Musings

Anna slept in until 8:30 this morning. Never. Before. Bliss.

I just received my cloth diaper inserts back from the company. I missed them. Apparently they had so much built-up gunk that they were not absorbing, which I can't wrap my mind around because I used a safe detergent and did all the proper washing / use instructions. If anyone has insight into this please do tell. I would like to avoid it for the future.

My computer weather forecast said it was 25 degrees this morning. It appears winter in Georgia has finally arrived- about two months late. I can't complain.

Been reading a lot of new pregnancy announcements on blogs lately. They make my heart happy.

Ben is working 12 full days straight with no break for the second time this month while at the ICU. And no, he doesn't get any extra days off to compensate. Twelve days without a break for him means twelve days without a break for me. Not a fan. Not a fan at all. Only another two-and-a-half weeks before his month of research.

I absolutely love my Tuesday "playdate" with the wife of one of Ben's classmates. Finally a consistent meet up for us. Love it.

One of my favorite things is getting baby clothes finds in the mail from my Mom in Florida. It's like a birthday present all year round. She loves it, too.

It's always the shows I make fun of that I end up loving. When I first saw a commercial for The Voice, I scowled with disdain at the perceived cheesiness. Now it's my favorite (ok only) show that I'm watching by our digital antennae. Loved that Adele cover at the end. Wow. If only I had a voice like that.

Anna went from a period of not wanting to be held much to being ultra-clingy. She follows me around everywhere I go, be it the bathroom or laundry room for a nanosecond. Her little head will bob around the door quicker than lightning. So cute.

The Kindle is probably the best invention of our century. Best Christmas gift ever. I wish I could take a book at a slow pace instead of like a student with a term paper due the next day. Why am I that way? I have to limit my book reading periods for this very reason. Just finished "Behind the Veils of Yemen" because we support a missionary in the country and I wanted to read more about life there. Many similarities to India. Am now reading an Andrew Murray book and The Secret Garden. Classics.

I am so not ready for a toddler. Help!

By definition, most of these are probably not even musings.

The Sweetness has arised, I must go. My favorite part of the day- greeting her gigantic smiles and giggles and picking her up out of her crib *heart melts*.

Provision. And Renewed Hope.

God has been doing some really cool things in my family lately.

A few posts ago I mentioned how we had exhausted our savings and would be relying on student loans until Ben graduates. How little faith I have, and how much I underestimate God!

If you haven't been reading about our journey for very long, a brief recap. When we made the decision for me to stay home with Anna last March, we lost the only income source we had since Ben is a full-time student and, because his program is time-intensive (70 hours a week total of class/study time), it eliminates the option for him to hold a part-time job. So far we have financially made it all the way through this February.

Well, God is continuing to provide for us. We found out yesterday we would be receiving a tax refund more than 3 times what we expected. At first I thought it was a mistake. After all, I was on payroll for only 4 months in 2011 yet our refund is more than twice last year's. But thanks to some cool circumstances, our refund will possibly be enough to stretch three months. On the horizon we also have a potential for one more month's expenses. If all goes well, that would carry us through June. Then we would only have 2 to 3 more months left before Ben graduates and can start working. I'm confident that God will come through for those months, as well.

That is a year and a half of God providing for our family's monthly costs. Without an income. Without taking out extra school loans for living expenses.

Disclaimer:  I should make clear here that I do not advocate for making an unwise, risky decision simply because it is what one wants, such as quitting your only source of income, buying something you can't afford, etc..... and then 'trusting' God to provide. That's not trusting God, it's manipulating him (and he doesn't respond to well to it). We try our hardest to avoid this common pitfall. We were open to whatever God would have us do back when we had to make the decision. If he wanted me to go back to work so we would have a steady income, I was willing to go back and trust him to provide the kind of care that our daughter needed. If he wanted me to stay at home with her, I would resign and trust him to provide. If I had had my choice, in order to satisfy the practical side  I would have probably attempted to work part-time until Ben graduated. But alas, God's plans are better, and we heard him clearly tell me to quit my job. The whole job. When it was time to make the final decision, Ben had a vision of me handing in my resignation letter. We had a deep peace about it. And it has been the most amazing decision. Easy, no. Amazing, yes.

