Tuesday, August 16, 2011

But it doesn't look like a Meg life!

It's funny where you find yourself sometimes in life.  Not funny so much as confusing.  Well, I don't know the word exactly.  I'm sure everyone feels this way sometimes.  Like..."What on earth am I doing in this life"?  "Is this really my  life"?  "Why is this my life"?  "God, I don't understand".  I look at my life from the outside and it doesn't look like a Meg life (as I thought it would or should).  It doesn't look or feel like a life that I wanted or requested or sought after or desired.  I don't mean for it to sound like I'm complaining.  My life hasn't been easy lately, but it's not been awful or anything either.  I don't mean to complain as much as I mean to wonder, "How in the world did I end up here and why"?  It's kind of like I just don't get it.  How did I, who moved out after high-school and never came back, become a 30-year-old living with my parents?  How did I, someone who loved loved loved to work, become a full-time stay at home mom (who is considering home-schooling to boot!)?  How did I, someone who never thought about taking pride in my country, become a US soldier's wife?  I thought I would end up single living in a remote village somewhere working with children or women.  That's what I wanted.  I mean, that's what I thought I wanted.  I never really wanted or prayed for a husband until I met mine!  I never thought I wanted a lot of children and now I want to have my own and adopt.  And now I'm here in Tennessee away from my husband getting ready to have my second baby living in my parents suburban home.  I look back over the last 4 years and wonder how on earth did I get here??  I wonder, "God, when you gave me this life, did you realize You were giving it to me, Meg"?  "Are you sure I can do this and be happy and content and a solid Believer to boot"?  My thoughts are all jumbled now and I'm a bit confused, but I want to again reiterate I am not complaining.  I love my husband and my babies more than I have ever loved anything or anyone and wouldn't trade them for anything.  I am so happy and grateful and blessed that God saw fit to change my plan and give me the love of my life and 2 wonderful babies that I have the priviledge to stay at home and raise full-time.  I don't actually have doubts that God made a mistake.  I firmly believe that His hand has been in every step of my life and I am exactly where He wants me for now.  And I also know that we don't always understand God's ways, but I do trust Him and I will (hopefully) always choose his choices for my life over my own.  Because like I am always so ready to proclaim, He knows better than us what we need and if left to my own devices, I would royally screw up my life.  I'll just say I am looking forward to the day (even if that day doesn't come until Heaven) when it all clicks and I see the big picture and why there is this "odd" season in my life.  Or at least why things turned out so differently than I once thought they would.  Which I'm happy about, I just think it's weird how I had such different ideas about what God wanted out of me.  Ok, I'm going to stop because like I said, my thoughts are all jumbled and I am probably confusing you :)

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Baby Journey-Week 23

Soooo....I started these with my second pregnancy.  And then I miscarried.   And when I got pregnant again, we didn't tell anyone for a long time and then I time just slipped away.  But, hey, better late than never, right?


We have a mango! What a cute analogy.  Well, not really an analogy, but what a cute something.

The Babe: He can hear noises which is great because he will know the sounds of my voice and definitely Baby Girl's voice too!  She talks waaaay more than me and is waaaay louder :)  Also, last night, I could physically see him moving inside of me!  Totally weird.  But nice too.

Here is what I pretty much look like now. (Picture taken a week ago & that's me on the left)
Just so you don't think we're weird, we are both pregnant and purposely holding our preggo bellies together :) I was 22 weeks and she was 18 weeks.  I think.

Symptoms:  Ummm, not much.  I'm physically getting uncomfortable when sleeping or sitting on the ground.  I get out of breathe easily.  It is also getting hard for me to lower Baby Girl into her crib.  Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

Weight:  No idea.  Sorry.  I have an appointment tomorrow and maybe I'll see then how much I've gained.  I think 3 weeks ago I had gained 12 pounds, but that seems like a lot! I'm probably wrong. 

Name: We had a name and we told everyone, but now we're not sure again.  Sheesh.  Back to square one!

What I Miss:  My husband.  Ok, ok, for real, what I miss from pre-preggo days is my not huge belly and my extensive lung capacity and being able to get off the floor in 1 second flat. 

Best Pregnancy Moment this week: Hmmm...I don't know.  Someone at the Farmer's Market said when my husband came back things would be different and she was referencing my belly and she was the first person to notice I was pregnant (and say something) that didn't already know so that was cool.  

Questions/Concerns: I watched this documentary called "The Business of Being Born" and it really freaked me out.  So I can't wait to meet my MD (no, I still haven't met her yet!) and ask about C-sections, pitocin, and epidurals.  I've also been having some sharp pains (not cramps) that I want to make sure are normal. 

Ok, that's all I got! 

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Time For A Change

A spiritual change that is.  I don't know how many times I have thought "Something needs to change".  I think it often because it is true.  I am living my life with minimal contact with my Heavenly Father and minimal thought about it.  No, that's not true.  I think "something needs to change" all the time, but what?  I don't know.  Being in Germany was very, very hard for me.  It zapped me spiritually.  I got to a point where I didn't even think about God most of the time.  I was depressed, lonely, and miserable.  Not an excuse, of course, just the way things were.  I firmly believe your relationship with God should never be defined by your circumstances, but believing that and living that belief out are vastly different.  At least for me.

So, here I am.  Back in America, which is wonderful.  Call me crazy, but I am already feeling closer to God.  Part of that is because he took away my rock (and sometimes if I'm being honest my "idol").  Of course I mean my husband.  Looking back over this past month without him, I can see how I definitely depended on him too much.  Depended on him way more than God.  I relied on my husband to cheer me up, to motivate me to clean, to hold me accountable, to make me feel confident, to make me feel pretty, and to fix all my problems.  So, by taking him away, God has forced me to turn to Him in my hard moments...a thing I wouldn't have done if my husband was still around.

