My Blog Dream

There are so many things that I want this blog to be.

I started it because I felt like ministry had been stripped away from me. I felt like maybe this could be some small ministry to other women who struggled with thinking their best wasn't good enough. I wanted to share my heart with others so they could either learn, grow, or maybe just feel like they're okay. However, it doesn't have much of chance of being any of that because I can't find time to write! I know, in part, it's because I could manage my time better (ehem, spend less time on Facebook). But it's also because my baby has revolted and has abandoned his previously stated good sleeping habits. It's amazing how much more you get done when you're not tired, right?

Here are a list of things I would like to write about:

Parenting Issues
Homeschooling
Book Reviews
Faith
Funny Stories

But, you'll have to wait for all of those, because I need to do yoga now, because my ballet class starts again on Thursday and I need to improve my flexibility before then.

Reality Check ... Thanks Evelyn!

My 6 year old is a slow-poke. Whenever, we get ready to go somewhere she is invariably the last one ready. This morning we were preparing for tumbling and instead of putting on her shoes and sweatshirt, like I had asked, she was playing with the baby. I said to her, "Evelyn, you need to worry about Evelyn first. Get yourself ready to go and then you can help with your sisters and brother." She replied, "But that's not how you do it."

Geesh. I've been convicted, as of late, about the amount that I nag my children and have been intentionally focusing on teaching them by my example, so this stung a bit. In the realm of motherhood, we are often the lowly servant, putting everyone else's needs ahead of our own. However, the best servants take care of their own needs first so they are better able to serve those around them. I thought I knew this. I thought I practiced this. But, Evelyn's comment coerced me to reevaluate I learned a lesson I thought I learned a long time ago.

Here is an abbreviated version of my story: my sophomore year of high school I had acne pretty badly. I also was having horrible menstrual cramps. My doctor responded in a typical fashion: a prescription pad. Erythromycin and birth control pills. These two things were supposed to cure me, but in reality I'm convinced they sent my previously healthy self into a fit of health problems. As it turns out Erythromycin is an antibiotic. And, taking an antibiotic for years on end will virtually destroy one's immune system - sure it killed the bacteria causing my acne - but it also killed all the good bacteria that made up a large portion of my immunity. By my senior year, I developed a case of mono so badly my doctor thought I had leukemia, and was also having chronic sinus infections. The "cure" for my sinus infections: more antibiotics. I wish I could say I wised up right away, but I suffered through years of what probably could have been diagnosed as chronic fatigue, which spiraled into depression during my first pregnancy. By this point my allergy induced asthma was then a huge health issue as well. Then Evelyn was born, and seemingly never slept. Oh, it didn't end there, I got pregnant again with Riley. There were days, I would lay on the couch praying my baby didn't get hurt because I literally didn't have the strength or energy to get off the couch to take care of her. How could take care of my children if I didn't figure out a way to take care of myself?

It was a long journey to healing that involved: vitamins, saline rinsing, exercising, reading, praying, yoga, eating healthier, learning more about what I was putting into my body, but mostly it involved making an intentional effort to think about myself first. (By the way, I haven't had a sinus infection for five years now)! It's a journey that I am still on! Recently, I added a weekly mom's night out to the list, as well as ballet lessons. I'm constantly making baby steps to overfill my life, so rather than pour out everything to where I have nothing left to give, my life can freely run over into the lives of others.

I think my next baby step will be getting myself ready to go somewhere before I focus on the children!

Discipline is Education

My kids' are making our afternoon schooling session easy on me. They're sitting on my bed, refusing to fold their laundry. An hour and 30 minutes strong now ...Wow.

Feed Your Kids a Four Course Meal?

So I see a lot of posts from moms are hear moms talk about their kids' disconcerting eating habits. I'm actually pretty intentional about what I feed my children for lunch. It's part of our school day and so I think lunch should be a learning experience too. So I thought I would share how I get my kids to eat all the food groups. I feed them a four course meal! We usually eat breakfast around 9:30, so by the time my children sit down to lunch at 12:30, they're pretty hungry. (And we don't snack in between). At this point, they'll eat just about anything, so I start with the food they need the most of but eat the least of: veggies! I usually just do a raw veggie tray. I'll sit it on the table (with ranch) and they scarf up those veggies while I make the rest of lunch. Here's where I give them their diary, protein, and grains. Today we had popcorn and cottage cheese (good protein too), a lot of times we'll have pb&j and yogurt, sometimes cheese quesadillas or left-overs. After they eat that for five minutes or so, I'll put fruit on the table. If they're still hungry, I'll let them have a dessert; today it was hot chocolate.

