Just Some Family Babbles

Thought I would do a little family updating since I have a few minutes to sit down and post pictures and babble on about the family.

The Pregnancy:

Today I am officially 7 months (28 weeks) pregnant. Only 3 more months to go. All I can say is, how did that happen? It is flying by. My most recent visit with the midwife was a week and a half ago. I love having a midwife by the way. It is so nice that they come to my house for appointments. My midwife greets me with a hug every time I see her and she all ready feels like extended family. Her assistant/doula (also a former midwife) is just as warm and friendly albeit a bit less talkative. They seem to make a fabulous duo. Several times that they have come to my house for appointments I have had good friends over and no one minds, in fact my midwife loves to meet them, especially since she delivered one of my friends babies a few years ago. Babies heartrate was 144 bpm at the last appointment and was head down in a posterior position. None of that really matters at this point though because baby has changed positions about a few dozen times since then. But usually this baby prefers to be head down. My fundal height has been measuring big for dates the last two appointments. I was measuring 30 1/2cm or 30 weeks at 26 1/2 weeks gestation. At least it is not my imagination that my stomach is very quickly taking over my entire body. LOL.

This pregnancy has been really great and I’m honestly enjoying every minute of it. I’ve only had heartburn a few times and it quickly dissipates within a matter of minutes. I had heartburn constantly with Camden. Camden felt the baby move for the first time yesterday and giggled when she felt the baby kick. This baby is definitely getting much bigger because now when I can feel the baby moving and I push against him/her the baby doesn’t “disappear” but I can feel his/her body part. I can sometimes tell what I’m feeling (head, bum, foot, etc) based on kicking and feeling but I’m sure it will start to get much more obvious soon.

I also have the opportunity to have a massage therapist/doula at my labor, free of charge. My friend Emeth found out about a prenatal massage therapist that is becoming licensed as a doula and needs to attend two births to complete her certification. There would be no charge. I am still trying to decide if I like this idea or not. Our personalities didn’t quite “click” and she’s never attended a homebirth before. While there always needs to be a first time I’m just not sure if I want it to be at “my” birth. And massage during labor sounds fantastic in theory but I’m not sure how much I’ll want to be touched while in labor. Plus it is a complete stranger present at a very intimate moment in our lives. Anyway, something new to think about.

The House:

It’s still for sale. Every day I can’t help but think “if only we could sell this house life would be so much easier.” I am praying that this house will sell this summer. Mike is fairly pessimistic that it will sell. I’m a bit more optimistic since June has not even began yet. Thankfully it seems we are starting to get more interest. I am currently in email contact with a couple that is interested in the home but also has their own home to sell. Today, while Camden and I were finishing up lunch there was a knock on the door. A couple from Canada were in town for a few days looking at the area and were just driving around the neighborhood. The husband will be taking a job teaching Sociology at the local College. I was really embarrassed to let them in the house because it was a complete disaster but I didn’t want to turn them away either. There were dirty dishes because we’d just made cookies and lunch. Toys were everywhere. The beds were unmade. Dirty laundry on the floor. Ugh, you name it. But they seemed very understanding and didn’t seem to mind. They will not be moving to the Tri-Cities until August though.

Camden:

Next month Camden will be 3 1/2 years old. The time is going by so fast. She has recently mastered swinging and can swing herself! Hooray! It certainly doesn’t seem like a big deal but after about the 100th “mommy can you push me on the swing” and then battling internally on whether or not you should be a “good” mother and push your child on the swing or if you can get away with being selfish and saying “no”. I am glad I have graduated from that dilemma. Many more to come, I’m sure.

With the nice warm spring weather we have been having (70′s and 80′s) Camden is spending at least half of her time outside. She has discovered “dirt pies” (lack of water in the desert makes it hard to have mud pies) and thinks it is great fun to pretend to eat these.

There are so many precious things she is doing but of course now that I sit down to write about them I have a hard time thinking of any of them. One cute thing she is saying is during a prayer she uses the phrase “we hope for that we.” It is cute because she is so consistent with it. For example she will say “we hope for that we have a good day.” Children’s prayers are precious.

Camden has also discovered the joys of hand washing dishes. She loves it! Awhile back I was hand washing dishes and she asked to help. I let her wash the lid to a new glass container and she was head over heels in love. She wanted to do more but I didn’t have any more dirty dishes so I filled up the sink and let her wash all of her dishes, which were all ready clean but she didn’t care. She had such a good time.

