Gift ideas for us!
Tim:
-Nice headphones
-Toblerone
-Magic cards
Mir:
-Chocolate, of any kind (as long as it does not involve coffee)
-"Brave", the latest Pixar movie on Blu-Ray
-Picture frames
Jack: (wears between size 5 and 6, size 12 shoes, footed pajamas need to be size 7 since he is long-bodied and big-footed)
-board/card games
-someone to jump on the trampoline with him
-Hot Wheels cars and tracks
Lily: "Just, a bunny!" (wears a size 4, size 8.5 shoes)
-"I just want a monkey on my back for Christmas!" (she does love stuffed animals)
-books, puzzles
-art/craft supplies
Charlotte: (wears size 6-12 months, size medium diapers, dresses at least 17 inches long)
-any toy that doesn't require batteries
As I've said before, publishing this list is not my way of asking for gifts, it's my way of giving the people who want to buy gifts for us, some ideas of what we like!
Does anyone have some suggestions for how to make Christmas more about giving than about getting, for my little ones?
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Can I be done having sick kids, please?
I have to laugh at myself. I'm frustrated that my middle child is getting sicker, b/c I'm tired of having sick kids. Having sick kids means I can't take them anywhere that's indoors, and I can't have people come visit, and I'm tired of that. I feel like I've had sick kids for months, though it's only been a couple of weeks.
But really, it's the kids that are sick that are suffering the most! They're sick!BBBBBBB On my birthday, (August 21st, over a month ago), I came down with a flu, and Lily and Charlotte both caught it around the same time but they got over it very quickly, whereas I developed a nasty cough. I'm not kidding when I say nasty, it was so bad I couldn't sleep b/c lying down triggered coughs and I can't sleep sitting up. For two nights in a row the only way I could sleep was on my stomach, and since Charlotte doesn't think she can fall asleep in any way other than nursing, this presented some challenges to our bedtime routine. Tim got less sleep b/c he rocked Charlotte to sleep while I napped on my tummy; I got less sleep b/c I can only sleep so long in one position before I wake up sore, and I couldn't sleep in any other position or I'd cough, so I would just have to sit up until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep again in the same position.
My coughs were so strong that my torso muscles got sore from coughing, and every couple of days during the two weeks of severe coughing I would develop soreness in some new muscle group from coughing in an odd position. For instance, one morning I was lying on my side, and when a coughing fit hit, for some reason I tensed the muscles in my thigh, and that thigh was then sore for two days. I tried herbal teas, I tried hot soup, I even asked for soup when sweet ladies from church asked what they could do (and they delivered, too, which was SOOO nice!). After two and a half weeks, I had had enough and went to the doctor..... who said my cough was only caused by snot dripping down my throat and prescribed a cough medicine that had never been studied in breastfeeding mothers. I was deeply frustrated and a little angry. FINALLY, it was time for us to travel for Tim's convention in California (September 4-6), and as I worked to pack up the house, I started to get better. I researched cough medicine and found a cough suppresent drug that was compatible with breastfeeding and started taking it, and also started using menthol/herb cough drops at night. The first night at Tim's convention was the first night I slept the night through without coughing, and I continued to improve every day.
All this time I was coughing, I was assuming that the cough was just an aftereffect of the flu, and didn't think I was contagious. After Tim's convention, while we were staying in California in preparation for him to fly to China and for me and the kids to visit his sister in Utah, Lily caught the cough! Then Charlotte! So we went to Utah with two coughing girls. Charlotte got over it very quickly, but Lily is still not over it. Then, in Utah, Jack caught it. Lily seems to be getting better, but Jack's cough wakes him up at night, just like it did me. And he's so tired, he's always the first one to bed at night, and there for a few days he was even napping multiple times a day.
So, tonight, Lily vomited. And that was when I said out loud, "Can I be done having sick kids, please?" And then laughed at myself and started to be a little more compassionate for my child who had just puked and felt awful.
