thought so too pre-baby, until he arrived and we soon realized that making it to the grocery store and finding everything on our list was a big deal or that a 30 minute doctor appointment for Grant literally was a 4 hour evolution.  I found that taking a shower and brushing my teeth may not happen until 11:00am yet before I knew it it was 11:00pm and those were my only two accomplishments of the day (aside from feeding the little guy 10 times).

Ricky's Mom with Grant, rocking away. 

What did we have to accomplish during the month of June?  We had to prepare to move in just three weeks, ensure the house was ready to rent, complete paperwork for our new rental, complete paperwork for our house and all awhile learning how to be parents to the sweetest little guy on the planet.  We were so fortunate that we found tenants to rent our house in May, who requested to begin their lease on June 22nd.  Since we had to attend my cousin's wedding on the 23rd, the timing of them moving in could not have been better.  Our packers were scheduled to begin on June 14th for a packout date of June 19th.  Additionally, Ricky's parents arrived from Puerto Rico to meet Grant beginning on June 5th and stayed with us until June 18th.  They were a huge help but I couldn't help but feel like I was not on my "A game" for entertaining, especially when we realized that the packers had packed all of the cooking utensils and salt and pepper, making it a bit challenging to make and serve black beans.  They fell in love with the baby and looking back, I really don't think they cared as long as they were in earshot or view of sweet baby Grant.

An empty house.

 We spent every day for those three weeks, painting, installing a circuit breaker and switch for the dehumidifier under the house, replacing items in the house that we should have done 4 years ago-like the vents on the floor, washing the inside and outside of all cabinets, purging and organizing every room, making trips to the dump and Goodwill and ensuring that we had all of our paperwork together like our tenants lease and Grant's enrollment in TriCare health insurance.  We successfully completed the move on June 22nd when Ricky remained behind to oversee the professional painters, carpet cleaners and pack out of the remaining items that the moving companies are unable to take.

Our newly painted family room.

We will miss our house in the Taberna housing development, our wonderful friends who have become our family AND the pond across the street. ;)  We spent 4-1/2 wonderful years in the sweet charming town of New Bern and have so many fond and exciting memories that we will treasure forever.  We are on our way to the "big city" and we have high hopes that our little man is going to give us some even better memories in our new home in Springfield. 




    

And They Came to See the Beautiful Baby...

We have been overwhelmed by the number of friends and family that have come to meet Grant just hours after his arrival.  As a parent, it is such an incredible feeling to talk about your child and to show them off.    It truly is, no longer about Ricky and me.  We are so blessed to have so many people in our lives that fell in love with him before they even met him, and then fell even harder once they had the opportunity to hold him for the first time.  I always had a concern that we would have the "uncute kid", the one that people whispered about and said "bless his heart".  I also had a concern that Ricky and I would be living in a dream world believing that we had an attractive child, when in all actuality he is not cute at all.  Everyone always told us that you will think your child is beautiful because all parents think that and you will love them regardless of how handsome they are.  Unless the visitors are lying to us, everyone has just had wonderful things to say about our new addition to our family, and we really appreciate it.  It means the world to us that everyone loves him as much as we do and makes positive comments about his demeanor and sweet face.  We want to thank our parents and siblings for their support during this life changing event and also for all the encouragement that our friends and extended family provided us up until this point.

The first visitors were my parents who began their travels at 5:00pm on Saturday evening, arriving at the hospital at 1:30am just under two hours before Grant made his arrival.  Ricky's sister Cathy and her boyfriend were right behind them.  Many friends from the local area stopped by the hospital and continued to do so upon us coming home.  We have also been so fortunate to have my brother, Jimmy, my sister-in-law Amber and nephew Dylan come for a visit as well as Ricky's brother and sister-in-law Claudia and our niece and nephew Gabby and Matthew.  We love having family so close and we are even more excited that when we move to our new digs that we'll have the opportunity to see even more close friends and family members.

My Mom and Dad started driving as soon as they heard that I was headed to the hospital.  They arrived at 1:30am just in time for Grant to make his arrival.  :)

Cathy and Chris came to the hospital in the morning. 

Georgiana (not pictured) and Evie came to see Baby Grant on Monday.

Amanda also came on Monday to meet him.

Rene, Ken and Craig paid us a visit on Grant's birthday.  

We loved being able to introduce Grant to Jimmy, Amber and Dylan! xo 

Ricky's brother Luisto headed east to see the new baby.

Gabby and Matthew (our niece and nephew) are totally in love with their cousin.

Misty got to meet Grant for the first time!

Max came to visit!

Rebecca did too!

The Evolution of Grant's Arrival

HE'S HERE!!!! Grant Harrison Buria arrived promptly at 0259 on Sunday, May 20th 2012.  What an incredible and enjoyable (yes I said enjoyable) experience the whole evolution was! It all began on Friday, May 18th when I left work slightly early because I simply was not feeling well and could not hang at work any longer.  We had dinner plans and I knew I couldn't back out so I spent the afternoon napping on the couch until it was time to get ready to go out.

