Christmas Letter 2020

The New Normal

2020 has been a very different year for everyone, but especially for Korben and me. On October 10 our little girl, Abigail Joy Rusek, was born and our lives have forever changed. We have definitely experienced a "new normal." She has only been in our lives for a couple months now, but it feels like forever, in a good way. But also in a very tired and sleep deprived way. If our Christmas letter ends up with typos galore or is completely nonsensical, Abigail is probably to blame.

Actually, Abigail is already a pretty good sleeper at night (knock on wood) and can sleep up to 6 hours some nights- a real treat for Mommy and Daddy! Overall she isn't a very fussy baby (though she has her moments), she loves to eat all the time, and she flashes a toothless smile that melts our hearts. She especially enjoys going to the bathroom the second her diaper comes off, sometimes even making such an explosive show that she gets to (actually NEEDS TO) have a bath (she loves bath time!). 

Her first month was pretty rough on us new parents. We had to take her to the hospital every day for a week to get a bilirubin test and luckily her jaundice stayed at bay. At her second week appointment we found out that she hadn't gained any weight and we had to start bottle feeding her. When Abigail was 30 days old she was running a fever and we took her to the ER (thankfully that turned out to be nothing... just a 7 hour excuse to hang out in the hospital with COVID patients). The amount of stress was practically enough to send me to the ER and I began panicking about every little thing. Worst of all, I started having a hard time falling asleep- probably the thing I needed the most. Korben, typically annoyingly calm, even started feeling that new parent anxiety. One night I woke up to Korben shaking me and grabbing a pillow out of my arms. "The baby needs to breathe!" he told a very groggy me before he realized I was sleeping with a pillow, not a baby.

Now that Abigail is two months old, Korben and I are starting to feel like parenting experts. Or, at least we're getting used to sleep deprivation and crying fits (usually just from Abigail). My mom came out the week after Abigail was born and was a huge help to us. Korben's mom came out for nearly the entire month of November which really helped us to feel a lot less like zombies. I'm not sure that we were entertaining or exciting hosts, but both grandmothers seemed to enjoy holding a sleeping baby and feeding her bottles. Abigail had a huge blow out on Gam Gam (Korben's mom) and she didn't even apologize, yet Gam Gam seemed to immediately forgive her. There are a lot of other family members who are quite anxious to meet her and we are hopeful that she can meet them soon!

The New House

Last December Korben and I purchased a new house. It is in the same town we already live in but in an area we really enjoyed going to and walking the dogs around. The new house is bigger and has a layout that makes more sense than our old house (other than the fact that it has a random step into the dining room and a sunken living room- these are tripping opportunities for our guests!). We were ecstatic to move into the house, but we got the keys to the house the day we left to see my family last Christmas. Korben and I decided that when we returned home from our trip, we would NOT move into the house yet because we were going to host a couple girls from Korea in the middle of January. How could we move out of our old home and into our new home in the space of two weeks? It seemed way too rushed so we agreed that we would just wait until February to move into our new home. As soon as the plane landed in Seattle, Korben and I looked at each other and said, "Let's move into the new house!" We used every spare minute we weren't at work to find boxes and stuff things into them. I overdid it and ended up getting some bad vertigo so we hired a moving company to haul all our things to the new home (while I did absolutely nothing- a suspicious tradition I've created with nearly all of our moves). Somehow we got in our new house and organized it enough to host our two Korean guests. (We basically threw a lot of boxes into a room we weren't using and shut the door.)

We love our new house! The room with all the boxes briefly became Korben's office before we transformed it into Abigail's nursery. Korben's mom had a lot of fun helping us paint the Winnie-the-Pooh theme on the walls. The animals have all adjusted to the new living space except for Brewster, my Siamese, who hates changes. He has protested by peeing in nearly every room in the house. A fun game we like to play now is, "Find the Source of the Pee Smell." It's a good thing we aren't in love with the carpet!

