We're having the baby here

You don’t even have to say it. I know, already. I’m the worst blogger ever.

No. I’m not even a blogger, because to be a blogger, you have to, well, write on your blog, which I apparently don’t do anymore.

But here I am, and for the handful of you who might not follow me on Instagram or Facebook, there are a few major changes to my status over the past few months that you might care to know about.

First, I’m pregnant! It’s a boy! He’s due in less than two months! Poor little guy, he’s not even born yet and I’m already falling behind in tracking and recording his life. And look, even now when I’m making the big announcement here, he gets a tiny paragraph. I'm even posting an outdated picture in his debut here.

Here he is at 16 weeks in the announcement I put on FB (He's now 32 weeks!)

Second, we moved to the Middle East. I wrote about it last year, so if you don’t know already, you can go there and try to crack my code (haha) on where exactly we are.

So now, I hope my title makes more sense. We have decided to deliver “Baby J” here, since the doctors and facilities are more than adequate and we get to stay together as a family. Going back to the States to deliver has its advantages, but the biggest disadvantage would be that Ayla and I would have to go 6 weeks before the due date and stay at least 6 weeks after his birth, while John would only be able to come for about 3 of those. We've already done enough separated time, so we'll stick this one out. 

I want to write more about all of these things, but had to start with actually telling you about them. I figure rather than try to overload this space with a complete catch-up, I’ll space it out to give you something to read on your potty breaks (if you don’t check your phone or read blogs when you’re on the potty, then neither do I).

Thanks for still reading and I’ll see you again here, soon!

Boxes are fun toys

Relevant picture of cute child

When I posted my status on Facebook today about packing, I went back and read the post I wrote about having our house on the market and I realized I'm long overdue for an update.

(short version)
We're under contract! Hooray! Praise God!

(long version)
We (and by we, I mean mostly me) were getting show weary and after 6 weeks on the market with no offers, talked to our realtor about taking it off. She encouraged us to wait until after the election, since people were waiting on big decisions until then and we agreed. That was a Monday.

That Monday was the day after we got home from a wonderful vacation with my parents. It took us a few days to unpack and put things away, but in those few days people kept showing up to look at the house. Now, to back up a few weeks, I had spent several very stressful and long-hour days early in September getting the house "staged" to show. And if you wondered, it is not like the shows where the stagers come and send the owners off and they come back to a delightfully lovely show-ready house. Ha!

If I thought it was hard to stage the house, it was even harder to live in a staged house, being ready at the drop of a hat to have someone come through it. That's why I was show-weary. And that's why I was taking my time unpacking from vacation, because with no appointments to see the house, I was enjoying just getting to live in it and let Ayla play with all her stuff.

So, Sunday we get home, Monday we decided to stay on the market a bit longer, Thursday a couple shows up to see the house without having called me first. Our place was a mess! Probably not hoarder style mess, but definitely not show ready. I let them come in and see it since they had gone to all the trouble to come, I just apologized profusely for the mess and asked them to please come see it during the open house that weekend when it would be beautiful. They were very kind about it and mentioned that they didn't mind getting to see what it would look like when they lived there.

The following Monday they came to see it again, with an appointment, and the next day they put in an offer! Full asking price with no seller subsidy. This was such an answer to prayer. The week before we put our house on the market, two other houses in our neighborhood went on. Since we're in a townhouse community, all the houses are virtually identical. Ours has a few more upgrades than the others that are (still) for sale, but I think the main difference was the mess. Had to be!

That was about three weeks ago and we close in another three weeks and have passed all the hurdles between offer and closing so far. The home inspection and appraisal came back with expected results and the couple seems really excited to move in and start making this their home.

Meanwhile, we've been looking for a place for us to live between now and next summer. Of course God answered this prayer, too, and provided us with a beautiful rental house in our price range right in the neighborhood we wanted with a landlord who was willing to do a short-term lease. We're moving in over there this weekend, though we can take our time before having to be out of here.

We are still looking for a new family for Mocha. The Virginia family I mentioned before turned out to have dog allergies, which may have been important information to know before they started looking for a dog, but at least they found out before adopting her!

She's got a new best friend, though, who would spend every waking moment with her if we'd let her!

Cute child with new best friend

And in completely unrelated moving news, Ayla's hair is long enough for this now.

Big, Not-Pregnant, News

When I blogged my pregnancy news, I snuck it in the comments of a post about a Walmart being constructed across the street (It didn't turn out to be of the Neighborhood variety after all). When my husband was deploying overseas for a year, I came up with a cute story about our dog, Mocha, taking a big trip (She didn't end up going with John, but has gone to live with her cousin in Texas).