So, while everyone has been battling various levels of illness, life has gone on and we've had fun. We were in California for about a week, first at Tim's convention in the middle of nowhere in Marin County (north of San Francisco), then in the San Francisco metropolitan area visiting friends and favorite places. Tim worked during the workdays there, but during the evenings and the one weekend, he spent time with us and we had a great time. We went to the beach, we hiked in the Muir Woods, we visited dear friends that I've really missed (and the kids had a great time playing with their kids), we went to the Palo Alto Junior Museum that Jack has been asking to go to for the last few months, and we went to the park that we used to live near in Palo Alto. Then when Tim went to China, we went to Utah to visit his sister, Jessica, and her daughters, Leslie (almost 5) and Elysia (just turned 2). It was so beautiful to see my kids playing with hers, watching them deepen their bonds, hearing them sing together, and getting to know Jessica better. She is such a faithful and patient woman and I'm so glad I married her brother! Jack and Leslie played pretend games, he introduced her to games and movies on the iPad (which I would have limited much more strictly if he hadn't been so sick and tired), and Lily joined in when she wasn't busy playing by herself. Leslie and Elysia both loved Charlotte, and by the time I'd been there a few days they were pretty gentle with her.
Jack is really honing his math lately. While we were in California, he said "Ten tens is the same as five twenties!" Then in Utah, he said "Four twenties and four fives is a hundred!" When I asked him how he figured that out, he said "Because two twenties and two fives is half a hundred!" (Somehow, "half a hundred" has become absolutely synonymous with "fifty" in Jack's vocabulary.) After we came home, we played Carcassonne, which keeps score with markers on a number line that wraps around and starts over at 50 (so, it runs from 1-49, then if you put your marker back on 0 you pick up a tile with "50" on it and just keep on going). He had his marker on 36 and earned 21 points. I was about to move his marker for him, but I stopped and asked him where his marker would go. He studied the board for a few seconds, then asked me to show him where the 6 was. I showed him, then he put his marker on the 7 and smiled up at me. I asked him how he knew that and he explained that from 36, he would put his marker on the 46, then on the 6, then on the next one after 6. In other words, 21 is made up of 10, 10, and 1.
Here's the thing he's having trouble with: recognizing the numbers 5-9. For some reason, he does this with almost everything academic that he learns: he picks it up from just everyday life, then starts to second-guess and doubt himself and almost completely unlearns it. He used to easily recognize the numbers 1-20, but now he only knows 1-4. He sometimes knows the others at first, but then as soon as he realizes that he just recognized them, he stops saying the number and asks me what number it is. I think that if I stop bragging about his accomplishments so much in his presence, he'll stop feeling so stressed about getting it right.
But even with all this refusing to read the numbers 5-9, he has advanced to being able to read 2-digit numbers; as long as both digits are between 1 and 4 he can read it right off, but if one of the digits is between 5 and 9 he'll ask for the name of that one before he'll tell me what number it is.
It's almost 11pm. Good night!
But really, it's the kids that are sick that are suffering the most! They're sick!BBBBBBB On my birthday, (August 21st, over a month ago), I came down with a flu, and Lily and Charlotte both caught it around the same time but they got over it very quickly, whereas I developed a nasty cough. I'm not kidding when I say nasty, it was so bad I couldn't sleep b/c lying down triggered coughs and I can't sleep sitting up. For two nights in a row the only way I could sleep was on my stomach, and since Charlotte doesn't think she can fall asleep in any way other than nursing, this presented some challenges to our bedtime routine. Tim got less sleep b/c he rocked Charlotte to sleep while I napped on my tummy; I got less sleep b/c I can only sleep so long in one position before I wake up sore, and I couldn't sleep in any other position or I'd cough, so I would just have to sit up until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep again in the same position.
My coughs were so strong that my torso muscles got sore from coughing, and every couple of days during the two weeks of severe coughing I would develop soreness in some new muscle group from coughing in an odd position. For instance, one morning I was lying on my side, and when a coughing fit hit, for some reason I tensed the muscles in my thigh, and that thigh was then sore for two days. I tried herbal teas, I tried hot soup, I even asked for soup when sweet ladies from church asked what they could do (and they delivered, too, which was SOOO nice!). After two and a half weeks, I had had enough and went to the doctor..... who said my cough was only caused by snot dripping down my throat and prescribed a cough medicine that had never been studied in breastfeeding mothers. I was deeply frustrated and a little angry. FINALLY, it was time for us to travel for Tim's convention in California (September 4-6), and as I worked to pack up the house, I started to get better. I researched cough medicine and found a cough suppresent drug that was compatible with breastfeeding and started taking it, and also started using menthol/herb cough drops at night. The first night at Tim's convention was the first night I slept the night through without coughing, and I continued to improve every day.
