The A-Team

I hit the halfway point this past Thursday. I had the “big” ultrasound that morning and it was great to see this little girl wiggling all around!

I am feeling great, just tired. But hey, I am growing another human being while chasing around my 2 little boys! We are taking days easy and just enjoying the nicer, warmer winter:)

Anyway, Abilene is growing like crazy! She is measuring about 1 to 1.5 weeks ahead of dates and she weighs 15 ounces! For those that don’t know, most babies at this age (20 weeks) weigh in at 9 ounces. I am glad she is big because she helps to justify the 4.8 pounds mommy has gained! The doc says she looks great and we are OFFICIALLY scheduled for delivery on 6-18-12! It is nuts, it will be here before I know it! Yikes!

Here are a couple sweet pictures. Enjoy them:)

Here are her sweet feet!

This is a profile shot. The placenta is on top and she is staring "up" at it.

Today we had an OB appointment. It was SUPPOSED to be routine – a simple in and out visit with a quick check of the heartbeat since we are only at 15 weeks and 5 days. Well, this little baby of ours does NOT like to have her heartbeat found, EVER. At my last appointment, I almost ended up in ultrasound because there was no heartbeat. It took the nurse about 15 minutes to find it. Thankfully she did. This time it was the doc checking for the heartbeat (he is a very busy man) and spent about 5 minutes hunting. He then said, “you are going to ultrasound.”

At this point, I am having extremely mixed emotions. I am excited to have an ultrasound and yet COMPLETELY freaked out that something is wrong. I will explain a bit more on that in a minute. Anyway, I shyly ask the doc if we can find out the sex if it’s possible. He was all for it!! YIPPEE!!

We are taken right over to ultrasound (Sara our tech is AWESOME – she did Abel’s ultrasounds) and we get to hear the heartbeat immediately! It was strong and steady at 148 beats per minute. Now for the fun part. Sara was super excited to help us find out the sex too and within about 5 minutes or so she confirmed GIRL!!!

Abilene's ultrasound pictures

My placenta is quite large and anterior which has made heartbeat detection and movement detection difficult. But she was moving and squirming the whole ultrasound. It was great to see her move around and to know she is a SHE!! I have “known” this entire pregnancy that it was a girl. Don’t ask me how, I just knew. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. I think if Sara had said “boy” I would have been shocked. Aaron I think was much more surprised by the outcome but he is happy to have a healthy baby girl growing!

Confession time: For basically this entire pregnancy I have been having an incredibly difficult time. Not with illness or anything, just emotionally a really tough time. I have been surrounded by the loss of SO many babies. There has been tragedy after tragedy and it has been wearing on me so much that I built walls around myself to protect me from possible hurt. These walls were so thick that I wasn’t really “bonding” with the child inside me. Sure, I would acknowledge my pregnancy because I am NOT getting fat again…it really is a baby. But I never felt close or even excited. I was petrified to be honest. I was scared that at any moment I would lose this precious baby. Fear gripped me so much that I couldn’t even voice these feelings to my husband until New Year’s Eve. Once I was able to FINALLY put my feelings to words and share them with someone, I was immediately released! I felt this huge weight lifted from me because in discussing my fear with Aaron I realized that there is absolutely nothing I can do to protect this child (aside from eating right, sleeping, not over doing it and not getting too stressed out). This child is in God’s hands and I need to leave the baby there. I can enjoy the time I have with this child and rejoice at knowing that I will see this child in either this life or the next! Whew! I know that seems incredibly simple but it was revolutionary for me and this pregnancy. And hopefully that explains a bit as to why I was freaking out when they couldn’t find the heartbeat earlier today.

So to sum things up, Abraham and Abel will be joined by Abilene in June! We are excited and I am having fun thinking of buying a few pink, yellow and purple things for our new baby girl!

photo bomb: verb \fō-tō bäm\ An otherwise normal photo that has been ruined or spoiled by someone who was not supposed to be in the photograph.

I was photo bombed

Abel has got skills…look what he figured out…all by himself.

He gets the stool from the bathroom

Climbs up onto the stool

Then he realizes we are amazed at his skills

Then he proudly perches himself upon the couch!

Then he gives me a great face!

First and foremost, I am so proud of Aaron. He trained hard and worked through all of his injuries to meet this goal of running his first marathon. He did AWESOME regardless of what he tells you. He ran the ENTIRE race and he completed it with a good time for his first marathon race.

These pictures were at packet pickup on Friday. We had fun Downtown!!!

Papa with Abraham

Papa with Abel

Now on to the actual day…it was not fun for me at ALL. The boys were FABULOUS. I thank God every single time I even remotely reflect back on it for wonderfully behaved little guys.