Well, the news I have to share now is probably equally as big, but I'm just going to straight up tell you.

Next summer, we're moving to "EssAy" for two years.

I know, I said I was going to just tell you, but we do need a little bit of a code. I'm careful with what gets posted here so we don't end up in some crazy search results. However, you are smart enough to get this one easily.

Just imagine the word above is sounding out the initials for a big, oil-rich country where women can't drive and I won't have to worry about pork being in any of our food, and you've got it!

So far away and so hot, you're thinking. Yes.

We're excited though. We've talked about living overseas, especially in that region, since before we were married. Though we've both been deployed and traveled extensively, this will be our first time actually living together abroad. We'll find out for sure if this is the life for us.

From our visit to Turkey this summer. 

I don't know many of the details of us going yet, and I'm trying not to think about the leaving part right now. I'm sure you'll be hearing about it plenty, though!

I do have two big prayer requests regarding the move, if you are into the praying sort of thing.

First, we are trying to find a new home for Mocha. She is such a wonderful pet and we'd love to keep her, but where we're going is not very dog friendly, especially the kind of dog who needs space to run around outside. I've pleaded and bugged everyone on Facebook and we've placed Craigslist ads. Right now there is one family here in Virginia who is interested, but we have to get her here from Texas (where she's been since last February!) first, meet them and be in mutual agreement. Please pray we find her a good home and that she adjusts to them well.

Second, we have our house on the market. This could be a post unto itself and probably will be, but if you've ever sold your home, you know what we're facing. Even though we're not moving overseas until next year, we thought we'd try to take advantage of the slight rise in the housing market our area is having. It's been about a month and we've had no offers yet, but we're going to wait a few more weeks. If we don't sell now, we'll try again in the spring. We just thought it would be nice to sell with no real time crunch. Obviously if we don't sell in the spring, renting is an option, just not our preferred one right now. Please pray we stay in perfect peace throughout this process and keep our eyes on our true Source

Thanks, friends! I'll be sure to report when we see movement on either of these. By the way, thank you for reading after all these months of sabbatical (yeah, I'm gonna call it that).

How are you doing?

My Parenting Philosoph-ease

When Ayla was two months old, I told John I was going to blog about what I was doing as a mother to get such an awesome baby. I had many friends expecting their first babies as well, and I thought I would do them a service by offering my wisdom gained from my vast parenting experience.

He suggested I maybe wait until she was six months old, just to make sure she was still an awesome baby (and still alive) and then it would probably be okay to offer my wisdom.

(Yeah, so he's really the wise one in this parenting partnership, but this is my blog, so there!)

Henceforth, she is six months old and still alive and still an awesome baby, thusly shall I share my wisdom.  Do you have a pen and paper to take copious notes?

But for real, I am so glad I didn't try to write about this back then because almost everything I would've said then wouldn't be what I would say now. So, I'm not really going to try to offer advice, but I think it's safe to share some of my philosophies because those haven't changed so much.

(I don't know if I even need this disclaimer, but just in case: I don't think this is the best or only "correct" way to think about these things, they are just the way I think about them, so take them for whatever that is worth to you! Thanks!)

Two questions or scenarios I try to think about when researching, then choosing a method for anything baby-related are:
1) What do mothers or families in other parts of the world do about ____, especially those without the same access to the resources and information I have?
2) What have mothers or families in generations past done about _____, ditto?

(And really, I think about these two aspects of just about everything in life, not just when it comes to parenting.)

I have found these questions help to broaden my perspective from what this or that blog or website or currently much recommended or much loathed book says to do or not to do. I don't get so wrapped around a certain method or style, because in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "There are about a billion people in India and I doubt many of them have read or heard this _____, so it must not be as complicated or absolute as this _______ is making it seem."

Now, of course, I am SO grateful for the knowledge of those gone before and that of my peers, the access to the amazing resources I am blessed to be able to use and so on. And obviously, we (our society/generation) are doing a better job in general at keeping our babies alive, so I'm not kicking it all to the curb. It's just that the American Medical Association recommends different things than the Australian or British version of the same. So, since they/we didn't invent childbirth or child-rearing, and mothers and families have been doing it pretty successfully for as many centuries as you believe this earth is old, I just keep those two "filters" on and go from there.

That wasn't too bad, now, was it? I have a few other thoughts I'll pepper in amongst the Ayla pictures and single-ish-mom stories, too, and I hope to have you along for the ride.

What are your thoughts on these or other philosophies? Are they even really philosophies? Is there a better word for them? Were you hoping I'd put at least one Ayla picture in this blog?