That aside, recently I was tempted to apply for Medicaid because I qualify for it and it would save me the $135 monthly share for my participation in Samaritan Ministries (my alternative to health insurance right now- great option by the way). But I never felt fully right about it. After all, if we are purposefully choosing a path in order to rely on God, then how is that relying on him? The day after we did our taxes, God whispered to me that while there wasn't necessarily anything wrong with applying, trusting him was a much better, surer thing than relying on the government. It is an opportunity to know Him better. Oh, how right he is!

I had started to lose my hope, my vision, for provision and other things in our family. I was resorting to making things happen in my own strength. He has reminded me how great it is to choose to believe Him.
As I was swinging on the playground today while watching my beautiful daughter play in the grass, a timely song popped up in my ipod- Robbie Seay Band's "Song of Hope."

I am filled with more lightness and joy than I have felt in a long time. The fruit that comes from trusting Him.

A missionary once told me that if you are not believing God right now for something that only he can come through for, then you are not living the best he has for you. I had lost this. Yet God, in his lovingkindness, drew me back to Hope. To Him.

The Lord is my shephard and I want for nothing.

Psalm 23

10 Months (and an allergist visit)

Anna is 10 months today. I really can't believe how old that sounds... so close to 12 months which means goodbye babyhood, hello toddlerhood. I am definitley not ready for that. Yet it's coming nonetheless!

The big happening this month was our first visit to the pediatric allergist. After Anna's pretty intense reactions when we gave her yogurt and peas, our pediatrician thought it would be good for us to see the allergist. We went in at 7:30 and didn't make it out until 10:30. They did a skin prick test on Anna's back, testing for 12 different types of food reactions. The process involves writing numbers on the back and sticking the numbers with separate pointy sticks. Anna handled the sticking very well. I was so proud of her! The child life specialist distracted her with bubbles and while she jumped at every prick, she didn't cry until the final one. The hard part was carrying her around for 30 minutes while the skin had time to react. She had a couple of large welts right away and they were bothering her so much but she wasn't allowed to touch them. Nurses and doctors would walk by and comment on how large her reactions were. My eyes welled up with tears but I tried to remain positive.

Here she is with a bitty tear after the testing was done. And here is her back:

As you can see, there were three major welts (apart from the top two controls). Any guesses?

Milk, eggs, and peanuts. Each one fit the largest measurement they had. Yay.

So there we have it. What did I do first? Come home and praise God. Because he is good. And he is way bigger than all of this. He loves Anna and this isn't his best for her. Allergies are often changing, so we are believing him for better things. But for now, she will be transitioned to soy milk and I will not be bringing anything with nuts into the house. Cross-contamination is too easy, she's known for picking crumbs up off the floor. We eat dairy in almost all of our meals, so I'm not sure how we are going to go about that once she's off of soy formula completely. I'm a little discouraged but trying not to get too down about it. I'm glad she didn't show any reaction to wheat, oat, or soy which are high on the list.

On a happier note, back to the other monthly stuff.

Anna wears mostly 6-9 month clothes right now, but still some 3-6 and one or two 9-12 items. She wears a size 3 diaper. I've noticed lately that she gets bored more easily (particularly with items she is familiar with) so I've been challenged to think of new opportunities for her to explore. Our place is completely baby proofed except our bedroom, so for the most part I let her toddle around wherever she wants to go. There are a couple of cords that I keep an eye on and give her some practice with "no touching" :)

We've been on lots of play dates lately thanks to some new friends and different opportunities to be around other babies her age. It's been cute to observe her unique personality in these settings. She's very slow and methodical and likes to sit back and observe what's going on. She usually does minimal crawling and simply watches the other babies.

She is still taking two naps but they have gotten shorter. Her morning nap is now only an hour long, sometimes 45 minutes, and her afternoon nap is 1-2 hours. She still goes down easily for the most part and it's a rare day that there is any fussing before nap time. All those days of gently teaching her how to fall asleep really paid off- she was a terrible sleeper in the beginning! Eek!

Anna is officially crawling this month! She went from army crawl to big-girl crawl. Sooo cute.

She's eating 3-4 bottles a day plus one in the early morning. She's cut back on her fluid intake the last month while adding more solids- she now eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We do a combination of pureed food and finger food as she likes them both ways. She drinks water with all her meals from a straw sippy cup, though I haven't been able to convince her that water is a good thing!