We got up super early and headed downtown to drop Daddy off at the race. We got there in good time and he had some time to prep before the race started.

Boys in the Burley sending Daddy off to the race

Papa before the Big Race

It was pretty crowded where we were and it was pretty dark so I didn’t get very many good pictures. We said our good-byes and I waited for the start. Once it did, I took a few videos of the people taking off and then packed up. We got back to the car and I made plans for us to get to our next meeting spot which was at the 17/18 mile marker. We had about 2 hours before we needed to be there but I figured the boys could play outside or we would kill time somehow. Little did I know what was before me.

I had maps and directions from Aaron to get to Butler (which was the meeting spot). I couldn’t get anywhere downtown. Every turn I took got us stuck because of the race course. The worst turn which was only about 10 minutes after I left the parking garage was on West street (going the wrong way but I had no choice). They shut down West street (both ways) but allowed traffic to stack up heading north. We sat during the ENTIRE 5K race. Nearly 1 hour stuck in traffic. The kids were wonderful, like I said. We ate snacks, sang songs, listened to music, played with toys, made up games to play. I familiarized myself a detailed map of DT which we had in the car. I am not the most proficient at knowing all the streets and which way they go but I have a great memory and am good at reading maps. We finally get to go but make this story short and sweet, we never make it to the meeting place in time. Hindsight tells me that I should have found the interstate and just taken that to the nearest exit to Butler and I would have saved myself a ton of trouble. Do you have any idea how hard it is to travel (be stuck in traffic, rather) with a young boy who has to go potty? Or a pregnant momma who has to go so bad she can’t see straight? It was nightmarish. I am thankful we were kept safe because we went through some pretty hairy neighborhoods during this unbelievable trek.

During my defeat, I had left the meeting place (after a potty break, thankfully) and we started heading back to the finish line to meet up with Aaron. We were stuck once again. We were sitting in traffic for about 25 minutes or so and I was watching the runners go by (they were running parallel to us just the opposite direction). I started noticing their numbers….Aaron would be close possibly. I seriously began fervently praying that we would see him so he would know we were okay. I was so worried that he would think something terrible had happened to us, that he would lose his focus on the race. I don’t think I stopped praying that entire 25 minutes. Then there was a break in traffic…I had to make a decision. We hadn’t seen him yet, but we needed to get back to the finish line. I moved over a lane to the break and we stopped again. I look over and there was Aaron! We honked and rolled down the windows and yelled! He saw us and waved!!! YEAH!!!! I was so emotional I just started crying (again…I cried a bunch that morning because I was SO frustrated). This time I was able to explain that my tears were of happiness because I got to see Daddy. Traffic opened up in our lane because we wouldn’t cross the course and we were on our way. I did a quick couple of tries to get across the course to get back but got fed up with it and headed for the interstate (why this didn’t occur to me earlier on is beyond me). We hopped on the interstate and made our way back to the finish line! We only missed Daddy by about 15 minutes from crossing the finish line. We met up with him rather quickly and it was a wonderful reunion! I was emotional (duh) but understandable. I let the kids out and they got to run around a bit while we got Daddy some warm, dry clothes and we took some photos. Then we hightailed it out of there because this momma was STARVING!

Daddy at the Finish

It was an experience to say the least and I am just ever so thankful that it turned out as “good” as it did. There were no accidents or bad situations. God has His hand of protection over us for sure! Plus Daddy finished and did great with no injuries (just leg cramps, but what do you expect when you go fast for 26.2 miles on foot)!

**And just for the record, this not being able to get from point A to point B was not the fault of ME. I am a very capable driver. My in-laws were trying to get to the same meeting place to see Aaron and they ended up turning around because they couldn’t get through either!**

Abraham

This was the best shot I could get on the 1st. He never stops moving! He is such a joy and we love being his parents. He is greatly enjoying “school time” and is doing very well with it! We are focusing on phonetics and writing. We are working on Bible verse memorization (I am terrible about this) and Bible stories (this we are great at).

Speech: He is so full of surprises. His language gets me most of the time. He makes complete, complex and just unbelievable sentences. They even pertain to what we are talking about! He has just a couple “cute” things that he says but pretty much everything is said they way it should be.

Naps: Abraham is no longer allowed to go without naps. We are making it a “family” nap time every day and he gets to stay up later with mommy and daddy. It’s kinda funny, he gets rather bored with us because we go about our chores while Ham waits for the party to begin:) But I would much rather deal with that than the terror we have dealt with.