Ok, here.

:-)

Plange of Chans

I've started putting air quotes around the word "plan" when I think it or say it and real quotes when I write it. It's just that kind of word.


Remember the "plan" I laid out in that blog back in December about Mocha's Big Move? (If not, go ahead and click over there to read it. We'll wait.) Like today's title indicates, almost everything about our reality six months later is different.

Mocha has been happily assimilated into a new life with John's sister's family in Texas. She did have a big move, just not the one we expected.

My nephew Jaden reading Mocha a dinosaur book (her favorite kind).

John finally left this week. But he also didn't go where and when we expected. 

We've been waiting on paperwork for his trip since early March. We are still waiting, but in the meantime, he got the opportunity to go to a neighboring country and help out there for a little while. It looks like he'll be there about a month, but by now we know better than to count too much on any "plan!"


We have been so grateful for this extra time for Ayla to bond with her daddy. He was always smitten with her, but now he's gotten to know his little girl a little more and see her grow into the cheerful, chubby baby she is.

She thinks she picked a good daddy!

We do still expect for him to do his one year assignment at some point, we just don't know when.  I hesitate to say too much in advance now, because as you have seen, it doesn't hold much weight.

Speaking of weight, Ayla and I are packing our bags for a trip of our own next week. We're going to spend about three weeks with our families in Texas and Oklahoma, which is really going to make this time without John fly by. 

My "plan" is to keep blogging while I'm gone, but if it gets a little quiet(er) around here, please don't worry. We're doing well, probably just getting spoiled by grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles, or busy playing with cousins or friends. Or just relaxing, watching whatever my mom has on her DVR. 

Do you have any fun plans this summer?

10-sentence Tuesday

1) I owe you an update on the past few interactions with Baby Z's parents.

2) Friday went much better with brief, but mostly positive, interaction.

3) Sunday and Monday they had appointments to see him but were no-shows. :-(

4) This made me so sad because he is too precious to be stood up.

5) It was hard to drop him off at his new respite-mom's house on Monday night, but I know I will get him back in two weeks.

6) Today I put on my uniform and started my tour in the Air Force Reserves at Andrews Air Force Base.

7) For the next two weeks, I'll be working on the Joint Service Open House, otherwise known as the Andrews Airshow, which is May 15&16.

8) If you're in the DC area (or can come here), you should come because it's free and so much fun!!

9) Questions count as sentences.

10) What have you been up to?

"At least it's something to blog about"

I'll start this story with the end.

She's ok and almost back to her old self.

Now you can rest easy when I tell you the whole thing.

Friday night we found ourselves with no plans, no desire to cook and no reason not to go out to eat. So John loaded the baby in the car and I grabbed the diaper bag and headed out the door. Now, usually Mocha, our 5-yr-old chocolate lab, tries to come with us, but we block her exit and tell her no and slip out the door.

This time, however, she pushed past me and gleefully started her romp around our little neighborhood. It was still light out and lots of neighbors were outside, so we figured she would be more interested in meeting new people than running and we'd be able to catch her soon. We positioned ourselves where we could best watch her, because chasing her doesn't work. It was all fun and games until after about 10 minutes. I guess she got bored with our neighborhood and ran across the road.

I was standing where I could see her, but not catch her, so unfortunately I had a clear but helpless view of the incident.

She ran in front of a black Jaguar, which clipped her back end and sent her flying into the ditch. The car didn't even slow down and I screamed as I watched what I thought was my dog getting killed. I turned my head to scream for John, then looked back to where she had landed.

Miracles of miracles, my stupid, lucky dog was walking back across the road toward me. I yelled her name as yet another car was bearing down on her, so she ran the rest of the way right to me with her tail between her legs.

Several neighbors had heard both the thump of the hit and her yelp, so they came running with blankets and offers of help. John and some of the guys loaded her into the Jeep and I got in the car (where Baby Z was sleeping the whole time) and we raced to the Vet ER.

On the way I realized I have developed a new coping mechanism. Instead of freaking out when crisis hits, I start composing a blog in my head. I wrote this one a few times on the way to the vets.

As I kept replaying the scene of her getting hit and thrown into the ditch, the more I felt it, like it had actually happened to me. Then I remembered. It had happened to me.

Seven years ago I did a sprint triathlon. During the run portion, about a mile in, an elderly lady who was confused by the cones in the road and picked the wrong lane to drive in, struck me from behind, throwing me about 10 feet forward. Fortunately, I landed on my arm and only suffered a deep abrasion there as well as a torn ligament in my shin. I felt fine enough to get up and finish the race, then went to the ER out of concern a more serious injury was being masked by the adrenaline and endorphins. So, I got a great story and a big scar out of the ordeal.

