What I would have posted last night, had my *&$@#! internet connection been working…

Good Lord.
Did this woman seriously just “give a shout-out” to a 3rd grade class?
Someone help her.

A good day

I saw the baby today, and heard his (or her… my gut feeling right now is leaning toward her) little heartbeat galloping along at 167 beats per minute.

I knew that I was having a hard time with this pregnancy – I found myself saying things like, “If everything is okay, in a few weeks, then I’ll start sorting and cleaning up the craft room.” And when Gruff told me I should go maternity shopping if I felt like it, I didn’t leap at the chance – I just told him I would, soon. During my last pregnancy, the baby stopped growing at around 8 weeks. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time; I was seeing a midwife who didn’t do routine early ultrasounds. When I started bleeding at 11 weeks, an ‘emergency’ ultrasound revealed our baby’s size and explained what was happening. I’m sure that experience is part of the reason I’ve been so anxious this whole week. Even though I’ve been feeling like crap – head hanging in the toilet for my first actual vomitrocious episodes, more nausea than I can shake a stick at, and headaches that make me think a cranial explosion is imminent – I’ve been trying to look at it positively. I wouldn’t be feeling so awful if something had gone wrong, right? Still. It’s hard to be grateful for feeling so awful when you’re still worried that the other shoe will drop, so to speak.

Then when I left the hospital today with my little black-and-white screenshots in my purse, I realized that I was finally feeling truly, unabashedly, unreservedly, excited and happy about this baby. I can make my plans now. I can work on transforming our spare room/craft room into a nursery. I can sort through my maternity clothes and go shopping . I can figure out what we need for this baby and start my registry. I know I might still feel like crap for a few weeks, but at least now there’s an undercurrent of JOY.

And that makes all the difference.

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We now return you to your previously scheduled bloggy break.

Knocked

It’s early – I’m not due until early January. But I can’t keep a secret to save my life, so you’re in on it. Just do me a favor – we’re going to wait a little bit to tell the family (trying to think of a special way to do it) so if you see my Mom at the mall, don’t let it slip, okay?

First comes the carnival, then comes…

the list of new friends! You know, all the amazing fun stuff that people are giving away is fantabulous. Seriously. There are at least three or four that I am DYING to win. I’ll hardly be able to sleep tonight waiting for people to start drawing numbers! I wonder if there’s any way to kiss up to Random.org… But that’s not even the coolest part. Every single time there’s a carnival, I end up finding a whole handful of new blogs to get to know and love. And heck, I’m a giver – so I always put my list up here to share with y’all!

We are THAT family!
Life With Three
Canned Laughter
Imperishable Beauty
A Box of Chocolates
The Library Collective
Such The Spot

Check ‘em out. I think their places look fun!

Cop a feel

Nikki and Laurie of Our3Day.com are giving away a Breast Cancer Awareness goody bag, complete with a “Save the Ta-Tas” t-shirt, over at their place as part of the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. They’re also walking in an upcoming 3-Day in Dallas, and you can donate to their walk at their site.

So go ahead – check out their website, enter their giveaway, and don’t forget to do your monthly self-exam and cop a feel.

So much to do, so little (childfree) time

I need to sit down and pay the bills. My fridge is looking woefully empty, so it’s time to make a menu plan and a grocery list and do a trip to Kroger. Smooch’s cloth diaper pail got super-full, so I’ll be spending today catching up on diaper laundry.

I’m not just falling behind at home – I’m a little off my game around here, too. I need to do another post in my conversation with Coralie; I have a few pictures to share; my parents visited and oh, the things I could write about my mother! Plus, the Carnival starts on Monday, so I wanted to do a little sprucing up and get my giveaway posts and photos ready.

Let’s all just pray that today is a good nap day so I can check off at least a few things from this list, shall we?

No freakin’ way.

An earthquake. In Cincinnati. You have got to be kidding me.

