One more mouth to fill…

“She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting, reading, music, and drawing. This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other.

Here is a sweet fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings have left me.

Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!”

- From “Stepping Heavenward” by E. Prentiss

Good things: new baby edition…

- A sweet smelling baby with soft, brushed down baby fuzz, fresh from his first bath. And realizing I still remember how to give one… =)

- Seeing the neighbor’s gift of balloons floating down from the backyard trees days after they escaped from our front porch. And getting to call her and tell her that we got her present after all.

- Hot, fresh meals delivered every two days…. and an online calendar full of this kind of love to last us all month. Overwhelmed with this generosity.

- A full box of wonderful toys and games, lovingly chosen by a friend and blog reader, and opened at the end of a hormonal day. Thank you, Powell.

- Lactation consultants that call back promptly.

- That pumping on one side for 24 hours, soaking in salt water, and coating in Neosporin seems to have my one poor, wounded baby feeder back in business… with a nipple shield. Continued prayers for full functionality and healing appreciated. Pumping every 3 hours, cleaning up pumping stuff, trying to get the baby to eat it… not such a fun thing.

- A call from a friend on the way to the grocery store to ask if we need anything… right after realizing I’d forgotten to buy milk.

- A wonderful preschool counting game discovered in my feed reader from Money Saving Mom. Click on “Workboxables” and “Number Wheel By Ami.” I’m looking forward to getting the clothespins for this…

- Lysol wipes. And the fact that me spilling two sugary drinks on the floor within 5 minutes of each other hasn’t taken down my afternoon because of them.

- A morning alone with my 2-year-old baby while Daddy and Seth introduced Ben to his co-workers. So helpful in making me feel less guilt for making my baby a middle child…

- The best husband in the universe telling me that he wouldn’t want to miss out on the early tough days even if he could by going back to work right away.

Benjamin Elliott….

Another sweet blessing came to us on August 17, 2011 at 10:30 a.m. He weighed 7 lb., 5 oz. and was 21 inches long. It didn’t take long for him to steal my heart, just like his brothers….

Big brother had to have a turn first. He wanted to hold him multiple times for short periods of time. And when he was at his grandparents, he asked every time we called, “Are you in the hospital with Baby Ben? Is he still wearing his little hat? Is he sleeping in his little bed?” =)

Evan was more interested in trying to knock over my iv bag stand and climb on shiny medical equipment than he was in his baby brother. (At least Ben got one kiss.) But that has definitely changed since we’ve been home… now he’s a 4 star baby helper.

Mom made this cake with Seth for Ben’s birth day. Seth got to frost it with her, and it seemed to make the whole event more real for him. They sang “Happy Birthday” to him, and they blew out his candle. Very sweet…

 

And here’s one with his eyes open. He’s the cutest little bundle of happiness, and definitely the most easy going newborn that we’ve ever had. We feel abundantly blessed…. to go along with abundantly tired. =) We’re enjoying these early days as a family of FIVE. I never thought I’d see this day. God has been merciful far beyond what we deserve.

just checking in…

- Gray Saturday morning. Headed out early for a little yard saleing. We have one excited 4-year-old who loves to get little toys with his ziploc baggie of coins.

- I found an awesome tanagram set for a quarter! I was thinking of ordering one from Amazon for over $20, so finding it was such a nice blessing. I think the one I got may be better than the one I was looking at online, and I can’t wait to sit at the kitchen table and do some of the easier cards with Seth.

- Seth bought a beanie baby turkey with one of his quarters. The irony is that we sold off its identical twin at our yard sale. That boy… =)

- Evan has the Cold That Never Ends. He lay down last Friday night and had a bad night with congestion and coughing and a runny nose. And it’s been like that all week. He hasn’t been up and down every night, but it’s been a few. David has slept with the boys in the guest bed a few nights to deal with it more easily. I took him to the doctor yesterday, and I got a prescription for a bubble gum flavored antibiotic. He’s got to have a sinus infection… no cold lasts this long with no improvement. Sigh.

