Family Updates

Baby Checkup #1.

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I forgot to share this post last week, but better late than never. I attended my first midwife visit on Dec 6. I’ve been counting down for this for quite some time as it always feels a bit more real to me when a professional can confirm that yes, there is a baby growing in there and everything looks fine. My appointment was fun because I got to reconnect with my previous midwife. She was my midwife for both the girls and was my doula for Will’s birth. The only one of my births she hasn’t been at is Seth’s. She is also currently training one of my very good friends, who was also there, so it sort of felt like a fun girls’ get together.

The usual checks were done and everything looks fine. And of course the most exciting moment for me was hearing the heartbeat for the first time. It’s funny how such a little sound can mean so much. Baby is still so tiny (supposedly about the size of a lime), but his/her little heartbeat sounded loud and clear on the doppler beating at a rate of 161 beats a minute. I hadn’t taken any of the kids with me, and they would have been bored for quite a bit of it, but I do wish they had been there to hear the sounds on the doppler. I tried to explain it to them later, and they all found it quite interesting, especially when I described the “whoosh, whoosh” sound the placenta makes. Seth thought that was pretty cool. Sometime I’ll have to let him tag along to an appointment so he can hear it for himself.

I have actually been amazed that each of my kids, especially Seth, has been extremely interested in every little detail of the baby’s development. We have found a few animations of the baby developing in the womb that Seth could watch over and over again if I’d let him. He’s fascinated with umbilical cords and belly buttons, how big the baby is right now, and whether or not its eyes are opened. I guess I am surprised that even at the boys’ ages they can understand that there is a little tiny baby growing and moving and living inside mommy.

Big Boy.

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

Recently Seth and I had a conversation about the baby. He stated that he would like to be a baby again. When I asked why, he said it was so that he could crawl. I assured him that he could still crawl now if he wanted to, but it was much more fun to be a big brother so that he could teach the baby how to do things.

He must have spent a little time pondering this idea, because later that morning he came rushing back into my bedroom with his squiggles, proclaiming that he was now ready to be a big boy and he was coming to throw away his squiggles. To top it all off he also announced he would be keeping his diaper dry at night as well. For those that don’t know what “squiggles” is, it is a fabric and mirror toy that hung on his crib when he was a baby. It has little squiggly tails that come out of one side and he became attached to those when he was still quite small. He has had it ever since and it makes going to sleep much easier for him, though it also means he sucks his fingers while he is holding it.

He then threw the squiggles in the trash and even kept to his decision when John explained he couldn’t come get it back out later (which he admitted he had been planning on). He struggled a bit going to sleep that night, but hasn’t asked for it since then. Naptimes have been a bit less predictable as without his squiggles and the comfort of his fingers he either takes forever to drop off to sleep or doesn’t at all. But he is almost 4, so I guess naptimes are not essential every day (they are probably more for me than for him anyway).

As for the dry diapers, it took him a few days, but the last two mornings he’s hopped out of bed first thing to show me his diaper is dry and hurries to the bathroom. Hopefully this will last as well.

So, if you see my big boy around, you should be sure to congratulate him on how big he’s getting. And try not to notice that his pants are on backwards (he claims he likes them better that way, and since he’s dressing himself I can’t really complain).

Our Family is Growing.

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We discovered just a few weeks ago that God apparently thinks we need a larger family. This little life, which according to the internet is just barely larger than a lentil right now, was such a surprise. I know though, that he/she will hold a special place in our family.

Elise was one of the first people we told, and she was thrilled! I can’t even begin to describe in words how thrilled she was, you will just have to believe me when I say I have rarely seen her so excited. She is not so secretly hoping for a little sister, but she claims that she will be satisfied with a brother if that is what it is.

The boys actually took a little longer to figure it out. They were there when we first announced it to my family, but apparently weren’t really paying attention. They were also there while I discussed details and plans for clothes and things with John’s family over lunch. They were still not paying attention. Finally I brought it up directly with them and they also were pretty excited. Especially Seth, who said: “I love babies to pet!” Yes, he is a little weird.

My due date is in mid-June. I’ll be getting to see my midwife, the one I had for both my girls, until we leave for Germany. I’ve got a whole new set of vocabulary words to learn in German, but hopefully I’ll be able to find a midwife who can also communicate to me in English, because I think that would be helpful.

Please pray for safety during this pregnancy for both the baby and me, and also pray for my emotional health. As most of you know, postpartum depression has been an issue for me, and I was already concerned about the emotional upheaval of adjusting to a new culture. Now with the added pregnancy hormones and stress of preparing for a new baby, it is possible that I will struggle even before the baby comes. Pray that even now as I deal with the anxiety of this change of plans, that I will be able to take hold of the peace that Jesus offers.

West Coast Trip.

