Nesting

What does a typical week or two of nesting look like in the life of an almost 8 month pregnant lady?  Constant vacuuming and dusting of everything in sight, killing spiders, asking hubby to dust the high door frames & ceiling fan. Constant organizing of the kitchen, pantry, and all bedroom closets. Cleaning up the yard and raking up old leaves we missed last fall. Visiting the brush dump and recycling old junk. Making several Savers & Salvation Army drop-offs as I purge the house of unneeded furniture, clothes, and toys. Unpack baby clothes and hang or place in dresser drawers. Set up a baby changing station. Stock the first aid kit and buy extra band-aids and peroxide for the summer. Make the kids doctor check-up appointments when needed. Get husband, son, and dog groomed (all within the same pay period). Clean and organize infant and kids' toys separately. Clean and vacuum the van, launder the kids car seat liners, and put them all back into van with the infant seat in the middle, ready just in case I "go early" even though the midwives and nurses all remind me I have not gone early in previous pregnancies. Clean the baby swing and exercauser so they are ready in time. Set up comfy nursing stations and chairs, one upstairs and one downstairs in the living room. Set up the crib, wash, and air bedding and mattress. Clean up a few bat turds in the attic space. Clean the dryer vent. Dry the basement from puddles of water from springtime snow melts and rains. Repair window screens for the summer.

And at the end of one day, my two-year old boy finally decides to go potty in the toilet by himself. From downstairs we hear the toilet flush. Next, a naked Hudson appears at the top of the stairs and walks down holding the banister as always. At the bottom of the stairs he proceeds to climb up onto the banister rail and perch on top of the bottom pedestal naked, it's a combination of hilarity as well as serious danger. He is about 4 feet above the hard tiles of the entryway and could die if he fell on his head. I end up putting a heavy, potted plant on the pedestal to keep him off, so just in case he tries it again I will at least have a warning crash to know ahead of time what he is doing. Next I need to think some more about how I am going to take care of a newborn while making sure my toddler and little girl survive and thrive. I wish I knew some clear, serious advice on how mothers of many children accomplish this.

Pregnancy and Motherhood

     In our last pregnancy centering group session, we were gathered in a circle as everyone talked about the pregnancy hormones that lead us to cry over different things we may not have cried over or been so emotional about before being pregnant.  Different ladies talked about things that had made them cry recently such as certain commercials on TV or baby animals, etc.  I could relate to none of these things, and we went home.  A few days later I found myself at the Children's Museum with my 2 kiddos as we met up with some other friends of ours that afternoon.  There was a particular little girl about age 2 who had a very snotty nose and some type of food, crayon or marker on her face.  And that was the moment when I just wanted to cry as my pregnancy mothering hormones kicked in.  I wanted to just scoop her up, give her hugs and kisses, snotty nose and grime and all!  Normally, my first instinct as a mother is to get a rag and wipe that little child's face, but I really didn't think of that once this time.  I just enjoyed being around such a precious little angel and now I can't wait to have another little baby girl of my own again, messes and all.  All I have to do is think of that sweet little face and I want to cry all over again.  I am so happy that I am getting another little girl.

     The second time my pregnancy hormones kicked in this week happened as I was getting the baby's room ready and unpacking the boxes of girl clothes that used to be Annalise's when she was a baby.  I simply turned to look at the small plastic play kitchen in the corner of the room and I got the image in my mind of a nine-month old beginning to pull up, toddle around and explore.  I could see cute little chubby legs, a diaper, and arms slowly and carefully reaching out to touch everything within grasp of those chubby little hands.  And then I saw a big plop as the baby lost her balance, landing on her cushy, diaper bottom.  Next is a wrinkled face and a big "waaaah" with arms outstretched, waiting for someone to hug and comfort.  It was at that moment I felt like crying myself as I thought of how relieving it is to comfort a crying baby.  Later I thought of how God as Father gives his children the freedom to explore their surroundings, and when they lose balance the first few times and plop on their butts He is there to pick them up and comfort them.  He reassures his children, but then gently encourages to get back up and keep exploring, building their confidence so that they are less afraid next time.  How silly of us to get mad at God and think He is somehow responsible when we fall on our butts.  Rather than doing it all for us, He simply gives the freedom to fall and plop that so we learn how to walk and succeed at it.