Recent Pictures of Various Events:

Trip to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands

During this whole day I knew that this would be one of those days worth tucking into my memory. It was a perfect, beautiful day. Mike and I had decided that it would be fun to take the girls on a Ferry ride out to an island called Friday Harbor. We had taken Mikayla on the same trip when she was 2 and we thought of what a wonderful experience it would be to do it again. We drove to Anacortes and went to Friday Harbor as walk-on passengers and took the 9:30am departure. It was a bit cold on the ride out because of the wind but it was a gorgeous day. When we got to Friday Harbor the weather couldn’t have been better. It was in the 70′s with a light breeze and a beautiful blue sky. We decided to take the girls and find a local park so we talked to a local resident and found out that there was a nice playground at the Fairgrounds. It was about a 3/4 mile walk and the girls did great. At the park they played and we had a picnic. Then we walked back to town and had ice-cream and did some window shopping. We got the girls some cute wooden Ferry’s as a souvenir. The Ferry ride back to Anacortes was wonderful because it was much warmer and in the back of the Ferry there was hardly any wind. Such a great day. it was so wonderful to be among all things green again. The only thing that was not fun was the hour wait we had when we got back to Anacortes because apparently we got on the Ferry that had originally departed from Vancouver, Canada so we had to go through Customs and that took forever. Other than that it was such a neat and nice way to take a cheap, mini family vacation. The only other downside to this trip is that it was the final and ultimate straw in figuring out that I need a new camera. I had to delete over half the pictures I took and the shutter speed is so slow. The scenery was so absolutely gorgeous and I was wishing I had a camera that was capable of capturing it.

Mike, Camden and Mikayla on the morning trip out to Friday Harbor

Not a great pic but Mike hates taking pictures. I am almost 7 months pregnant in this pic.

Checking out the scenery

Camden being grouchy and refusing to look at the camera

Popping her head up to smile when she thought I’d put the camera away

Trying to keep warm on dad. It was really windy

The “I want to go inside out of the wind” face

Much happier. Inside the Ferry, out of the wind

Looking for “sharks”. I tried to tell them it would be more fruitful to search for a whale. We did see a Bald Eagle and plenty of seagulls.

Mikayla was trying to take a picture of Mike and I and Cami popped her head in. LOL

A really bad picture of Mike and I but there are so few of them, so here it is. And yes, he was forced to “smile” if that is what you want to call the above facial expression. LOL

Sitting on a bench in Friday Harbor

Another bench picture with Camden pretending to sleep

Swinging at the park

Another swinging pic

Sitting on a seal in the park

Rolling down the hill

Another rolling in the grass pic

Daddy swinging with the girls – they loved this

Another picture of the family swinging

Getting ready to depart out of Friday Harbor

Mikayla, she is getting so big!

Beautiful Friday Harbor – the picture just doesn’t do justice

Tuckered out

Various Other Miscellaneous Pictures:

Washing Dishes

Having Fun

Washing dishes kept her busy for an hour

HEAT WAVE: It was about 97 degrees out and Camden was the only one brave enough to be outside. I just snapped a picture and ran back into the air conditioned house.

Playing in the pool with her baby

More playing in the pool

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Growing, Changes & Blogaphobia

Well, it’s high time I post and announce that we are expecting baby number two! We are very excited and feel very blessed to be able to welcome another baby into our family. I am a little more than 14 weeks along now and am due near the end of August. We had an ultrasound done at 10 1/2 weeks (that’s where the pics are from) to assure myself that we weren’t having twins (I was convinced we were!) and of course, we are not. Mike and I have also decided not to find out the gender this time. I am really excited about this. We are also seeing an excellent midwife by the name of Sherry Dress. She just celebrated her 60th Birthday and has delivered over a thousand babies and her knowledge is astounding. We will be having a homebirth with this baby and preferably a waterbirth. I’m sure our families will have fun with that news. Camden is soaking up the limelight of being able to be a big sister. Up until yesterday she was very adamant that we were having a baby girl. Yesterday, she changed her mind and decided she was going to have a baby brother. She did accurately predict the gender of my good friend, Emeth’s, baby-to-be as a boy. So, we will see. I have felt the first fluttering’s of the baby moving and that is fun. I am excited for when the movement will pick up and become more constant. I experienced some nausea and food aversion during the first trimester (which I hadn’t experienced at all with Camden) but thankfully that has completely passed. Ironically enough I have only lost weight so far with this baby – no complaints here. I didn’t take any belly shots when I was pregnant with Camden (which I regret) so have started taking them with this pregnancy. Here is me at 14 weeks. Excuse the ugly shirt.