Active: This kid doesn’t stop moving. Seriously. He will wiggle, writhe, flip, flop, whatever until the Z monster takes him over. He does sit pretty well during story time but he is still moving his arms pointing to the pictures or something.

Singing: Love this new thing of him singing! He knows several songs by heart without the music and he knows many more with the music. It is so cool! I love music and love to sing so it is awesome to have him do it too!

Goofy: This kid is super goofy. He loves to make you laugh (at any cost sometimes).

Reading: He adores reading. He loves going to the library and during “quiet times” he will grab the ENTIRE stack of library books and “read” them. It is so awesome to see his love for reading developing!

Skilled: He can ride his tricycle fairly well (on a flat surface). He can run, jump, climb stairs in varied ways, climb anything really, turn on light switches now because he can reach them, operate our TV and DVD player, open the gate upstairs (that was a new one), and pretty much just about anything he puts his mind to.

Competitive: We are just now seeing a competitive streak in him with his brother. If Abel does something that makes us laugh or we say is “cute,” Ham immediately tries to do it too and says “look at me, mommy!” Of course, it is not nearly as funny when a 3-year-old does something that a 17-month-old just did for the first time. It is just different. We are trying to explain it to him that we love him for being him and not for being Abel. It will take some time for him to understand but he wants ALL the attention or to at least be included in it.

Anger: We are actually starting to see anger. Sure we’ve seen frustration but now it is becoming truly anger. We are working on it. He has pretended to hit for a while now but tonight was the first actual contact and it was with me. He got into BIG trouble and he seemed to feel shameful for his actions. I hope we nip this in the bud quickly. Most of this I believed stemmed from no nap today. We tried to let him go without (because he begged) but that won’t happen again in the near future.

Understanding: His understanding of anything and everything, floors me. I am shocked at how much he really does understand and his responses prove it!

Travel: This boy loves to go! If we don’t leave the house for a couple days, he starts asking if we can go “bye-bye.” Pathetic, huh? He doesn’t care if it is Meijer or the zoo. He just wants to GO! He is a human-GPS-unit/homing-pigeon. He has a better mental map of central Indiana than do most adults (sad for adults!). He identifies a huge number of various places all over town and tells us where we are (Plainfield, Mooresville, Downtown, Greenwood, etc). It is amazing.

Brand recognition: The marketing gurus should be proud of themselves, because even though Ham has never watched broadcast television (and therefore does not see commercials) he knows dozens of businesses by their logos plastered on signs and vehicles all over town. This can be trying at times esp. when he sees a place he really wants to go such as Incredible Pizza Company or Speedway for some Gatorade (convenience stores). We have a joke, when he sees a Subway sign, we ask him what to do there, and he exclaims “Eat Fresh!” Geez.

Favorites: Trains, trains, and more trains. Construction equipment, airplanes, helicopters are some more faves. Berenstain Bear books are a new fave along with gluing! Abraham’s Bible is also one of his favorite “go-to” books. I love to see him pick it up to read.

This pretty much sums up my Abraham. Of course there are tons of things not mentioned but this gives you a snapshot. He is one cute kid (yes, from his biased mother) and I am so blessed to be his mommy.

Do you ever do that? Take things for granted? I sure do. I don’t ever realize I do it until something….breaks.

Tonight after a fun day downtown getting ready for Aaron’s race tomorrow. I switch out loads of laundry (my never ending chore) and go about the evening. I get dinner done, watch a quick episode of Busytown Mysteries, baths, story time, and finally bed time. I go downstairs fully ready to switch out more laundry and prepare for tomorrow’s big day. As I head down the stairs, I realize I hear my dryer going. I think to myself, “hmm, that’s odd. Wonder if Aaron switched loads for me.” Unfortunately, that was not the case. I check the dryer setting and it has barely moved! It has been running for at least 4 hours at this point. I open up the dryer and find a big damp pile of towels. No heat whatsoever. I run through the dials praying for a oops on my part, try it again but still no heat. I say a quick prayer because I have to tell Aaron. I have 2 loads of wet towels and diapers to still wash (at least those can hang to dry). This can’t wait until after the race tomorrow. I grudgingly climb the stairs part way and say “you won’t believe this” to which Aaron retorts “what?” Then I drop the proverbial bomb on him. Our dryer isn’t heating. He took it surprisingly well and we went about a quick troubleshooting. I got out the manual, he searched the web. We met in the laundry room and gave it a good 30 minutes. No change. Still no heat. So I now have 2 loads STUFFED into my dryer and they will just tumble until they get dry with just air blowing. My diapers are washing now and I will hang them up in a bit. Of course I still have much more laundry to do but that will have to wait until we figure out what we are going to do. I have been wanting a new dryer…hmmm. Don’t know if that is quite in the budget right now.

