Corinna Grace

I have so many memories and stories of our first child, Corinna Grace. Isn't that a beautiful name? We had a Dutch woman in church who many called Tante Corrie and I thought that Corrie was such a nice name for a girl, plus I admired the story of Corrie Ten Boom. But my mom had said to me once that she thought you should not name a child with a name that ends in y or i because as they grow old, that might not sound right -- like an 80 year old man called Billy or something. In the end, it's really not a big deal but I did want to have a more formal name, for which Cori would be the nickname. So I looked in my 4 name books (I loved looking through name books) and found Corinna. It means "maiden" and we chose Grace as her middle name, after my dear Grandma Kok. A maiden of grace, or a graceful maiden. Beautiful.

My water broke on the morning Cori was born. We went to the hospital and when the contractions didn't start, I was induced. About 7 hours later she was born, 9 lb. 5 oz. Not a tiny baby. Not the most painless birth, but who's keeping track? Ha. When she was delivered, the nurse or doctor said, "It's a girl," and I said, "Oh, I forgot to wonder!" I was just so happy that I hadn't even stopped to wonder whether it was a girl or boy.

As soon as Cori began breathing she made her presence felt. She never cried the kitten-y sounding "waa, nyu, waa" that newborns usually do. She screamed. Really. She stiffened her whole body, opened her mouth and yelled. We were in a small delivery room, with one nurse on one side weighing her, the other nurse on the other side recording it, and they had to yell to each other, "NINE POUNDS, FIVE OUNCES!" It was crazy. They were laughing.

I remember lying on a gurney waiting to go into the recovery room with Cori wrapped up lying on my tummy, looking up at me, and Randy standing beside us. We gazed into her beautiful eyes and fell in love. I actually had the sensation of tumbling -- tumbling into love. She was so perfect. When people came to visit they remarked on her chubby cheeks and beautiful little face. Being 9 lb. already she looked more fully formed than some newborns do.

That screaming cry? It never stopped. That was just her norm. It was like she was letting us know she did not like the changes that were happening. She didn't like coming out of that nice comfy womb, I guess. Nor did she like baths. Nor going to sleep. Nor being hungry. Nor having a diaper change. I was quite sleep-deprived and probably hormone-whacked, but even though having a colick-y baby was hard, we couldn't have been happier, and she gave us so much joy.

My mom came and helped when she was first born, and Randy's family came, too, including his Grandma Dobben. Once in a while my mom would add a little to my stress by saying that "babies cry for a reason" and I felt so unable to figure out what the reason was. Then Randy's mom later said, as she was holding a screaming Cori, calmly patting her on the back, "Some babies just need to cry for exercise." I literally felt a weight lift from my shoulders when I heard that. Both moms were so much help. My mom left a whole bunch of meals in the freezer for us, and she cleaned the house, and just took care of things. She said she was with me to take care of everything else so I could take care of the baby. Perfect.

Somewhere around 3 or 4 months old, Cori got over the colickiness and became one of the easiest babies ever. She actually liked small spaces like a playpen. She didn't start crawling super early so we used to be able to just set her down while we got things done. On Sunday mornings while we were getting ready for church, we could put her on the floor at the end of our hallway where there were mirror tiles on two of the walls. She could see herself from two sides, and she'd happily sit there. So cute.

At around 6 months we got her a walker and she absolutely loved it. She'd been frustrated sometimes by not being able to get around on her own and she became an expert in that walker. She zoomed around everywhere. Once her little friend Rachel was over and Rachel could walk by then. Cori almost scared her zooming after her in that walker. They were good buds, though.

A favorite family story about Cori is her baptism. My dad did the baptism, which was wonderful. Cori was still very small, less than 3 months when he and Mom were here for the baptism. In fact, I think it was probably while they were here to help right after she was born. At any rate -- and this is my excuse for what I did -- I was definitely still in that sleep-deprived, hormone-ravaged stage of early motherhood. A little background: Dad had asked me more than once how to spell Cori's name. He couldn't seem to remember if there was one r and two n's or one n and two r's. Now I thought that if he would just remember how to say her name, with a "short vowel sound" for the i, then he should be able to remember that it would be two n's. Two consonants after a vowel make the vowel sound short. Doesn't everyone know that rule of phonics? It couldn't be my background as a first grade teacher that would make me feel that was self-evident, right?

At any rate, the baptism story. Randy and I, with Cori in Randy's arms, stood by Dad at the baptism font, of course, and Dad asked us some questions. Unbeknownst to us, it was Dad's practice to ask, "And what is the child's name?" So he asked us that. Well, I was disgusted. I thought he forgot her name! I said, "You know her name," very angrily. Poor Dad. He kind of looked surprised and then kept going with the ceremony, baptizing her and saying her name perfectly because of course he had not forgotten it! So there you go. As I said, it was the hormones and lack of sleep, I'm sure.