just ONE baby

Yesterday was blustery and COLD.  We braved it and drove to Topeka. We knew it would be worth it. Andrew took the afternoon off of work and I enjoyed having a “date” with him although Michaela tagged along to hear her sibling’s heart beat. She was a bit off at the app. unfortunately. Norla the midwife who delivered Michaela is on call for office appointments on Mondays and it was nice visiting with her again. This baby is measuring just on 13 weeks and Norla thinks my belly is looking just right for 13 weeks as well. It must be that second time mothers just pop a LOT sooner! This baby is super active and apparently just ONE. :) It took Norla several minutes to get the baby to hold still long enough for her to hear the heart beat and be able to count it. It was so nice to hear this little one’s heart beat! It was 170 beats per minute. So very fast. Norla thinks another girl. We’ll see. She guesses based on heart rate being faster in girls than boys. She was right with Michaela.

The nurse that attended me this visit is 13 weeks pregnant too which is fun. She had had bad morning sickness as well. We commiserated. Thankfully we both are starting to feel more human again although for the record it seems evenings are always the worst for me.  I can hardly stand the smell food or just about anything. Andrew is such a kind and wonderful husband to not complain about this part of the pregnancy!

Oh and we have announced our pregnancy publicly so it’s out there now. I think in the process we stepped on at least one or two person’s toes unfortunately. But you know that always seems to happen. You can’t do anything right when it comes to how you announce your pregnancy. Sigh. I am trying to get thicker skin. It’s rather hard to do when you are pregnant and emotional though!

Oh and for the record after hearing how firm Norla is on gestational age of this baby I am rethinking getting the ultrasound. I am just soo unsure. I don’t know what I want to do. SIGH. Andrew is used to this. I have a very hard time making up my mind on such things. :) I guess I do have several months to come to a conclusion! I am confident on our date now too so I am thinking I don’t need to worry about getting a u/s just for the dates. If we get one it would be for the thrill of it. Oh and just to make sure everything is A-OK. But maybe we won’t and we’ll just be surprised again. I am feeling at peace that even if it were a boy I think we would have plenty of clothes for the first 2 months or so and I am sure that we’d be fine after that too! My mom sends out lots of great second hand clothes she finds and I have some thrift store boy clohtes I squrrled away when I was pregnant with Michaela. Oh and you can always bid on a lot of boy clothing on Ebay. So it wouldn’t be a big deal. Man, if only I weren’t so indecisive. Oh and if this baby is a girl WE’RE SET! Ha! :)

So thanks for the well wishes. It was so reasuring going to the app! Oh and as far as due months I have decided that I am saying September as our “due month”. Mainly because I think I will go a week late with this one too. The official due date is August 22 according to LMP. But I think that is such a general suggestion it isn’t of much worth. I prefer the term “due month”. I just have a feeling that my babies need a little extra growing time.  :) We’ll see!

our misery, His mercy

Prayer pursues joy in fellowship with Jesus and in the power to share His life with others. Prayer pursues God’s glory by treating Him as the inexhaustible reservoir of hope and help. In prayer we admit our poverty and God’s prosperity, our bankruptcy and His bounty, our misery and His mercy. Therefore prayer highly exalts and glorifies God precisely by pursuing everything we long for in Him and not in ourselves. Augustine prayed “He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.”

~John Piper, Desiring God, section on Prayer

The real reason for prayer is intimacy of relation with our Father.

~Oswald Chambers

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.

Blessed is the man
who makes the LORD his trust,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.

Many, O LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to declare.

Psalm 40: 1-5

Miss Polka Dot

She is growing fast! Where’d my BABY go?

prayer

O God, for another day, for another morning, for another minute, for another chance to live and serve You I am truly grateful.

Do…this day free me:

from all fear of the future,

from all anxiety about tomorrow,

from all bitterness towards anyone,

from all cowardice in the face of danger,

from all laziness in the face of work,

from all failure before opportunity,

from all weakness when Your power is at hand.

But fill me

with Love that knows no barrier,

with Sympathy that reaches all,

with Courage that cannot be shaken,

with Faith strong enough for the darkness,

with Strength sufficient for my tasks,

with Loyalty to Your Kingdom’s goal,

with Wisdom to meet life’s complexities,

with power to lift me to You.

Be with me another day, and use me as You will. Amen.

