Chris -- birth to 4 months

Back in 1966, I had started keeping a tiny little “5 year diary” with only 4-5 lines for each day’s entry. Here are the tiny little entries that covered from Chris’s expected due date to his two week “anniversary” . . .

Sept. 17, 1968 (Tuesday) EXPECTED DELIVERY DATE. 5:30 p.m.-nothing and my spirit is very low. Lynn gave me a blessing tonight so that I might sleep. So, so tired.

Sept. 18, 1968 (Wednesday) Signs of toxemia showing up here and there. Don’t know what it is. Please come, baby.

Sept. 19, 1968 (Thursday) Morning finds nothing changed. Went to show at Stake House tonight. Painful cramps 2 a.m. blood, then more cramps all night. I think this may be it.

Sept. 20, 1968 (Friday) Dr.’s appointment. Went early. He says I have 48 hours. Went to bed at midnight having contractions every 12 to 6 minutes. Awoke at 3 a.m. - 2 minutes apart.

Sept. 21, 1968 (Saturday) Jeffery Christopher born at 8:49 a.m. 8 lbs 14 oz. So beautiful. What can I say at this time. My heart is far too full-even if these five lines could be 500.

Sept. 22, 1968 (Sunday) Nursed Chris for the first time this morning. Three more times. He really catches on. I believe that by the end of today he had my voice associated with the breast.

Sept. 23, 1968 (Monday) I get to go home tomorrow. So excited. Dear Lord, help me be a success.

Sept. 24, 1968 (Tuesday) Home with our baby. Such a beautiful sight to see Lynn holding his little one. Mom Bernhard here by 10 p.m. Long night-Chris awake.

Sept. 25, 1968 (Wednesday) Poor Mom. She’s gotten only two hours sleep since she arrived. Chris is really juggling feeding times. No regularity. Boy am I beat.

Sept. 26, 1968 (Thursday) Tonight Lynn gave Chris a blessing in order that he might become more regular in his habits of eating and sleeping. Thank God for the priesthood.

Sept. 27, 1968 (Friday) All day Chris has been on a perfect four hour schedule. Took a drive with Lynn. So good to be able to be alone with him for a while. Little Chris is so beautiful.

Sept. 28, 1968 (Saturday) One week and everything seems to be doing so well. Chris weighs 9 ½ pounds, my stitches are doing real well, my stomach is shrinking-Chris is settling into a schedule.

Sept. 29, 1968 (Sunday) Fast and Testimony Meeting. Lynn’s Mom went with us. Such a beautiful meeting. Felt so good to look skinny again. Well, not exactly skinny-but a lot closer.

(Here and now comment: Do I so sound like a 20 year old having a baby--having to include a note about being "skinny" again? Geesh.)

Here's Chris on his blessing day (8 days old):


Sept. 30, 1968 (Monday) To Institute class. Mom went home last night, all teary. Institute really good this morning. Poor Lynn. I hope he can survive on so little sleep-me too.

Oct. 1, 1968 (Tuesday) Tried so hard all morning to decide whether to quit breast feeding or not. Decided to keep on. Probably shouldn’t. No appetite to eat. Lynn so sweet to me. So good.

Oct. 2, 1968 (Wednesday) Chris’ navel came off. Earth shaking event. Lynda Gardner over last couple of days. Went home to day. Chris is so darling. So wonderful to have him here.

Oct. 3, 1968 (Thursday) Lynn only had one class today. So good to have him home. Chris really fussy. Went over to see Mom and Gene. My stitches 100% better. Love my family.

Oct. 4, 1968 (Friday) He slept really well last night. We got 8 hours of sleep! All day he cries though. . .unless someone’s holding him. He’s so precious. So glad it’s Friday.

Oct. 5, 1968 (Saturday) Eight hours last night, too!! Donna and Mom and Eileen came up to see Chris. We got him a pacifier-makes for a little more quiet around here. House is such a mess.

The following picture so captures how much fun we had together. Chris is about 3-4 months old.


Here's another view. You may note that in both of these we are in the middle of a bed. That's because we (the 3 of us counting Dad) lived in a very, very tiny married student housing unit. And our bed (the parents) was the main feature in the front room (which was most literally the front room, since the only other rooms were a tiny bedroom and bathroom in the back of the unit.) So, our bed served as the couch, the play pen, and the hang-out-all-day spot, while Dad was in school or at work (which was usually about 18 hours a day).


I just got a phone call, and I don't know how to save a draft. I've got a few more first year pictures to post.

Love ya all,
Mom

I'M BACK!! (Sorry for the lapse.)

Wow! Sorry for the months of silence. Being gone so long reflects a couple of realities for me. First, how fast time is flying by for me at this age and stage of life. It's so funny. A person thinks they'll have so much time to do everything when they get older, so they put things off until then, but what they don't know is that it very literally feels like days only last a few hours. Get up, turn around twice, it's bedtime. Click, click, click.

The other reality is that I thought (as I left the last post leading into Chris's birth), I'll just go downstairs and find a bunch of baby pictures of him and put them up in a day or two. Instead, I (truthfully) pulled every box out and searched and could find nothing of his. Then, after several weeks of that had slipped by, and I was at my wit's end, as the saying goes, I was looking through yet one more box, and lo and behold, . . . nope, I didn't find pictures, but I did find an large manilla envelope from Diana. In it were pictures NOT of Chris, and a note from her saying, "Mom, We found these in Chris's picture box and thought you might want them back." And THEN!!! THEN I remembered I had given Chris and Diana ALL of Chris's pictures (a whole box full) when they had moved out-of-state the last time.

So, I got hold of them and they had to start looking--bless their hearts--having just gone through a move and having so much of their stuff packed away in a storage unit. But, Diana went to the storage unit and found some pictures!! Yay, Diana!!

Then it took me another month to get back to figuring out how to post things here--not hard, but I had forgotten my password, and then I had to figure out how to transfer the pictures from my email program to another format or something like that. I don't know the lingo and I'm terrible at anything on computer except the most basic word-processing. And even there, MS-WORD has me down for the count, 1/2 the time.

Is your mother getting old? Yep!! But, the truth is, I've always been a "butter-fly brain," drifty dreamer type, and not much on bee-line organizational skills.

So, here we go again . . .

Mom (me)