(Crossing the finish line displaying injury that earned me the nickname "Road Kill")

Now I was experiencing it again and thinking of how just a few seconds would've made a world of difference on where she was hit and what would've happened. I was also replaying her escape, trying to think of what I could've done differently to keep her in, how we should get her some training on not running away, and hating the driver of the black Jaguar for not even slowing down.

Mocha, on the other hand, thought she was having a special ride with her master after getting lots of attention from her new friends. She walked cluelessly into the vets with only a slight limp, just wagging her tail and smiling like this was fun.

John was amazing the whole time, assuring me that he wasn't mad at me or blaming me for anything.

X-rays and an exam revealed nothing broken or busted. The vet released her with some pain meds and instructions on what to watch for.

(For only a few hundred dollars, we got a free CD with her x-ray shots)

Other than walking around stiffly, she is ok and almost back to her old self. She still follows me everywhere around the house. She still tries to get as close as possible at all times to either me or John and still tries to follow us out the door.

I think my husband is starting to understand the way I need to process things. While we were waiting for the verdict at the vets, he turned to me and said, "Well, at least it's something to blog about!"

(Oh, and so as not to leave you hanging on what we did for dinner, there was an Outback right next to the vet, so we got takeout. Yummy!)

10-Sentence Tuesday

Blogging is becoming like scrapbooking to me. Well, I don't actually scrapbook, but I have always meant to. So I keep all these scraps of memorabilia to put in a scrapbook someday, but I have so much to catch up on, I just keep putting it off and keep collecting things.

I feel like these past few days I've just been collecting scraps of things I need to blog about but I haven't had made the time, so I'm gonna experiment with something I'll call 10-Sentence Tuesday.

In no particular order:

1) Baby Z is doing well, although he has some thrush in his mouth and a fungal infection around his "diaper area."

2) This, and other factors made yesterday (Monday) a rough go with his birth parents during both a "Bridging the Gap" meeting and a doctor's appointment.

3) We were able to find some common ground with our tattoos and Native-American backgrounds, but they are still very defensive, confused and broken people.

4) I didn't get into the PhD program I applied for at the University of Maryland, and since I'm not that surprised, I'm still processing why God had me go through the process.

5) With the PhD door closed (for now), I am praying about what my next steps should be for both the immediate and long-term future.

6) It looks like I will spend most of the next 4 months working in a Reserve capacity in the local area.

7) I will be doing two weeks starting next Tuesday at Andrews AFB to help with the annual Joint Service Open House.

8) Baby Z will go into respite for those two weeks, then probably come back to us; if I continue working, he will go into daycare.

9) It also looks like I will take cooking classes at L’Academie de Cuisine in nearby Gaithersburg, MD.

10) John and I are trying to figure out what to do for our 5th anniversary (in August), so suggestions are appreciated.

Well, there you have it. What's going on in your world?

Are you watching?

This past weekend I got to spend with my Oklahoma family. Though these visits include my mom and step-dad, both brothers and their spouses and my sister and hers, it is mostly always about my niece and nephews (or as my s-i-l suggested "nie-neps.")

(Do you know how hard it is to get 8 kids looking in the same direction at the same time?)

Five of these are my sister's and three of them are my brother's. But they are ALL mine! I love being an aunt, and I must be really good at it because God gave my siblings lots of kids!

Tonight, quickly, before my brain crashes into sleep and deep thoughts are erased, I'll make an observation that any of you who are around kids for any time at all have probably made.

My nie-neps are all at ages where they want to show off  be seen. Even the youngest, at 22 months, make sure they have my attention before throwing a ball or hitting something (each other even) with a stick. The older boys want to show off their jiu jitsu moves, and their little sister wants to show off her "jitsu" and "robot dance." Another of them loves to show off how agile he is in climbing and flipping, while his older brother is more than happy to share of his knowledge of bats and airplanes. And I just love that my super-special nephew who has Down Syndrome makes sure I watch and acknowledge when he picks the right shape on my iPhone app and cheerfully claps at his own achievements. 

I remember being like this. Sortof.

Showing off my "Resurrection Sunday" dress to anyone who would watch me twirl. Freely giving out pictures I colored or bravely singing songs I wrote. Even a Field Day participation ribbon was proudly displayed.

Do you remember those days?

