February 27th, 2012 Though I’m a little too quiet here on the blog lately, life is still really loud and really happening here. And sometimes I capture it. Most of the time on my cell. Here’s a quick wrap up.
I took a picture of my 9 weeks along belly last week. Because it’s for reals out there.
I’m still loving the city. The other day TheOldest and TheMiddlest had dental appointments and it was a beautiful golden day.
Only one small cavity between the two boys, in case you were wondering. Better than last time.
And this is another view that I see often. I adore the hills at sunset.
We got sick. Again. This time with croupy coughs and a little bit of fevers. BigMan took it the hardest again.
It was my first time to try elderberry syrup for their coughs at night and it worked wonders.
We had friends come into town that we haven’t seen in a while and we played with them.
We finally started guitar lessons with TheOldest. We’re using dvds called Learn and Master Guitar with Steve Krenz. He’s loving it so far.
Then while I napped on Saturday Matt cleaned out the van like it’s never been cleaned before. The kids asked if we were selling it! Haha! Not quite yet! Though there will come the time that we will have to do something since we’ll be outgrowing the blue van come September.
I should be grocery shopping this morning but I didn’t get much sleep with croupy littles so I’m thinking of delaying it. At least until after naptime. And that’s about it. What did your week look like?
February 20th, 2012 Today my husband and my oldest had a “joke off”. Of course they both absolutely cracked me up. My Oldest started his set off by bringing in a chair setting it in the middle of the room and sitting down. He then said, “Hi, I’m a sit down comedian.” Laughing out loud, I tell ya.
But then Matt couldn’t be out done of course and he started writing his own jokes. They are as follows.
What’s the difference in:
A 10 year old boy and Arizona?
- Arizona gets a shower at least once a month.
An 8 year old boy and a power outage?
- A power outage turns off the Playstation.
A 6 year old girl and the Queen of England?
- The queen has less jewelry and servants.
A 4 year old boy and a marching band in a parade?
- The marching band is quiet every other block.
A 2 year old and an evil dictator?
- Nothing.
A mama and an evil dictator?
- The dictator will relent with sanctions.
It’s funny because it’s true. Oh, so accurate.
February 19th, 2012 Alternately, and much more palatably, titled “Love is not that hard.”
I just finished watching Eat Pray Love. It’s been more than a month long attempt. I like to watch my chick flicks alone (I adore Matt, but he tends to make fun of my shows at the most inopportune times), so I’ve watched a bit here and a bit there.
And every time I have paused it for another night I’ve reflected on the part I’ve just watched. Each time I have inevitably thought, “Bullsh&t.” (I’m a cusser, you knew that.) And when Matt would ask me how I’m enjoying my movie I would tell him that. He would laugh and say, “That’s not very nice.” But it’s true.
Here’s the deal.
I remember being much like the main character. Obviously not the divorced part, but the “lost in the world, guilt-ridden, how do I find myself, and what’s it all about” part.
There are a couple of things I’ve learned along the way. (and yes, I’m fully aware I have so, so much more to learn, as you older wiser women are smiling now at my naivete.) But here’s the main thing I’ve learned about love. There’s not some magical mystical just right one person out there that you must find. There is definitely a moment that you are a swooning, head over heels girl and you begin to contemplate forever. If you have a guy that is grounded, treats you right, and loves you above all else except his God, if he would lay down his life for you, then he is the one. Marry him. If he can’t live without you and you likewise, marry him. Now, here’s the catch. You don’t get to unmarry him. Ever. Here’s where I call bullsh&t on most of the modern day romances. You commit. You make up your mind that he is indeed the love of your life and that there is no other for you. Even when you wonder who you were when you married this man that you now do not know who he is. You remind yourself that he is your one. You don’t get to consider anything else. Ever. Because it’s not about whether you married the “right” man or not. The man you are married to is the “right” man. Period. There’s no amount of “finding yourself” that’s going to fix fickleness. Commit. And the emotions will follow. Love, and marriage forever, are not that complicated. Now I know, as I said before, that I’m a mere 34 years old and that I have only been married for a mere 12 years, but in this time I have realized that the complication comes between you, your God, and your heart. You decide. And you follow through. It really is that easy. Even when it’s hard (and it will be. Period.), it’s that easy.
Second of all, I watched these characters (which yes, I am also aware are fictional, but I believe this movie and it’s popularity is a commentary on our times) struggle with forgiveness. And I was, in the beginning, tempted to call bullsh&t on it too. But then I was struck with their sadness. The line “oceans of regrets” got me. It brought back to me my own sadness, aloneness, forsakenness from years ago. It is the only reason I try to tell people about my God, my Savior, my Forgive-er. Because I remember. Those oceans will swallow you whole. They will take you under. The waves of your past sins and regrets will beat upon your being until you have been worn away, and you have a very good reason to try to find yourself. But you have to know, you must know, that it’s true, those oceans, those regrets, your past, the “god is in you, and is you” is all bullsh&t. Everything you cling to, try for, struggle through is bullsh&t without the only one who can truly erase the regrets from your life. It’s all pointless without Him.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.14 You are my friends if you do what I command.15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.17 This is my command: Love each other. John 15:9-17 (emphasis mine)
That’s the secret. The secret mysterious key to love and life. Everything else is just bullsh&t.
