7 Quick Takes (vol. 27 )

#1 - I type as I watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Will have to watch the rerun tomorrow as most of our girls are out, and I have strong feelings about them needing to see this! My two babies are in bed, so I get the nice excuse of being home. Just waiting for the Doctor to show.

Later: What?!! They finally get to Thailand and then show all of 2 seconds of the team before flashing away to show the flags? Really? America! You have no sense of your audience!

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#2 - The big news in our lives, which has thrown me for rather a surprised (albeit happy once I got over the shock!) news is best shared by Blueberry:

Due Date--end of January/beginning of February. Will have a better idea sometime in August or September. We have officially decided that we are going to go the midwife route as opposed to a hospital birth (God willing). I don't want a repeat of my experience with Blueberry. Not quite sure how it will work out given our living conditions, but one way or the other, we will find a solution!

In general, things go as to be expected. We didn't find out until we were about 8 weeks along--the sudden onslaught of exhaustion and nausea was my first clue. The excessive exhaustion seems to be slightly abating (or maybe it's just wishful thinking at this point) but the morning sickness is still ongoing. Not constantly like it was, but hitting me at unexpected times most definitely. 

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#3 - This summer has been fun if exhausting. We've squeezed in a trip to Austin, a trip to Springfield, along with our crazy life of 9 children (we added one more this summer--we had about 1 hours warning before she arrived!). We've quite enjoyed the summer in this job. Lots of time to play with the kids and do fun activities without the annoyance of school nagging. But I will fully admit to being ready for school to get back in session--even though its technically still 3 weeks away. Things are rapidly moving into "prep for school" mode--that feeling is in the air. Now to keep the girls busy and happy for these last few weeks.

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#4 - In the last few months since I last posted, Blueberry has grown physically, mentally, and in all ways really. She is chattering away like crazy (except when being shy around, well, anyone). One of our big fights with her right now is hitting--namely Butterfly when Butterfly is getting in Blueberry's space. Sigh. She is learning, if sometimes painfully slowly. She's a stubborn little monkey--can't imagine where she got that characteristic from. Definitely her father. :)

She is still ridiculously adorable. And I'm not just being a biased mommy saying that!

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#5 - In other pregnancy related news, I ran across this article a few months ago (pre-new-baby-who-really-needs-a-nickname-but-the-only-one-I've-come-up-with-is-Komquat-and-I-just-don't-think-I-like-that-for-long-term), and I've finally found something that matches more appropriately with my own gut-feeling of baby news: New Rules for Announcing a Pregnancy.

Some choice quotes:

As I contemplated the best time to make my grand announcement, the thought of waiting too long became heavy on my soul. I couldn’t help but sense that behind all of these well intentioned words there was more than just a proper time to announce a life. There was an anchor of fear that gave the words their weight. Fear of all the what-ifs that could go wrong with this life inside of me.....

This baby deep inside of me, ever so small, is a child of God. A child that God gave to me to take care of whether for a day or for years. That care began at conception. Whether he or she lives or dies each day I am with him or her is a gift and has a purpose with eternal consequences. My baby is now a part of my life, my testimony.

This whole article makes a lot of sense to me. We took our time announcing, but I know I told some people way before was "normally recommended". And it felt right. It felt more right than hiding some of the best news of my life.

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#6 - Blessings come at unusual times. One of the big parts of summer for us are these teams of people who come from churches to both work on the campus and hang out with the kids. This can be a mixed blessing as it really does not give us a break at all as we have to be monitoring interactions at all times (and for good reason!). And depending on how well organized the group is, it can be a good thing or bad that they want to spend time with the kids as sometimes our kids wind up bored half to death because it happens to be a group that came with no action plan and no real sense of how to interact with strange kids. On the other side, sometimes they are amazing and do all sorts of cool things with the kids (baseball games for the fourth of July, unbirthday parties, spa-parties for the girls, good VBS services, and just fun water balloon games and silliness).

The other part of their attendance is that they do projects on the campus. Which means as a houseparent, I get to make suggestions for things they can do. Our entire cottage has been painted this summer and looks absolutely gorgeous (it was white on white on white before--very institutional and, frankly, ugly--now lots of color and much more home feeling). A recent project I suggested to the powers that be for some help dumping the trash that has accumulated in the disaster area that is our attic. Chris and I since we moved here have spent hours and hour sorting through the whole cottage--the attic being one of the worst places of just years of tossed trash. We've been stymied since last spring as it got really hot and busy and difficult with all the kids to move forward. We asked if they could help us at least the trash piles out and give us some room to work.

Well, the lady who showed up from the group walked through the attic with me, saw immediately what we were doing, and next thing I know has come back having bought 50 tubs from Walmart and she and her crew of teenage girls (girls, teen group this time!) spent hours yesterday and have plans for more hours today not just dumping the trash piles we've worked on but sorting through our other boxes and labeling them and, basically, finishing the job for us!

As I had resigned myself to not getting this job done until sometime after baby next spring or summer even, this has made me smile. A lot!

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#7 - I'm trying to make a concerted effort to keep up with my emails/letters in a more timely fashion. I really am hopeless when it comes to writing people. So my August 2012 resolution is to change this habit! Hmmm...I hope that this does not go the way of many resolutions.


Action plan: where I'm struggling. Suggestions?!