                   

Exciting News Announcement

     In November our family had a very rough week.  Jeremy was in Minneapolis to be part of a conference on Big Data Development with Cloudera and it was our first time being apart for such a long time.  We drove up and stayed the first night with him and left to go home the next day.  That week we all had the flu with multi symptoms and fevers.  Jeremy had a bad cough, but had a great experience nevertheless at his conference.  He ended up getting new certifications in information technology that he has yet to even use in his job.  That week, Hudson had a couple spikes in fevers and would not cooperate taking any fever-reducing medicines.  As a result, he had two febrile seizures.  We were in the emergency room (myself and the kids) in the middle of the night.  It is the scariest experience to have to go into the ER in the middle of the night as fast as you can.  It took about 2 hours of watching and waiting until he recovered fully to his normal, happy and perky self.  We went home at 4:00 am and the next day went into our family practice for an after care check-up, and that was when he had his 2nd seizure.  This was one of a number of times where I have been very impressed  from the genuine human care and compassion I have seen demonstrated from medical nurses and doctors (at our family clinic).  We have had many decisions to make over vaccines and other natural care issues, and our family medicine practitioners have all been very respectful of our decisions, as well as resourceful so that we make intelligent decisions according to facts and research, sending us home with professional research articles on paper, etc..  Hudson woke up,  recovered and was breathing normally after 15 minutes of his seizure so we did not need to go back to the emergency room.  I was sent home, however, with injections to give him if he had any seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes, which we prayed we would never have to use and have not had to.  That day Grandma was there to help and pray.  Since this has happened I have been super vigilant to check on any fevers he possibly has and figure out some way to make sure he takes Tylenol when he has one.  We gave Annalise a doctor's kit for Christmas and she taught Hudson to take medicine by pretending, and since then he allowed me to give him his dose of Tylenol in a cup, which he will drink himself.  I have not found any other way to bring a fever down effectively enough other than medicine.  I will have to read more about how to treat fevers in children naturally, but for Hudson it is imperative to bring it down and prevent the sudden spiking of a temperature.  [Hudson and all of us had the flu again over the New Year].  Times like this make me realize that being a parent is no small matter.  Decisions that I make as a parent can have good or bad, even life or death, consequences for my child.  I hold so much responsibility over what happens to them for good or bad.  Seeing my toddler have a seizure and then watching the minutes tick by waiting for his recovery has been one of the scariest experiences in motherhood.  I was thankful to know that we were not alone the second time it happened in our doctor's office.  I have also been thankful for the power of prayer and of God's presence being with us, knowing that I'm never alone and never without His loving direction in my life when I am yielded to Him.

     So on the happy note, I [Lisa] will announce I am pregnant with a due date of July 27th.  I found out during the rough week in November and was able to share the happy news with Jeremy over skype when we were all recovering towards the end of that week.  This has been a rough pregnancy compared with my other two, and it's mainly from the morning sickness and flu.  This week marks the 12th week and I can finally say I am feeling better.  It has been a stretch of 3 solid days where I have not gagged or had to take a nap during the daytime.  I feared that something awful was going to happen to my baby since I was getting so sick and catching every germ that came our way, but on our 12-week visit we were surprised to have an ultrasound and everything looked beautiful.  We could see the baby, the heartbeat, and that he or she is right on track in size according to our due date, close to 4 centimeters in length.  We could see the baby lift a hand towards his/her mouth to comfort himself or herself :)  Jeremy and I will be attending an evening group prenatal care class once a month for care, instead of traditional office visits.  Prenatal care will be in a group format as well as meeting individually at various times throughout the evening session with the midwife leading the group.  It is something new called "centering pregnancy" and designed for low-risk pregnancies.

 
     What is also exciting is that my sister is pregnant as well, and our due dates are within the same week!  We did not plan for this, but how amazing and fun it will be - our babies could potentially be born within the same week of each other.  I am so excited for this and always dreamed that we would be pregnant some day at the same time, but never imagined this close together!


     Jeremy has been making more "night runs" than ever before for my cravings of french fries, pickles, lemonade, kimchi, ice cream, chicken noodle soup, jello, and many other random food items that have come up.  I don't remember having such marked cravings for different foods with my other pregnancies.  This is really different.  I have already gained 10 pounds by only 12 weeks...I probably will not be running the Med-City marathon in May at 7 months pregnant!  I'm hoping Jeremy can take my place in the race if they allow for that.  My sis and I will just have to go back to crossfit after the babies are born to get our rears back into shape.  I probably won't be a "crossfit mom" as I had hoped, doing kettlebell swings and pull-ups with a belly, at least until after my baby's born.  For now I've decided to simply focus on being healthy and moving around every day.  Now that my first 3 months of morning sickness is up, I don't have as many excuses for unhealthy food choices.  Instead of ice cream, I should be eating plain yogurt with berries, for example.  I am going to focus more of my time on getting more involved in church and loving my family and children.  We had an amazing time travelling down with family to attend the "One Thing" conference in Kansas City ihop over the New Year.  Even though we were all sick at various times and missed half the conference, it was amazing when I was there.  I loved every moment of worship and yielding of hearts to God.