~ miriamlein ~ 3 Comments

Our trip was long and covered a lot of miles, so it is hard to summarize in one blog post. So, here are pictures with some details (if you click on them). If you want to hear more, you’ll just have to ask me. We really had a great time, but were very glad to get home a week earlier than our estimate. We saw spectacular scenery, spent time with wonderful families, and spent many, many hours on the road. We went far enough North to experience longer, cooler summer days, and far enough South to almost touch Mexico. We even went through a border check in Texas! That got us talking about what it is like to move to another country. I apologize for the lack of pictures towards the end of our trip. I think we were so focused on getting home that we forgot to pull out the camera in Arizona and Texas.

Power, love, and self-control.

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This partnership development phase of our journey towards ministry has been full of lots of ups and downs. Some days we are encouraged and excited, other days we are depressed and worried. This post was written several weeks ago and I am just now getting it put up on here. So keep in mind that this is a good illustration of part of our process, but we are actually quite a bit past the events written about here. Also, thank you to Gary Yandell for the beautiful picture used here.

“It’s a good thing these sermons don’t have anything to do with what’s going on in our lives,” John said with irony as we loaded the kids into the van after church.  I smiled, and asked him to elaborate. We had just heard a sermon on the message of peace that Jesus offers, if we but submit to him. John and I had both been lacking peace during part of our week.

For John it was feeling overwhelmed with what he wanted to accomplish in comparison to the very little time he had to accomplish it. It meant giving up some the control over our support raising plans and turning them over to God. He had started to realize this even before we headed to church Sunday morning, but it was nice to have that realization of the absolute necessity for daily submission to Christ reaffirmed.

For me, I had been dealing with fear and worry that week. Fear that something terrible would happen to my children, that God would take one of them from me. I don’t usually deal with that fear, but over the last two weeks I had felt God prodding my heart. “You need to put your husband and your children in my hands.”  He’s told me this before, and I did it before. Before Emma. . . Whenever he’s asked that of me after Emma, I have balked. “But God,” I want to say, “Look what happened last time. You held Emma in your hands, and you took her from me.” The question I feel he continues to ask me is: “Do you trust me?” It’s not that I believe my children aren’t safe in God’s hands. It’s not that I believe that God doesn’t know what is best for them or that he can’t give them more than I can. In fact, I know they are already in his hands, and my saying so doesn’t change that fact. But I still feel that God wants an attitude of submission in me, an acceptance of his trustworthiness.

I’ve also been dealing with some worry lately. Worry that when I go over to Germany, away from my support system and surrounded by the unknown, that I will deal with depression again. I don’t want to return to that place of struggle, and yet I know that I have no guarantee that I won’t. I know that worry isn’t helping anything, and so I am trying to be prepared, while at the same time releasing the worry and accepting God’s peace. I know that whatever he asks of me, even if it does involve suffering, I will endure through him.

The verse that God brought to mind this week as I processed these emotions and thoughts was 2 Timothy 1:7: “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of self-control.” Fear does not come from God. Instead, he makes these other three qualities available to us. Power, his power, allows us to endure suffering. Love motivates us to make the right choices for ourselves and for others. Self-control (or as the KJV translates it – a sound mind), is the very opposite of emotional instability, and leads to rational choices.

I do believe I was able to get somewhere as I poured my heart out to God and pondered this verse. I know I have many more chances to submit ahead, and much more to learn. But my experience thus far has taught me that with each submission comes greater freedom and joy.

“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life–not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.” 2 Timothy 1:8-9a

Growing Up.

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Do you ever have those moments when you look at one of your children and they suddenly look so much bigger? I’ve been having those moments a lot lately when I look at Seth. Since he’s my youngest, I think it surprises me when I notice how big he is getting.

It started the other day when I tried to button his jeans for him. They wouldn’t button and I had to loosen the elastic adjustment in order to get them on him. Then sometimes I just notice how tall he is, or how slim his face is, or just how old he looks.

And then this morning he woke up and had a dry diaper. That is a first for him! He was quite excited.

There are other more unpleasant things that come with this growing up process, like the fact that he hasn’t napped the last two days. Or the emotional tantrums he’s started throwing, which seem to be an integral part of being 3 1/2 years old.

But then there are those times when he acts so grown up, like when we got passport photos for the boys last week. He took it so seriously and stood completely still for his picture, which I will say will be one of the most interesting passport photos of all time since Seth’s facial expressions are terribly interesting even when he’s not trying to be funny.

My baby is growing up, which is what he’s supposed to do, but it still makes me a little sad to see it happen. But it also makes me proud (though I don’t know why since I don’t have much to do with the fact that each day he gets a little bit older).

Support Trip #1 – East Coast

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We are home and slowly getting caught up with home responsibilities.  Our trip was almost three weeks long in length and took us through 16 different states.  We enjoyed most of all getting to visit with many different family members and friends, some of whom we rarely see.