Mike and I have also decided to sell our home. Various factors in life are making finances more difficult if not impossible in being able to afford our home. We also want Mike to be able to go back to school and get his engineering degree so that he can become an Electrical Engineer. We are going to attempt to sell our house as a For Sale By Owner. We were given hope by my friend Shelby and her Mike when they successfully sold and will close on their house this month. With the wiggle room we have in equity a FSBO seems to be the only logical choice. If we go with an agent we will have to continue to pay off on a loan we don’t even have a house to and that would be no fun. Once we sell the house it looks like we will be doing the apartment living thing again for awhile. Not fun, but better than being financially stretched to your limits every month. We will stick around here until the baby is born and then it looks like we will be migrating yet again. We really need to find a way to stop being nomads. We keep promising each other we will not move again and yet we seem to be moving every 1-2 years. We have never lived in a place together for more than 2 years. It is getting to be really obnoxious. But that is life I guess. No one stays put anymore. Goodbye House. Goodbye Friends.

So this blog has taken quite the back seat for awhile. I like to call it Blogaphobia. It starts innocently enough; an illness, life is busy, etc but then it just becomes this dreaded thing. I fell so far behind with so many drafts of unpublished blog entries that the whole thing just seemed to be an unaccomplishable mound of trying to sort through old ideas and memories. So instead I will just side-step and start anew. So, here we go.

Other news in life:

-Camden is starting to eat like a normal person. Hooray! As much as I didn’t want to create standoffs about food it was getting to be too much. She was becoming picky because she could and because I’d let her and not because she didn’t care for the food. We adjusted to allowing her to choose breakfast and lunch (as long as we’re at home) and that dinner was a family meal and is what it is (I of course serve at least one thing I know she loves). So dinner is no longer an option of what we’re having or what you’d like. It is just what we’re having. She has to try it, she doesn’t have to eat it. If she doesn’t want it then she can have cold cereal and that’s the only option. When she gets big enough to make herself a sandwhich she’ll be welcome to do that. Those changes alone have pretty much solved the problem. That and less snacking. I just had these horrible visions of preparing 5 different meals when all of the kids were grown and having children that were just as picky as my husband. I’ve also applied the same rule to my picky husband. If he doesn’t like it he’s welcome to cereal. Since starting this meal swap group though, he has gotten much better about his pickiness. Mostly I’ve learned that asking for his opinion on what he’d like for dinner is absolutely hopeless. His answer is a typical “I don’t know” or a “I like pizza.” As much as I’d like to make husband pleasing meals 5 1/2 years have taught me that I’d be trying for a very long time or we’d be dining at Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell, McDonalds and Papa Murphy’s for the rest of our lives (which wouldn’t be very long at that rate). So now we just serve healthy meals and I have a take it or leave it house.

-Mike’s brother just got back from serving a two year mission in Russia. We are excited to see him and hear his tales.

-Mike is becoming a hippie. It is quite the transformation and darn near hilarious. He is beginning to deny it less and less. Just earlier this month he went off of his acid reflux medicine (all his idea) and tried to treat his reflux naturally with Aloe Vera Juice. Granted the quality of the juice couldn’t have been that good because it was from Wal-Mart so it didn’t completely work but he did notice his stomach hurt less from either not taking his meds or because of the juice so we are looking for a more affordable and higher quality aloe vera juice. He also got in trouble at work for refusing to do a number of invasive medical tests (including multiple full body x-rays) in order to work at a high security nuclear site. They like to do all of the tests so that they have a nice before/after evaluation to cover their butts should someone mysteriously come down with cancer after working at a nuclear site. He stood on his principles of not undergoing medical procedures unless medically necessary and he took a hit for it: 3 weeks unemployment. I guess the head honcho called him this week and told him that he needed to go out there. Mike’s conceded. He says you can only stand on principles for so long when you have to pay bills. I am just shocked that he even took the stand. Pretty proud of him actually. He likes to say he’s gone over to the “dark side.”

I think that sums up our life right about now.

Oh yes, and Camden is sick. She has a fever ranging from 102-103 and threw up last night. I hope this passes quickly. Her baby velcroness did allow for her and I to watch Pride and Prejudice at one in the morning last night so that is a bonus, I guess.

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