Waiting

I think I’ve hit the stage of pregnancy where it seems more difficult staying pregnant than taking care of a newborn.  If I’m on my feet for more than about five minutes, my head swims, my body aches, and I wheeze for air.  This is quite a comedown, considering that, at this time last year, I was in the final training stages for a half-marathon!

Ah, well.  To everything there is a time and a season.  And. although I did pack a bag on Thursday, I can still honestly say that Jeremy can stay put for a couple more weeks, if he’s willing and able!  I’d love to make it to our Easter service before his arrival.

And I would really love for the kids’ bedroom furniture to FINALLY get here.  It was supposed to come this past Monday.  When I hadn’t heard from the furniture store by Wednesday, I called.  On Thursday, the manager called me back and said that Charlotte’s furniture should have arrived by yesterday and that Elijah’s should be here by Monday or Tuesday.  Hopefully, the store will be able to deliver it by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Promises, promises.

In spite of that, the baby’s room is practically done.  We just need to hang a curtain rod, get a small lamp, and get the rest of the kids’ clothes moved to their rooms, which can be accomplished once their furniture is here.  We are making progress.

The guinea pigs are still living upstairs because we don’t want them in Charlotte’s room until the furniture is there.  That’s all we would need is have their pen knocked over, our geriatric guinea pigs to die of heart attacks, and Charlotte to lose her first pets within a week of getting them!

We’ve found Charlotte’s new pets terribly entertaining.  They hoot and purr and chirp…half the fun is trying to figure out what they’re talking about.  Through trial and error, we’ve discovered that they love lettuce and celery leaves but aren’t crazy about mandarin oranges or cucumbers or green peppers.  Charlotte has handled them every day, and they are already calming down.  She is also feeding them herself and even cleaning their cage out each morning.  I’m very proud of the responsibility she’s taken on!  Here are a few new pictures.

 

Tonight, Charlotte got attend a concert called Winter Jam in nearby Bloomington with a friend of hers from church.  Among the acts: Third Day, Newsboys, Newsong, and 10th Avenue North.  So, we’re currently waiting for her to arrive back home and tell of her great adventure.  The dad of the girl with whom she attended the concert is the new multi-site pastor of our church, and he got to go backstage and meet Mac Powell, among others!  We’re curious as to if the girls got to go back too!

Earlier today, Charlotte and Elijah also tested for their blue belts in tae kwon do.  I’ll try to tell you about that next time.

On the agenda for tomorrow…getting Elijah his soccer gear (practice starts Monday), finding a cage stand for the guinea pigs, and picking up a few remaining necessary baby items (including pacifiers…necessary for me!).  Maybe I can walk around long enough to get some of this done.

Happy weekend!

Color Me Crazy

Meet the newest members of the Wilkes family.

This is Humphrey…

…and this is Spotty.

Humphrey and Spotty are two female guinea pigs that came to live with us today.  Here are the girls with their proud new owner.

And here’s the story.

Charlotte has been asking for a hamster or guinea pig pretty much since we moved back to the States.  She has really wanted her “own” pet for a lot longer than that, but we’ve been pretty consistently telling her “no,” especially with the new baby, flooded basement, and everything else that has been happening.

A couple weeks ago, Charlotte and Elijah had to write a persuasive plea for language arts.  Charlotte wrote about her great desire for a hamster or a guinea pig.  One of her favorite book series is about a hamster named Humphrey (thus the unusually-named girl hamster).  She has a friend who owns a guinea pig, which is very friendly toward Charlotte.  So, she’s been flip-flopping on which one she actually wants.

Anyway, today I found a posting on one of my home school Yahoo groups about two free guinea pigs plus gear to a good home.  One of the children in the house was allergic to hay, a staple in these girls’ diet.  The guinea pigs’ old names were Piglet and Lily; they are about four years old and have always been together.  After a quick consult with Jeff, I called the owner and then drove over to let Charlotte see them.

Of course, it was love at first sight.  I should’ve taken the camera to the house for the initial meeting. 

The life expectancy for guinea pigs is anywhere from four to eight years, so I warned Charlotte that these girls might live for a long time or not, once we took them home.  I also asked if she was sure she wanted two older guinea pigs instead of a young one that she perhaps picked out herself.  But none of this mattered to her…she was perfectly happy with these two, and they seemed to take to her pretty well, too.

After about 30 minutes of get-acquainted time, we were loading a cage with two guinea pigs, two bags of wood chips, a big box of food and guinea pig treats, and one happy little girl plus her brother into our van.

So, here we are.  New baby on the way in a matter of weeks, a not-quite-finished renovation project…and two new pets.  In my weary state, the thought of having all of the paraphernalia already purchased, a how-to list provided, and the word “FREE” were just too much to resist.

Am I nuts?!

Shower of Blessings

Thanks to a sweet friend, I had a baby shower yesterday afternoon.  This was a beautiful, unexpected blessing because most third-time moms don’t get showers.  I figured that I would just have those pages in the baby book blank.  But I guess when there is an eight-year gap between babies, people feel sort of sorry for you…or more likely, they are very happy to celebrate with you!

Anyway, a small group of us gathered at Saundi Pugh’s home yesterday afternoon for cake, games, fellowship, and gifts.  Saundi is a wonderfully creative person, and this was the shower cake, homemade and decorated by her.

Nearby the duck cake was a gift “duck” created from diapers, wipes, baby gowns, bath stuff, a rattle, and a book.  I am always floored by this level of creativity and cuteness.  Take a look!

We played a few games, one of which made Jeff gag.  Saundi melted five different miniature candy bars and smeared them into diapers.  Our job was to figure out which candy bar was in each diaper by taking a sniff.  I wish I had remembered to take pictures of this one!  Four of us had our daughters (ages eight through ten) with us at the shower, and it was hysterical to watch them participate in this one!