Our first stop was to visit cousins in Tennessee, where we enjoyed horse-riding, swimming and fireworks.  Then we headed to Atlanta for a short visit with our TeachBeyond mobilization director.  Then we headed on to Florida to visit John’s brother and family.  We spent two glorious days on the beach and getting to know our kids’ remotest cousins.

After that we headed north to Pennsylvania, with a quick stop to visit some childhood friends of John’s in North Carolina.  In Pennsylvania we met up with John’s parents and his uncles and aunts at his Grandma’s home near Gettysburg.  We enjoyed a wonderful day of play and conversation.

The next day we headed even farther north to upstate New York to visit some of my cousins and an aunt and uncle.  I’ve never before visited their home territory, so it was fun to see them there.  Then our loop headed westward as we drove through Ohio (where we connected with some JBU friends as well as my great aunt) and then to Berne, IN, my Dad’s hometown.  We spent several relaxing days in slow-paced Berne visiting my relatives there.

Then we headed off again to Chicago, with a quick stop at the sand dunes on the shore of Lake Michigan, a place my Dad used to go to a lot growing up.  In Chicago we met up with my parents, grandparents and some of my siblings to celebrate the graduation of my cousin from Moody.  We also got to visit some more of John’s family and stayed with some friends.  Chicago was probably the most uniquely different for us of all our stops.  We took the kids on buses and a train.  They were thrilled, and I guess this might be a little bit of practice for public transportation in Germany, though we won’t be in such a densely inhabited area.  Then we headed home, stopping to see a few more friends on the way.  We weren’t very thorough about getting pictures, but here are some pictures of some of our stops along the way:

 

Moving to Germany – from the eyes of a child

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I am in the car driving to drop off Will and Seth at their cousin’s house to play while Elise is at gymnastics.  The topic of conversation wound its way from gymnastics to airplane rides and our upcoming move to Germany.

“Mom, how will we take our bikes on the airplane,” asks Will.

“We can’t,” I answer.  “We can send some stuff on a boat, but other things we will just buy new there.”

“But what if some of our stuff falls off the boat?”

“They’ll put it in a place where it can’t fall off.”

“Will they put all the stuff where it can’t fall off Mom?”

“Yes, all the stuff will be where it can’t fall off.”

Seth pipes up in his special monotone list-making voice:  “like boxes, toys, toy airplanes . . .”  He trails off into silence, apparently these are the only three things he can think of.

“And crayons.”  Will helpfully adds.

“We don’t need to take crayons.  We can buy crayons in Germany.  We will not take a whole lot of things, just some special things.”  I say.

“Like some extra-special paper airplanes?” suggests Will.  “We could take those right?”

“Or you could take your paper airplane making book and make new ones when you are there.”  I say.

“Oh yeah,” agrees Will.  “Then I can show them.”

“What is something very special you would like to take?” I ask.

“Special glue?”  suggests Seth.  “So we can glue things.”

“We can buy glue in Germany too.”  I decide they  need some help determining what is special enough to take, so I hold up Seth’s special lovey toy, which happens to be on the seat next to me.  “Like this Seth.  This is your special squiggles.  You can take that to Germany.”

Now Seth has something special all his own, but Will doesn’t.  I help him by asking him a thought-provoking question:  “Out of all the things you have Will, what is your very favorite thing to play with?”

“Not my bean bag, you can’t take my bean bag,” shouts Seth.  (He is referring to a handmade bean bag he got for Christmas from Nana.  It’s been the cause of several run-ins lately between the two of them.)

“It’s ok Seth.  You can take your bean bag,” I jump in before Will can get upset.  “Go ahead Will, what is the one thing you like to play with the most?”

Will is still thinking, Seth tries to help: “Special squiggles?”

“No, Seth!  I don’t have a special squiggles!”

“Special toy?”

“Seth!”  Will is getting frustrated now.  I seriously don’t know if Seth is trying to be helpful at this point or just annoying.

“Seth, let Will think of his own thing,” I say.

“Well,” Will says, “I like to play with my pretend sword.”  (This, by the way, happens to be a stick, whichever stick he happens to find and make use of on any given day.)

“You know, they have sticks in Germany too.  Maybe even better ones, because we’ll live close to the woods.”

I think Will is about to argue this point, but he changes the subject.  “Do they have bears living in the woods?”