This is a prayer from  The Marine Corps Field Devotional Book. I don’t have a copy, I found the prayer in A Table In The Presence. Iregardless of what your view on the war is I still can’t highly enough recommend it.  It has changed my perspective in more than one way. It is an amazing first hand account at how men came to know God in the trenches of Iraq.

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Dear readers,

Of late I have been posting more protected posts. If you want the password feel free to email me andrewnjess@gmail(dot)com. This isn’t my main mail account but I’ll be checking it for the next week.

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diapers again… :)

I just stumbled across this article. The blog is quite informative and has several diaper reviews. I would recommend checking it out. Here is an expert from the article.

[Do I have to]…buy expensive diapers?

NO. No. How can I be more emphatic while typing? No, you don’t have to spend a fortune on fancy diapers. [.....]

I will never understand people who say they don’t have the money to cloth diaper; they just don’t realize the full cost of using disposables full time! Most times, these people have only looked at FuzziBunz, BumGenius, and Happy Heinys and just feel like they can’t afford to start. Cloth diapering is a front-loaded investment, so it’s scary in the beginning, but pays off in huge ways over time.

I just have to reiterate what she says but also remind everyone that in general you do get what you pay for with cloth diapering. If you go with the cheapest options you tend to “pay” for them in terms of convenience and leak ability. The only out on that I would say is to buy from people who own their own business like Wallypop. From reading about her she offers very high quality diapers well sewn and everything at a competitive price because she works hard at

http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2009/03/guest-post-cloth-diapering-101-part-2.html

http://www.mommymisadventures.com/2009/02/08/review-fuzzi-bunz-one-size-overview/

http://community.babycenter.com/talk/a6242665/fuzzi_bunz_one_size

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1450456/review_of_the_new_fuzzi_bunz_one_size.html

recycled wool

Yesterday was another snow day. Andrew watched Michaela while I enjoyed a few creative projects I have been wanting to do for a long while now. Over the course of a few hours I made 2 longies, three hats, a pair of socks, a pair of mittens, a medium soaker and a newborn soaker. They were simple to make…esp. the mittens and hats. They were just sewn out of wool sweaters I got from a local thrift store. They are super soft and warm. Michaela often wears her wool pants to bed. But around our house as well because we keep the thermostat pretty low in the winter. I wish I had a pair of wool pants too!

She got very tired of trying on the clothes and hats. But here are a few pictures I did get.

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excuses

“I am so emotional!”

“I am just not in a good mood!”

“I am on my last nerve!”

“I have had it!”

“I don’t feel well!”

“I’m tired!”

“S/he is just driving me nuts!”

“Today has just not been a good day!”

Arghhhh!

These words escape my mouth often. My flesh thrives in denial. I want casual excuses for my nature. I don’t want to take a stare at what killed Jesus.  I don’t want to name it. Or correctly come to terms with its ugly, deadly nature. My tongue was set  on fire by hell. My indwelling hell fire tipped tongue is too easily sugar-coated with palatable culturally acceptable excuses I can  easily dismiss. Lovely, not so much. However,  this is something I can’t afford to ignore.

So Jesus help me, no more excuses, please!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We are frail
We are fearfully and wonderfully made
Forged in the fires of human passion
Choking on the fumes of selfish rage
And with these our hells and our heavens
So few inches apart
We must be awfully small
And not as strong as we think we are

And the Master said their faith was
Gonna make them mountains move
But me, I tremble like a hill on a fault line
Just at the thought of how I lost you
Oh, we are not as strong as we think we are

And if you make me laugh well I know
I could make you like me
Cause when I laugh I can be a lot of fun
But when we can’t do that I know that it is frightening
What I don’t know is why we can’t hold on
We can’t hold on

When you love you walk on the water
Just don’t stumble on the waves
We all want to go there somethin’ awful
But to stand there it takes some grace
‘Cause oh, we are not as strong
As we think we are

-Rich Mullins

Samuel Rutherford

A friend of mine gave me a tiny (perfect size for travel) red leather book of Samuel Rutherfords quotes called The Loveliness of Christ. I was listening to music this morning and I heard this..most especially the bolded section. It reminded me of this book and of Christ’s transfixing beauty and goodness!

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Helen H. Lemmel, 1922

Here’s a quote from the book I mentioned

I am every  way in a good case, both soul and body; all honor and glory be to my Lord. I want nothing but a further revelation of the beauty of the unknown Son of God.

and

Blessed be my rich Lord Jesus, which sendeth not away beggars from his house with a toom dish. He filleth the vessels of such as will come and seek. We might beg ourselves rich (if we were wise), if we could hold out our withered hands to Christ and learn to suit and seek, ask and knock.

