i realize i haven't updated about this pregnancy at all! i must be about 20 weeks now, due around the end of august?
i was pretty nauseous and tired for about 6 weeks, which now that it's behind me, wasn't that bad! plus, this time i tried to keep a good attitude about it and see it all as part of the great amazing blessing of being able to bear children.
we are keeping this baby's gender a surprise until it comes out! i never thought i would be one to be able to do that, but i read in a commentary about surrendered motherhood that since God actually describes the womb as a "secret place," we might consider leaving it that way. i never really thought about that psalm (139) in that way before, as giving instruction. perhaps more of a description of how things necessarily were in the time it was written. but God's word is always relevant, and it always instructs. i feel totally at peace with waiting to see what He has chosen for us! last time around i was so shocked when i found out through ultrasound i was having another girl, that it kind of put a damper on the rest of my pregnancy. but now i would not trade my Golden for a hundred boys. even if i never have one. i LOVE having girls.
yesterday sparrow and i were talking about what we thought the gender of the baby might be. i said, "God is making it into whatever it needs to be, for His own glory." sparrow: "is his own glory helping too?"
golden, too, rubs the belly and says "hi, baby!" but mostly she is just really excited to see my belly button and exclaim over it.
i have not seen a doctor or anyone yet. i knew we were moving, so i didn't want to start and then switch. not to mention the clinic in santa barbara was less than desirable for a place to go hang out with two toddlers just to wait and wait, then be poked, prodded, patronized, and admonished. yikes. i am hoping here in the big city there will be more options for care, perhaps even with a female ob, or maybe i can birth at a hospital that has an alternative birthing center! we will see. either way, besides feeling large, i feel fine, baby is moving, and i am not worried. it feels a blessed thing to be me.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
the unknown
i finally packed my first box tonight after meaning to start for the past two weeks... oh well, some of us work better under pressure. i just can't seem to find the time to DO the packing and cleaning! everyday things take up most of my time, and by evening i am usually exhausted and need some relaxation time! i discovered tonight, however, that packing that box was relaxing. i used emilie barnes' note-card and enumerating system, and i feel...powerful! i don't think i've ever done anything that organized in my life. here's what you do:
as you pack your box, you write on a notecard each item that you have placed into it. (preferably you are also previously sorting your items according to category so they are not all "misc" boxes!) if you are going to keep the box in storage or in a closet after the move, you also write on the note card where the box is stored. you label the box with a number, or a color, or both. the note card goes into a note card filing box with categories/colors where you can quickly find each card and locate individual items in corresponding boxes in a matter of minutes. wow. i am planning to do the entire house this way and never get unorganized again.
i seriously wrote down the title of every single book that went into my box #1. but i must confess that in the end, i put a small decorative pillow in the top of the box for "stuffing." the box was getting too heavy to add more books, but still had a little space. i hate wasting space! see, even when i do something unorganized, there is usually a practical purpose behind it. type A's can't have it their way all the time. i am not going out to buy packing paper to fill that space, dangit!
an excerpt from last night's journal entry:
"last night i began to be hitwith a major emotionality/sentimentality for santa barbara. i always knew i was going to miss it when we had to go, but suddenly it was this feeling of "what--have--i--done?!" getting us to leave the greatest place on earth..."
we were thinking that without a job set up in san francisco, we won't have enough money to move there yet. thomas was talking about going to tucson after all while we get SF figured out, but still to keep that as our ultimate goal.
"and now that tucson is a real possibility, of course i am thinking of all the challenges: tiny apartment, no kitchen, no AC in the car, heat, pregnancy, no close parks, no ocean...gosh, are we lucky here! but i realized to day too, that living in santa barbara for us was a bit backward, because the surrounding area and town was always more attractive than the home. in tucson, home will be IT. it will be an intense narrowing down, focusing on family and homestead, with no resort-town outside my door to escape to whenever things get stressful. it dawned on me that most people feel they need to take vacations away from home. i never felt that way here. because every trip into santa barbara is a vacation. each afternoon at the park, every morning at the beach was a vacation.
i drove by so many parks today, as i took the sceninc route home from the zoo in this perfect march sun-winded weather. and each remarkable place i passed brought up waves of sweet, jasmine-scented memories from the fullness of the past seven years. that is why i cried last night. it has all been too beautiful, yet too tragic as we struggled and struggled to get by, hopes sinking more each year that we would find a way out of the rut. but all of this will soon be a memory, nay, a fantasy in our remembrance, as we will surely remember nothing but the magic of this enchanting place."
