Sorry to all of you who keep track of our family on this blog, I have a really good excuse I promise! We are fortunate and blessed to be expecting our second child, a boy! I am about 21 weeks along at this point, and feeling buffalo-sized! This pregnancy has been different in just about every way... spiritually, physically, and emotionally! Nausea has been a non-issue this time around, which is a welcome change from my first for certain! Probably partly because I can keep food down, I also have felt less fatigued than I remember with Annie. But, I have weirdly tolerated it less well! There is something to all of that down-time you get with your first...Annie keeps me busy!
It is hard to admit but I really have had a harder time connecting with this pregnancy until recently as well. I am no sure exactly what combination of things lead to that end, but partly it is just harder to remember you are pregnant when you are busy chasing a toddler around. Also, I think there is a part of every labor nurse that just wonders if it will actually happen or not. We see a lot of difficult things at work and we love babies so much, maybe I felt like it would be too much to bear somewhere deep down and so I held on loosely. Definitely a role was played with my spiritual life. It is so easy with a busy toddler to get in task-mode... completing each task, afterall, takes about 14 of the 15 hours a day I'm awake! I am so grateful for the timeliness of the Christmas season in the midst of my spiritual dry season.
"For unto us a child is born..." This is so meaningful to me, carrying a child myself and raising one who is beginning to think and speak for herself! It is so easy to just be carried along by the tasks of the day, seeing them as nothing more than a box to be checked off. In reality, if I truly believe what I say I do, every moment was hand-crafted by a Maker who chose to humiliate himself by becoming a baby who needed fed, cleaned, and diapered and all for an even more amazing cause: to die in my place. By the way, I do not believe Christmas is about gift-giving and our personal generosity or having the "spirit of Christmas" or giving goodies to the neighbors. These things are not the point. Those are all by-products of having the Spirit of Christ in my heart, and being grateful for the greatest gift I would ever receive: the right to be called sons and daughters of a perfect God, heirs to all He offers, without a hope of possessing anything in and of myself to deserve such a place in that family line. So, as I go about my day changing diapers and picking up puzzle pieces and wiping down the sticky surfaces gummied up by fruit snacks, I am mindful (if only by the gift of a small baby) that my attitude while I do these tasks is displayed to a small person who is following me around and reneacting my every move.
This Christmas Michael and I spend another year trying to figure out what kind of Christmas traditions we would like to start. It's difficult to do such a thing when you work every other Christmas, like I do this year. My mom suggested wrapping baby Jesus from our nativity and putting him under the tree for everyone to open. Another friend gives each child three gifts under the tree, because Jesus recieved three gifts from the wisemen. We let Annie do an advent calendar this year, from which she learned to pronounce "chocolate" with impecable crispness. I think at some point I would like to "adopt" another child into our family every year by letting the kids shop for their gifts and get used to giving them away to others. Maybe we could buy the veggie tales movie about Mary and Joseph and show it every Christmas before opening presents. I would love more ideas, so post them here if you have one that you grew up loving!
So I have some catching up to do. We are really appreciative of our new home. The space has allowed us to comfortably host people even at a moment's notice because we have a guest bedroom I can keep clean (although there are never any promises as to the condition of the rest of the house!). Michael and I definitely wanted to know that if we bought a house this size we could use it to have people over. We have been blessed with GREAT neighbors on all sides and have found new friendships there.
Annie had her first Halloween this year where she actually kind of "got it". She dressed up as a lion and loved ringing the doorbells and seeing the pumpkins on the porch--which she had more than a minor obsession with throughout the entire fall season. Annie picked out pumpkins at the patch that were eight times her size and she was completely unable to pick up, so she just hugged and kissed them(yes, I know) right there on the ground. We finally convinced her to go with a pint-sized version and she carried it around the house for weeks, changing it's diaper and taking it on rides in the wagon. After Halloween was over, it was difficult to go for a walk for a week or so! Annie thought she could just walk up every driveway, say "trick or treat" and "thank you" and get herself a sweet treat!
Since then, it has amazed me how much she has grown. Just last month I was making a bed and I could hear her out in the loft, counting from 1 to 10 all by herself! She won't do it on command often, but when I hear her playing, she lists them off as if she has always known. Annie can say just about anything and I couldn't begin to guess the number of words she has mastered. She loves to sing on car rides, but is very picky about which song we sing. If I sing, "Head and shoulders Knees and toes" but she wanted "O Christmas Tree", she yells out, "No! I don't want it!" until I come into the song she had hoped to hear. Annie loves to play with other children and she also has a soft spot for babies. I am interested to see how jealousy and her love of babies collide with the birth of her baby brother!
*This blog was written in December, sorry for the late post! I was having trouble posting pictures with it (obviously!)