Samuel Rutherford was a contemporary to Shakespeare. I highly recommend reading about his life.  You can also read his writings here and here.

good bye 2009

Andrew has been home this week from work. I can’t tell you how relaxing that has been! I feel like a new woman. Really. It is amazing when there are two people in a house to raise a strong-willed child instead of just one! ;) Sometimes I just really appreciate his reinforcement and encouragement about parenting Michaela. Also it is just nice to be able to talk to an adult during the day. It cuts down on the stress a ton.  We have been able to have more elaborate meals and I love the creative out let of cooking new things.  Like this week–GUESS WHAT?! I made homemade mayonnaise! This is an exciting development friends because it meant that I actually had the time and the free hands to do something that takes a while…it was just fun and tasty and homemade. Making things home-made is a new obsession, and,  yes, I am easily excited. Andrew is putting a water softener (no small feat I may I tell you! Believe me I went to Home Depot with him for 2 plus hours of sheer torture on mine and Michaela’s behalf) in our basement and so he will sometimes take Michaela down for the afternoon and watch her while I read or research or edit pictures. A very special treat for me! However it is also just plain wonderful being together. Watching Michaela enjoy her daddy during the day and not just before bed when Andrew comes home from work.

In preparation for Andrew going back to the grind next week and myself as well so to speak, I have asked myself what I can do to make positive changes in Michaela and I’s routine to merge some alone time for myself as well as some really fun play time together. At this point we don’t spend a waking minute apart and only just this week have we started spending nights at least partly apart. The idea of alone time is going to take some working on. But needless to say I am a big fan of Michaela having an hour or so in her room to play by herself somewhat structured into our day.  I also need to start more creative projects I can work on while I watch her play in her room at other times. At this point I am thinking that it might have to continue to be the erratic snippets of reading, 2 line journaling and snap shots err photography. Although I have toyed with the idea of crochet or knitting. Andrew swears I won’t ever knit because it involves way too much counting. Ha. Well, in other words….all you mammas out there how do you keep your sanity and your children’s when you spend every waking minute together and don’t have a ton of places to get out of the house? –i.e. winter in the country–.

With much love,

(soon to be again) Stir Crazy in the Country

beginning of the end

Last night was the first time I have slept without Michaela  glued to my side since the day she was born. In other words we have begun the process of night weaning. Enter fear and trepidation and the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Instead of being glued to my side last night she was next to Andrew’s! Poor guy! He doesn’t lactate and that frustrated Miss Michaela to the enth degree. But me trying to hold her in the crook of my arm as she failed trying to catch a latch would have been disasters to say the least. No, I told Andrew that the only way to gently (as possible–and realistically) teach Michaela to go to sleep without her milk is to have Andrew hold her firmly in the crook of his arm. She knows it is Pappa and that he rivals her in stubbornness. Therefore she does back down and stop crying grudgingly. The first half of the night went okay. Till about 1 something in the morning she only cried for 3-5 minutes when she woke then went back to sleep. The trouble started after that when she realized that she wasn’t nursing at all that night. Uh oh–then she commenced crying for 10 plus minutes a crack. I didn’t keep tight checks on how long things were happening but I do know that she woke pretty often and was pretty hard to console but Andrew stuck to his guns and held her. She kicked me and failed quite a bit. Finally she would settle down out of desperation and would be laying diagonal in the bed. Of course we couldn’t move her for fear of waking her so Andrew would squish in closer to me in our queen bed. It was a close squeeze to say the least. This time he had a taste of  what it is like to be in the middle of the sandwich err bed.  Today’s our second anniversary and I don’t think I picked the perfect time to start such a bumpy adventure. Andrew and I are both very tired from the broken sleep and well…we’ll see how things go tonight but I have my gutt set feeling that their will be a repeat performance. However we are going to put her on a twin mattress on the floor instead of our bed. Andrew will just have to go back and forth. I feel bad for him. But you know….I think we both are convinced that this is the right time. It has made me a little emotional though. I am realizing just how much she is growing up. I also kind of enjoyed the night-time suggles with her–well not all the time, just most of the time. I mainly want to night wean in order to get my cycle back to normal. It has been so wacky of late I am getting quite tired of that. All the resources say that night weaning helps to get your hormones back on track. We’ll see…..anyhow…say a prayer for the three of us the next few weeks/months. This could be interesting!

camera practice

I’ve been saving up for a nicer camera and I finally found a good deal on a Canon Rebel. Unfortunately I was like 100 dollars short of the full price in my discretionary funds savings. But Andrew was really nice and said I could make up the difference having the extra just come out of my discretionary budget for the rest of the year or so. So basically no extra spending for me for the rest of the year. I’ll let you know how that goes! Ha. It came 2 days before Christmas and I have enjoyed catching close-ups of Michaela with it. My old Canon didn’t do justice to close-ups. This one actually does!

streams

We thank Thee Lord, for weary days

When desert streams were dry,

And first we knew what depths of need

Thy love could satisfy.

