I am pregnant. It is a big "no, no" to tell you that because I am only five weeks along. My husband and I aren't really status quo folks though. I am processing a lot right now, what better place to do it than on a blog that the whole world can read. :)
I am excited to be pregnant. I actually like pregnancy once I get past week 20 or so. You know the sex of the baby and by that time I have been done puking (I am not one of those lucky "vomit only in first trimester" people. Pregnancy is the only time my stomach is ever firm and I have always just really loved the pregnant body. Plus after nursing two kids, I'm looking forward to having my boobs take on shape once again.
I am excited to have a third baby. I love my kids immensly and have learned to embrace the chaos that sometimes exists in our home. I would love for Ava to have a sister or Phin to have a brother. I'd love to see an even different charming combination of Marc and me, and get to experience partaking in God's work of creation.
I am also flippin' terrified. I have had two miscarriages. When you have only had two births, as well, you are just as familiar with the feeling of realizing you lost your baby as you are with the feeling of giving birth. I get a sick feeling in my stomach every time I change or go to the bathroom, so fearful that I may see blood and know history is repeating itself. In order to cope, I kind of disconnect from the whole thing and don't remember I am even pregnant until I try to eat and feel nauseated all over.
I can't even let myself think too much about what will happen if we have a baby like Phin was. Our life was so difficult for five months. I literally look back and wonder how I survived. If you have never had a long stretch of sleep deprivation, just trust me- it is excruciating. Phin used to wake up 6 or so times a night. When you live on sleep stretches that are an hour and a half long at most, you really are barely living. There's no way to prepare yourself for that and it is solely by God's mercy that we survived. I have to trust that He'll carry us through again if we have to walk that road, but I can't even bring myself to imagine that road could actually be ahead once again.
I also get freaked out about having THREE kids to manage. I am doing okay with two. I like my life. We are in a good groove. What are we thinking by adding a third munchkin to the mix! Are we INSANE?! We will be outnumbered!! I can only imagine that the occasonal bad day will come with increasing frequency. And what about babysitters? Is it hard to find a sitter to watch three kids? How much do you have to pay someone to take that on? Will we ever get alone time again?
See? Processing a lot and I imagine we will be processing a lot for a long, long time...atleast in a few weeks we'll hopefully get to see a strong quick little heart beat. That will go a long way to appease my mind...
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sometimes all you can do is laugh- whether it's appropriate or not
My daughter has a little cold. Sometimes feeling a little under the weather can set her through the roof emotionally. What an exciting evening we have had. Thank goodness my husband is home for this round of toddler tantrumania! The truth is it might have nothing to do with her cold and everything to do with the fact that baby brother is getting loads of attention for his every increasing walking skills. Whatever the causing factor the result is pure insanity...
Believe it or flippin' not, my dear daughter pulled the "water over baby brothers head" trick AGAIN in the bathtub- this time when papa ran to grab Phin's towel and she didn't realize mom was peeking in. She seemed surprised and crushed to immediately have to get out of the tub, leaving one to wonder how adept her manipulation skills may be. She is a very smart little girl; I find it very hard to believe that she was surprised at this.
Bedtime only continued to be a bundle of fun for the padres. What is becoming difficult, actually, is not laughing. Her emotions get so out of control it truly is ab-so-lute-ly absurd. At one point she had come into the living room for the second time just weeping about how hungry she was. We were refusing food because she had refused to eat dinner, but upon talking decided to give her a cheesestick but let her know that if she missed dinner any other night she'd go to bed with that hungry feeling in her stomach. We told her to remember how she felt right now because that is a feeling she'd sleep with if this happened again in the future. I don't even know if she got the lesson because not one but BOTH of her parents busted out laughing when she said in response (while still wimpering), "Yes, that is very serious because if you don't eat food you get really, really hungry and it is NOT GOOD."
Aye yaye yaye- I could share more details, but the bottom line is parenting is tough stuff. It is so tough in fact that my husband just looked at me and said, "how can it only be 8 o'clock?" The drama is so exhausting ten minutes seems like ten hours. I've been told that the todder years prepare you for adolescence and I'm sitting her going "oh boy!" I hope I learn a lot right now cuz I sure couldn't handle this if she had a deeper vocab arsenal and was the same size as I am.
P.S. Mom and Papa, if you are reading this- "I am really, really sorry for putting you through many nights such as this both at three and at sixteen."
Believe it or flippin' not, my dear daughter pulled the "water over baby brothers head" trick AGAIN in the bathtub- this time when papa ran to grab Phin's towel and she didn't realize mom was peeking in. She seemed surprised and crushed to immediately have to get out of the tub, leaving one to wonder how adept her manipulation skills may be. She is a very smart little girl; I find it very hard to believe that she was surprised at this.
