The last trimester

Depending on how you count pregnancy progression - by weeks or months - I am pretty much just into or almost into the last trimester.  It's exciting and a little daunting.  Here's why:

I haven't had to put on support hose for my vericose veins.  That's exciting.  However, I have 3 months to go...daunting.

I've felt less morning sickness throughout this pregnancy than all others - very exciting and I am so thankful.  However, I feel like I entered the exhausted nearing-the-end phase much, much earlier.  Not fun. Plus, I am still not quite looking totally pregnant (unless I am wearing clothes that scream "maternity") but I am starting to feel like I am walking around with a medicine ball attached to my abdomen.  So I look uncomfortable and large-bellied.

I am excited that God's timing has this baby's expected arrival ending right around Christmastime.  Perfect for a homeschooling mother.  But, I am feeling so tired now that I am not sure how efficient of a teacher I can be.  Mostly that's just self-doubt and exhaustion talking, so I am trying to let it go and not think about it!

My biggest trial is what I am dealing with right now - entering the time of pregnancy when I, for the safety of the little one, wean off my antidepressant medication, and spend 3 months trying not to be an emotional and tired person day in and day out.  The fact that the seasons are changing and that the natural light we get each day is lessening quickly is also daunting.  I've always been greatly affected by the quantity of natural light - especially sunlight - and entering this phase of the pregnancy with those sunny long days diminishing is a little scary.  Depression sucks, and it feels harder to deal with when you've got less helping you through it.  At the same time, this time is a beautiful gift I can give to my baby, and I am confident that I know myself well enough to hop back on the meds if I truly need it.  I get emotional, but not stupid.  :-)

In the meantime, I plan on getting to bed a better time on a more regular basis, eating a bit better (that's a hard one, so I'll be realistic), and exercise more to get that natural serotonin boosted.  I'm also happy to offer up my struggles as prayers for you all and your intentions - having something like that to focus on, besides just waiting for the baby to be born - is a blessing to me during this time.

And here is a picture of me at about 5 1/2 months, courtesy of either Kassia or Nadia, who both wanted to take pictures of me the other day and I'm not sure who was behind the camera for this shot.

Sugar and Spice

Two weeks ago,  Sophia walked over to Paul at his desk and asked to be picked up.  He did and said to me, "They say 'sugar and spice' and all that, but she really smells like cinnamon to me."

Then I told him how she had opened up the lazy susan (I hate that a cupboard style has that name and I feel bad for all women named Susan for the negative connotation) and took out the cinnamon.  Naturally, she did not inform anyone of this.

Then she took it into the schooling area, untwisted the cap, and danced around and shook cinnamon out all over herself and all over the carpet.  When I discovered her, she was having too much fun to stand still for me to take a good picture of the evidence, but I managed to get one relatively clear photo.  (I had the camera ready to go and then snatched the cinnamon from her right before snapping a series of pictures as she walked away - you know, since I took away her fun toy.)

The brown stuff on her pants and the floor behind her is the cinnamon.  I brushed it off of her hands and clothes, but left it on the carpet.  I mean, who doesn't like the smell of cinnamon?

New Baby - at 21 weeks

This was cute - as I was admiring this view of Baby, I exclaimed, "Oh, look at the face!  And the ear - it's so cute!"  And then the ultrasound technician smiled and said, "Actually, that's the brain, not the ear.  But it's still cute."  :-)

I spent about 10 minutes during the ultrasound changing my mind about finding out the gender of our baby.  We didn't, but I still feel torn.  Paul said that he was okay either way, but I think we both feel, ultimately, that our curiosity is slightly outweighed by our enjoyment of surprise.

It was a relief to see baby doing well.  I had had spotting for a few weeks early on, something I had never experienced before, and an early ultrasound showed that baby was doing well, but I still continued to wonder if everything was okay.  At the appointment prior to this one, the doctor had difficulty getting the baby's heartbeat as it was overlapping with mine.  So I wasn't completely positive that we'd have photos of what appears to be a perfectly healthy baby.

Praise God, he or she looks beautifully healthy!  Now if the baby would just arrive before and not after my due date!

My new love

I am in love.

In fact, when it comes to this baby, I'm smitten:

A few weeks ago my dryer completely died.  It had been slowly losing its drying/heating ability but I was accepting of the fact that I had to run each load twice in order for the clothes to dry.  But on the day when I started a third dry cycle with a normal sized load, I made it a point to let Paul know that the inconvenience was really costing us.

He checked it over, pulled off the back and confirmed that the lack of functionality was not due to vent clogs or anything other than a nonworking heating element.  What he did find, however, was rather interesting.  At the bottom of the frame, not within the venting system, he discovered a handful of hair ties, a hair clip, and a key.

The key was a welcome discovery, as a few weeks prior we had spend a full 36 hours searching in every logical location for the darn thing.  It was the extra key to the garage door of our old house and we found it just as we had collected two other items that needed to go to the new owner of the home.  It was just really nice knowing that I had left it in my pocket as I suspected.  I just never imagined that I would have washed and dried the shorts I left them in only to have them fall into the black hole of the clothes dryer.