February 17th, 2012 In keeping with embracing this barely blogging season of life I’ll give you another fairly boring update.
I’m 8 weeks along in this 6th pregnancy. (Check out the little video and link to photo from the EHD on my sidebar about the development of the little life inside of me!) I feel very queasy most of the time. No throwing up and it’s very tolerable over all, it’s just a constant gentle reminder that there is a little life in there. The sickness responds some to eating. If I will just eat something nearly constantly then I can kind of keep the worst of it at bay. Because of that though I think I’m going to be Two Ton Annie before too long.
Speaking of Two Ton Annie, I’m in search of maternity clothes. Yes, at 8 weeks. I went and bought a Be Band (a product related to the Bella Band) and it did make wearing my old jeans possible yesterday. Matt mentioned the size of my belly and I asked him to confirm that it was indeed more the belly and the baby than all of me expanding due to the constant eating. Yes, he kind of laughed, it is definitely your belly. Good. That’s better.
Though I’m always so very cautious (superstitious even?) for the first 13 weeks of every pregnancy I’ve discovered I already feel more bonded and connected at this point with Parker Baby Number 6 than I was with my last Little Buddy. Which, of course, is now hard to even imagine. I also was not as bonded with my second child in utero (again, hard to fathom that now). So, I guess I say that to say, if you find yourself in whatever number pregnancy and feel disconnected from the little person inside of you, take heart. There will come a day that the memory of that is so distant and foreign that you can hardly imagine that you weren’t always head over heels for them.
I look forward to buying some maternity clothes soon. I have my first Midwife prenatal coming up in a couple of weeks and then in about a month I have my first required OB visit (legal requirement in Arkansas for having a home birth). All of those things are very exciting to me! I have a checklist of items to acquire and some to buy before the birth day and I’m so giddy about it all that it makes it hard to wait to order everything!
Oh, wanna take a second here to discuss some of those midwifing questions I’ve had (yours, my family and friends, and even mine!)? I will see my midwife (who happens to be a friend of mine for years now!) on roughly the same schedule you would normally see an OB. Every month at first, dropping to every 2 weeks toward the end, then weekly until the baby makes his/her appearance. I will have to see an OB twice in the pregnancy to be “cleared” for a home birth. Once at 12 weeks and then again at 20 weeks (that’s my understanding anyway). I will have an ultrasound at both of those appointments and yes, we will be finding out the gender of this baby at the 20 week visit. I will do the majority of my prenatals with my midwife at the clinic that she works out of. My children are more than welcome to join me (which is great, because as you probably know by now, where I go they go). At our particular clinic we do not have a birthing center. They offer doulas if you choose a hospital birth and the midwives will home birth. When they come to your home they bring with them everything they would have at a birthing center. They will have oxygen if needed, an IV at the ready (yes, even if I’m Group B Strep Positive as I’ve been in the past), bagging equipment, and all necessary emergency supplies were something to go wrong. Speaking of going wrong, their highest rates of transfers to the hospital are for first time stalling out pregnancies. I’m hoping mine is just like all of my other deliveries and that that would not be the case. I will have all of the same lab work including the gestational diabetes testing. The main difference is that I am already being treated like a person, a mom, instead of another number. I can text my midwife or call her at any hour with any question I have. And get this, she responds before 4:30pm the following business day. She is the same person who will attend my birth. Noteworthy, right? She listens and takes notes when I say, hey, it has taken about 6 hours of labor to get to 3 centimeters in the past, but then about 20 minutes to the beginning of pushing. She will work with me to find preventions to many issues that are only treated in the doctor’s office. One of the contrasts I’ve already had is when I called to schedule my first required prenatal with the OB (the highest recommended one in the area to work with midwives) and the front desk person told me she could only try to schedule the ultrasound on the same day as the prenatal visit. I explained that my husband was taking off for this visit and that it would be difficult for him to take 2 days in the same week off and that since we were scheduling all of this 6 weeks in advance could we please try for a same day ultrasound. She said that’s not how the policy works, that the doctor would see me and then that day they would attempt to schedule the ultrasound for the same afternoon, but oftentimes, it will be a few days later. Really? Policy? Because this is a baby and family we’re talking about, not just the way your office works. Crazy. As opposed to my midwife who said, “You know, we can have your first midwife consultation at your house in the evening so that you don’t have to find a sitter and I can answer all of Matt and your questions then when I drop off all the paperwork you need to have filled out by the first prenatal.” Really? You understand and accommodate the needs and desires of a mom and dad of many? Wow.
Okay, enough of that. I would love to answer any more of your midwifing questions or any other parenting, pregnancy questions, just let me know! (Though I’m no expert, just an expert on what I’ve done. And sometimes not even then.)
February 9th, 2012 
The Baby is getting older. He’s 2 and a half. He speaks in paragraphs now. He even told me the other day “I not a baby, Mama, I a bid boy.” (our g’s are d’s). And there’s that whole pesky business of having a new baby on the way and thusly having 2 babies at the same time. And though he (and all the rest of them for that matter) will always be my baby it might make it easier if he has a new nickname in the cyber world. And after much debating of said nickname. We decided to go with the name that BigMan frequently calls him. Little Buddy. He’s BigMan’s Little Buddy and he gets called that oh so often. So, without further ado, I introduce to you…. Little Buddy!
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