When things don't go as planned

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to go on a long bike ride.  Since Seth can’t ride a bike yet, he rides along in the pull-along trailer.  Will is usually the pace setter, at least on the way out.  We rode along enjoying the flower scented breeze and the coolness of the JBU trail by the creek.  On the way back, Will’s bike started letting out annoying screeches as he pedaled.  This happened to greatly annoy Elise, who didn’t seem to understand he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

We decided to take a little break to enjoy the creek with bare feet.  After a few minutes of play, including Seth slipping and falling in the water, I realized we had better hurry back if I was going to have an hour to cook some beans for supper.  Will and Elise took off on their bikes while I loaded Seth back into the trailer.  Several feet down the trail I met Will whose bike had finally decided to give out entirely.  The pedals would no longer turn at all.  Will wasn’t very upset by this, but I knew it was going to be a long way back on foot.  We experimented with some ideas of how to get him and the bike back without him having to walk it the whole way.  In the end, we ended up cramming the bike into the trailer next to Seth and alternately letting Will run and walk back, with some breaks riding on my bike while I pushed.

It wasn’t what I had planned and probably multiplied the time needed to get back by quite a bit.  But we did get to see some baby ducklings we might have missed if we hadn’t been going so slow.  When we got home, it was much too late to start a pot of beans.  Usually in times like these I get frustrated and decide to order something to eat, because it is easier and I feel like I deserve it since my day hasn’t gone as planned.  And though I don’t think this is always an unwise choice, I do realize that it would be good for me to develop the skill to cheerfully and creatively make supper anyway.  And so that is what I decided to do.  It is nice that since I knew we were sticking to rice and beans, I had a framework to be creative in.  I grabbed a leek out of the refrigerator and chopped it up.  After sauteeing in butter for awhile, I added the leftover plain white rice from lunch and three eggs.  After the eggs had cooked, I added a splash of soy sauce and ended up with something halfway between scrambled eggs and fried rice.  Turns out everyone loved it.  We ended the meal with rice pudding I had made earlier in the day.

Excursions, doctor visits, and growth charts.

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

It’s time for another general family update.  This is the time of year that we take the kids in for their general well-child checkups at the doctor.  I’ve found that these are getting simpler the older the kids get.  There aren’t as many concerns I guess with kids vs toddlers and babies.  The main concern at this age, the doctor says, is keeping kids safe from injuries.  I squirmed a bit as he gave his lecture about child safety:  wearing helmets while riding bikes, holding hands in parking lots, and keeping seat belts buckled.  I wasn’t sure if the lecture was meant specifically for me, or if it is one he gives to everyone with kids this age.  He’s a parent too, so I know he is aware that this is a lot harder than it sounds.  It sounds so easy, the ways you keep a child safe, but until you have had to try to get three kids safely from the car to the Walmart door (one oblivious to all sounds including your voice, one rebelliously defiant about holding hands, and the other trying to be helpful), you don’t have any clue what this involves.  And then the dangers don’t cease once you enter the store.  A few days ago, Seth almost fell out of the cart head first.  He didn’t, but it was close enough to flash before my eyes, and he was promptly put in the seat where I could keep my hands on him instead of the back of the cart.  I do think I do a good job with seatbelt safety.  But recently, I did drive 2 minutes down the road to my sister’s house to find that Seth had ridden the whole way without being buckled because I had just forgot.  That is very rare, believe me, but it still makes you think.  And even if I were to do a great job at protecting my children from the known dangers we face in a day, they will always be sure to find new ones on their own.  Kids (boys especially) seem to have a knack for that.  But the talk did encourage me to renew my efforts in the areas I am lacking, while at the same time remembering to put my kids before God in prayer.

The kids all were declared healthy and whole by the doctor.  All of them had a great time, as they giggled while the doctor poked and prodded their stomachs, declared how big they were to the nurse, and stood tall and still to get their measurements taken.  Seth was last for everything, so most of the time he was jumping up and down shouting:  “My turn?  My turn?”  Will, my introvert, would not for the life of him make any sound no matter how the doctor encouraged him to say “ah.”  After a few encouraging attempts by the doctor, Seth, who has been watching, impatiently waiting for his turn, tries to be helpful and said it for him.  The visit ended poorly for Will, because we made the unfortunate discovery that he was due for a round of vaccinations.  Three shots and a few tears later, the appointment was over.

Once home with their height and weight in hand, I decided to look up what their percentiles are currently.  I know these growth charts aren’t really that big of a deal, but I get a kick out of knowing where my kids are on the chart.  I had already noticed that the difference in size between Will and Elise is a lot less than the difference between Seth and Will, even though Seth and Will are 16 months apart and Will and Elise are 4 1/2 years.  So I looked them up by turn.  Seth is smack dab at 50% for both height and weight.  Elise is still hovering around 5% for both height and weight.  And Will tops the chart at 95% for height and 80% for weight.

In other news, Arkansas weather has been incredibly mild this winter.  We had one good snow this week, but the weather has already gotten back up to the 50’s.  It’s often been in the 60’s all winter long, and we have been enjoying the chance to get outside frequently.  Since we moved back into town, I have been enjoying getting out with the kids on their bikes as we have lots of options for bike rides around here.  Here are some pictures of one of our recent outings to the park.