painting naked, the unending collaborative work

so i have come to the conclusion (and i am sure that it will be engrained in my mind and heart for years to come) that the idea i once had about "painting naked" or creation of innocence and creating a life is not a concept to be applied to one moment alone like the "beginning of a life". Sure a living being is created upon conception; and birth is further proof of that, but the fact is that while a living being is created, creating a life is much more that that.
to create a life takes a lot more work, with many people involved. It is a collaborative piece with the greatest amount of credit going to the individual living it, but due recognition going to those that helped start, shape and inspire the work.
I am living my painting... the greatest piece of which is the starting, shaping and inspiring of my son's "painting". What kind of life can i help him start. what kind of life can i help shape for him... most importantly, what kind of life can i help to inspire in him... that, i hope and pray, will be the centerpiece and crowning achievement of my own work of art.
and so here we are... painting naked...

OUR LITTLE BUNDEL OF JOY,BABY MORRISON GABRIEL POULTER'S VIDEO DEBUT

this kid already thinks he is tough...

Morrison's first mohawk... likely not his last...

so, it all started on christmas night (well, i guess his story started back in march, but for purposes of this story we will say that it started on christmas night, december 25th, 2008) we were scheduled to arrive at nineish to get started with the inducing of baby morrison.
thanks to the super snowy roads and amazingly bad drivers (i figure that if i, with my limited experience of driving in the snow and driving a little two wheel drive honda civic could make it up the hills to the hospital without getting stuck, than all of the people i passed in their big 4x4 suv's blocking the road must have been bad drivers) but we made it about nine thirty. the nurses were happy to see that we had made it and got us set up in the room right away.
the first step was to let a quarter dose of some sort of magic pill (sorry, i dont remember the name... i know, i should be better at that kind of stuff) anyways, the pill was placed in sandra's upper lip at the gumline to dissolve. Now, i dont know if it was the pill, or sandra's body knowing what was supposed to be happening, but the contractions started right away. we both laid down to rest awaiting the next few doses of the same pill.
an hour or so later the nurse came in and said that everything looked great, so good in fact that they were going to forego the subsequent doses and jump straight into the heavy stuff. she was given something to help her deal with the pain while we waited for the big guns. The pitocin was started around 4:00am on the 26th. we had both been resting as much as we could between the bathroom breaks. (i don't think i had realized how often sandra had been waking up to relieve herself these last few weeks until i was called on to carry the I.V. bag for every trip. i dont know how she did it, but i love her for it.)
the pitocin is a synthetic form of oxitocin which is the hormone that the body secretes to get labor started (see, i paid attention and caught some things) The contractions continued and sandra's water broke on its own at 5:45 am. it was a high break so there was no gush, but a trickle with every contraction.
we were suprised to here that she was only dilated to 3+ centimeters after a full night of contractions, but we were relieved to know that we would not be sent home packing again (that is another story) but that they would stick with us.
by morning and exam time sandra was feeling pretty uncomfortable and asked for the epidural (the nurses had given her the option much earlier). THAT WAS A LIFE SAVER.
sandra's body kept on doing what it was supposed to be doing. She would nap between the nurses visits, uninterrupted by potty runs thanks to the catheter that was placed at the time of the epidural. The next exam she was up to 5 or 6 centimeters. more resting, a few more little pumps of epidural, and a few hours later she was up to 8.
At around 2:00 the nurse declared her to be the full 10 centimeters and that it would soon be time to start pushing.
The anesthesiologist gave her one last dose with the epidural, the doctor was called and the pushing started at 2:10ish.
Sandra is an amazing pusher. It was only on the first or second push that i first saw the wet and hairy little head. The contractions slowed down a little bit but that didn't stop the party and sandra took advantage of every one. after about a half dozen contractions with 3 to 4 good pushes each the doctor still had not arrived. The nurse actually had sandra rest a little bit, not wanting to get too far ahead of herself before he got there. she skipped the pushing on two contractions. the nurse had sandra push on the next and the doctor walked in. The doctor was there for 2 more contractions and on the second MORRISON GABRIEL POULTER was born.
He weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and measured 21.5 inches. (yes, that is 21.5 inches, over a third of the height of his mom already ;) yeah, a perverbial slap in the face to all the doubters that thought that she was carrying "too small"

FLIPPING FOR THE FLIP... A SUPRISE CHRISTMAS GIFT

so this is the maiden voyage of our newest life sharing vessel.

sandra didn't know that i had bought it, as you can tell from the video, she didnt even realize that my mom was filming her with our new flip video camera.

we hope to be able to use it a lot to update everyone on our lives... tomorrow night they will be inducing sandra to have the baby on the 26th. now we will have the video evidence.

WE ARE SUPER EXCITED (anxious, nervous, and maybe a little bit scared, but SUPER EXCITED!!!

40 Whole Weeks!

So here it is... Our baby boy on his due date... Dec. 18th and still in the belly as u can see. This was Kyle's attempt at fine art pregnancy photography. Someone once told Kyle "that the best photographers, are just good editors." So here's the final product after editing... this is the best we could find.

And after a long day of waiting (shuuuut a long 9 months...) and waiting for this big day, here we are still in the waiting process, and at the end of todays day i was looking pretty... IRRITATED! But Kyle and I know it will be WORTH the waiting.

The Evolution of "the BELLY"

So here we are, it is like Christmas Eve in pregnancy land. Tomorrow is the big day! (or is it?) a lot has changed since Sandra began asking me to take picutres of her nonexistant pregnancy belly (as you can see in the slide show below). Well, that belly has become existant... very existant... it has grown to dominate our thoughts, inspire our dreams and kill Sandra's ability to sleep... but it will all be worth it! if we can just get the little guy to come out! just one more pic to add. (unless of course we get to month TEN!)

intro

so, if you are not already familiar with the poem and the philosophy behind it, you may be asking yourself, "what's with the painting naked thing?"
well, here is a quick explanation:
first, painting... painting is a form of creation. One thing that really sets us apart among all of the creations of our Heavenly Father is our power to create. we create art through music, poetry, drawing and painting, etc. but just as His greatest creation is life and love, so is ours. The closest we will ever come to being like God in this life is through the sacred power of creating life and love. That is painting.
second, why does it have to be naked? well, to be honest, i originally started the poem thinking about how cool it would be literally to paint naked in a room of my own. i also liked the tabooyness of the word... but then the symbolism began to present itself. naked means innocent, humble, pure, and new. adam and eve were naked in the garden. our little baby morrison gabriel poulter (like all others) will come into this world naked. Naked is beautiful.
and so, we paint naked.
this is a blog about Kyle and Sandra Poulter (Maldonado) and our new (relatively) family. the inspiration for this blog and most likely to be this most photographically pubished participant will be our newest addition to the family, little morrisoncito. He is our masterpiece, our picture perfect poetry, our creation that not only compares with those of our Heavenly Father, but was created by and through his helping hand, and while he is the first... we will see what the future holds. We hope you enjoy our paintings

Painting Naked

in our house

in a room set aside

in a room specified

for painting naked

we'll paint together

create a masterpiece

picture perfect poetry

on the canvass of our surroundings

painting, creating, making LOVE

creations to compare

with those of God above

from humble beginnings

in our house

in a room set aside

a room specified

for painting naked