2 months old

Princess P,

You are 2 months old today. How quickly time has flown! There is a part of me that is so excited to continue to watch you grow and change, and a part of me that is so sad that you are growing so fast. I wish that I could slow it down a bit so that I am sure to remember it!

This month, you weighed in at 11 pounds on the dot, and were 23 inches long! You have changed in so many ways, beyond just the physical. You are smiling all the time now, and you love to have conversations with your mommy and daddy. You have learned to blow bubbles and that if you bat at the toys on your play mat they will make noise. You can really grip things and are focusing on your toys much better then last month! You love to be on your playmat, and look at the owls that are above your swing. And, you made it through a bout of baby acne that didn't bother you, but sure bothered your momma. You took your first bath in your tub and moved up to size 1 diapers. You continue to love to look at the world around you and I can tell that you are learning with each new day.

Even though you still give your mom and dad a hard time when it comes to taking naps, or even leaving you alone, you have started to become more independent. I can see some of your personality coming out, and can't wait to see more of it.

Mommy has changed a lot too since you were born. I never knew that I could love someone so deeply so quickly. I love to spend time with you, and my world no longer revolves around me, but you. You have helped me to see the important things in life, and that so much of what I focused on before wasn't, well, so important. As I look at you napping beside me, I can't help but feel so lucky and blessed!

2 months old!

Wordless Wednesday

She loves to sleep on her daddy...

Pregnancy to Birth, part 1

Since I have been enjoying my little one for the past 7 weeks and not really updating (heck, I haven't updated in quite some time with the happenings in my life...oops. I really do feel sad about this. I would have loved to have a record of my thoughts on pregnancy while they were happening, etc.), I thought I'd try to document a lot of it now. I also think there can never be enough birth stories out there for women to have an idea of what to expect, what others experience, etc. I know I read a lot of them before I gave birth! I also think my feelings and emotions are important to acknowledge, especially as I find myself in awe of the little person who is currently sleeping beside me. So, I'm going to be completely honest, regardless of how I think it may make some people see me...

I actually want to start with before I even found out I was pregnant. For quite a large portion of my life, I always said I wanted to be a "young" mom. To me, that meant having a baby in my early 20s, but definitely not in my 30s. I think I wanted this because my mom was 31 when she had me and my dad was 35...and I thought they were sooo old compared to my friend's parents (really, they weren't, but who knows). Of course, I also had my whole life planned out, and since I was in a serious relationship by the time I was 17, and engaged at 21 (planned to be married at 23), I felt I was pretty on track to be a young mom. I figured by the time I was 25, I'd have my first, or at least be pregnant with my first. Of course, even the best of plans can fall by the wayside and my engagement ended and I wasn't married at 25, much less pregnant. Actually, at 25, I was enjoying my life and my freedom. Looking back now, I can't even imagine having a baby at 25...but I guess if I had been married I may have been feeling a bit different, who knows? Anyway, at 25 I was just meeting B and I was married at 26.

At the time we were married, kids weren't even really on my radar. Weird how that happens. But anyway, B had said beforehand that he wanted to wait a few years (if at all) and that was fine with me. I actually started to think we may not even have kids and that was pretty ok with me too. I really enjoyed having our time together, and I liked my time to myself. So, I was pretty surprised when 6 months after we were married B said "I think I want to try and have a baby." My response? "You mean, now? Within the next few months?"I was actually, not that excited about the prospect. I was caught off guard, but also feeling like I didn't want to give up the life I was living...I liked it. I think B realized I was caught off guard and told me that he didn't mean right away...but that he wasn't getting any younger and that one day he had realized he really wanted to be a dad. I thought about it a lot and really didn't know how I felt. A part of me was just ugh, no, and the other wanted to give B what he wanted...and that part won. A month later I decided to stop taking my birth control...not because we wanted to get pregnant immediately, but because we thought it was going to be hard for us to get pregnant (for a few reasons...one of which was because of the lingering effects of my eating disorder). I started eating more to gain some weight since I didn't think I'd be able to get pregnant without a bit more fat on my bones, and we took the attitude of it will happen when it was meant to happen...which was apparently pretty quickly since I got pregnant less then 2 months later!

My next post in this series, I'll talk more about my feelings about being pregnant and my pregnancy...

Last picture taken of me and B before I got pregnant...(2 weeks before!) :)

7 weeks

My little girl is 7 weeks old today. Time has absolutely flown by. I have honestly enjoyed every moment...except maybe the one day that I couldn't get her to stop crying for more then about 15 minutes (of course when B came inside, she stopped for him). I have had moments of absolute joy...when I realize how amazing it is that I helped create this little person and watching her change, and times of sadness...when I see how quickly she is changing and realize that I'll never get the days back when she was this little tiny being so new to the world. She probably doesn't appreciate the camera I have stuck in her face many times a day, but my only regret so far has been that we didn't take enough pictures in the hospital and of her as an itty bitty thing. I don't want to miss any more changes.

I have spoken often on this blog about how I don't know what I am supposed to be doing with my life and how difficult it has been for me. These past weeks I have realized that I was meant to be something I never would have imagined. A mother.

She's Here!!

Hello my bloggy friends. I have not blogged in quite some time. The reason being for the most part that my little one arrived. She decided to make her appearance on March 13th at 3:58 am (they were sure close with my due date of March 14th!). My birthday was March 12th, and I spent pretty much the whole day (starting at 4:30 am) experiencing contractions. Quite the birthday! Princess P weighed in at 6lbs 7oz and was 18.5 inches long. Giving birth and the days following were probably one of the most amazing experiences of my life...I hope I never forget what I felt. Right now, B and I are enjoying time with P...he has 6 weeks off work, and that means that we are taking time together to get to know our little one. I will be back to blogging some time around then.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of our new addition...with whom I am totally in love. :)

With B in the hospital the day she was born

2 days old

Me and P, 4 days old

On B and my bed, making her favorite face. 7 days old.

