Being pregnant is hard. Being pregnant with a kid is harder. Being pregnant with a job and two kids? My hats are off to y’all that have done this and survived. I hope I’ll join your ranks in a few months.
I’ve been feeling a little guilty these past few weeks because I feel like I’ve been choosing to either be healthy for the baby in my belly (aka take a nap, lay on the couch, eat the comfort food) or be the best mom to the existing kids (get up, turn off the tv, facilitate learning and go outside to play). Those are exaggerations, but sometimes it does feel like I can either choose to succumb to the fatigue and let the kids watch tv all afternoon, or I can choose to ramp it up and possibly make myself puke. Blerg.
Anyway, I know there are tons of you out there who have already done this, more times probably, and have great ideas and encouragement. So hit me with it! Leave a comment with how you balanced your life, or how you got the best of both worlds. I know there’s a way!
This is my first pregnancy that I haven’t had a full-time job. Wait. Let’s restate that. This is my first pregnancy that I haven’t had a full-time job teaching, outside of the home. I do have a full-time job right now. I mother two kiddos. That IS a full-time job.
This pregnancy has been an interesting one so far because I feel like I’ve known I was pregnant forever already. I mean two weeks but still. With EK, I found out at 6 weeks. With J, I found out at 9 weeks. Finding out at 4 weeks was awesome (my lifestyle changed immediately and entirely) and also difficult. Some symptoms I was having already (fatigue, digestive weirdness, etc)and then some seemed to intensify when I saw those two lines on that test. My fatigue went from early bedtime to needing a nap almost daily. My appetite skyrocketed, which had happened with EK. At 6 weeks, I was calling myself crazy because I was SURE I could feel the baby move. And no, it wasn’t gas. I’ve been pregnant before – I know the difference. Best response ever from my friend who received the text, swearing I could feel my lentil-sized baby move: “Maybe not that early for baby #3 – they say you are so in tune by then. I wouldn’t doubt it… Heartbeat and spontaneous movement start at 6 weeks.” Friends validating a girl for the win!
I do really want to believe that I’m so in tune with my body that I can feel every little hormone surge (yes, I’m crying about everything) and little spontaneous movement in my womb. Who knows. But the likelihood is that a lot of it’s mental. I know I’m pregnant, and I know that I’ve felt those things before… so why wouldn’t I be feeling them right now?
Has anyone else ever had super early pregnancy symptoms? Or felt like you had those “feelings” when you… didn’t?
Finding out that you’re pregnant when you’re only four weeks along is no joke. Why did I even take the test, you ask? Well, because I was already feeling exhausted and downright strange. I knew we had been “not not trying”. (That’s my term for not planning out days to try to conceive, but also not being on birth control. “Letting it happen” basically.) So when I was feeling extra tired and a little, well, crappy, I took a chance and peed on the stick. A FULL WEEK before my period was supposed to start. And guess what, folks? I was pregnant! Right there at four weeks. So early I knew it’d be silly to tell, but already so excited I couldn’t contain myself. That’s why when my friend Stephanie mentioned to me (in secret at the time) the next day that she was also expecting her third (10 weeks along. She was totally in the clear.) I was like “AHHH! ME TOO!!” because I knew she could keep my secret. That’s why in my “8 Truths About Being Pregnant” post, I wrote about having a secret keeper. Women are communicators. And when you have big news like this, that is totally life changing, yet you’re supposed to keep it to yourself, it’s damned near impossible. So choose a secret keeper to blab your news to and chat about plans with. It’s always a nice thing to share your news with a loved one who will pray with you, be excited for you, and check up on you till you share your news with everyone else.
Anyway, for the first week after I found out, all Hubby and I could talk about was how we were ever going to keep it quiet (no caffeine? no alcohol?) until I was at least 10 weeks along. We were devising plans, thinking of “mocktails” (which is ridiculous because I’m a wine and beer gal, not much girly liquor drinking for me) and trying our hardest to think of excuses for “being super healthy” since it was during the holidays. In hind sight, I should’ve been coming up with excuses for why I needed so many naps… that’s what’s been the most obvious, but maybe everyone doesn’t know I’m taking these naps…
Anyway, that’s it for today. If you’re enjoying hearing about the past few weeks you’ve missed, check the blog tomorrow for more!
