Hmmm, guess so...
Lily turned 2 on May 22nd. I'm loving the 2-year-old stage, it is so intense but so fun. Jack is now just a few days shy of 5 1/2, and I love how big and grown-up he is and yet he still loves to cuddle!
I finally admitted over the summer that this depression was not going to go away without help. I had started some supplements in the spring that were reported to work as well as commercial antidepressants, and I did see the changes that I expected to see, but then somehow in the summer things got hard again and I started seeing a therapist. She works for our church, and was able to counsel me with our faith in mind, and I think that made a WORLD of difference. Our welfare policy is to give people a hand up, not a handout; to teach people how to help themselves instead of just providing for them. And the therapist helped me to identify thought patterns that were destructive and to find ways to defuse them. I felt immediate improvement, and "graduated" in September :D
In June I got to take Jack and Lily to Utah to visit my dear friend and her kids, AND my sister-in-law and her husband and kids. It was a VERY fun trip, with happy cousins playing and best friends reunited. I slept at my sister-in-law's house, and her daughter and my son would wake up in the morning and start playing together, and they never stopped playing together until bedtime when we had to peel them apart. And Lily happily played alongside them, and my sister-in-law and I chatted and I tried to be helpful. My sister-in-law is so wise and gentle, I had a lot of fun watching her parent and run her home; I took notes :D I was also proud of myself for holding my tongue when her husband didn't help with the kids nearly as much as I thought he should. It's hard for me being the wife of SUCH a helpful man, to see men who aren't like him. I feel like EVERY man should be like him! But I held my tongue, and tried to keep an open mind, and he occasionally surprised me with thoughtful comments and spontaneous help. He is a kind man and he is a good provider for his family, and I do like his sense of humor (most of the time).
In July my Granny got sick and I took the kids and flew back to my hometown in Arkansas to go visit her. It wiped our savings but I'm glad we went. My kids go to play with their second cousins, I got to see my Granny and other extended family, and I got to REALLY appreciate some parts of the Southern culture, and some parts of the West Coast culture :D For instance, Southerners are a lot kinder (in general) to kids behaving like kids in public. I felt sympathy and support from the passers-by when Jack threw a tantrum in the hospital. But at the same time, the Southern way of raising kids is a lot harsher, with a lot more yelling and talking down to kids, while the West Coast way of raising kids is a lot gentler and kinder. Or maybe it's just my family. I realized while there, that I have a reason for always falling back into the habit of just barking orders and not playing with my kids: that's the way I was raised, that's the way my cousins were raised, that's the way my mom and aunt and uncle were raised, etc. It's just how it's done. It's not that there's no love there, it's just how they are. I know my mom at least made an effort to tone down her harshness to me, b/c I do NOT remember being yelled at the way everyone was yelling at the kids while I was there.
One thing in their defense, though, is that every time I stepped up and spoke kindly to the children, EVERYONE'S tone would immediately change. They would all soften and be kinder. And they were almost entirely much kinder to my kids than they were to my cousin's kids, so I tried as hard as I could to give their kids the same courtesy. But I was still very glad to come home!
My Granny passed away not too long after I came home. It's hard for me to imagine that I could go to the house in Magnolia where she lived all my life, and she won't be there. It will be interesting to see how the family sticks together without her to gather around. They're selling the house and dividing the proceeds between her three kids; I'm happy my mom will get that financial boost, but sad to see the house leave the family. It's in an AWFUL neighborhood, though, so I guess it's a good thing!
We have a thing for conceiving babies every third August. And we don't even plan it that way, it just happens! This was the first time that I suspected from day 1 that I was pregnant, though. When we got Jack, we'd been trying for months and I had stopped paying attention to every little sign and twinge in my body to evaluate and try to decide if I might be pregnant, so I was actually surprised when the pregnancy test came up positive. And when we got Lily, I hadn't been menstruating for very many months and I assumed it would take more months than that to conceive again, so again I was surprised. This time, as soon as my cycles returned I knew I was fertile, and I knew the day that conception was possible and I enjoyed watching my body for every sign I might have conceived. And we did! Our baby is due on April 23rd, though Jack came 2 1/2 weeks early and Lily came a week late, so due dates don't really mean much to me. I keep track of the exact date b/c I have fun talking about how early or late my babies come, but whenever anyone asks when I'm due I answer with just "April, maybe May."
The nausea/exhaustion has been the worst ever this time, but I'm keeping my food down and not losing weight too terribly fast. I think it's been harder for me to deal with b/c my emotional state is still not 100% healthy, but I also know that my symptoms really are worse this time. But I'm THRILLED to get to have another kid, and so are Tim, Jack, and Lily!
I'm getting tired so I better wrap this up, but one more thing: we're moving to Texarkana next month! SO EXCITED!