Home Schooling and Happy Accidents

Time to write has escaped me lately. It would be tempting to blame it on a newborn, but in actuality we're four weeks into our school year. I should be wakening the girls as I type, but seeing how the little man has already gone back down for a morning nap and the girls are induced to sleep by the overcast morning, I'll write. Too bad I'm not a coffee drinker; I think this would be the perfect time for a cup.

Lately, I've been challenging myself. I'm working on developing a philosophy of education and a mission statement for our little school at home. Part of my desire is to instill in my children a life-time love of learning and an appetite for exploration. I am aware that my children will look to me for example. The old adage of "Do what I say, not what I do" doesn't work. So if I want my children to love learning well into their adult years and explore new areas to grow, I must be willing to go there myself. I have found that change often comes in small intentional steps toward a larger goal. So I have set baby goals for myself to become the person I want my children to mirror.

I wrote before about my attempts to maintain a tidy house - a real struggle for me. It's working nicely. I made a new "rule" recently that whenever I bring a big box into the house, it will leave full of "stuff" to send to Good Will. You'd be surprised how easy it is to do! That's a domestic step. I also have been trying to read at least one book a month. To some of you that may not seem like a lot, but when you have four small children, it can be a challenge! Most of the books have been on home education, but I have snuck one in on running a small business. That's an intellectual step. I've also started taking a ballet class! I am an introverted person, so going to a ballet class (when I've never taken one in my life) with a room full of people I've never met before was a real challenge for me. I love physical activity, so that part was not an issue. The girls were so excited when I got home so I could show them what I learned! (Something, I often ask them to do for me). It also gave me a guaranteed hour a week to work-out. So that was a physical and emotional step. I think you're getting the idea. Have you taken any small steps lately?

One thing I'm still exploring is a teaching style that works for me. Last year I tried a canned curriculum. I failed miserably! I hated it and was bored out of my mind! This year, with the guidance of books on home education, I'm doing my own thing. It's working so much better for me because I can challenge myself at the same time I challenge them. Yesterday, we had a happy accident. Some time ago, I decided to do a unit study on Guatemala and Compassion International because Evelyn took a real interest in learning about the children we sponsor in that country. I ordered several "living" books that are either about Guatemala or are based there, one was called Abuela's Weave. The girls have also been selling lemonade with my mom at the farmers' market to learn about money. Evelyn has been wanting to also sell a "real" product, so at the recommendation of friends we went to Crafts2000 this weekend and bought materials to make pot holders. Yesterday, we sat down and read Abuela's Weave, which turned out to be a story about a little girl who weaved garments with her grandmother and took them to market to sell! So of course, directly after reading that, I got out the pot holder materials to weave. As if that weren't coincidental enough, a few minutes in, my mom knocked at the door and sat down a weaved a pot holder with them! It was definitely a happy home school moment!

Grace in the High Times

I can hardly believe my little man is almost a month old - in some ways - in other ways it's already hard to picture life without him. I've really just spent the month getting us into a routine, loving on him and hanging out with my girlies. We're already into our second week of school. We started back on Accountable Kids. I've continued with my cleaning system. Richard is back to school. We're living within our budget. I'm exercising, reading books, and having a weekly "me night." We're starting a youth group at church and getting more involved there, which really deserves a post for itself. I'm just not sure I'm ready to right it yet. Really, life is good right now. I'm just going to take it in while it lasts.

I don't feel mediocre right now.

I feel like I have it all under control. In some ways, that's a bad thing. It's during the high times that I must remind myself that I am just as dependent on grace as I was 9 months ago lest I start relying on my own strength. When my house was a train wreck, my marriage was rocky, my children were ignored, our finances were in disarray, home school was barely educating, my faith was shaky, my calling was uncertain, and my emotions were on edge - it was easy to see how desperately I needed grace.

But today I am still that same person, just allowing God to move in the direction He's calling. Living on grace. Hanging tight to faith. God was blessing me then, and He's blessing me now. Amen. And Amen.

3 or More: Zachary's Birth Story

There is an old saying that goes sorta like this: one is like cake, two is three times as hard as one, and three or more is all the same. (I wish I could find the exact quote, but Google has failed me. However, you get the idea). I'm finding that to be fairly accurate. Of course, having a newborn is always challenging, but this is round four and I sorta got it down. Thankfully, Zach doesn't seem to have any issues: colic, reflux, etc. I've been spending the last 2 and 1/2 weeks snuggling my baby, giving the girls some love, and most importantly, trying to gradually slide into a schedule. I was not a scheduler with my first two, but I'm finding it to be really important to the home-school lifestyle. My hope is to do the bulk of our schooling during his nap times. Some days we run like a well-oiled machine and other days not so much, and I'm finding it all depends on how much sleep I get the night before! All around, we're doing great! No signs of post-partum depression. My energy levels are good. And, I recovered very nicely. Yay! Praise God!