This is more or less what her days looks like:

7:30 Wake up and bottle (then she plays around the house)

8:30 Breakfast

9:30 or 10 Nap

11:00 Bottle (this is typically when we go out on an errand or playdate)

12:30 Lunch

2:00 Nap

3:00 Bottle (usually we go for a walk or play outside if it's warm enough)

5:30 Dinner

6:30 Bottle

7:00 Bedtime (waking up between 4-7 to fill her tiny tummy once again :).

Anna caught her first illness apart from two mild colds: Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease. What a nasty little illness. It was sad to see her skin covered in blistery sores, but she remained rather calm and pleasant considering. The hardest part was when she wanted to suck her two fingers which is her usual self-soothing mechanism. Those bitty fingers were covered in sores and it was really rough on her not having them as an aide.

She finally hit a "milestone" I wasn't sure she would ever get the hang of! She can officially do this:

Daddy made a fun little tunnel out of a cardboard box and she's had a grand time going back and forth a million times, thinking she's hot stuff.

She's pulling up, standing, and climbing very comfortably now.

She loves playing outside!

Bed times with Daddy.

Mary had a Little Lamb

We received this sentimental hand-me-down from a dear family member, and it piqued my interest.

Mostly I wondered what made these Mother Goose rhymes "Christian." What I found made me smile and laugh heartily. This old-fashioned book had taken traditional nursery rhymes and added to them themes about Jesus, salvation, life, and the basic fundamentals of serving, forgiving, loving, and kindness.

I enjoyed reading through them- creative and amusing. Check out these two takes on "Mary had a little lamb" and "Jack and Jill."

And this one is pretty funny:

Maybe I should take a shot at creating my own themed nursery rhyme? :)

I really liked the old-timey pictures and thought they would go perfect in the nursery, so I decided to take a few rhymes and frame them up. First I scanned them and then resized easily by opening the picture in my viewfinder and "printing" it while choosing "4x6" size. I love how it turned out!

Finishing Projects

During the holidays Ben had off almost a month from his rotations and it was a lovely break, but it's also been good to get back in some sort of routine. After a month of having valuable family-time but accomplishing very little, I've finally gotten around to completing a few things.

As I've said before, I am not a photographer and still haven't figured out the art of taking-good-pictures-when-you-live-with-the-curse-of-fluorescent-lighting.

1. Blacking out the curtains in the nursery: finished.
You can see light in this picture because they are open, but upon closure all light is blocked out- sweet!

2. Rearranging the nursery by moving the crib away from the window to make it safer now that Anna is climbing: finished.

3. Framing wedding pictures: finished.

Our wonderful wedding photographer contacted me months ago to inform us that we had a $500 credit left from our wedding-that-was-over-three-years-ago because I hadn't ordered an album. Instead I'd chosen to design my own via Blurb because I'm a control freak, and it cost like 1/100 the price (great decision by the way). The only thing left to use the credit for was prints. Since we didn't have any wedding pictures framed, I ordered a few. Most of them I just tucked away for who knows what (anyone want a wedding picture? :) but I did put up a few with some frames I already had.

(This one is 16x20 but I wish I had gotten it larger. I love this picture because it shows the whole wedding scene and the beauty of the wooden chapel set in the middle of a garden with swaying trees. *Sigh*)

(I liked the idea of using a picture from our wedding locale as an art print. Every time I see it in the bathroom I remember our wedding). 

4. Creating and framing a verse from my favorite motherhood poem, and hanging in the nursery: finished.

5. After finally scrounging enough bread ties, labeling my electrical strip so I don't have to spend eons under the desk pulling on cords to figure out what's what: finished.

6. Getting back into a cleaning schedule: finished.

I pretty much shunned all cleaning in the name of family time and I still feel good about that decision. I used to hate to clean, but I realized that I actually missed my cleaning schedule. I started to somewhat enjoy cleaning once I made a schedule of one thing to do each day, rotating easily by the week of the month depending on how often it tended to get dirty. Instead of noticing the dust on the TV and thinking, "Ugh what a gross place I live in, when am I ever going to fix that?" I would think, "It's getting dusty in here. Good thing I'm going to be dusting on Thursday" and wouldn't be bothered by it. In a strange way, having a plan lifts the burden to clean all the time. And since we have a 950 square foot place, I rarely spend more than 30 minutes on any one thing.

(No I don't clean the bathroom every week. Don't judge).

Well, I am feeling accomplished!