Heaven is Lucky

I often get stuck on one thing that is happening in my life and let it worry me to no end. I obsess about it and let it consume a lot of my time and energy...and mostly I just worry with no real action or final resolution. Many times, my worry is over something trivial, but to me, it seems like the most important thing in the world. B often reminds me how lucky we are, and tells me that I need to give my life over to the Lord and trust that he will take care of me. I can't say I am good at that, or that I have really ever tried. Especially as I continue to struggle with my relationship with the Lord.

In the past week and a half, two amazing people that have touched my life have passed away. Actually, they passed away within a day of each other, but I only just found out about one today.

The first was an extremely intelligent, caring individual, who always had a smile on his face and strived to make the world a better place. I was lucky enough to work with him for a few years, and although we were not "close," knowing that he is no longer a part of this world is difficult for me. Such a wonderful, young soul, who cared about people.

The second was B and my vet. We had heard that he had been in a logging accident earlier in the month and often wondered how he was doing, but had not heard anything. Tonight, as I was browsing through our local newspaper online, I saw an obituary for him and my heart just sunk. We only started to go to this vet when we moved to our house a little less then 2 years ago, but he was a vet like none other. He truly cared not just for the animals he was working with, but the people who loved them. Although not young, like my former co-worker, his death is a blow, and our community has lost an extremely valuable asset.

It is times like these that I realize that B is right. We are very lucky, and what I am worrying about is nothing compared to what others in the world, or even that I know, are struggling with at this very moment. Many times, the things that I am worrying about are things that can be fixed or taken care of if I choose to take action. But the families of the two men that were recently lost? They can't change that.

One thing that these two men had in common (despite being loved and valued by many) was a love of the Lord. As B said about my co-worker, "He was a man who loved the Lord, and it was so obvious." And it truly was. And one thing I can say about the families and many of the close friends of these two men is that they too love the Lord, and despite their struggles, I know (through conversations with and comments by some of them) that they are continuing to have faith and believe, despite the very real difficult times ahead. It seems that every time I am at one of those points where the worrying consumes me, things happen that remind me that my worries are trivial. Sometimes I wonder how many times the Lord has to reach out and show me that I need to trust him before I will finally acknowledge that he will take care of me.

**sorry if this is a bit scattered. I have so much going through my head, I had a hard time organizing this post.

Fireball

*This image is from freedigitalphotos.net, taken by Carlos Porto

What B and I dislike the most about our house (besides the white carpet that covers every floor in the house) is the heating system. Every room has baseboard heat (very expensive to run) and we have a wood burner in our basement. In our effort to not have a $1000 electric bill, we only run the baseboard heat in the essential places...our bedroom and bathroom, the family room, and B's little room where he gets dressed in the morning for work. Beyond that, we try to keep the house warm by running the wood burner. The problem is, our wood burner is not easy to get going. We unfortunately have to cold start it most mornings, and if it doesn't get quite warm enough with the kindling before logs are put in, it never gets hot, or smoke escapes and we end up with a smokey house and the smoke detector going off.

As B works during the day, starting the fire is often left up to me. I had a good system going for a while, but we ran out of our old wood and the new wood we got just has NOT wanted to catch. I will try and try, by putting in kindling to get it to catch, and most days it will, but it takes a lot of patience on my part. B, on the other hand, when starting the fire, does not have patience. This year he decided he had had enough with waiting for everything to catch and get hot, so he started using kerosene on the logs to get them to catch quickly. I was not a fan of this from the start. 1) I do not like the smell of the kerosene...it gives me a headache and it just smells awful. 2) I could not help thinking that it was rather dangerous to be putting a flammable substance in the wood burner. I don't know how many times I told B that I didn't want him to use the kerosene, but, typical man, he didn't listen.

On Saturday, I didn't start the fire before B got home because our kindling had gotten wet and I had to let it dry out in the house. After he got home and did chores, he went downstairs with the kid who helps us around the farm to start the fire. After a few minutes, I hear a loud WHOOF and I can't help but think that the downstairs has blown up. I don't immediately go downstairs, for fear of what I will find, but when I hear them talking, I run down. I see B sitting on the ground, his hands to his face, and the boy laughing at him...I also see a lot of smoke...and smell the awful smell of burned hair. Turns out, B put a little too much kerosene in the wood burner, and in the process of trying to get the fire started, the fumes caught and out came a huge fireball, right at his face! It singed his eybrows, eyelashes and hair, and stung his face quite a bit, but he was otherwise unharmed. Luckily. And nothing else was damaged in the process either.

Had I not been so glad that no one was hurt, I would have loved to have said, "I told you so..."

Bet he hasn't learned his lesson though!
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And would you believe that yesterday, after I got a nice, HOT fire going, as we went to leave to celebrate my MIL's birthday, I shut up the wood burner, and the duct system (that leads to the chimney) fell apart? I don't know my own strength apparently! :) B had to put it back together so the whole house didn't fill with smoke. We are currently not going to use the wood burner for a few days...enough is enough. I really think we need to figure out a different way to heat our house...but unfortunately the way our house is laid out, a heating system will be hard to install. We'll figure it out one of these days...
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The swan did come back, shortly after I wrote my last post, stayed for a few days, and then left again of its own accord. Maybe one day it will come back again. But at least it didn't leave because I scared it off...
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I am officially 35 weeks pregnant...and finding it hard to believe. Can I just say that I have noticed myself becoming unbelievably moody? B and I had been talking about how I hadn't really had any mood swings that we hear so many people talk about during pregnancy, but in the last week, yikes. Here is my 35 week belly shot!