Sour Puss

This morning I woke up feeling blue. I glanced out the window and saw the clouds and immediately wanted to crawl back under the covers and start over. My sister had kindly offered to take Isla for a few hours to give me some time to myself but the gray skies were ruining my plans to swim laps and sun bathe alone with my book at the pool. I had a discouraging day at work yesterday that left me feeling under-valued and wondering why I've invested this much of my (and others'!) time to be there. I went to bed angry and woke up sad that I hadn't kissed my husband goodnight. I feel far too emotional to be allowed to reside on this planet and can't seem to figure out how I can roller coaster so rapidly from one extreme to the other. There it is. A real day in the life. It's been an icky 24 hours.

I'm ready for a re-do. It's quiet in the house now (it's naptime!) and so I spent some time paging through 2 Timothy and reflecting. I just love it how the Lord give me gems of encouragement (and a little kick in the pants) when they are most needed! In reading these four chapters, I was struck by how selfish I can be, by how good I really have it. The minor dramas in my life are just that: minor. Chapter 4 struck a chord with me the most today.

Verse 2: "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction." Wow. That's a good one for me and my mama duties. The day is only half over and my patience expired hours ago. Oh how I long to be able to do just as this verse says!

Verse 5: "But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." Basically, press on!

And finally, the desire of my heart is that I would one day be able to say the words of verses 7-8 with full confidence: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

I'm ready to turn this Friday around and get this weekend kicked off to a marvelous start! I may not be lying by the pool but I have all the fixings to whip up a homemade iced caramel macchiato that I plan to sip from the patio!

Perspective

Graham asked me a few weeks back what I'm most looking forward to after having this baby.

My first thought (and therefore what I said): "Being able to bend over!! What's yours?"

Graham: "Oh. I was more thinking finally getting to meet the baby and find out what it is and getting to be together as a family."

Hmmmm. Guess it's all a matter of perspective. :)

She makes me cry

To all you mamas out there: do you ever have one of those days or weeks where you just can't get over how much you love your little one/s? I have been trying so hard to focus on cherishing these last few weeks alone with Isla and I must say, I've been blessed beyond measure! Call me sappy or call it the hormones or just take it for what it is, BEING A MOTHER IS AMAZING!

Tonight, Isla and I walked to the grocery store together in the after-dinner sunshine. We walked hand in hand and talked the whole way about how bright the sun was, about how we hoped the store would have one of those carts with a car attached that she could ride in, about how the milk was "all gone" and we needed to buy more, about how noisy certain cars were. It's the little things, but I couldn't get over how precious she is as I recollected our day to Graham. I just loved how she asked me to carry her today, how she grabbed my belly and yelled "Hi baby!!!", how we blew bubbles together and she told me she wanted them to pop against her legs, how she sat on a chair the entire time while I made dinner, watching my every move and keeping me company, how she asked for help spreading out a blanket on the living room floor and then she patted the floor and asked me to sit so we could "make pancakes" again like we pretended to yesterday, how she cries "Mommy come" when she wakes up in the morning or after a nap.

It's a pretty incredibly feeling to be adored and this girl has made me feel like the best mom in the world over the past few days. She makes me cry......in a very good way.

Raspberries!

Last week, Graham and Isla and I went on a raspberry picking date. Initially I intended it to be an outing with fellow moms to pick strawberries but when no one was able to join us, Graham volunteered to come along. And as it turned out, it was opening day for raspberries at Remlinger and the strawberries were in sorry shape so we quickly changed plans.

An hour or so later, we were lugging 20 pounds of red berries off to the car. Graham kept telling me "I think we have enough" but I ignored him and kept picking. Over the past week we have stuffed our faces with raspberries--on cereal, in pancakes and with yogurt--and I have 3 gallon size ziplocks of frozen berries that should last me at least until September...if I'm lucky. I also spent about a half hour picking over the sorry strawberries fields in hopes of getting at least 2 cups so I could make a fresh batch of freezer jam. I was successful in the end but the berries were tiny so it took forever.

We brought along Isla's bucket, hoping she might pick at least a couple berries. She stayed very focused in one spot for a long time and I figured she was busy stuffing her face. But when I went to check on her, I realized her bucket was filled to overflowing!!! Graham even admitted she was a better picker than he.

Now I'm anxious to hit up the blueberry fields maybe next week!