All this time I was coughing, I was assuming that the cough was just an aftereffect of the flu, and didn't think I was contagious. After Tim's convention, while we were staying in California in preparation for him to fly to China and for me and the kids to visit his sister in Utah, Lily caught the cough! Then Charlotte! So we went to Utah with two coughing girls. Charlotte got over it very quickly, but Lily is still not over it. Then, in Utah, Jack caught it. Lily seems to be getting better, but Jack's cough wakes him up at night, just like it did me. And he's so tired, he's always the first one to bed at night, and there for a few days he was even napping multiple times a day.
So, tonight, Lily vomited. And that was when I said out loud, "Can I be done having sick kids, please?" And then laughed at myself and started to be a little more compassionate for my child who had just puked and felt awful.
So, while everyone has been battling various levels of illness, life has gone on and we've had fun. We were in California for about a week, first at Tim's convention in the middle of nowhere in Marin County (north of San Francisco), then in the San Francisco metropolitan area visiting friends and favorite places. Tim worked during the workdays there, but during the evenings and the one weekend, he spent time with us and we had a great time. We went to the beach, we hiked in the Muir Woods, we visited dear friends that I've really missed (and the kids had a great time playing with their kids), we went to the Palo Alto Junior Museum that Jack has been asking to go to for the last few months, and we went to the park that we used to live near in Palo Alto. Then when Tim went to China, we went to Utah to visit his sister, Jessica, and her daughters, Leslie (almost 5) and Elysia (just turned 2). It was so beautiful to see my kids playing with hers, watching them deepen their bonds, hearing them sing together, and getting to know Jessica better. She is such a faithful and patient woman and I'm so glad I married her brother! Jack and Leslie played pretend games, he introduced her to games and movies on the iPad (which I would have limited much more strictly if he hadn't been so sick and tired), and Lily joined in when she wasn't busy playing by herself. Leslie and Elysia both loved Charlotte, and by the time I'd been there a few days they were pretty gentle with her.
Jack is really honing his math lately. While we were in California, he said "Ten tens is the same as five twenties!" Then in Utah, he said "Four twenties and four fives is a hundred!" When I asked him how he figured that out, he said "Because two twenties and two fives is half a hundred!" (Somehow, "half a hundred" has become absolutely synonymous with "fifty" in Jack's vocabulary.) After we came home, we played Carcassonne, which keeps score with markers on a number line that wraps around and starts over at 50 (so, it runs from 1-49, then if you put your marker back on 0 you pick up a tile with "50" on it and just keep on going). He had his marker on 36 and earned 21 points. I was about to move his marker for him, but I stopped and asked him where his marker would go. He studied the board for a few seconds, then asked me to show him where the 6 was. I showed him, then he put his marker on the 7 and smiled up at me. I asked him how he knew that and he explained that from 36, he would put his marker on the 46, then on the 6, then on the next one after 6. In other words, 21 is made up of 10, 10, and 1.
Here's the thing he's having trouble with: recognizing the numbers 5-9. For some reason, he does this with almost everything academic that he learns: he picks it up from just everyday life, then starts to second-guess and doubt himself and almost completely unlearns it. He used to easily recognize the numbers 1-20, but now he only knows 1-4. He sometimes knows the others at first, but then as soon as he realizes that he just recognized them, he stops saying the number and asks me what number it is. I think that if I stop bragging about his accomplishments so much in his presence, he'll stop feeling so stressed about getting it right.
But even with all this refusing to read the numbers 5-9, he has advanced to being able to read 2-digit numbers; as long as both digits are between 1 and 4 he can read it right off, but if one of the digits is between 5 and 9 he'll ask for the name of that one before he'll tell me what number it is.
It's almost 11pm. Good night!
Monday, September 3, 2012
Jack is a math whiz
Just now, as he was sitting on the potty while I folded laundry nearby, Jack asked "Is twenty twenties something around four hundred?" I told him that it is exactly four hundred, and reminded him that squaring something is multiplying it by itself, just like twenty twenties, so we can say that twenty squared is four hundred.
Math comes easily to him, but names take a long time to take root in his mind. I wonder how long it will be before he remembers the concept of squaring.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Lilyisms and Jack learning how to write with Uno
Lily, singing "I Will Go, I Will Do" sang it "I will go, I will probably do..." She loves to sing, and I catch her mixing up the words a lot. "Adam was a prophet, first he was a child! Eena eena eena, in the latter days! Follow the prophet, follow the prophet, follow the prophet, he knows the way!" I know "I Am a Child of God" in French and Spanish, and I caught her one day singing the first line in French, the second line in Spanish, and the rest of the song in English. Tim and I both sing "Divina Luz" a lot ("Lead Kindly Light" in Spanish) and she sang it perfectly one day in the car.