here's to the unknown!
note: we are really still hoping to make SF work right away... we are going to have to ask for help and find a place with friends or family where we can crash while thomas finds a job. pray for favor! it is not easy to ask for help, nor to find those that are even able to extend it.
as you pack your box, you write on a notecard each item that you have placed into it. (preferably you are also previously sorting your items according to category so they are not all "misc" boxes!) if you are going to keep the box in storage or in a closet after the move, you also write on the note card where the box is stored. you label the box with a number, or a color, or both. the note card goes into a note card filing box with categories/colors where you can quickly find each card and locate individual items in corresponding boxes in a matter of minutes. wow. i am planning to do the entire house this way and never get unorganized again.
i seriously wrote down the title of every single book that went into my box #1. but i must confess that in the end, i put a small decorative pillow in the top of the box for "stuffing." the box was getting too heavy to add more books, but still had a little space. i hate wasting space! see, even when i do something unorganized, there is usually a practical purpose behind it. type A's can't have it their way all the time. i am not going out to buy packing paper to fill that space, dangit!
an excerpt from last night's journal entry:
"last night i began to be hitwith a major emotionality/sentimentality for santa barbara. i always knew i was going to miss it when we had to go, but suddenly it was this feeling of "what--have--i--done?!" getting us to leave the greatest place on earth..."
we were thinking that without a job set up in san francisco, we won't have enough money to move there yet. thomas was talking about going to tucson after all while we get SF figured out, but still to keep that as our ultimate goal.
"and now that tucson is a real possibility, of course i am thinking of all the challenges: tiny apartment, no kitchen, no AC in the car, heat, pregnancy, no close parks, no ocean...gosh, are we lucky here! but i realized to day too, that living in santa barbara for us was a bit backward, because the surrounding area and town was always more attractive than the home. in tucson, home will be IT. it will be an intense narrowing down, focusing on family and homestead, with no resort-town outside my door to escape to whenever things get stressful. it dawned on me that most people feel they need to take vacations away from home. i never felt that way here. because every trip into santa barbara is a vacation. each afternoon at the park, every morning at the beach was a vacation.
i drove by so many parks today, as i took the sceninc route home from the zoo in this perfect march sun-winded weather. and each remarkable place i passed brought up waves of sweet, jasmine-scented memories from the fullness of the past seven years. that is why i cried last night. it has all been too beautiful, yet too tragic as we struggled and struggled to get by, hopes sinking more each year that we would find a way out of the rut. but all of this will soon be a memory, nay, a fantasy in our remembrance, as we will surely remember nothing but the magic of this enchanting place."
here's to the unknown!
note: we are really still hoping to make SF work right away... we are going to have to ask for help and find a place with friends or family where we can crash while thomas finds a job. pray for favor! it is not easy to ask for help, nor to find those that are even able to extend it.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
february funnies
"God's thinking, 'hmmm...some people are singing about some animals that i made!' " -feb. 7
(we were singing 'he's got the whole world in his hands.')
"my tights are so pretty and miraculous." -feb. 8
"we're making noises like this: 'blablablablab!' cause this is gonna be a blab house." -feb. 12
"i like your hair. what did they use to put it on you?" -feb. 13
(nothing unusual about my hair, either! just normal that day.)
"if we move to kansas, i can have a tree house? oh, in kansas they must not make you go to school without your parents." -feb. 13
(she suddenly projects all her fantasies onto kansas and now thinks it is this amazing wonderland, just because i said once, "sure, you can have a treehouse--if we ever move to kansas!)
"if you wipe my butt and i wipe your butt, ...we'll be twins!" -feb. 20
golden: saw a picture of a lamb's behind and said promptly, "booty!" -feb. 21
golden's many words now include mini phrases such as:
like it!
open it!
have it!
get it!
got it!
do it!
eat that!
tickle me!
buckle me!
close the door!
she also likes to point things out and say "see? birdie!" or "see? lulah!" (for tallulah in the maisie books)
the other day she pointed to my cow calendar and said, "who dat? da moo!"
she is beginning to get the concept of reading, and it is hilarious. she calls every letter a "B" and then she usually sounds it out like this: "k, k, k...mama!" yes, she thinks that every word spells mama. ah, mother's bliss!