We thank Thee for the rest in Him

The weary only know–

The perfect, wondrous sympathy

We needs must learn below.

The touch that heals the broken heart

Is never felt above:

His angels know His blessedness,

His way-worn saints, His LOVE.

~ Streams in the Desert

Christmas blizzard

Michaela got some second hand dolls this year for Christmas. SHE LOVED THEM ALL. :) Michaela will give them a good home although I must say they will probably be cold for the remainder of their stay as she loves to undress them and rather they not wear clothes!

Michaela LOVES to open other people’s presents as well as her own. Unwrapping is fun!

Opening presents with Daddy.

This year’s Christmas is memorable because of the blizzard that blew in Christmas Eve. We were hosting supper at our place and the evening was cut short because visibility was becoming a huge problem. We would look out the window and only see white. We went to bed early only to wake up to our newly roofed roof’s shingles flying off. There were loud banging noises right above the master bedroom from the wind’s force against the loose shingles. We all snuggled in on the floor of Michaela’s room. Andrew was sick about the roof and that has affected his day quite a bit. Michaela however was elated to wake up in her room and on floor level and was ready to play from the get-go. We got up to realize any plans of making it over to Andrew’s folk’s house for brunch were out the window for sure. Drifts were huge and the roads were a mess. Plus visibility was still terrible. We’ve been inside all day and have quite a unusal Christmas. We opened stocking stuffers and a few gifts from my brother and sister-in-law in Ohio (thanks Hilary), had leftovers for lunch and homemade pizza for supper. We cleaned out the basement and I wrapped a few more presents and took a nap. Then we watched Food Inc (that film has lots of things to talk and think about by the way).  Aside from missing out on the Monopoly and Would You Rather games, brunch, fellowship and gift exchange at Andrew’s folks it has been a wonderful quirky Christmas. Our household doesn’t do things the traditional way usually so no surprise we are low-key about things. But I thoroughly enjoyed having Andrew to myself. He didn’t leave the house once except to put out kitchen scraps. Thankfully he didn’t come back with frost bite and my kitchen has a lot more counter space to boot. I had collected scraps, just like my burn pile and recyclable pile for some days maybe I should say weeks. It has been so cold and windy I haven’t wanted to brave it.

I am very thankful for the family God has given us. Michaela is really changing a lot these days and is quite entertaining. This Christmas she is a completely different child from last it seems. She is running all over the house  and mimicing everything we do it seems. She sat on the couch next to use and sampled pizza and sipped from our glasses. She was so pleased with herself to be eating on the couch with us. She just loves being grown up. In other news she is getting really close to being potty trained. She has started letting us know when she has to go, well poop that is. She will run to the bathroom and often put the potty seat reducer on the seat and get our attention. Although sometimes she is soo engrossed in her play that she doesn’t run to the bathroom but rather gives us a stare and a strained expression and then we ask her if she wants to go to the potty and she takes our hand and walks there and goes. I think one of the things that has really helped this process is that now we reward her with one or maybe two dried blueberries or cranberries when she has gone. OH MY. She lights up when she hears the words or sees the package. Those things are great motivation to potty! :) Anyways I find it great motivation to get her to the potty because I love not having dirty diapers to deal with and considerably less laundry to fold. :) It is crazy to be at the ending phase of cloth diapering. I have enjoyed it a lot but I am now more into trainers and wool pants that pull up and help keep furniture dry for those times when accidents happen. Although we still do use diapers for nights and times when I am not able to pay much attention.

Sorry to get into potty training in a post about Christmas but you know this is a mommy blog after alL and potty breaks and diapers are a huge part of my day. But, you know it never ceases to amaze me that God came as a little baby and went through all these mundane parts of life. Wow, a helpless baby. Oh may our hearts be warmed to thank God–and humbled by such an undeserved gift. Thank you Jesus for YOU–for LIFE.