Brewster did do some good this year, though. In the spring we realized we hadn't seen or heard our little Grapefruit (our orange tabby cat) for a few days. She is timid and shy and enjoys hiding in strange places (like underneath the kitchen cabinets). We looked in every vent and crawl space in our new house and couldn't find her anywhere. After a week we realized that she somehow must have gone outside (she is strictly an indoor cat) and were worried that something had happened to her. I called the Humane Society but they hadn't found any orange tabby cats recently. Grapefruit's sister had escaped some years back and died after eating azaleas. Our new house didn't have azaleas, but many neighborhood cats were victims of coyotes. There had also been thunderstorms. After the tenth day of not seeing Grapefruit I called the Humane Society one last time. They still hadn't seen any orange tabby cats. Korben sat outside on the front porch calling her name while he ate his breakfast. Brewster, usually soaking up the sun on our driveway, was acting strange; he was pacing and fluffing his tail over by the neighbor's front porch. Korben took a peek underneath the porch and there he found a terrified little orange cat-- Grapefruit! Brewster and Grapefruit have never liked each other, but after Brewster found his sister-- guess what! They still don't like each other. They are cats, after all.

Abigail's wall above her crib. Gam Gam helped us paint the characters!

Korben has already done some renovation projects in our new house. We had a hallway that only led to our bedroom and I thought it was a waste of space and could be incorporated to make our master bedroom's walk-in closet bigger. To convince Korben to start the project I simply began by tearing down the walls! We hoped to finish the project before Abigail's arrival, but that didn't happen. Korben recently got the new walls up on our closet, officially hiding my dresses from being visible from the living room (my parents called it our Green Acres closet). Korben also built a beautiful mantel for our fireplace.

The New News

In February my mom and sister came up to see our new home for a long weekend. It just so happened that it was same weekend Korben and I found out I was pregnant! With last year's miscarriage fresh in our minds we decided to not say anything quite yet. But we were very hopeful, especially now that we lived in a home that seemed more kid-friendly.

When March came around I had a miscarriage scare while I was at school. My principal was very kind and understanding and helped get my class covered while I cried in the car and then went to the doctor. Once I was at the doctor's office, the doctor searched for the heartbeat and found it immediately! Korben would tell you that this is the story of how I managed to hear the heartbeat before he did. He had to wait a couple more weeks to hear it at my first official appointment. After that the coronavirus restrictions got very strict and he wasn't able to come to any more appointments until very late in my last trimester. I was high risk due to a medical condition and I had to go every other week to get ultrasounds done so I got a lot of sneak peeks at our little baby girl.

Seattle was briefly the epicenter for coronavirus. Suddenly I knew people that lived in the area who were sick with it. I was starting to worry about getting it. Korben's work had already told everyone to work from home. By the end of March my school had decided to meet virtually, a difficult decision to make. Initially I was ecstatic because my morning sickness (a complete misnomer- should have been an "all day" sickness) was so intense that I had to stop the car on the way to school to throw up. Virtual school meant I could puke in the comfort of my own home without traumatizing my students. But teaching virtually was quite a challenge. Still, I counted my blessings that I could be home and safe.

In one of my virtual meetings with my students I did a gender reveal for my students who were very eager to know if I was having a boy or a girl. I took a vote to see what they all thought. Most students thought I was having BOTH despite numerous times where I clarified that I was not having twins. My mother would have been thrilled if my students had been right (she honestly would love it if I had about five babies all at once), but Korben and I are grateful to just have our hands full with one little demanding baby bundle of joy.

Baby Kangarusek gender reveal

My morning sickness lasted for about 20 weeks (that's half of the pregnancy!). Ideally I thought I would be eating healthy foods, drinking only water, and getting plenty of exercise. Instead, fruits and vegetables tasted like garbage and water made me gag. My palate changed completely to something that seven-year-old Lori would have been proud of-- chicken nuggets, Taco Bell, chocolate milk, ice cream, and pizza made up the majority of my meals. I couldn't keep any water down at all so I drank a lot of sugary drinks until my principal sent me some carbonated water and I discovered I was able to keep that down.

It took a while for me to be noticeably pregnant and I was able to stay fairly active and go for nice, long walks. But the bigger my stomach grew, the more my balance was thrown off. For those who know me well, they could tell you that I'm already a klutz on my best of days. Being pregnant made me even worse! I fell down twice, both times I had to go to triage for observation and the second time I had to stay overnight. After the second fall I ordered hiking poles and no matter how ridiculous I looked, I walked all around the neighborhood with those poles.

