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David's Birth Story

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Well, it’s taken me much longer this time around to sit down and write my third child’s birth story. I wonder why? Haha... These past almost-15-weeks have been filled to the brim with the antics of certain 4 and 2 year olds, changing lots and lots and lots (and lots) of dirty diapers, not very much sleep until recently, and so many sweet baby snuggles. It’s been both a challenge and a blessing to “go backwards”, as it were. We had kind of gotten past the baby stage and had enjoyed two whole years of both of our kids sleeping through the night in their own rooms (!!). So this transition has been sweet, fun, hard, exhausting, crazy, and all kinds of other adjectives my brain can’t think of right now. :) Sunday, October 15 was David’s due date. We went to church that morning and I started having contractions during the service...not painful ones, but enough to get my attention. They continued through lunch, so Dan and I decided we should go get checked out before leav
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Surviving the Fourth Trimester (with 3-under-5)

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Well, we made it.   Again .  David was born on October 17, and here we are on January 27.  We have officially survived The Fourth Trimester* for a third time. On this side of it I am both extremely relieved and a bit sad.  The first few months of my babies' lives have never been my favorite, as anyone who knows me has heard me talk about.  But overall David has been the ideal newborn...so to see his first 3 months pass so quickly has been bittersweet.  Or maybe it's that the third time around you really do realize that it goes so stinking' fast . Am I thankful for lots of good sleep lately?  For sure.  Did I cry as I packed away the 0-3 month clothes?  Also for sure. Anyway...here are some things I journaled during the first three months to pass along to any mama who finds herself also living through the Fourth Trimester with 3-under-5.  It's a little intense, a little scary, a little fun, and a whole lot of beautiful. #1 - Lower your expectations before y
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I will waste my life...

I liked my life BC.  That's Before Children .   Actually, I probably loved it.  I was creative and adventurous and bold, the first to share an original song or repel down the side of a mountain or enter a political debate.  Actually, I was probably prideful.  But goodness, it was fun.  And most days I felt like I had a really good handle on my life, my plans, and the direction things were headed.  Oh, I loved the Lord.  I worshiped and wrote and prayed and talked a lot.  I married a fantastic man and we dreamed big dreams of what "we would do for the Kingdom", how we would create and conquer. Then I had a baby.  Two babies.  Two beautiful, energetic, personable boys who make me laugh and sigh and cry.  Two boys who have taken it all...  My love.  My time.  My focus.  My heart.  My energy.  My budget.  And lately, I don't feel creative or adventurous or bold. Lately, my knuckles are white. White from clinging. Clinging 'cause I don't have a handle on no
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Valued...

This afternoon I was surfing Facebook...you know, when you start following links from your newsfeed, to a friend's wall, to their friend's wall, to their friend's wall...and suddenly you're somewhere looking at pictures of people you don't even know, because you found something interesting. (At least, I hope I'm not the only one who does this...haha...) I was looking at some cute photography ideas with kids, and a comment on an adorable shot of a little girl caught my attention. It said something like this - "She's sooo cute...she would be a gorgeous model when she grows up. Too bad her doctor said she will only turn out to be about 5 feet tall. Oh, well." The genuine anger that filled my chest...I can't even explain it - anger that someone would have the gall to insult a masterpiece, created and stitched together by the hands of God Himself. Our value is not defined by the height we achieve, or your chest size, or your waist m
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In November...

In November when the wind is red, and the leaves are cold, I feel old. I jotted those lines down today, stopped at an intersection in town.  I have felt that feeling before, but this is the first November that I've been able to put a name to it.  The name is, simply,  old .  I feel aged in November, as if, really, underneath this quarter century of experience there should really be three quarters.  Because I know what's coming.  I know that this turning of seasons in the natural is also a spiritual metaphor.  We are all turning.  Aging.  Changing.  Shifting. But the oldness makes me feel happier, somehow.  Not in some morbid way, but it makes me feel nearer to that which my spirit-man longs for.  Even as I rejoice in the coming spring of my baby's birth, I can't help but ache just a bit for my final autumn.  I feel old, in that I have begun to welcome the changing seasons.  I am not quite sure when it happened but, somewhere along the way, I have begun to lose
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New Life...

It's so funny to me how much can change in half of a year... The last blog post I wrote (and just now published) had to do with being a Health Food Nazi, or something or other.  Now, November 1, 2012 finds me being a Eat-Anything-That-Sounds-Appetizing-and-Is-Relatively-Healthy-For-Baby Nazi.  Haha...  Oh, the change time brings.  What felt important last April, now seems not quite so urgent. Our summer was so full of so many good things.  Summer camps at Peachtree kept me busy.  I enjoyed working with the kiddos for the second year in a row.  We did some hiking, kayaking, and cliff jumping on our mutual days off.  Sometime mid-August there were two lines on a pregnancy test... and, you know, we were a bit excited.  The very next week we left for a 7-day, much needed vacation, just the two of us, to Pensacola, FL.  Besides a bit of morning sickness making me feel woozy, we had a wonderful trip.  A week later, on August 31, we announced to our families and friends that we were
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Six months of whole foods...

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As alot of my friends and family know, back in January I set out to be a Whole Foods Nazi.  (Ok, well, not quite...but I wanted to feed us better...)  Since then, my husband has watched as I have poured white sugar into the garbage can, choked down "Mean Green Juice", and almost cried over several whole wheat bread-baking flops.  We have certainly cheated, like with that horrible-for-you peach cobbler on the camping trip...or the hot fudge cake I just had to have at 9:00 at night...or eating out when my spring schedule was crazy.  But I think I can safely say that for the majority of the time we have eaten whole, real, like-God-made-them foods since the first of the year.  This has been even easier to continue since I've been out of school for the summer.  If I have learned one thing about feeding your husband/family real food, it's that you have to spend time at home to do it...at least, to do it without wanting to scream because you have to wash the juicer again .
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