Garden Bounty

Despite the lack of consistent sunshine, my garden is becoming quite fruitful! Last night we enjoyed a salad of homegrown butter lettuce with these beautiful golden beets (roasted). They were so delicious that today I moved my rhubarb from a pot into the ground to free up some more space for another batch of beets. I also planted some romaine and arugula which I'm hoping will keep us well-supplied in August and September. My hanging tomato plants are going nuts and Isla has been eating the little yellow cherry ones like candy. I managed to enjoy one before she got to it and I think I hit the jackpot--this variety is awesome! I have a giant zucchini ready to harvest and a few more right behind it. I've pick enough strawberries to accent a bowl of cereal but I certainly don't think I'll have them in overabundance. My pots of thyme, rosemary and sage are thriving as are my recently transplanted basil and chive plants. The oregano I planted a couple years ago is spreading like crazy which I guess means I need to make some tomato sauce! Oh what fun gardening can be when things actually grow!!

Labor

Now that I am 35 weeks along, I can't help but think about the dreaded, aforementioned title of this post. I did my best to play ignorant and pretend that it wouldn't even be a part of this pregnancy but now that we're so close, I think I'm in need of a reality check.

I'm not sure which is worse: a) going into labor not knowing what exactly to expect (i.e. first pregnancy) or b) going into labor having a pretty good recollection of what it is like (pregnancy two). I'll be the first to admit I'm totally scared! And I'd wager a bet that answer b is definitely worse.

I've been mentally reviewing my prior labor experience and it is sort of crazy how much one is able to forget. I don't know that I ever made my "birth story" public on my blog. It wasn't that it was any big secret, I just don't think I ever got around to typing up the hand-written copy I have in my pregnancy journal. Anyway, a lot of it is a bit blurry but there are a few memories that will not fade. Like how I literally thought to myself "I think I'm gonna die. Uh oh, I actually think I might be dying. This is not good. This certainly can't be healthy!" Or how it took my being on pitocin at 8 ml/hr (!!!) to even get the contractions going 12 hours after my water broke (Isla had to be out in within 24 hr of my water breaking since I was GBS+). Oh and how they told me pitocin doesn't effect the intensity of the contractions. YEAH. RIGHT. Or the horrible back labor that was so bad I could barely leave the bed to use the restroom (which I needed to do about every 2.4 seconds or so).

Anyhow, not to scare any of my currently-pregnant friends. It really wasn't all bad and so I'm trying to focus on the positives and the things that worked for me. I hesitated making my "birth plan" public on the Internet as I didn't want people to judge me if I wasn't able to do what I'd hoped to do (because really, NO birth goes the way you "plan"). In fact, I almost wasn't even going to make a birth plan. But then my doctor pointed out that a birth plan is really mostly for me so that I have something to hold myself accountable. And I realized that that's precisely what I need: accountability.

So, without further adieu, my (loose!) birth plan:

1) I am going to try my darndest to go au natural but I'm also not going to totally beat myself up if that plan changes. My first line of defense will be IV meds again. I'm planning to remind myself that I'll save money if I can go without!
2) I would like Jim Brickman piano music playing on the laptop (totally random that that's what played during my labor with Isla but hey, it worked!)
3) I want cold wash cloths to my forehead and the back of my neck and my hair pulled back out of my eyes.
4) I think another hand massage with my Satin Hands creams during early labor sounds nice.
5) I would like a tennis ball to my lower back should I experience back labor again (didn't have this with Isla and SOOO wish I did).
6) I plan to have Graham talk me through the relaxation of individual body parts to keep my mind off the pain (also new but potentially helpful).
7) I will likely dwell on the fact that my sister had Gideon completely naturally (a little healthy competition-probably my most powerful motivator!)
8) Please, please, please no pitocin if at all possible (though I'm ok with it if my labor won't progress as I'm GBS+ again).
9) I would like a "vaginal cocktail" as I like to refer to it during crowning/delivery. TMI? Sorry, but it's a part of my plan. At the time I had no idea what was going on but I recall my doctor mixing up some liquid and splashing me with it "down there" when I was delivering Isla. I made sure at my last appointment that it is a part of his usual delivery routine because, whatever it was, it was amazing. Graham tells me it was lidocaine. Whatever it was, bring it!
10) When I start asking for meds or saying I can't do it anymore, I want Graham to tell me I'm in transition. I don't really care if I am or not. But hopefully I will be. Last time, I totally was but no one believed that I could possibly be that far along so ended up giving me the meds way to close to Isla's birth (like 5 minutes before I was ready to push).
11) I will use the fact that we don't know the baby's gender as a huge motivator--need to get the baby out ASAP to figure it out.

Oh boy, I'm sure not looking forward to the process but I can't wait to see the end result!