When Hubby and I got engaged, all our married friends were telling us to go out, party, and hang out with our single friends while we still could. Because, of course, we could never go out without our spouse. They told us to get ready to stay in every night and never see other people and be boring and lame. At least that’s what it sounded like to me.
While I was pregnant with EK, I heard all those cautionary tales from friends and family about “Get sleep before the baby comes!” and “Enjoy your pedicures and massages before the baby comes!” and “Have lots of date nights with your husband before the baby comes!” Well, it sure sounded like my life would be over after I had that silly baby.
Then when I got pregnant with my second, there was a lot of “Enjoy the time with just one!” and “Spend lots of one on one time with your daughter before your son arrives!” as if somehow I wouldn’t see my daughter again, and my son would totally take me over and I wouldn’t want my daughter.
Well folks, let me debunk those lies. Your life isn’t over when you get married, or start having kids. It is only beginning. I have more love in my heart than I ever thought possible. Hubby and I party, and hang out with friends, and go out. I still *gasp!* get pedicures and massages. It may take a little more planning, and I don’t necessarily go on a whim, but I still do it. I still have date nights with Hubby – and he is more attractive and lovable to me than ever. Seeing him as a father, first to our daughter and now to our son, has filled me with such love and pride and happiness that I could never fully describe to you. It amazes me how much I can love him loving our kids.
To the naysayers who believe (or who are just telling themselves) that the only way to truly live is to be single and mingle, well, you don’t know anything about it. I’m not saying that if you’re single, or if you don’t have kids, that your life can’t be fulfilling. It can! Marriage isn’t for everyone, and neither are kids. But just because marriage and kids are for me, do not tell me that my life will be over. Don’t tell me that I should enjoy my free time while I have it. I would never change my life for a minute. My husband is my rock, my best friend, and the person I choose to spend time with every time. My kids are my little loves, my proteges (haha, right?), and my most fun and hilarious, if unpredictable, companions. Yes, Hubby and I bicker and get on each others’ nerves. Yes, my kids have rough days and I get frustrated with them. Yes, sometimes I need a girls night (or weekend, let me be honest) to rest, recoup and regenerate. But does that mean I regret any of the decisions I’ve made, or wish that I wasn’t in the position I’m in? Absolutely not. My family is my everything, on good days and bad, on days when they make a fabulous dinner, use the potty, and don’t have teething issues, and on days when we go through diapers like they’re grains of sand and the blueberries from breakfast are still smashed into the floor at dinner, which is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
This is totally characteristic of our relationship.
I don’t want you to think my life is perfect. If you know me, or read this blog, then you know that. But seriously… my family is the best. They are my everything. And I wouldn’t trade them. It’s my 2015 motto (in lieu of a resolution, remember?): Embrace it. Embrace this life. Embrace these people. Embrace all of the things.
A couple of days ago, when I posted for My Big Jesus, I sneakily (and accidentally) interjected a little announcement about myself… and my growing family!
We are expecting our third baby this July!!!
I know. That was a lackluster announcement. Sorry, third baby. I promise I will do something cool for you when you’re born, since I missed the opportunity to announce your presence a little more excitingly.
So there ya go! I’m 12 weeks today! Hello, second trimester! I’ve been feeling great (albeit exhausted) and super excited (albeit busy with life in general) about planning for and meeting another youngun into our home. I’ve also been working a little something for the blog ever since I found out I was pregnant…
I’ve been working on a miniseries (that wasn’t how it started, but that’s how it’s turned out!) about the first trimester of my pregnancy. I didn’t want to put it on the blog when we found out (at four weeks – holy moly!) but I did want to write about it. So over the next week, I’ll be posting the things I wrote about for the first few weeks I knew I was pregnant! I hope you enjoy reading about the first trimester of my little fig’s life (that’s how big the baby is right now. I’ve never actually seen a fig, so I don’t know what it means.) and how I’ve been coping with the decaf coffee and lack of sushi. I’ll even start posting bump photos, once I’m out of the “Did she just have a big lunch?” phase and into the “Aww, how far along are you?!” phase.
Anyone else out there prego? How far along are YOU?!
Y’all. The basement renovation is happening. And it is happening FAST. We (when I say we, it’s really Hubby and his buddy) have been tearing out the basement (carpet, crown molding, sheetrock, interior doors, fixtures, etc) for the past two weeks, and the crew is coming over the next few days to do the rest of the demo and start moving the bones of the place around to make room for NEWNESS! I am so excited.