- We’re having a quiet weekend because of Evan’s illness. David is really tired, and so am I, so this is probably exactly what we need. I’m worried that one of us will come down with Evan’s cold if we don’t get more rest, and this would be horrible timing. And I’m a little sad because it looks like he won’t get to meet his new brother on said brother’s birthday.

- My arms and legs feel tight and heavy. No more overdoing it. The floor can just stay filthy…

- But we now have little boy scooters! They were a great deal at another yard sale! And I’m thankful that we have a porch that goes the length of our house. Since we don’t have a garage, this is a great place to keep our increasing collection of riding toys/roller skates/helmets and knee pads. =)

- David had “coffee time” with Seth this morning. Seth thinks he’s a big boy when he gets to sit and drink “coffee” alone with his daddy. Now they’re off for a father/son date at Steak and Shake. He’d been pretending to make me hamburgers out of playdough a lot the past two weeks, so we figured he had a hankering for one.

- Wednesday is D-day. I feel like it can’t come soon enough, and it also seems like it’s not real, and we’re not prepared… This baby thing is like riding a bike, right? =)

stream of consciousness…

I have little things to share, but they’re probably not going to be terribly interesting or well written. Oh well. If you have literary standards, stop reading now. =)

We had a good weekend overall. By the time I hit Friday evening, I was so tired and sore and weary of my cranky boys that I didn’t know how I was going to do anything other than sit on the sofa and stare into space all weekend.

This stage of the pregnancy has been a good bit harder than it was with Evan. I have more muscle pain and soreness, and sitting is uncomfortable a lot of times. The baby dropped more on Saturday, and he is so low that I can’t wear anything but dresses comfortably. I have some amount of trouble standing, walking, and basically getting around right now.

David saw my patheticness and started cleaning. =) Yep, he changed and washed the boy’s sheets and decided that our bathrooms needed cleaning. He said that my state made him think I could actually go into labor this time, so he thought we’d better be prepared. =)

I made myself make the chicken curry for the freezer that I’d planned on. We went to Marbles on Friday night for their once a month evening play time. The newborn clothes are now washed, though I can’t figure out how to sit on the floor to fold them.

Church was great on Sunday… really refreshing. And on Sunday night, we got to go out on a date. Dinner and a movie! David had been dying to see the last Harry Potter movie in the theater, and he got his wish.

I have been praying a lot about my stress and attitude with Seth and Evan. They’ve both been fussy and on edge, and I know I’ve contributed to that a lot. This morning, I decided to be all silly and goofy and read them extra books. And this has been the best day we’ve had together in about 2 weeks. I want so badly to enjoy our last 10 days as a family of 4.

Oh, Evan seems to have come down with a summer cold. Please pray that the rest of us don’t get it….

and I will not have to rip down my porch… =)

Thanks for praying for my porch inspection, y’all. I have been sweating this thing all weekend, praying whenever I felt worried. But it’s been affecting me. For instance, I took Seth to see the “Winnie the Pooh” movie as his first cinema experience, and the part where Piglet was digging a hole made me want to look away. (There’s been some digging around porch footings going on around here.)

The inspector came out, the guy who built the porch was here, and the inspector gave him a very small and manageable list of things to fix. The way the inspector had been acting before, asking for all these things to be taken up and dug up, I had NO IDEA what he could ask for. And I’m a control freak.

David reminded me last night, “Everything we have is God’s. If God wants to waste His money ripping down a porch and putting it back together, that’s up to Him.” =) I just didn’t want to live here while that was happening…

So this is a huge load off my mind. And maybe everything will get put back before my littlest man arrives. Oh, just so there’s no confusion…. We’re not naming him “Trey.”  That’s just been my blog nickname for him since we found out he was the third boy. We knew lots of guys in law school named things like Oscar Hamlet Beauregard III, and they all went by “Trey.” =)