I wonder what happens to us. I wonder if that's something we're supposed to grow out of. Because I kindof secretly hope my nie-neps never do. I want them always to be seen, valued, enjoyed, cherished. I never want them to get insecure and worried about what others will think. I want them always to pursue their interests with passion and to share that with others. I don't want them to only share what they think is perfect or just right about themselves, because I think it's all precious.

(And I think I feel my Abba tapping me on the shoulder telling me that's how He feels about me.)

What about you? Do you know anyone who, as an adult, appropriately expresses this aspect of childlikeness? Care to share?

Blown Away

Today's blog is just a little tribute to my friends. You know who you are.

I have been blown away lately by the fruit of my friendships. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise to me that my friends do awesome things, because they are awesome people.

Specifically, I have been experiencing this type of sweetness:
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel. Prov 27:9

I'll be honest (aren't I usually?). I am an introvert and I have a "gift of criticism" and am way harder on myself than I am on anyone else.

The combination of these things makes it easy for me to be alone, to not let people into what I am going through, to not ask for advice, and to not have a teachable spirit. However, the teacher/artist/writer in me is more comfortable talking about life issues after I have worked through them and have a good handle on it and can communicate about it in a way that I think will encourage others.

(I also am incredibly dependent on the Holy Spirit to temper these qualities in my life and continually transform me to be more like Jesus. If any good comes from me, I know it's because of that.)

All this to say, I am bowed over with gratefulness at the wisdom and graciousness my friends have been providing me recently. In fact, if I am a tree and their response to the things I've been going through is snow, it'd probably look something like this:

Which I think is kindof beautiful. 

Well, maybe it's not the best analogy or picture of it, but in my mind it works and Donald Miller says to write for yourself, so there.

Friends, I love you and cherish you and as cheesy as it sounds, I hope I can be the kind of friend to you that you are to me.


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By the way- don't ever hire me to get more traffic for your website. A few weeks ago, I was only 40 hits behind my sisters' blog, and though I started my counter several months after I started blogging and I knew I had her beat, I still felt like the numbers should prove it. So, I started a campaign to beat her to 3000 hits. I mean, I have more than double the FB friends, so this should've been no problem. Now she is at 3050 and I'm at 2691. Something went really wrong there!!

Experimental Advice

One of my favorite things to read in the paper besides the "comics" (because they're not really funny, are they?) is the advice column. I'd love to have an advice column some day. I have plenty of opinions on what people should do with their lives or how to solve their problems. So, if you have some questions you want me to answer, send them my way. If you don't have my email address, just leave me a comment and I'll email you back. If I get enough questions, I'll do a post with my advice.

Until then, I'll give you this one for free. This is something I've been chewing on for a while and now you can let me know what you think.

It's to your advantage to be friends with the kind of person you want to be. For example, if you want to be a wife, be friends with some wives. Once you get married, you will need other married friends, especially wives, to relate to, get advice from, and spend time with. If you want to be a mom someday, be friends with moms. You don't want to find yourself with a newborn all of a sudden with a bunch of single friends who have no clue about butt paste and reflux. If you want your kids to live to see their teens, find some seasoned moms with awesome teenagers and hang out with them.  Etcetera, etcetera.

Of course I don't mean that you should only be friends with this type of person, life is made rich by a variety of relationships. But it might do you some good to take inventory of your friend list, and see if there are people in your life who can walk with you through a season they've already been through, but is yet to come for you. If not, be intentional about making some new friends. It might be work, but consider it an investment in your future.

So, what do you think? Does this advice pass the common sense test? Has this proven true for you? Is there a better way to say it? Did I leave anything out? Will you leave a comment if I keep asking questions....?

What's in my hand?

Have you ever been looking for your keys when they're in your hand? Or for your sun/glasses when they're on your head? This is an age-old piece of advice, but one that remains true.

Sometimes what we're looking for is right in front of us. Sometimes it's actually in our hands.

This can be true for so many things, from the practical items mentioned above to the biggest life decisions. So many people who have searched high and low for their spouse find him or her in their very own social circle. More people find jobs now by networking than any other way. It's all about who is in your life right now, what is right in front of you.

Somebody once said that most of the time in life all we can do is make the next right choice. We may not know what lies ahead 10, 20 years down the road. But if we have a right thing to do or say today, that's a big step in the right direction.

Of course, sometimes you did leave your sunglasses on the metro and many people do meet through eHarmony, and there's much wisdom and life lessons to be gained on an adventurous search.

I was just thinking about what to write my blog about tonight while I was digging through my purse for my keys. Turns out they were in my hand. And so was my blog topic.

How about you? Do you have any life experiences that resonate or clash with this thought?