oh and she is getting really good at humpty dumpty! "dumpy dumpy da, da, da, WALL!"
she also loves to say "lula!" (hallelujah!) but it's mainly because thomas likes to lift her up in the air when he declares "hallelujah!" and she now thinks that it is her ticket to a free ride!
every time she sees change, she calls it "bank!" cause she has a little piggy bank...
other words:
popcorn (doocorn)
belly button
glasses (in english, now!)
airplane (she mostly says that in english too, although there were a few days there where she was calling airplanes "lukluk," for german "flugzeug.")
monkey
lemon
orange (pronounced correctly now, not "dunge.")
sour dough
no touch
UG! (when thomas left the house without giving her a hug one day)
castle (her castle tent)
belly
snuggle (nuggle)
shake-da-booty (ralph covert has this great kids version of the shake your booty song. golden's favorite!)
bloke (broke)
nose
chair
hair
eyes
feet
dancing
song
hands
messy!
sorry
plo-do (play-doh)
outside
german:
matsch (mud)
eek (musik, pronounced actually in german mooz-eek)
apf (kopf, head)
messer (knife)
strumpf (sock)
another hilarious thing of hers is that when you ask her a question, she starts with "um..." =)
and she will pray in the evenings, just like sparrow. she points to each one of us and sweetly thanks for "do-den, mami, daddy, sister, sparrow, dick (uncle rick), and dotes (chris coates)...umen!"
also, if you ask her if she wants something, even if she has just said she wants it, she says, "no?" and shakes her head. she rarely ever says yes to a question!
(we were singing 'he's got the whole world in his hands.')
"my tights are so pretty and miraculous." -feb. 8
"we're making noises like this: 'blablablablab!' cause this is gonna be a blab house." -feb. 12
"i like your hair. what did they use to put it on you?" -feb. 13
(nothing unusual about my hair, either! just normal that day.)
"if we move to kansas, i can have a tree house? oh, in kansas they must not make you go to school without your parents." -feb. 13
(she suddenly projects all her fantasies onto kansas and now thinks it is this amazing wonderland, just because i said once, "sure, you can have a treehouse--if we ever move to kansas!)
"if you wipe my butt and i wipe your butt, ...we'll be twins!" -feb. 20
golden: saw a picture of a lamb's behind and said promptly, "booty!" -feb. 21
golden's many words now include mini phrases such as:
like it!
open it!
have it!
get it!
got it!
do it!
eat that!
tickle me!
buckle me!
close the door!
she also likes to point things out and say "see? birdie!" or "see? lulah!" (for tallulah in the maisie books)
the other day she pointed to my cow calendar and said, "who dat? da moo!"
she is beginning to get the concept of reading, and it is hilarious. she calls every letter a "B" and then she usually sounds it out like this: "k, k, k...mama!" yes, she thinks that every word spells mama. ah, mother's bliss!
oh and she is getting really good at humpty dumpty! "dumpy dumpy da, da, da, WALL!"
she also loves to say "lula!" (hallelujah!) but it's mainly because thomas likes to lift her up in the air when he declares "hallelujah!" and she now thinks that it is her ticket to a free ride!
every time she sees change, she calls it "bank!" cause she has a little piggy bank...
other words:
popcorn (doocorn)
belly button
glasses (in english, now!)
airplane (she mostly says that in english too, although there were a few days there where she was calling airplanes "lukluk," for german "flugzeug.")
monkey
lemon
orange (pronounced correctly now, not "dunge.")
sour dough
no touch
UG! (when thomas left the house without giving her a hug one day)
castle (her castle tent)
belly
snuggle (nuggle)
shake-da-booty (ralph covert has this great kids version of the shake your booty song. golden's favorite!)
bloke (broke)
nose
chair
hair
eyes
feet
dancing
song
hands
messy!
sorry
plo-do (play-doh)
outside
german:
matsch (mud)
eek (musik, pronounced actually in german mooz-eek)
apf (kopf, head)
messer (knife)
strumpf (sock)
another hilarious thing of hers is that when you ask her a question, she starts with "um..." =)
and she will pray in the evenings, just like sparrow. she points to each one of us and sweetly thanks for "do-den, mami, daddy, sister, sparrow, dick (uncle rick), and dotes (chris coates)...umen!"
also, if you ask her if she wants something, even if she has just said she wants it, she says, "no?" and shakes her head. she rarely ever says yes to a question!
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