Just now, she said "Charlotte has cute little legs and fat little rolls!" because I comment on my baby's oh-so-cute fat rolls enough, apparently :D
One day last week, Jack wanted to play the card game, Uno. He was really excited b/c he learned the last time we played that one can keep score and play multiple rounds and have a grand winner. He wanted to keep score! I was nursing Charlotte, so rather than just wait for me to be done, he gathered the pen and paper, got an alphabet book to show him how letters are made, drew an "M" for Mommy and a "J" for Jack on the page, and set up the game. He was even so excited that he was writing that he wrote the numbers for the score the first 2 times. After that the paper was full (beginning writers write HUGE!) so I wrote the rest of the numbers.
It was so satisfying for me to watch him do all this so cheerfully. If I had sat him down at a table and told him to draw those letters and numbers, he would have fussed and whined and barely tried. I know it's just a start and he's still got a long way to go, but he persevered and learned and even submitted to correction (I showed him how to hold the pen correctly).
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Summer flu, nursing Lily, dear friend visited
We caught the summertime flu. Please don't send me lots of sympathy and "Oh I'm so sorry you're sick!" comments, b/c every time we're sick we grow closer together as we all pull together and take care of each other. Yeah, I'd like to gain that family closeness another way, but it's still worth it!
I've been re-reading the beginning of this blog, smiling as I remember things I had forgotten, frowning when I read something and simply cannot recall it at all. I'm glad I wrote it when I did, and I wish I had started earlier in Lily's life. The only real failures are giving up and not learning from your mistakes, right?
Today I napped with Charlotte while Jack and Lily watched movies. I also did laundry and played with Charlotte, and read to Lily and Jack and got food for them. I nursed Lily a few times...
Yes, she is still nursing. And when she's sick like this, I'm really glad; all she ate yesterday was my milk. She's learning some better manners, asking nicely and not throwing a tantrum if I tell her I need to do something else first. She also is VERY sweet about staying carefully in a position to not hurt me (I thought the pain of nursing her would go away when I had Charlotte, but it didn't...). I can see that she doesn't need to nurse as much as she did when she was a toddler, nor as much as she did right after Charlotte was born, but neither of us is quite ready for weaning yet. It was tough right after Charlotte was born; I had my baby in Charlotte, and nursing Lily was painful and awkward. But we persevered (with tears on both sides), and we're in a good place now.
My dear friend came to visit a few weeks ago, with her four kids ages 1 1/2 to 9 1/2. (She doesn't publish her name on her blog, so I won't publish it on mine, but it rhymes with Selena Huf.) I laugh at myself b/c I was there for her youngest son's birth, the one that's holding Charlotte in the picture, and he doesn't usually like me. I feel so miffed and slighted. I say "I saw you come OUT of your mama, kid!" and he still runs and hides every time he sees me. But Charlotte gives me leverage! He LOVES her! So I can get close to him without him screaming, if I have Charlotte!
Good night!
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Things I don't want to forget:
Charlotte cooed and gurgled at me for about an hour, nonstop, after we came to pick her up from Tim's parents' house. She missed me and had to tell me all about it!
Lily hardly nursed at all today. The one time she did, I had to stop pretty quickly to take care of Charlotte. Lily started to cry, but she stopped when I suggested she look at a book. I even read it to her. It was our lift-the-flap Baby Jesus book, and after I read it to her, she proceeded to read it to herself out loud. I didn't get to listen to all of it, but what I did hear she got right!
Jack asked me what I want for my birthday, and when I told him "Chocolate!", he said he would get me something else so it would be a surprise. I told him it's a good idea to get someone the thing they want, and it will still be a surprise because I don't know what kind of chocolate he'll get me. He was excited!
We went out to a fancy restaurant for our 8th anniversary tonight. It was so yummy!
Malina sent me a birthday card and I called her to thank her. I love how we always laugh when we talk to each other! She said she decided years ago to not be offended by people because it takes so much energy. I want to be like that! So I will.
I love the way my sweet tiny one sleeps soundly as long as I'm cuddled up to her. She'll sleep all night long, only waking once or twice to nurse, and I don't mind that because I can just roll over and nurse her while I go back to sleep!
My memory is affected by this depression. I cried last night when I realized how little of Lily's baby days I remember. When Tim and I discussed it, we decided that it's not so much my memory as my recall, because I remember a lot when he reminds me. In any case, writing it down will help!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Is this really the first post since May?
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!
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!
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