Feeling quite crampy and uncomfortable, I pulled it together, slipped on a dress, did my hair and my make up and headed to Morgans in downtown New Bern.  We had a lovely evening out with our close friends in the area but I still could not shake the uncomfortable feelings I was having.  As we got in the car to head home I told Ricky that I really thought our little man could make his arrival within the next 24 hours.  Ricky had planned to ride in a Century (100 mile bike ride) the next morning and I suggested that perhaps he should consider not going if the cramps continued.

We headed to bed around 10:00pm and I was awakened at 2am with sharp pains in the same area that I had felt just hours prior.  These pains or contractions continued every 20-25 minutes throughout the night.  I woke Ricky up multiple times and his response each time was try to sleep through them because our nights of getting lots of sleep are coming to an end.  At 4am the alarm went off for Ricky to begin getting ready to head to his bike ride.  After the contractions that I had been having, he of course decided that it would NOT be a good idea to travel an hour away for a 5 hour ride.  My anxiety began soon after when I realized that not one article of baby clothing had been washed in Dreft, the Pack N' Play was still in the box, the car seat was still in the nursery (the base was buckled in the Armada) and the diaper bag/my bag was only partially packed.  At 6am Ricky, in normal fashion rose to the challenge and began taking care of all of the items that had not been completed.  He even was out mowing the grass at 6:30am because he knew it could be days before we'd have a chance to tackle that chore.

To make things even more interesting,  my adult Sunday school class had planned a baby shower for my friend Jennifer and me for Saturday morning at 10am.  To go or not to go, that is the question.  I called Amber ( my sister-in-law who also happens to be a Labor and Delivery nurse) to see how quickly she thought I may have this baby and what I should expect during the day.  She recommended that I go to the shower, but not drive there and rather have Ricky take me and and drop me off.  She also suggested that I continue to do everything as I normally would, and only to go to the hospital if I was experiencing unbearable pain or if my water were to break.

The ladies from my Sunday School class. Thanks for coming!:)

I went to the shower and I am so glad I did, because it was so nice.  It was relaxing and intimate and everyone was very generous to us once again.   The ladies that were there, truly care about Ricky and me and it was evident on this day.  The only aspect that wasn't relaxing was that my contractions kicked it up a notch.  When I wasn't laughing, smiling and partaking in the delicious food, I was doing squats in Melisse's kitchen or crouching on all fours in the living room, trying to breathe through the contractions.  It definitely added a little spice to the shower and one I'll never forget.  Everyone suggested that we go about our day as normal and just enjoy being a couple for one last day.

My friend Chrissey, Connor and me.

Melisse (in the middle) hosted the shower for my friend Jennifer who is due in July, and me. Thanks Melisse!

My friend and running buddy Cailin. 

We headed home and continued to prep for the baby's arrival.  By 4:00pm I felt like if he arrived, we would have prepared as best as possible.  At 5:00ish my friend Michelle stopped by for some assistance with a job application/ resume.  I assisted her in editing her application in between contractions.  I think she was pretty shocked at the whole situation and kept asking if she should go.  What she didn't realize is that having something to focus on, really helped me breathe through the contractions and consequently made everything easier.  As long as I was on all fours the contractions were pretty bearable.  Amber called around this time to check on my progress.  When I explained what the day had consisted of, and that my contractions had been every 7 minutes for the past 3 hours she suggested that I head to the hospital to avoid being too far along to receive an epidural.  

We arrived at the hospital around 5:45pm and I was admitted soon after the nurse checking my progress.  I was 5 centimeters dilated (10 centimeters is the goal), 100% effaced and my anionic fluid was leaking, which meant that my water had probably broken.  This is was really about to begin and was about to begin quickly!

My L&D nurse's name was Jill and she was so attentive and super sweet.  She administered my meds and ensured that I received my epidural in a timely manner to avoid feeling any additional pain.  She made the whole process enjoyable.  My progress took off and I was 7 centimeters within a couple of hours and I had reached 9 centimeters by 10:00pm.  My water had not broken by 11:00pm so they had me curl up on an exercise ball to pop it internally.   At 1:00pm I had reached 10 centimeters.  The doctor came in at 2:00pm and let me know that I would probably have the baby within an hour.  When I was instructed to, I began pushing and 15 minutes later, Grant Harrison was born.

I have heard that the moment your child is born is the best moment in life, and I am now a believer.  I just cannot believe how much I love him and how special he is to Ricky and I already.  He is perfect and we could not be more blessed to have him in our lives.

38 weeks-last of the series.

Last Pregnancy Photo before Grant arrived.

In the triage room after they decided to admit me.    

The delivery room, prior to the epidural.

Totally in love!

Happy Birthday Little Man! The staff was wonderful.  

Best moment of my life.

Wow.

Warming up for a bit. 

Ricky's first baby diaper change.

First bath, he loves the running water but the wash cloth bath, not so much.

Finally in our room, relaxing.