I’m also really nervous. It’s going to be loud. My babies like to sleep. Not sure how those two things are going to go together. Also, we won’t have laundry for basically the entirety of the project. That’s a little scary for a family of four. My mother-in-law and a few others have graciously told us their laundry rooms are open for our use, and we are so grateful to have family and friends close by to help us out. It’ll be like living in a big city where no one has their own laundry space and everyone goes to a Laundromat. Except the Laundromat will be a friend’s house. With cable. Thank goodness.
The entire basement is either packed into our UNIT in the backyard, sold, donated, or stored in a friend’s garage. That includes furniture, linens, baby clothes and toys my kids have grown out of but we aren’t ready to part with (I mean, I’ll need them come summer!), Hubby’s and my out of season or rarely worn clothes (including my zillion bridesmaids dresses that I can’t figure out how to deal with), copious amounts of musical/sound equipment, and other various things that for some reason we can’t part with but don’t really belong upstairs. Soon, all the kids’ bedrooms will be downstairs, we will have a laundry room and a mud room, and lots of the spacing problems will be taken care of. I can’t even imagine how wonderful that will be! Come on, three months. Pass quickly.
Has anyone else lived in a home while a renovation was happening? How about with young kids? How did you survive?!
Here’s a short book review of What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty:
It’s good. Great, actually. It is thought-provoking, to imagine losing the memories from ten years of your life. Alice falls off a spin bike at the gym, and when she wakes up, she thinks she is ten years younger and pregnant with her first child. She doesn’t remember her three children, crumbling marriage, or anything else from the past ten years. The greatest thing about the book is her journey to find herself, combining the woman she is at 40, and the woman she was at 30. There is heartache and pain, but also grace and redemption. I flew through it, just needing to know what the next page said.
Now that you’ve got the synopsis… I’ll tell you this: I’m not quite yet 30, but it made me brutally aware of how much can happen in ten years. Obviously, the last ten years of my life (aka my twenties) were vastly different than my thirties are going to be. My twenties consisted of college, partying, traveling, job searching, falling in love, getting married, and birthing two kids. My thirties will be full of raising toddlers (read: potty training), choosing schools (and running the chauffeur service to get various kids to various places), doing laundry, hosting holiday get-togethers and getting to know my kids in every stage of their lives. I can’t imagine waking up halfway through my thirties, and not remembering anything about it.
But on the other hand, what would I want to be the same? Which things would I want to wake up ten years later and know would be consistent? My marriage. My relationship with my kids (no matter how old they were). My friendships. My place at my church. Those would be my priorities, if I had to choose something to be consistent throughout my life. Just thinking about what I’ll be doing ten years from now makes me want to focus on those things more than ever, so that ten years from now, I’ll know where I stand.
What would you think if you woke up, and didn’t remember the last ten years? Would you have wanted something to change? Would you like where you stand?
My lungs are burning, I thought. Whether from cold or effort I don’t know.
That was the first real thought of what might have been a hundred during my first mile.
It’s been too long since my last run… especially since I’m pushing this double stroller.
Why didn’t I pack tissues?! There was room in the stroller for goodness sake!
If my fingertips are this numb, how are my kids doing? Why didn’t I make them wear gloves? Worst mom ever!
Gosh, I have to pee. I know. Pregnant with my third kid and I have to pee. Big surprise.
How many times is EK gonna drop that blanket? I’m never going to make it for three miles if I’m stopping every ten feet.
This is just a sampling of how my mind rambles while I’m running. It’s extremely silly sometimes, how my mind will come up with anything to think about besides the work it’s doing. And the truth was that even though it had been awhile since my last run, I wasn’t even working that hard. What was hard was the cold, my runny nose, and the fact that I always have to go to the bathroom.
But I needed the time out. Time outdoors. Time out in the sunshine (which has been hit or miss these days). Time out for my kiddos – not like a punishment, but a total removal from their current situation (sitting inside, toddling along after me, asking to be picked up). Time out of my normal laundry-dishes-picking-up routine. Time out from my “feed the kids, change a diaper, clean, repeat” routine. A mama can only put together 2732 puzzles before she needs a time out.