Okay, it didn’t actually happen IN Cinci, you all probably know it was more like Evansville, Indiana – but we felt it here. I’d finally gotten Smooch back to sleep after his now-regular 5:00 a.m. wake up (what is UP with that, by the way?) and was lying in my bed, hoping I could doze back off. I thought I was losing my mind when the bed seemed to shake, but then both cats sat bolt upright and I realized it wasn’t just me.

The windows rattled, not unlike the windows in our home on Fort Hood would rattle when the army guys were out “in the field” practicing artillery fire.

A few more seconds of shaking, while I tried to figure out if an airplane was making an emergency landing (we’re close to the CVG airport) or if this was an earthquake, and then it stopped. I considered turning on the news, decided against it. I tried to snooze a bit more, until the phone rang. (Gruff, checking to see if he’d left his wallet at home -yes- and if I’d felt the earthquake too -yes.)

At that point, I got up to call my mother. What is it about crazy events that make me want to call home? We started talking about all the things that have happened to me in the last few years – I’ve lived through a tornado (which wasn’t close to us at all, really), a hurricane (Katrina, when she was mildly crossing the Florida Peninsula), a fire, a blizzard, and now an earthquake.

Seriously, I’d better never EVER move to the West Coast. I think the only things left on the list of natural disasters are tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Watercolor Wednesday

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You can see more Wordless Wednesday posts here.

Updating the List

I started a project in January instead of creating a list of New Year’s resolutions – a list of over a thousand things I want to accomplish in the next couple of years.

It’s been a while since I looked at the list, so today I sat down to update it. There are a few things I need to add still (some of the items are things I want to do once a month, and I need to check my calendar to make a note of when I did them in February and March), but it’s coming along nicely.

Still, I can’t decide if this list is too easy or too difficult. Is it too much within my reach? Did I focus too much on material things and not enough on personal transformations? I go for weeks without thinking of the list at all, and then when I’m sitting around wondering what to do with myself on a Saturday afternoon, it comes to mind. In that respect, I suppose it’s serving a purpose – motivating me to think through a few goals and then consciously work to achieve them. Sadly, though, the ones that are the most important and somehow sacred to me (particularly the writing goals) are the ones left untouched four months in to this experiment. What does that say about me? Probably something about my time management skills – probably a lot about my level of fear.

Care to check on my progress? The list is here. Do you have your own list of goals and projects? What keeps you working on them – especially the ones that feel risky and daring?

You’ll be a Man, my son

When I was in 7th grade, a teacher at my private school required me to memorize “If,” by Rudyard Kipling. It still resonates in my head sometimes, snatches here and there that come to mind under certain circumstances. The narrator tells what he wishes for his son – that he would be able to

“keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too…”

and

“talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much…”

His words are thrilling and challenging. When I read it again recently, it made me wonder – what would I want Smooch to know, to do, to be, when he becomes a man?

I hope that he shares my values; that, as a grown man, he will have an abiding faith in God, his Creator and Father. That he will cherish human life, and respect those around him. That he will show kindness and love, even in the face of pain or cruelty. That he will work hard, earn an honest living, and remember that money doesn’t matter if you don’t truly live the life it affords you.

I hope he chooses grace over judgement. I hope he chooses laughter over misery. I hope he chooses forgiveness over bitterness or resentment. I hope he chooses honesty over unscrupulousness.

I hope that he finds a person to share his life. I hope that he learns how to love, deeply and romantically. I hope that he feels the joy of parenthood. I hope that he remembers to be grateful for what -and who- he has. I hope he gives freely of himself, his time, love, money, knowledge, and presence, to others. Especially to children, whether he has his own kids or works to be a positive influence in the lives of kids who don’t share his name.

I hope that he looks back on his childhood and family life with fondness. I hope he forgives me for the mistakes I’ll inevitably make. I hope he doesn’t hate me for blogging about our lives, but sees the humor and fun and relief that it brought to me. I hope he will be happy, and I hope I’ll be there to see every minute of it.