Over the summer Korben's mom came to visit and later on my family all came up. It was nice to see everyone, but a little disappointing that we weren't able to do our original summer family trip. Joni (my sister) and I had planned on taking our parents to Hawaii as a birthday present to them but we had to cancel it. Maybe 2021? At the very least, I produced the first grandchild for my parents this year so I think they might forgive me, though I don't know what to say about Joni!

The Newborn

October 15 was the original due date. Abigail was sitting breech for most of the pregnancy so we scheduled a C-section on October 8. Most women hate to be told their baby will come via C-section, but I was honestly relieved. Going into labor seemed incredibly medieval, even barbaric (yes, even more barbaric than being awake for major abdominal surgery where a 6-9 pound baby is pulled out!) and it was really nice to know the date she would come. We got the house ready, set out some extra food for the dogs and cats, loaded up the car with everything we'd need including a car seat, and Korben got everything together for leaving work.

On the 8th of October we drove to the hospital and I was completely prepped for surgery. Korben was already wearing the poofy gown for the OR when my doctor came by and suggested we do one last minute ultrasound. Little miss Abigail had flipped and surprised us all-- probably the beginning of many surprises from this girl. My doctor, the nurses, and Korben were all relieved, even giddy to send me to Labor and Delivery to be induced instead of the sending me to the OR. Only I was the one a bit grumpy that Abigail had not stuck to the plan!

October 8 went by and no progress had been made despite being induced. On October 9 they started torturing me with pitocin in a sick effort to make me feel pain. It worked! But Abigail was unimpressed and the doctors decided that she probably wouldn't come until the following day and that I should get some sleep that night on the incredibly uncomfortable labor and delivery bed that I had already been lying in for over 24 hours.

On 10/10/2020, a mathematically pleasing day for her mathematician daddy, at 8:31pm, Abigail Joy Rusek finally decided to make her entrance into the world. She weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces and was 20 inches long. Her mommy was doing fine thanks to a very nice epidural (thank you, modem medicine) and her daddy was thrilled, and Abigail seemed initially a little upset, but calmed down when she was placed on my chest where she immediately pooped on me (the beginning of a saga).

Interestingly enough, when I had told friends that we were having a girl, a few of them immediately guessed correctly that we had chosen the name Abigail! It seemed providential that Abigail was born on the second Saturday of October. Last year on the second Saturday of October I had preached a sermon at church about one of my favorite female Bible characters: Abigail. We chose Joy for her middle name because that's what she has given us in 2020. (My mom, in her typical fashion of asking without thinking, asked me while we were in the hospital if we had picked out a last name yet!)

The New Jobs

Korben had been working at Rover and he really enjoyed it, but he had been getting restless and decided to apply for Google. The application process to work at Google is very long; it was about five months for Korben! But he was very happy to have been offered a job there and started working at his new office in March. After three days of him going into work, Google announced that everyone should work from home due to coronavirus. This made adjusting to his new work much more difficult, but Korben has managed and is enjoying the chance to learn new things. When my school did virtual distance learning a couple weeks later and I was home all the time too, I was told  by Korben that I sometimes was "distracting," especially once I was on summer break and I was trying to binge watch shows in the same room Korben was working in. But what I think Korben really meant to say was that he was overjoyed to have the opportunity to be at home with me 24/7 during this pre-baby time.

I also have a new job, though it doesn't seem to pay much at all even though my hours are longer. I decided to stay at home with Abigail and so far it's been wonderful! I loved working at Northwest Christian School and I miss my students and coworkers, but I will admit that this is a great year to work from home and I'm blessed to have the opportunity to do this. I never really imagined being a stay at home parent so this is new territory for me, but I can promise that the laundry, dishes, and vacuuming are not going to get done any more often than when I was going into work every day.

We wish all of our friends and family a happy and safe holiday season!

Love,

The Rusek family:

Korben, Lori, and Baby Abigail

And of course, the neglected and demoted fur babies: Kepler, Anyong, Grapefruit, and Brewster