After games, the girls brought me my gifts.  I received a feeding seat (great, updated version of a high chair that goes from newborn to toddler but attaches to a regular chair), a changing table pad, Sippy cups, bibs, precious clothes, and other such things to get us off to a great start.  I love these pictures of the four girls hovered around me.

 

I am actually breathing a little easier now, although I’m still not convinced the house will be in the condition I’d like in time for Jeremy’s arrival.  But we have a crib set up, diapers and a place to change them ready, an outfit in which to bring him home from the hospital (specially picked by Jeff and the kids), and four very excited family members to welcome him.  The rest will come…eventually!

I am going to the doctor every week now and had another visit today.  I am officially full-term; my blood work is coming back great, my blood pressure is good, the baby looks fine, and the final countdown begins.

What a ride!

He’s a Big One!

Well…maybe.

I had my 36-week sonogram today.  I’m not sure if these are standard procedure in these modern times, but this is the first late-term sonogram that I have ever had.  It was amazing!

The technician first tried to get a face shot, but the baby had his fists bunched in front of his face, and he wasn’t very willing to move them.  She moved around to the back of his head to take measurements, as this is primarily how they guesstimate the baby’s weight, and commented on how much hair he appeared to have!   We were able to confirm today that this baby is still a boy (whew!), he is head down (double whew!), he is surrounded by an ideal amount of amniotic fluid, and he looks pretty content in there.

The technician also took measurements of the baby’s leg bones.  When she spotted his feet, she said, “Wow!  Those are some long toes!”  Toward the end of the exam, she decided to poke the wand pretty hard toward his hands blocking his face…poor baby!  But Jeremy didn’t take that quietly.  He came up swinging!  Both fists tried to pummel that thing that was bothering him.

Amazing!  This baby is very active, so it’s not that he doesn’t seem real.  When we are all snuggled up on the couch for our nightly devotionals, he regularly thumps the kids for daring to rest against my stomach.  But there is just something about seeing him and all his parts moving around in there that is really special.

Other information gleaned from today’s exam…the baby is measuring about two weeks further along than I am supposed to be.  I am just over 36 weeks, and he is measuring at over 38 weeks.  The technician guessed his weight to be around 7 pounds, 4 ounces, right now, but that measurement has a one-half to one pound margin of error, so I’m not spending a lot of time worrying over that.  If he’s nine pounds, he’s nine pounds; that wouldn’t be unusual for a third baby.

The 38-week measurement, though, was pretty sobering.  We could actually be looking at delivering a full two weeks earlier than my due date, which is what happened with Elijah, and not out of the question based on my own calendar.  But again, I can’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about it.  We’ve opted against scheduling an induction this time around, so Jeremy will come when he comes.

Anyway, all of this modern technology is pretty cool!  Jeff and the kids all joined me in the sonography room, so that was pretty special, too.  It’s hard to believe that we’ll have a new family member in no more than a month.  Wow!

Nearly There!

Wow…I blink and two weeks go by, and, suddenly, I’m doing a crummy job at keeping up with my blog anymore!

Life has been rapidly marching forward.  Fortunately, progress on our basement has also proceeded rapidly.  Our new carpet was installed on March 1 and 2, and it is beautiful!  Jeff put the trim back up in the family room and hallway, which means that we could put up the toy shelving/drawer units that we had purchased right before the flood.  This, in turn, means that we could start unpacking boxes whose contents haven’t seen the light of day since we lived in France.

Because the carpet is finally down, I could also finally order the kids’ new bedroom furniture.  It should arrive by early next week, which means that we will finally be able to get Charlotte and Elijah’s stuff out of the baby’s room and the baby’s stuff out of the laundry basket in the middle of the living room floor.

My life has turned into a giant game of dominoes.  I’m just hoping that last one falls before this baby arrives in four weeks!  But, even if it doesn’t, I guess I can live with it.

Jeff has made the quickest progress on our new media room in the basement, since he has all of the components he needs to get that set up right away.  He’s mounted the screen and the projector and set up the computer, DVD player, and gaming systems.  He’s painted the room a flat dark gray, and we had dark gray carpet installed in there.  We need to buy trim, which we will paint black, paint the inside of the door black, and get black, sound-dampening ceiling tiles up.  Then, we should be good to go.  On our wish list are some theater-style seats.  We found a place in Florida that actually sells refurbished theater seats, so we’re going to look into that.  Soon, the Wilkes family theater should be up and running!

In other news, I’m feeling pretty decent for advanced pregnancy.  The baby is riding high against my lungs and ribs, so getting a deep breath is problematic.  But this, too, shall pass soon.  I’m keeping an eye on my blood pressure, but so far, so good.  This Thursday, I will have a sonogram, which will hopefully show how the baby is presenting, and the sonographer will take an educated guess at his size.  I had some maternity photos taken with the kids last week; if you’d like to take a peak, go to www.sonshineportraitdesign.com , click on “clients” at the top, and type in "jeremy” (minus the quotes).

Jeff starts six weeks of family leave on April 12; we are all excited about that!  He will teach the kids, run them around, and basically take over my daily job while we all adjust to the new baby.  He will also be the head coach of Elijah’s soccer team during his leave, which is rather hilarious since he’s never before played.  Beware of putting down that you’ll coach “if necessary”!  It’s apparently ALWAYS necessary! 

He’ll  probably be happy to go back to work so he can get some rest.

I’ll end this post with some photos from Jeff and the kids’ ski trip to Sundown Mountain, near Dubuque, Iowa, with Mike and Andrew Fiedler.  They had a blast!

   

Have a good one!