This post got some good laughs over at my pregnancy journal so I thought I’d plug it in over here too….
Here’s my Birth Plan:
#1 Go with the flow.
#2 Take the epidural.
Read my guestbook over there to see what some of the other expecting mothers said. Gotta love it 
Great post about kids and money from one of my favorite blogs:
Allowances for Kids: Teaching Children the Value of Money
I especially like these recommendations taken from the article referenced there:
Tons of good stuff over there at Get Rich Slowly! I highly recommend subscribing to the blog.
I had an emotional moment on Tuesday. I was jotting down my thoughts about my changing roles and about feeling some grief over that (thank you, Vicki, for helping me to see that… the funk fog has lifted considerably). My identity for so long has been wrapped up as the infertile woman with all the time for volunteer efforts, but now it is changing drastically. I am already having to adapt to my new identity as Mom. That statement got me choked up. Up until that point I had understood that I’m going to be a mom, but never did it occur to me that to someone I would now be “Mom”. To this little person, to Luke, that will be my name. Just like I call my mom, Mom, someone will be calling me that too.
[Now let me just interject here and say that I know my true identity is in Christ and that's where my focus needs to be ultimately. What I'm speaking of here are actually roles within that identity. I have to remember that. Now back to my sappy moment...]
This realization of mine may sound simple and not so profound, but for some reason it hit me really hard, if only for a minute or two (it was a very short emotional moment). I think about the relationship I have with my own mother. I hold my mom in the highest regard; I look up to her, love her, respect her. She is a role model for me and she is a vital part of my life. I cannot imagine my life without her. To think that now I am being given the opportunity to be that for someone else is extremely humbling. It is a huge gift and at the same time a huge responsibility. I alone am not up for the task but thankfully I have a big God, an amazing husband, and some really great friends and family to support me.
I’ve been having increasing lower back pain with this pregnancy. An extra 30 pounds in the front pulling on an already arthritic back and that’s what you get. I had a prenatal visit yesterday and I asked the doctor how he felt about chiropractors. I was prepping to tell him I saw a chiropractor who wanted to prescribe me a special back brace for pregnant women. My OB not only loves chiropractors (especially for his pregnant patients, he says) but he went ahead and wrote me a prescription for a Prenatal Cradle and 10 minutes later I was at the medical supply shop trying one on! Now I guess you don’t need a prescription for it, but this way my insurance covers the cost.
I cannot stop raving about this amazing contraption!! I walked out of the bathroom after putting it on and felt almost immediate relief. It’s like angels are holding up my belly. I am rejuvenated; a new woman. I can walk and sit and get up again and I have almost no pain in my back. I was amazed at how quickly the pain went away. I thought I would need to give it a few days, but I was feeling better in less than a few hours. Hallelujah!
(From the Gazelle Gazette Newsletter)
You might be a Dave Ramsey fan if:
The value of your car doubles every time you fill the gas tank!
You buy a soda and immediately start calculating how much money you would have in 30 years if you had put that $1 into a Roth IRA!
lf you see a guy driving a 15-year-old car and you think, ‘I wonder if he would sell it to me?’
If you know 15 different recipes for rice and beans!
Someone says you are weird, and you say ‘thank you!’
If the bumper sticker on the back of your car reads: ‘My other car actually has a hood!’
You scream, “NO!” in the checkout line after seeing someone pull out their credit card to pay for their groceries!
You rinse out a sandwich bag for reuse!
I’ve been cooking at home now. One - to save money and two – to eat healthier. It’s actually not been that painful. The only problem right now is that I was hoping to be able to cook dinners at home and bring the leftovers to work for lunches, but with Luke’s insatiable hunger there are never any leftovers. So on days like today I am stuck eating the backup lunch: a tv dinner. Cheap and convenient, yes, but not all that appealing. It’s kind of like food, but not really. I do bring real-food snacks as supplements and that helps.
I’m working on making a hat for my brother. He requested it at Christmas and I unfortunately overestimated my stitching abilities. The crochet part was easy, but I’m having trouble with the freehand embroidery. It’s much different on a bulky, crochet hat than a thin piece of fabric. I should really just send him the hat as is with an apology about the missing design, but I’m too stubborn. I want to be able to fulfill my promise, but by the time he gets the hat it will be too warm to wear it. Fiddlesticks. That’s all I can say.