I promised Zach's birth story as well, so here it is:

As many of you know we had planned a homebirth with #4. By the time I was 7 days late, I was afraid. My girls all weighed in above 8 pounds before my due date, so my first fear was that this baby was going to huge. I was afraid of Meconium again as we had that problem with #3 and the chances of it go up with post-due babies. And, I was mostly afraid about the baby's position. It was weird that I kept going into what was seemingly early labor with no signs of progressing. We knew the baby's head was down, but we were concerned that the contractions were pushing his head into my hip rather than my cervix, which would explain why I wasn't dilating past 4 centimeters.

I woke up on week 41, day 2, at 4:30 a.m. feeling like I had to go to the bathroom. I laid there for about an hour before I woke Richard up and asked him time my contractions. By 6 a.m., I was fairly confident that I was in labor, so I called my midwife and my mom. Fortunately, my dad was able to stay home from work until afternoon, so I planned for him to take the two older girls to their day camp and asked my aunt to watch the younger. At this point, everything was going great. By the time my midwife arrived I was 6 cm, and finally, finally, in active labor. I was still feeling good enough to walk around the house. My leg was really hurting me after a while, so I sat down on the birthing ball. When I tried to get up about 10 minutes later, I couldn't fully stand up. Once they finally got me in an up-right position, we checked the heartbeat (nice and strong). My midwife wanted to check me again, but I was still only 6-7 cm. She decided to break my water to get things moving. And, again, Meconium.

Insert me crying, blaming myself, and a scary ride to the hospital. My midwife was fairly confident that it was fresh Meconium because of the color, but there was a lot of it, which was a reason for real concern. When we got to the hospital around 8 to 8:30 a.m., they hooked me up to monitors, rinsed out my uterus with saline, and hooked me up to an I.V. and gave me antibiotics (ugh!). The baby's heart-rate was good and I was 7 cm.

It didn't take long for my contractions to greatly intensify (from painful but bearable to "I can't do this!"). Fortunately, the doctor where I went is good and also - for lack of a better term - tolerant. He let my midwife, her assistant, Richard and my mom all be present the entire time. I had plenty of coaching and support, and they really helped me to stay focused and work through the contractions. By 10:15 a.m., I felt ready to push. When the doctor checked though, I was still only 8.5 centimeters and the baby's head was not even engaged in the birth canal! (Further confirming my suspicions of an awkward position of the baby). At that point, he told me to start pushing. The first push was awkward because I didn't yet have the full "push instinct," and it probably didn't accomplish much. The doctor told me: I'm sensing you're a little hesitant, probably because you're afraid it's going to hurt. But once you get him down there, you're going to get pissed off and push like hell. (His words, not mine, and very accurate words they were). The second push - his head engaged - it hurt like hell - and I had him out of there in about 5 minutes. He was facing my right leg.

Richard said it was impressive.

When the doctor caught the baby he said, "that's a ten pounder!" (10 pounds 1 ounce, thank you very much)! I looked down and saw what I suspected on my poop stained little baby: boy anatomy! Richard announced "Zachary Richard is here!" My mom cried once she finally realized it was a boy because she was really hoping for a grandson. My dad and father-in-law came in the few minutes later and got to meet him. It was great! :)

The first question I asked the doctor was "How bad did I tear?" Let me just assure you of this: natural child-birth is awfully painful, but you have adrenaline and endorphins that get you through. When it's over. It's over. They give you some nice pain meds for the cramping that causes your uterus to shrink back up, but those last just a few days. Episiotomies suck - for weeks. Tears suck, but not as bad as an episiotomy. But let me just say, there is nothing like feeling back to your old self two days after having a baby when you don't have either! I have no idea how I didn't tear with a ten pound baby, but Richard says the doctor worked some magic.


They didn't get to give him to me right away because they had to suck the maconium out of his belly, and his first attempt at nursing didn't go too well because he was still having a little trouble breathing because he hadn't sneezed out all the gunk yet. But when they brought him back later, he nursed like a champ. My aunt brought Gigi to the hospital, and she was thrilled. My dad picked up the older two later, and they were so excited to have a little brother! We just spent the rest of the day resting and getting to know our little man. God is good!