Friday, May 16, 2014

A Much-Belated Baby Post

I acknowledge that I've been pregnant now for...almost six months.  At 25 weeks and a few days, I'm only a little over three months from our due date, and I've been meaning to make more than a casual mention of it in a post for quite some time.
The tummy.  I'm pretty sure it looks bigger in person.

I started this blog during my first pregnancy, so while my posts were few and far between, most of them focused on Addie and on the eager anticipation centered around her.  That was a different time, for certain.  I was working full-time, attending school full-time, and adjusting to a new home, new friends, and still had so little time at my own disposal that I had almost no need to figure out what I was going do with any of it.

Since Addie made her appearance in our family, my life has changed drastically.  While the decision to be a stay-at-home mom was one of the best I have ever made, it has also had a lot of unanticipated effects.  My life has become an unending balancing act.  There was suddenly so much time and so many, many important things with which to fill it, but no one looking over my shoulder to supervise.  It has probably been one of the most overwhelming things about motherhood for me.

But I digress.  All excuses aside, the facts are these: we are expecting again, we are very excited, and I haven't bothered to really blog about it yet.  Usually when people ask me how I'm feeling, my response has been that "the second pregnancy is not like the first one."  I don't know if the little aches and discomforts really are more intense by themselves or if I feel differently because I simply wasn't chasing a toddler around last time.
Not the best images of our ultrasound, I admit, but the radiologist did a pretty nice job at
sharpening them up for us.  I'm thinking this one has Ben's nose and pronounced brow...
but maybe that's just me. :)

But this second pregnancy has also been sweet in its own ways.  I wasn't sure that I felt stirrings until about 18 weeks, which was the same with Addie.  Ben, however, could detect the little movements only a week after I could.  Again, I can't say whether this little one is a more enthusiastic kicker or we just knew better what we were waiting for, but it has been fun to share those things with my husband earlier on.

We've also had the new challenge of trying to prepare Addie for the coming changes that this baby will bring.  There's no way to let her know just how it will be when Mom and Dad suddenly have someone else to hold and can't pick her up whenever she wants.  We have however, begun to work on the concept that Mom has a baby in her tummy.  She learned to say "baby" weeks ago, since that's what we call the baby doll who comes just about everywhere with us.  A couple weeks back, I started pointing to my belly and saying "Mommy has a baby in her tummy."  Since then, when we ask, "Where's Mom's baby?" she pretty consistently points to my tummy.  I do wonder how well she understands even this, though, since on Sunday, when we asked her this, she pointed first to Ben's knee, then to hers.


Either way, it's going to be an adjustment to her.  If we can just get her to lavish the same little kisses and attentions on her brother or sister as she does on her baby doll, and can keep her from trying to forcefully share her cheerios the way she does with us, I'd say we're off to a good start.

As I watched Addie grow through her first year, I constantly found myself thinking that the second child couldn't be this much fun.  I was sure I would just spend the entire infancy being overanxious to see him/her reach the same landmarks as his/her big sister.  I found it hard to believe that, having experienced a toddler, I could go back to enjoying a newborn, but that, too, has changed.  Every day, I feel more and more astonished to realize that my little girl has become such a toddler, and I'm seeing my friends' babies through new eyes.  I am looking forward to this little one and to the curve balls he or she is going to throw us.


Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Backyard Fantasies


Since I was a teenager, green has been my favorite color and, in many situations, it still is.  At this point, I'm not overly biased.  I haven't insisted on having every room in the house or even one of them painted in some forest-y shade and after years of complaining to my mom that I was so tired of that shade of burgundy that she used all throughout the kitchen, I can see that appeal in it.  It might even make an appearance in my own home someday.  We'll see.

However, ever since we moved out here, I have been painfully aware of the absence of my long-time favorite color from most of the scenery.  In February, I realized that it probably wasn't a healthy habit to, in a moment of homesickness, spend an hour or so researching some random, scenic town a thousand miles away, down to the house I would buy, the church I would attend, and the library I would frequent, should we happen to move there.  Instead, knowing that our plans don't include leaving this town for a couple years more, I started to fantasize about how to bring the green to me.  

It started with the day we took Addie to the track and allowed her to play in the sand.  I decided that we would need a sand box to keep her company during the summer.  My mind moved to the enclosure in which the box would sit, lest she should get any ideas about running away.  The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that the yard inside the fence should be green - and not with synthetic turf either (it's been suggested).  With real, living grass.  (The original dream actually included ivy climbing the fence and a line of sunflowers, standing sentry around its perimeter.  I've since put that vision on hold.)

The new fence, as seen from out back porch

In the background, you can see the garden we've started
planting with our neighbors.  It'll be a monster if it ever
takes off.

I acknowledge that it's sort of a long shot.  No one in our neighborhood has a lawn.  I don't know it that's for lack of trying or simply because the thing is impossible.  Nevertheless, we marked out a spot behind the house.  A few weeks ago, we got a fence.  Finally, after weeks of shoveling gravel, tearing up weeds, and a few rather vain attempts to level the small area, we spent an evening spreading top soil, grass seed, and fertilizer.



In the process, Addie rediscovered her inner mud-monkey (which had mysteriously gone missing for the majority of the yard-clearing process.  Now, the yard is wet, muddy, and speckled with oh-so vulnerable little seeds.  I have found myself going to the window or the porch every few hours or so, just to check for sprouts.


Lately, it's been Addie's thing to get a bottle and flop down somewhere on the kitchen floor to drink it.  When she ran out of steam for playing in the dirt, she finally settled down right in the muddy doorway, taking a front-row seat to watch the sprinklers work their magic.

I'm ready to acknowledge that we might never see a nice, thick lawn  covering our little strip of yard, but I'm also ready to fight all summer long to make it happen.  As much as I would (will) love to have a nice, cultivated yard, a retreat from the surrounding dust, the very act of putting my heart and hands into the project has been a healing balm.  Therefore, so help me, I will dig and plant and water and repeat until I have a lawn to show for it or until the effort puts me into labor. And in the meantime, I will learn to love this land.


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Have You Seen This Day?

Missing: Wednesday.
Last seen following Tuesday.
Sunny, cloudy, windy, rainy and snowy with sightings of hail.
Full of opportunities for:
-laundry doing
-kitchen experimenting
-cleaning
-crafting
-studying
-writing
-things other than complaining to one's mother
-etc., etc., etc.
If found, please return to Caitlin via social media or comments area below.

However - if you have no idea where my Wednesday has gone, but are pretty certain that yours has disappeared to the same place, please join me for hot cocoa and commiserating at your earliest convenience. :)

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Sweet Dreams

Happiness is...
a dream that doesn't dim with waking,
that takes shape in my prayers,
before my eyes
and beneath my hands.


A dream that did not begin with
and will not end with me –

a heritage.