Moral of the story: Don’t take things for granted! Thank God every single night for EVERYTHING you have and even the things you don’t have because He teaches you to appreciate it all!

We made it to the doctor yesterday with much thanks to my mother-in-law who watched the boys all by herself for a few hours! Thanks!!!

Baby A#3 first ultrasound

The appointment went well. It is so crazy to see a picture of this new little life growing inside. It makes it very concrete. The baby is growing well and even measuring ahead of dates already! The heart beat was 143 bpm and sounded super strong. I think about how much has already taken place in the development of this baby and we are only at 7 weeks! Some women don’t even know they are pregnant yet at this stage and maybe haven’t been as careful as to what they have put in their bodies (caffeine, medication, etc…).

We are very excited for this new little person to continue to grow strong and healthy. Please pray that this would be the case. We have been surrounded by more families than I care to list that have suffered losses of their babies in recent times. It is very painful for me to see their loss and then I start to worry about my babies. Please pray for peace for me and also those families affected by the loss of their children. I know God is sovereign and will not let His people suffer beyond what He can offer comfort. Just pray that these families will also lean on God to get them through.

Anyway, I have been asked by several of you “how are you doing?” with pregnancy #3. This one has been a bit tougher. I had cluster headaches for the first 3 weeks that I could do NOTHING for. Not fun. But thankfully with 1 caffeinated beverage a day, that has gone away! Nausea has been a biggy this time around. I believe most of it stems from my calorie restriction that I have been rather used to but this baby wants none of. If I eat small, frequent meals (totally not me) I feel much better. So I am having to get into the habit of eating snacks (healthy ones) and dinner (ugh). I despise dinner. I never want to eat at night. I used to have a yogurt and maybe some fruit or a veggie. Never anything much. Well not anymore. This baby says “if You don’t eat, I will make you sick!” So I now eat a dinner much to my chagrin. Oh well. It keeps things interesting, right? I am also exhausted. Duh, right? I am very tired and it shows come 2 pm. I usually CRASH and crash hard. So we have family nap time around 2 pm and we nap for about an hour to 2 hours. It is glorious! I am still tired but not super sleepy and am recharged enough to handle the rest of the afternoon/evening.

The boys have been fabulous with this new pregnancy. We had to stop going to BSF because it was just tearing us apart – Abel wouldn’t get his morning nap and fall asleep on the way home which meant mommy didn’t get her afternoon nap, food was rushed, and even Abraham would get super grumpy by the afternoon because of our early day. It just wasn’t worth it. Maybe next year? Anyway, the boys took it well (ham was a bit disappointed but he enjoys his school time with mommy). We don’t go hardly anywhere any more. I love to just stay home and keep up on things. Sometimes we get restless and run out to the library or something or while it was still warm we hit the park or just ran around outside for 10 minutes or so. It is actually quite nice hanging out at home most of the time!

That about sums up this pregnancy so far! Love to you all and can’t wait to see everyone during the upcoming Holidays!

Well, the big day is almost here; my first full length 26.2mi marathon! This Saturday, 5-NOV, is the 4th running of the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. Packet pickup and the convention are on Friday (I am bib #983) and the race starts promptly at 8am Saturday at Missouri St & Washington St downtown.

Not that I really think anyone cares that much, but if you want to track my race results in real time you can signup here to receive emails or text messages. Messages will come in as I cross the halfway point (13.1mi), 30k, and finish. Anna and the boys will be crewing for me, the plan is to meet me where the race course passes the Christian Theological Seminary (~18mi mark, near the aid station at the NW corner of Haughey & 42nd St) to have spare socks, jacket, hat, food, and drink should I be needing anything. Hopefully I’ll just stop for a quick  photo op and a tasty recovery drink and keep on trucking. I’m right at my intended race weight (not my ultimate goal weight, but it adds up as every extra pound = 2 seconds/mile) and I feel better than ever. This will be my first of many marathons, coming soon will be a post announcing my long term fitness/health plans, and it has potential to involve the entire A-Team 🙂

Prayers for the safety of all 7,000 or so runners and walkers + all of the volunteers this Saturday are much appreciated. The weather forecast looks almost perfect; a tad cool to start off with at 36F , but a nice high of 61F. Regardless of how I do this weekend, I give God all the glory in getting me to this point!