23 Months

If I had to sum up Isla this month in a few words or phrases I would say she is definitely a morning person. She likes everything "just right." She loves the outdoors and swimming. She has very few fears. She is funny and loves the spotlight. She is a great mommy to all her babies and animals (and has perfected her diaper changing skills!) She is testing her boundaries.

Isla's vocabulary continues to go nuts. She says the most random things and I have no idea where she hears them. Often times she'll repeat the last word of your sentence and that's how you can tell she was listening. The other day, we were driving in the car and she blurted out "Up a hill, down a hill!" And I don't recall ever discussing hills with her...Oh and then we were on our way to some friends' house when she passed some major gas. She followed it up by saying "Scuse me. Isla toot in new van!" Or there was the time we were gathered around the dinner table and she was looking rather suspicious as if she was hiding something in her mouth. I asked her what she had in her mouth and she looked at me with this "No duh!" look and said "FOOD!" It's the little things that just crack me up!

She learned a new phrase this week: "Whazzat?" (What's that?) It's her favorite thing to say. Enough said.

Isla can now sing pretty much all the lyrics to the ABCs, Jesus Loves Me and Happy Birthday. She tends to make up a few words here and there but almost has it all down.

She is really testing us in the area of discipline. She now associates the words "obey" and "naughty" with time outs. The other day we were shopping in the grocery car and she kept standing up in the cart after I told her to sit on her bottom. Finally she looked at me and said "Isla sit bottom. Isla TIME OUT!" with huge emphasis on the time out part. :) It's too bad time outs are no longer doing the trick. She has started leaving the corner or telling us "No!" when we ask her to go to time out.

Despite the testing, Isla is so sweet. She'll randomly look up at us and say "Hug!" and coming running at us, throwing her arms around our neck. Earlier in the week, she asked me to hold her. I put her on my lap but she wanted me to really hold her close, basically hugging her to my chest. I was busy talking to someone else so finally she grabbed my cheeks with both of her hands and said "This way!" in a sing-song voice while turning my head to look her in the eye. It totally melted my heart and she continued to do it any time I tried to look elsewhere. I love that girl!

Isla is beginning to figure out how to dress herself. She loves to try to put on her own pants or socks and shoes. Occasionally she'll show up with a pair of tights around her neck and tell me proudly "Isla dressed!" She usually can take her shoes off and is starting to be able to fetch her shoes or put them away on her own if we leave the closet door cracked. Anyone who is showing bare skin to her is "Nakey"--I find that so endearing.

She's in the process of cutting her two top incisors. I thought she got them awhile back but it turns out those were the outer 2 of her top 4 teeth. She got them in a really weird order that made it hard to tell.

Isla loves sleeping with a blanket now, even despite the occasional warm day we are having here in the NW. Sometimes she'll wake up soaked in sweat but she refuses to go to bed without being covered. She is rather particular about how she is covered and often asks me to "fix it." Usually I have no idea what she wants me to do but if I tweak the blanket a couple times, usually she'll find it satisfactory. :)

It is just within the past month or two that Isla has begun to climb. She just recently figured out how to get up on the couch by herself and she can climb into the new van with ease (I can open the door remotely while inside and she can load herself while I grab my purse--love it!) Then yesterday we were eating a family breakfast and she showed us (repeatedly) that she can climb in and out of her highchair all by herself and even buckle herself in. Who knew!? I think it's time to transition to a big girl chair and get rid of that kitchen-real-estate-stealing high chair!

Isla continues to have a little bit of a harder time with separation. She always cries now when we drop her off at the church nursery but we're told she's able to calm down pretty quickly.

Isla's bedtime has moved to between 7 and 7:30 PM. She sleeps through the night and wakes between 6:30 and 7 AM. She goes down for a nap usually around 1 PM, sometimes 2 if we push her, and sleeps for ~2-3 hr. I am totally ok with this sleeping routine!

A few have alluded to the fact that they think we have the perfect eater. Well, we don't. She's definitely a good eater but we've hit our fair share of food jags and battles, particularly surrounding vegetables as of late. She's pretty good at picking around them and eating everything else on her plate. Her current favorite foods include cherry tomatoes, pasta, pancakes, berries, hummus, mushrooms (love that!), Cheerios & Raisin Bran, crackers and cheese. She goes in phases where she'll drink a lot of milk and then there are days when she hardly drinks a cup. She rarely drinks water unless it comes in a cup with a straw. I love asking her what she wants to eat. It doesn't matter what meals it is but she'll usually respond with something like: "Ummmmmmm, pancakes and rice (pause) and pasta and applesauce (pause) and yogurt and milk (pause) and Raisin Bran...." And it just keeps going.

That's our girl at 23 months!