Bedtime only continued to be a bundle of fun for the padres. What is becoming difficult, actually, is not laughing. Her emotions get so out of control it truly is ab-so-lute-ly absurd. At one point she had come into the living room for the second time just weeping about how hungry she was. We were refusing food because she had refused to eat dinner, but upon talking decided to give her a cheesestick but let her know that if she missed dinner any other night she'd go to bed with that hungry feeling in her stomach. We told her to remember how she felt right now because that is a feeling she'd sleep with if this happened again in the future. I don't even know if she got the lesson because not one but BOTH of her parents busted out laughing when she said in response (while still wimpering), "Yes, that is very serious because if you don't eat food you get really, really hungry and it is NOT GOOD."
Aye yaye yaye- I could share more details, but the bottom line is parenting is tough stuff. It is so tough in fact that my husband just looked at me and said, "how can it only be 8 o'clock?" The drama is so exhausting ten minutes seems like ten hours. I've been told that the todder years prepare you for adolescence and I'm sitting her going "oh boy!" I hope I learn a lot right now cuz I sure couldn't handle this if she had a deeper vocab arsenal and was the same size as I am.
P.S. Mom and Papa, if you are reading this- "I am really, really sorry for putting you through many nights such as this both at three and at sixteen."
Thursday, October 15, 2009
When Bathtime is a bust....
Bathtime is usually a good time at our house, but today it seemed doomed from the start. Perhaps when a mom's reason for having bathtime is solely to waste time until bedtime, she is only asking for trouble!
First, Ava was determined that the water was too hot. It was SO lukewarm I worried it might not be warm enough, but it was "too hot" before she even touched it; she of course stood crying in it for like 5 minutes before just all of a sudden changing her tune, sitting down and playing. Now you may wonder, why I didn't just "let" her get out. I would have. She WANTED to be in the bath, but stood there crying. I stood there staring, wondering how much more irrational behavior would manifest itself before this overtired preschooler was tucked safely in bed.
Sure enough irrationality did strike again, soon Ava was mistreating her brother. He is teething, so he enjoys chewing on a good, wet washcloth. She kept pulling it out of his mouth and throwing it out of his reach. I made her stop, but within about a minute she found it equally as fun to bop him on the head. At that point she lost the priviledge of touching her brother. I knew the battle had begun when she didn't touch Phin but purposefully touched his bath seat and looked at me with a smirk- the kind of smirk you want to "wipe off her face". She received a warning of losing books at bedtime. We had a few minutes of peace during which time I received a phone call. My dear friend Bobbi was talking to me for all of two minutes when Ava decided to dump a very large and very full cup of water over her brother's head. My poor son sputtered for breath and blinked to restore his eyesight. Phin was crying, so while holding the phone with my chin, I leaned over to rescue him from the tub. Our brand new handset drop directly into the water and sunk straight to the bottom. I wrapped Phin in a towel and then rescued the phone. I wanted to dump my own head under water for reacting without using the brain God gave me! AHHHH! Knowing how frustrated my husband will be when he realizes we have to replace our phones yet again- I tried by best to salvage it by taking it apart, laying the battery aside and am hoping for the best. Needless to say, Ava did lose her books.
I dressed and lotioned my son and returned to the bathroom to get Ava out of the tub. I turned around to reach for her towel when my daughter again dumped a full glass of water- over the edge of the tub onto her dry and dressed brother and my bathroom floor. Let me just say she is very lucky that I was so stunned by her actions that it took me a couple seconds to register that it really happened. Then...mom took deep breath (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!). She was put straight into bed (allowed only to change into her pajamas and brush her teeth.) Thankfully, it is apparently devastating to be put to bed before one's baby brother; Let's hope it's devastating enough to help her remember to have a little more self control and a little less defiance.
The only upside to having to mop my bathroom floor and rewash the bathroom rugs that were already washed TODAY is that now it is only 6:41 and both of my children are in bed. I don't even know what I'll do with myself! Bathtime was definitely a test in how much self control this mother possesses, but there is now a wonderful, peaceful silence...perhaps Bathtime wasn't such a bad idea after all!
First, Ava was determined that the water was too hot. It was SO lukewarm I worried it might not be warm enough, but it was "too hot" before she even touched it; she of course stood crying in it for like 5 minutes before just all of a sudden changing her tune, sitting down and playing. Now you may wonder, why I didn't just "let" her get out. I would have. She WANTED to be in the bath, but stood there crying. I stood there staring, wondering how much more irrational behavior would manifest itself before this overtired preschooler was tucked safely in bed.