As of last night we have a real dining room table! Well, we have one in the kitchen but it’s just a breakfast nook kind of table. This one we have now is solid oak, with a good sturdy base. It belonged to Mike’s Great-Great Grandmother, so we estimate it’s at least 80 years old. We’ve had this table in our basement for some time now, but had no motivation to have it refinished. The kitchen table works fine for just the two of us (when we aren’t eating at the tv trays in the living room) but now that we are adding to our family we felt it was time to resurrect the oak table. We brought it to a guy awhile ago who refinishes wood furniture. He finally finished it so Mike brought it home last night. It’s beautiful. Doesn’t look so great with the green folding chairs, but that’s only temporary. Someday we will have enough money saved to buy some real chairs to go with it. I’m thinking something used; something old and antique-y. If you know of anyone getting rid of four old wooden dining room chairs, tell them to name a price and we’ll talk!
It’s the way I’ve been feeling lately. Scattered. I’m usually so organized. I usually know what’s on my to-do list and in my calendar. I usually know where things are and I usually know where I am. But it doesn’t feel like that now. I feel like every day just comes and goes and I’m being dragged along, waking up every morning hoping I haven’t missed anything important from the day before.
Part of it is due to “so much going on” as described in the previous post, but the other part of it is that I’m trying to handle all of it on my own. Sure, I’ve had overwhelming help and support from family and friends, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Every day I repeat my mantra: “what do I need to do today?”. I have a strong feeling I need to change my mantra to: “Lord, help me help me help me.”
I’ve been acting a lot like a spoiled child. We have been given so much lately and I’ve been acting like I’m too busy to be grateful. I’ll be grateful later, when I have more time. For now I’ll just keep taking and taking. But when will I have more time? How did I come under this illusion that things are going to slow down for me? I’m having a baby, for cripe’s sake. Things are not going to slow down. I need to start learning to seize the little moments to say thanks or to look to God, because from now on big chunks of time are going to be few and far between.
I read a devotional today. I had been putting that off for many, many months. I’m a great procrastinator. The devotional was simple and talked about God being our Father, blah, blah, blah… but then at the end it said, “He loves you, listens to your prayers, and supplies your needs according to His abundant resources. Look to Him today and live as a thankful, obedient child.” Boy, did I ever need to hear that. The scripture references hit the nail on the head as well: Proverbs 3:5-6 and Matthew 7:7-11. I need to stop leaning on my own strength and understanding and start seeking God. Duh. I am constantly amazed at how easily I forget the simple truths. Thank God for taking the time to remind me.
I think of things I want to blog about fairly often, but just never get around to it. There is a lot of busy-ness going on: in our house, at work, and in my head.
Mike and his buddies are still coming along on adding the room in the basement. Did I mention they were doing that? Mike is losing his “game room” to the baby, so he decided to build a room in the basement to replace it. I told him that big screen tv was not going in our living room so he either needed to put it in the basement or sell it. He’s been wanting to do something with that basement for a long time now, he just needed the motivation. So far they have put up the drywall and doors. The drywall still needs to be taped and mudded, but we have a friend coming on Monday to handle that. After that we paint and put down carpeting and voile’! Move the furniture down and we’ll be ready to start on Luke’s room. The plan there is to paint, refinish the wood floor, and install closet doors.
Until all that is done the rest of our house is in chaos. One reason is that it is tax season and I have little time or energy for decluttering. The other reason is that we are already accumulating baby stuff and of course have no place to put it yet. We have a crib, bassinette, loads of clothes, and many other miscellaneous items. Once the room is done and tax season is over the house will eventually return to a more organized state, so I try not to let it bother me, knowing that it won’t be like this forever.
Work has been fairly busy and keeps me challenged. Something I normally enjoy, but with so much else on my mind some days I feel like I’m losing it. I constantly fear I’m forgetting important things, and sometimes I am. But the guys here are very forgiving and generally blame it on the pregnancy. I still worry about how they’ll do without me while I’m on maternity leave, but I know worrying doesn’t help. They did fine while I was in the hospital, considering there was no preparation or warning. I had a lot of work waiting for me when I came back but I took it one day at a time and eventually got it taken care of.
Mike and I had a birthday last Saturday. He turned 30! I turned 29 and Saturday was also the day I turned 29 weeks pregnant, which I think is a tad interesting but not nearly as fun as turning 30. Some friends of ours had us over for dinner and a movie. We stuffed ourselves with chicken, rice and salad and after our stomachs settled we had brownies and ice cream. Yum. The boys played video games for a little while and then we all watched FlyBoys. It’s a true-story movie about the Lafayette Escadrille, a group of American soldiers who signed up to learn to fly some of the earliest fighter planes in World War I. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to anyone. Read the Plugged In Online review if you want to know more.
I know how exhausting it can be to read these long posts so I’ll end it here and hopefully add the more nonsensical thoughts from my head in future posts (cuz I know that’s the stuff you all really love, not to mention it’s a great stress relief for me).