Unfortunately, we did not find any of the missing socks from our perpetual lonely sock collection.

Fortunately, when the delivery guys hauled the old one away, they dislodged half a dollar's worth of change (and were respectable enough to give it to us instead of taking it themselves).

I was without a dryer for a full week and half, but managed to only take 2 trips to the laundromat.  It was a good thing Luke was being so successful at potty training, because that saved a lot of potential laundry to do.  I also strung some clothesline between patio chairs for a few days to line-dry a load.  Fortunately, the weather was cooperative, too!

My new dryer works beautifully, and the clothes come out smelling more fresh now that they only need one cycle in which to dry completely.  This was the first ever appliance that I picked out and bought, if you don't count the stovetop that we bought when we sold some extra Packer tickets Paul got from work when we were first married (that was a necessary upgrade, too, as only 2 burners worked and one of them was ultra-small).  It took a lot of time for research, but I'm really glad we got what we did.  Middle of the line, but it scored excellent in drying, capacity, and durability.  And, the store we got it from had 10% off appliances, and our realtor had given us a $50 gift card for the place, too.  A great deal!

Do you have a favorite appliance?

Back!

After another hiatus of, well, life, I think - I hope - I am attempting - to be back to blogging.  Life has just been busy.  Good stuff, bad stuff, in-between stuff: all of it normal, but since I'm the kind of person who can only have so much on my plate, blogging went to the wayside in favor of laundry, childrearing, and all those other mundane events that make up the beauty of my vocation.

It seems like I have so much to say, but for the last few months I either didn't have much to say that was blogworthy (aka, not full of negativity and complaints), or I just didn't have time to blog, period.

One piece of big news:  our old home sold!  3 weeks ago, our beautiful first home, the home we brought home our first four children, the home Paul built a fence around, the home we began a tradition of an All Saints Party in, the home we grew and loved in, was transferred in ownership to someone else.  It felt strange, but not as sad for me as it was for Paul.  He is more sentimental than I in a few ways - leaving cars and homes is one of these ways that he "feels" things more.  For my part, I have to admit that the house wasn't the same as the house we knew and loved and lived in, for our belongings were out, and so was the faded old carpet that came with the house (beautiful hardwood underneath, but the carpet was better for kids learning to walk on anyway, and I never feared ruining the floors!), so letting go wasn't as difficult for me.

We are very thankful for the prayers and intercessions of all who thought of us as we took the leap of faith in buying a new home while having yet to sell a home.  God is good; He made His plans for us known, but only to a point.  We followed in faith, and it was rewarded.  Only 4 months on the market, and we are satisfied with the terms.  We were very, very blessed in this.

Please bear with me, as I may or may not be putting up many posts in the next few weeks, or just one or two each week.  I have the drive to do so much, but then the baby growing within me somehow needs every last bit of energy I have, and I am left drained and with a cloudy brain.  For example, I have an overdue DVD from the library that I actually never made time to watch.  Frankly, since I can't leave it in the outdoor book drop, I've put off returning it because paying a fine seems easier than having to run in to the library building and return it - that involves getting all the kids in the car and, pathetic as it may seem, these last two days, I figured I'd rather pay a buck than get us all in the car.  :-)

Baby is doing well, and I have beautiful ultrasound pics to share, but I'll do so in a separate post.

Sophia is getting her last 3 molars as well as her third front bottom teeth.  Paul is a little sad that soon he won't be able to call her "Two Tooth" anymore, since she'll now show more than just the bottom two when her mouth is slightly open.  Sophia also manages to show off her independence and strong will.  She's a beautiful little girl and I'm going to have to stop calling her "Baby" pretty soon.

Luke is, for real, a big boy.  Finally.  He got it last year, when I worked with him and, to my chagrin, blogged about it - and then I had to let it go - because he was successful, but only if I was constantly, hourly, on top of it.  Now, just shy of 3 1/2, he is going potty on his own, often without even telling me he has to go, and is dry through the night as well.  This just happened within the last week or two; hardly the difficulty I feared.  He is so proud of himself, and I am proud of him, too.  I have some great pictures of him from his first Big Boy haircut from a few weeks ago (he looks SO grown-up and handsome!) and from today when he got a gift from his godparents.  Those deserve a new post, too.

Nadia is getting excited to school and I've got the majority of her 1st semester planned out.  I actually have 2 math activities for her each day, in the hopes that she'll get a good start.  I have another curriculum for math that I'd like to incorporate for her and Luke, too, if they have interest, but I have to keep expectations reasonable.  :-)  Really, the problem is not my understanding of math, nor hers, but my poor ability of clearly giving mathematical instruction.  I'll think of more things to update with her for a future post as well.

Kassia is doing really well in all things, too.  She needs me to tuck her into bed now, so I'll have to save more updates for another time.  Besides, it's 8pm and, these days, that is brain and body shut-down time for me!

Blessings!
Katie