ride your firebolt…

Here’s a little video for you fellow Harry Potter fans out there…

“My sin! My Sin!”

This is going to a cute kid story, so prepare yourself to be awed. =)

Evan will be 2 at the end of this month, and a couple of months ago, I noticed that he was yelling, “My sin! My sin!” every time someone took something from him. He sounded perfectly heartbroken, but I did think it was awfully odd. I couldn’t figure it out.

Then, one day recently, I heard him singing a little catechism song that we have taught both of the boys. There is a line in it that says, “On the cross, he took my sin…” A light bulb went off.

Whenever someone takes something from him, he thinks they’re taking his “sin.” He took my sin, Mommy! Give it back!

Honey Lamb, that’s one thing you want taken away. =)

wait a second… i’m going to have 2 older children and a newborn?

It’s been a decent morning overall. We didn’t have anywhere to be this morning, so we did a lot of playing, making cards for teachers, etc. A little friend came to stay while her mom went to a doctor’s appointment, and that went just fine.

My friend got back with her 2-month-old, and she sat down in the playroom to nurse after we all had lunch. The playroom looked like a bomb had gone off, and my boys were being a little goofier than usual because they were showing off. I watched her nurse with Nerf guns being shot, children attempting to climb on her lap and look down her shirt, and while I attempted to referee the usual wrestling that turns into crying around here.

At this point, the sight of this has me discouraged and a little overwhelmed. (My friend is a laid back trouper who didn’t complain, but I’m not her. =) Seth was a pretty mellow 2-year-old when Evan was born, and things were still hard. I was in a mildly bad mood for months on end. Now I have two boys, neither of which seem very mild on a lot of days, and both with lots of demands for stories and crafts and helping to cock the Nerf gun, etc. How am I going to do this?

I want to enjoy my new baby. I love the new baby stage. Are the older two going to make that virtually impossible? Do they make straight jackets for 2 and 4-year-olds? =)

If anyone has any tips for how to get some peace and quiet with two active little boys while nursing a newborn, I’ll all ears. I’ve thought about mandatory room time for both of them to start off the day with special toys, etc. The problems seem to come most when they are playing together….

all together again…

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve written. Not long after I wrote the last post, we escaped to my parents for a week. I battled the stomach bug on and off for 6 days total. The night before we went to my parent’s house, it was really bad. David was unexpectedly able to come home that evening. If he hadn’t been, I would’ve had to call someone to help. So… I was thankful for that, but sometimes I  do wonder why you get help to make it temporarily instead of God just moving that mountain for ya. =)

The next morning, I dragged myself out of bed and out to the car, and I got us to my parents. They were great, as usual. I was still in semi rough shape for a couple more days, and then I recovered. Thank you, Jesus! The boys did really well, and we got to have a lot of fun on “the farm.” Seth helped my dad plant and mulch the corn rows, and both boys spent a lot of time on the swingset and climbing on and off the farm equipment… mower, trailer, tractor, plow, etc. =)

David’s trial went to the jury on Wednesday afternoon. We came home on Thursday morning. I’d called him on Wednesday night, urging him to go to bed early. (He doesn’t get much sleep during trial.) I came home on Thursday to find that he’d washed all the sheets for all of us and put them back on the beds, vacuumed, and steam mopped the floor in the kitchen! I told him that he was going to have to act like a mere mortal if he wants me to believe that he’s not Superman. =)

I cleaned all the bathrooms, dusted, swept, cleaned the fridge and microwave, and then sat back to enjoy my clean house before Easter weekend. Oh yeah, and I made him a batch of homemade brownies. Can’t forget that essential item on the to do list.

It’s so nice to be together again. None of us had seen much of each other in the last two weeks. Everyone slept in until 9:00 this morning! We’ve been lounging around, playing in the backyard, doing a little grocery shopping, and just soaking in the chance to be a complete family.

Looking forward to putting together the boy’s first Easter baskets for Sunday and getting up a fancy Easter dinner. I have so many reasons to be grateful this Easter.

And… oh, yeah…. the defendant was found guilty. Way to go, rockstar Daddy! He does his best, and then all he can do is give it to the jury, and let it go to God. But I’m happy that all his hard work resulted in what we all pray is a just result…

Hanging on…

Did you ever hear the one about the 21-week pregnant mom of 2 small boys who got the stomach indigestion bug right before her husband went to trial and stopped coming home at night or on the weekend?

No? What about the one where she called her dr.’s office, desperate because she’d been dealing with this for 4 days without much improvement, and they told her that it would take her longer than everyone else in her city to get over it because she was pregnant. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t a problem until it’d been going on 7 days. 7 days.