And y’all, when I tell you I need a time out, I’m serious. I get frustrated easily. Call it hormones, call it a generational curse, call it whatever you want. But I do. I work on it all day, every day. I pray about it. I have others pray with me about it. But I’m human, and I lose patience and lose resolve. So when I need to get rid of some frustration, I like going on a run. Winter is the worst, because my time out can’t happen if it’s below about 45 degrees (yes, I’m a weenie and I hate the cold). But when it’s 45 or above, my double jogging stroller is my best friend, who understands my venting and my struggles. Okay, fine. “Understands” is a stretch, but you get the idea. At least the stroller doesn’t struggle back.
Sometimes, I’m in need of more than just a run. I’m in need of a run to Jesus. I pray harder every mile. I pray for myself, I pray for my kids, my Hubby, my friends, my family. I pray for grace as a mama. I pray for patience and a clean heart. I pray that the 25 minute nap that J got in the stroller will last him till bedtime. I pray that I won’t collapse going up the last hill before I’m home. I pray because I need Jesus so much. I know that he’s the only one who truly understands, and can cleanse me and mold me into a more perfect woman in his sight.
Each year, the pastor at my church chooses a scripture that will be preached on and spoken to each member of the church individually, as a blessing for the year. It’s a really wonderful thing that they do: speaking positivity and truth into each and every person’s life through the course of one morning. Speaking blessing and encouragement into people who may not get it from anywhere else. It’s awesome.
Last night, I went with the other members of leadership to be blessed for 2015. The Blessing Sunday is a really busy time for worship leaders, pastors, deacons, and others who are leaders in the church, so we all get blessed with our families the previous Wednesday at a service together. As I went with Hubby to take communion and pick up the kids for the blessing, I was overcome with excitement. This is gonna be good! I thought. And it was. Our venue pastor Brandon was one of our “blessers”, along with a lady that I hadn’t met before. The scripture for the blessing was this:
Exodus 14:13-14 (NKJV)
And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”
Stand still. How often are we told that? Maybe if we’re having our picture taken, and that’s about it. Otherwise, it’s “come here” and “do this” and “go there” and “finish that”. It’s never “stand still, and let the Lord fight your battle for you”. How much better is that? How much more successful will He be at fighting my battle?
See the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. He WILL accomplish it. No question. He HAS accomplished it; His salvation is already ours! Amen, y’all!
You shall hold your peace. Hold… your… peace. Hold it. YOUR peace. That peace is yours for the taking, for the holding. That peace is in the security of knowing the Lord is fighting for you. FOR. YOU.
Our “blessers” spoke wisdom, peace, encouragement and security into our lives for 2015. They spoke to us as husband and wife, as parents, as workers and doers and believers. They spoke in love, and in the Holy Spirit. I’ve been thinking about it all night and all morning, how encouraged and positive I feel! A little encouragement and a word from the Lord spoken straight to me can go a long way.
If you need this encouragement, this love, this word, and you’re in central NC, then be at Reynolda Church, EPC on Sunday morning at 9:30 or 11. It’s gonna be good, y’all.
It is a great love of mine to find time to read for pleasure. So often, I’m reading blogs and essays on parenting and potty training and toddler tantrums and the like that I am ecstatic to lay in the bed, if only for five minutes before I fall asleep with the Kindle in my hand, and read something delicious, for my own pleasure. Hubby and I sometimes slip into phases where we watch TV instead of read, but I love the times that reading takes the place of a TV binge.
Recently, I read a post from my friend Ginna (her blog is here!) about a book she was reading. Okay, confession: it was not recent. It was over the summer. Details, right? I’m a procrastinator. Anyway, I just finished the book she had recommended, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple.
The title character, Bernadette, is a seemingly washed-up but brilliant architect, loved by her quirky daughter and Microsoft-guru husband, revered by architecture nerds all around, and hated by her fellow private school mothers who think she is a social disaster. We read the saga from the daughter Bee’s point of view, and follow the mother-daughter relationship closely. As you may assume from the title, Bernadette disappears, and we go literally to the ends of the earth (Antarctica) trying to find her. The twist at the end is a total kicker, solidifying our warm feelings toward the family of three that we had at the beginning of the book.
It’s written very interestingly (I thought at first oddly, haha), including emails and notes to and from different characters, mixed in with Bee’s narrative. The reason for it is cleared up at the end, with the twist, so hold out through the odd writing… you will be rewarded!
Has anyone else read the book? What did you think? Have you read anything interesting recently that I should read? I’m always looking for suggestions!
We're Only Hsuman... 