Part of me feeling closer to God is that I went to church last week and worshipped God.  Worshipping through music in a communal setting is like breathing air to me.  And I went without that for 7 months.  We did go to church sometimes in Germany, but the music wasn't what spoke to my soul.  No judgment here, just the way things were.  People meet God through all kinds of avenues, and the biggest one for me is the worship I cut my Christian teeth on which as far as I can tell, Germany doesn't offer.  I know it sounds funny to say "Germany" like I mean the entire country, but what I really mean is the American churches we visited.  I'll of course have to deal with that again when we go back, but I'll deal with that a year from now.  Let's not borrow problems meant for tomorrow, ok? :)

Sorry to jump around a bit, but to go back to the topic at hand.  It's time for a change.  I want to get right with God.  No, I don't know how exactly to do that.  I am committing to pray every day for my husband and I think that will help me connect with God since the only time I pray now is when someone specifically asks me to.  So getting in the habit to pray daily will help, right?  I am hoping that although I am praying for my husband, my prayer life will expand from that and it will be more intimate with God like it used to be.

Another thing I am hopefully committing to is to join a Christian Women's Bible Study.  I say hopefully because I hope I can find one!  I had a wonderful women's bible study before we moved across the ocean and it held me accountable for a lot.  But, you know, 7 months without one kind of drug me down.  So if I can find one, I will be joining it!

I also want to have some kind of regular time spent with God.  I'm not foolish enough to think it will be daily, but I am hoping several times a week.  This is going to take self-discipline and I'm quite fearful I can't do it, but I want to give it my best shot.  It is hard for me even to admit that because back in college and after that for a couple of years I used to spend a minimum of an hour with God evey day reading and praying and even singing.  How did I get so far away from that?  Life is harder than it looks! :)

So feel free to ask me how I'm doing because as you can see, I'm quite the open book :)

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

I'll Tell You a Secret

I love the Disney Channel.  Definitely my favorite cable station.  As a matter of fact, I am watching it right now because Baby Girl is sleeping and mom and dad are at church.  Actually, I pretty much watch it whenever I am alone and don't feel like reading.

 Don't tell anyone-it's kinda embarassing :)

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Toddler Summary-15 months

I'm not organized/disciplined enough to do this regularly, but I thought that even randomly done will be a good reference for the future!

Eating
Baby Girl is a pretty good eater.  She will try new things and I think eats a decent amount.  I think she ate a little more when she was younger, but I heard that after the age of 1, babies growth rates slow down so they don't need as much "fuel" so I'm not too worried.  She LOVES fruit!  Fruit for breakfast, fruit for lunch, fruit for dinner.  She also loves bread.  Those are the two things that I can always give her if she is feeling picky.  For breakfast, she eats one packet of instant oatmeal plus fruit and I share my cereal with her too.  For lunch, she eats some kind of veggie (peas, corn, sweet potato, green beans), some kind of fruit, and some carb (puffs, Ritz whole wheat crackers).  On days I'm worn out, I feed her a Lunchable :)  For dinner, she eats whatever we eat-normally some kind of rice and fruit.  She still won't eat meat unless it is ground up (chicken nugget or those vienna sausage thingies for babies).  Dinner is her smallest meal.  During the day she also snacks on puffs or cranberries or animal crackers.  She is drinking a little bit more water (a little bit).  Her milk intake has seriously gone down this past week which worries me.  We have a doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks so I'll ask her about it then.

Sleeping
This poor girl has been through so much this past month it is really hard to tell what her sleeping patterns are.  She goes to bed at 7:30 and used to sleep until 8, but this past week she has been waking up at 6:15!  I tried keeping her up an extra half hour tonight and it was awful! The monster is released when you try to deprive that girl of sleep.  Seriously, every time I try to cut her sleep I regret it.  She is still taking 2 naps a day.  I wish I could cut one out so she would sleep more at night, but I'm scared!! 

Teething
Yes, she sure is teething! She is cutting her bottom 1st molars and is definitely struggling.  She cut her top 1st molars in Germany with very little disruption, but these bottom ones are giving her a time!  I am blaming the not drinking milk and not sleeping at night on teething.  After all, they both started happening about a week ago.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Playtime
She's a stud.  Plays by herself pretty well, but I don't actually leave the room.  I can read or check my email while she talks to her stuffed animals or plays with a toy.  A skill I would really like to teach her is to play alone with me in another room, but at my parent's house we dont have a good set up to do that.  I guess if I was serious about doing that I could completely baby proof her nursery.  We'll see. 

Reading
She loves her books which is so wonderful!  We read every day.  She is not so good at sitting through an entire book unless she is really tired (she is a major wiggle worm after all).  She will bring me a book, climb up in my lap, and read about 3 or 4 pages, and then want down.  Repeat this process over and over again and you can see what we do a lot.  A lot :)  She will also pull all her books off of the bookshelf and flip through them by herself.  She likes to hear the books her daddy recorded, but again, not for very long. When she hears his voice, she grins up at me and acts like she will listen to the entire book, but no, she won't.

Schedule (in an ideal world that is)
8:00-Wake up & snuggle
8:30-Breakfast
9:00-Reading Time
9:30-Playtime with Mommy
10:00-Milk plus snack
10:30-take a walk or have free time
11:00-Nap
13:00-Lunch
13:30-Sing our daily songs and make music (this week we played with bells)
14:00-Outside time
14:30-Milk plus snack
15:00-Free time/bath every other day
16:00-Nap
17:00-offer milk or juice
17:30-play with her grandpa while I cook dinner
18:30-Dinner
19:00-Milk
19:30-Bed