I don’t know how this story ends, but it isn’t looking that great right now. Just what I needed, another reason to dread trials. I’ve been trying so hard not to have a bad attitude this time. I’m feeling pretty spiritually attacked right now.

*** Updated at 9:24 p.m., same day. Immodium and rest have been really helpful, and I guess I can’t cheat on the BRAT diet like I had been without consequences. Thanks for the prayers. We made it through another day without Daddy, and I’ll be going to my parents’ at the end of the week for some help.***

the blessing of learning games…

Hi, all! It was a crazy week last week, and then the weekend was just as nutty. David’s dad has been in the hospital, and he and Seth went up there this weekend to visit. He’s on the mend, but pray for him if you think of him. Evan has an ear infection, so we kept that grumpiness here at home.

It was David’s birthday on Sunday, and he did get home in time for us to sing to him and have cake and open presents. We even got to go out to dinner, thanks to our babysitting adopted college student. Hey, he gets to save money on laundry, and we get to eat without our children. It’s a win, win, win for everyone. =)

But on Saturday, I found the most awesome spelling game at a yard sale. It was a $1, and it had all the pieces! Go to this link to see it. The reviews explain how it works… We pulled it out today, and Seth spelled his first word with me! I love how the little lowercase letters fit neatly in the pegs, and there are 4 different colors of letters. If he’s looking for a particular letter, he doesn’t have to look through the whole alphabet to find it… he just looks at the color of the rectangle on the board, and then he looks at the letters that are that color.

David and I went to Barnes and Noble this week, and I picked up this ladybug game for Seth as well. We had a gift card, so it cost me nothing, but the $10 would’ve been worth it. Seth has his uppercase letters mostly down, but his lowercase letters are another story. I wanted something that would help him learn them and connect upper and lowercase in his mind. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he knew several of them already… I hadn’t been sure. I can thank Dr. Suess’s ABC book for that, I think.

He enjoyed playing with both of these games today, and it’s great to feel like we’re learning reading essentials in multiple ways that interest him. Now, if I could just keep Evan happy while I’m working with Seth. Sigh. That’s going to take a little more practice…

When God slams a door…

We had our 19 week ultrasound yesterday. We’re having a third boy. He’s healthy.

(Moment of silence to let that sink in.)

I’ve run the gamut of emotions since then, most of them pretty negative. I’ve gone from shock to disbelief to anger to hurt to grief so fast that I have whiplash. This has been far harder for me to handle than I imagined.

I was so sure that this was it… my miracle no-fertility-treatment baby had to be a girl. I’d had two boys… I’d waited (semi-patiently =)… and this had to be it. Surely God wanted to bless me with this. Boys are great, and I’ve enjoyed having two, but now it was time for something different. I had a list of reasons as long as my arm why having a girl would be a wonderful thing for me, this family, this world…

And for the 3rd time, I got a big, fat, gigantic “no.” And this time it felt final. I’m assuming that’s why I have done so much crying in the last two days.

Thank God for my wonderful husband. (And my mom who watched the boys so we could go out together and put me back together in peace.) He has been so faithful to remind me of God’s love and kindness to me. I need to hear that right now.

Everybody has deeply held dreams and longings. Having a daughter was one of mine. It is hard when anyone that you love tells you that your dreams and plans are less important to them than their goals for you. It’s especially hard when that person is your heavenly Father… and you thought that He’d planted those dreams in your heart a long time ago.

David reminded me again yesterday of all of the times that God has said “yes” to our cries for help, our pleadings for specific blessing…

“Yes, you can have a baby after years of infertility.”

“Yes, you can even have one without fertility treatment.”

“Yes, David can have his dream job.”

“Yes, you can move close to family.”

“Yes, I will give David his voice back.”

There have been countless blessings that we have received from His hand that we didn’t even know to ask for. And there have been several times when, if we’d gotten what we wanted when we wanted it, we would be in a far more difficult place than we are right now. Infertility ultimately blessed us… if it hadn’t have been for that, there would’ve been no S.C. clerkship, no move to N.C. etc.

This is just another time and situation where I have to say, “Your ways are higher than my ways.” I’m afraid of what having three boys will be like. I feel totally outnumbered and worried about the amount of energy in my home. If anyone had told me that I would be the mother of three boys before now, I would’ve laughed hysterically. I wanted something that I thought would be easier for me than this.

And then there is my grief for the daughter that I won’t have. I feel sometimes like somebody died… and I never got to know her. That’s probably harder than anything else, honestly.

If you think of me in the next few days, please pray for me. I’m going to get it together, mourn, and move on. I am thankful for a healthy baby, and I know that I will adore him as much as I adore my other two sweet boys. I just need a little time…