I LOVE CLOTH DIAPERING!!!! I have only 1 regret…that I didn’t do it sooner! It has been the best thing for our family. Sure, there is the initial investment but really that cost will be made up for in about 5 or 6 months of disposable purchases. I was able to purchase several to try and sold most of them because I fell in love with Bumgenius 4.0 and Softbums Omni. They are the 2 easiest solutions for us and I love the way they fit my chunky monkey’s thighs! Plus, the Omnis will work for a newborn and both will fit from about 3 months on.

Let me breakdown the pros and cons for you if you are even teetering on the idea of CDing.

CONS: Bad news first…

poop – no one wants to deal with it. Luckily there are ways to effectively get rid of the poop (disposable liners) and move on with life! We decided to go down this road and they cost about $0.07/diaper change (if I use them every time). Abel is pretty predictable with his BMs so I only need to use a few during the day. My usual diaper cost alone was $0.27/diaper and that was with super duper discount!

washing – yes, you have to wash the diapers. But really is it any worse than washing a messy outfit? Not really. Most to all of the poop goes into our toilet (thanks to the liners) and I am actually only rinsing/washing pee. No my machine isn’t yucky and it doesn’t smell bad. I chose to wash our diapers every day as to not allow it to sit around in a bag. Since I do laundry ALL the time anyway, this isn’t a big addition.

stuffing – I chose pockets for our kiddos diapers. I like them for lots of reasons. Does stuffing the pocket take a little time, yes. It is worth it? To me, yes. I just sit on the couch with the kiddos running around playing and I stuff the pockets. No big deal for me! If this was a big deal to you, chose another type of diaper! Super easy and simple!

Addiction – This doesn’t happen to everyone but I thought it would be important to note. You can get addicted to buying “fluff” as it is called in the CDing world. Fluff is diaper in code. You think that every pattern is adorable and you have to have them all. Stick to your budget and buy used when you can!

PROS: Good news time!

Cost effective! I will NEVER have to worry about the purchase of another diaper AGAIN! Doesn’t matter HOW many more kids I have and if the “lights go out” we are prepared. PLUS, I can SELL these used for MONEY!!! Seriously? Does it get much better than that? Along with the cost, I no longer have to purchase Diaper Genie liner refills. YEAH! I can just use a regular trash can liner to put into the diaper genie to take my dirty wipes and liners (I do flush the poopy liners).

Great for the skin – Abel has such soft baby skin and I really think I can tell a difference with cloth diapers. He has had 2 bouts of diarrhea while going through this trial of cloth diapering and his rash (which he gets instantly) is gone almost immediately and I used NO DIAPER RASH CREAM. He never feels wet because the super duper awesome fleece of his diapers pull away the moisture. I NEVER see the chunks of goo that used to come out of disposables on his bottom. I never really wanted to know what that stuff was anyway.

trash day – Aaron can attest to this one. We have super light trash now! We always strive to be as “green” as possible. We believe in being good stewards of the earth. We recycle just about everything (glass, plastic, cardboard, paper) and we compost. We also really try to buy things that aren’t packaged ridiculously or that can’t be recycled. With that effort, we have made it a challenge to never exceed 1 bag of trash (39 gallons) per week – no matter how big our family gets. I know it may seem a lofty goal, but we do it and we think we will pass down great respect for the earth God gave us to our children. When we had both boys in disposable diapers it was a stretch to contain the trash to 1 bag because the diapers were so HEAVY! When it was just Abel in the diapers, it was still a REALLY heavy bag of trash. But now, we have so much less trash and it is lighter! Nice to know that stuff isn’t going to sit in a landfill somewhere! Granted, we are using water. Everyone always brings that up as a “well, you are using a precious resource” – yes, I am. But I do 1 small load every single day. It is so miniscule that the usage of the water far outweighs the 500 years of waiting for diapers to decompose in the landfill.

CUTE! – Cloth diapers are the CUTEST things around! Their tushies are super trim and the colors and prints are just adorable. I love seeing Taters run around in his diapers!

Elimination Communication – In the past month since we have gone down this venture, Abel has begun to understand “pee” and “poop”. He has even tried to poop on the potty! He will tell me in his way that he needs to go and we go and give it a try! Nothing happening. He still goes in his diaper but the minute he does, he comes to us saying “uh-oh” and pats his backside.  He wants changed and changed pronto. It is AWESOME to say the least. This is a HUGE change. He was a silent and secret pooper. You would never know he did it and you honestly couldn’t smell it! He was sneaky. Then you would finally go and change him thinking it was probably needed and get a gross mess. Now we have super easy cleanup! (except diarrhea but when is that EVER easy to clean up).

So there you have it! My experiences with cloth diapering and it was great!