Sure enough irrationality did strike again, soon Ava was mistreating her brother. He is teething, so he enjoys chewing on a good, wet washcloth. She kept pulling it out of his mouth and throwing it out of his reach. I made her stop, but within about a minute she found it equally as fun to bop him on the head. At that point she lost the priviledge of touching her brother. I knew the battle had begun when she didn't touch Phin but purposefully touched his bath seat and looked at me with a smirk- the kind of smirk you want to "wipe off her face". She received a warning of losing books at bedtime. We had a few minutes of peace during which time I received a phone call. My dear friend Bobbi was talking to me for all of two minutes when Ava decided to dump a very large and very full cup of water over her brother's head. My poor son sputtered for breath and blinked to restore his eyesight. Phin was crying, so while holding the phone with my chin, I leaned over to rescue him from the tub. Our brand new handset drop directly into the water and sunk straight to the bottom. I wrapped Phin in a towel and then rescued the phone. I wanted to dump my own head under water for reacting without using the brain God gave me! AHHHH! Knowing how frustrated my husband will be when he realizes we have to replace our phones yet again- I tried by best to salvage it by taking it apart, laying the battery aside and am hoping for the best. Needless to say, Ava did lose her books.
I dressed and lotioned my son and returned to the bathroom to get Ava out of the tub. I turned around to reach for her towel when my daughter again dumped a full glass of water- over the edge of the tub onto her dry and dressed brother and my bathroom floor. Let me just say she is very lucky that I was so stunned by her actions that it took me a couple seconds to register that it really happened. Then...mom took deep breath (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!). She was put straight into bed (allowed only to change into her pajamas and brush her teeth.) Thankfully, it is apparently devastating to be put to bed before one's baby brother; Let's hope it's devastating enough to help her remember to have a little more self control and a little less defiance.
The only upside to having to mop my bathroom floor and rewash the bathroom rugs that were already washed TODAY is that now it is only 6:41 and both of my children are in bed. I don't even know what I'll do with myself! Bathtime was definitely a test in how much self control this mother possesses, but there is now a wonderful, peaceful silence...perhaps Bathtime wasn't such a bad idea after all!
Monday, October 12, 2009
"Oh be careful little mouth what you say..."
Some very close friends of our had a tragedy hit their family last week. Ava is quite attuned to the goings on and feelings experienced in our house. We think we are speaking safely in our room and she apparently overhears. She started asking questions about why her friend had to go on an airplane and what happened. I know enough to answer only the questions they ask. I just told her her friends uncle had an accident and he died. She seemed very satisfied with this answer initially, but as always, her mind kept working. She came back to me a little bit later and said, "Mommy, did that man died because he had a poop accident or a pee one?"
Oh my! Thank God she verbalized that question!...Can you just imagine a little kid walking around thinking you can die from going potty in your pants?!
Oh my! Thank God she verbalized that question!...Can you just imagine a little kid walking around thinking you can die from going potty in your pants?!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
BRRRRRRRRRR
Saturday we had to fill in for my coleader of mom's group and "host" a family day at Johansen's Farm. I can't even tell you if I think it is worth a visit, though looking at our pictures, I have to admit it is probably a great outing. The problem Saturday was the FREEZING cold. My husband NEVER gets cold and said to me as we are leaving, "Now I know why you hate being cold. I am so miserable I feel agitated and angry." (Maybe now he'll quit turning down the heat on me!) My children, seemed oblivious to our discomfort and managed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Most familes were wise enough to stay indoors, which allowed Phin opportunities to do activities usually untouched by one year olds; I am so addicted to "preserving memories" that I almost got frostbite on my hands as they were exposed to the elements for picture taking;)
When animals eat off my hands, it honestly kind of creeps me out, but I put on a brave face and do it. Ava seems to have no reservations whatso ever...she reaches right into their pens instead of waiting for them to lean out towards her hand, I was a little nervous she's lose a finger or something;)
Phin was lovin' be able to touch the pony and was completely uninterested in lookin up toward his papa for a picture;)
YES! Phin was allowed to play in the Bounce House;)
Okay- so being able to hold baby chicks, IS pretty cool.
When animals eat off my hands, it honestly kind of creeps me out, but I put on a brave face and do it. Ava seems to have no reservations whatso ever...she reaches right into their pens instead of waiting for them to lean out towards her hand, I was a little nervous she's lose a finger or something;)Phin was lovin' be able to touch the pony and was completely uninterested in lookin up toward his papa for a picture;) YES! Phin was allowed to play in the Bounce House;) Okay- so being able to hold baby chicks, IS pretty cool.
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