"Why I Appreciate My Husband" Day

Lately, I've been thinking of a lot of reasons I appreciate Nathan.  Let's be honest: sometimes, after you've been married a while, you begin to forget to remember those things.  But, lately, I've tried to be more intentional about thinking about all the reasons he's great.  And, lately, he's been doing lots of great things, so he's made it easy. :)

Here's my list:

• He's done lots of projects around the house, mostly involving yard work.  From taking down junk trees and grinding stumps to fertilizing our new yard to moving and arranging some old paving stones to shoveling up part of the hill of mulch that was left next to our driveway to putting together the kids' water table, he's been busy.  And now that your brain is bleeding from that last sentence, I'll also add that he got the extension ladder out and set it up nearly vertically in order to saw off a dead tree branch, and it looked so dangerous that it nearly gave me a heart attack.  But I do like that he was motivated to take care of it so that it didn't fall on anyone.  I appreciate the work he does, because to me, it represents taking care of his family, and it also represents a willingness to work, both of which are things I value.
• He is good at his job.  Last week, he got a stellar review at work, and it made me really proud of him.  Somehow, because his habit is to undersell himself, it's always a bit of an eye-opener to both of us when something comes along that reinforces that he's a really good geologist.  Like getting into Harvard.  Or landing a great job.  Or getting great feedback on all his projects and trainings and reviews. 
• He is a great daddy.  I remember saying before Noah was born that Nathan would be a great dad because he is great at playing, and I was right.  The first thing he does when he gets home from work is play with the kids, who meet him at the door, shouting, "Daddy's home!"  (Obviously, they know the fun they're about to have.)  That's not to say that he's not a good disciplinarian, too, when it's appropriate.  He's a well-balanced parent. :)

And with that, I think I'll wrap it up and say

Happy Father's Day, 

Nathan!

Some Thoughts at 5am This Morning

So here I sit, unable to sleep for the last two hours, surfing the internet.  Something about pregnancy sometimes gives me a mild insomnia: if I wake up for some reason, I often can't go back to sleep.  I've heard other mamas say that this must be God's way of preparing us for living with the sleeplessness of having a newborn at home, but since I never deal with sleeplessness well, no matter how much practice I have at it, this philosophy has always seemed to put God in a very cruel light, and I choose not to accept it!

All that aside, this extra time I find myself with does allow me to share some thoughts I've been having lately about how the next several months are going to look for our family.  (Imagine that!  A post of more substance than a string of pictures with captions!)  Of course, lately I've been preoccupied with what our fall will look like, what with the baby coming in early September.  When people ask me if we are going to be involved in this or that, I just keep saying, "I don't know what our fall looks like right now," and that is the truth.  Until a couple of days ago, things were just not lining up in a simple manner, when it came to getting a weekly schedule together.  And, anyway, if the phrase "weekly schedule" doesn't strike fear in the heart of anyone about to have a newborn at home, you just don't know what's coming!  However, with two other kids to think of, we did need to start getting some things sorted out.  Thankfully, I think all of it is finally coming together, but that's a topic for another post.

My thoughts this early morn have more to do with what we will be doing with the rest of our summer rather than what our lives will look like after Baby #3 is born.

Now, we are not a terribly busy family.  One good friend was working on and finishing up a major project (Sarah and her album), and that made her very busy for a season, but we've had nothing like that going on.  I'm also not like another good friend of mine, who is always running around with her kids and generally always has a myriad of activities lined up for the week.  Whereas I feel like we've done well if we've had one morning outside-the-house activity, she might have had two or three or four for that day.  That is just not the way I roll--it's stimulating and works well for them, but it stresses me out to be that busy.  However, although I don't like to be running around quite that much, we have definitely had plenty of things to keep us occupied on a daily basis for the last six months or so.  And, upon reflection, I decided I wanted to change the way we do things this summer.

For one thing, Noah and Jane's little worlds are going to change in a drastic and permanent way this fall.  They can't possibly know how the arrival of another sibling will affect them (especially Janey), and it makes me a bit sad to think of how much less of me they are going to be able to get for a while and how that type of adjustment is likely to make them feel, at least temporarily.  This isn't to say that it's not necessary and even good for them in the long run, but I think it is very fair to say that there will likely be a difficult adjustment period.

Another thing I've been pondering is the fact that, usually, when we get home from whatever activity we've done that day, we are all a little too zapped to do anything of any real significance with each other.  Sure, I make dinner.  The house gets picked up (mostly).  The kids play together.  All the basic things happen.  But I don't have the additional energy and time and Noah doesn't have the focus for us to do some of the other things I'd like to be doing with them.  Things like going through the dozen or so educational workbooks I have bought for him over time.  Or coloring with Jane.  Or my being able to take the time to sit on the back patio with them while we all eat popsicles and play.  Really, the bottom line is that I want to have a little more margin in our daily life so that I can spend some quality time with them and play with them more before our lives change so significantly and that sort of interaction becomes less frequently possible.

So, to that end, I am scaling back our activities this summer.  I'm not going to say "yes" to every offer that comes along to do things with friends.  I am going to be more intentional about playing with my kids.  And I feel really good about that decision.

Because they are kind of precious. :)

In the Last Few Days

 In the last few days, . . . 

. . . our backyard went from this . . .

. . . to this!

 

This truck brought the huge amount of sod that went in the backyard.  And this wasn't even all of the grass.

 We actually didn't intend to do such a thorough renovation of our backyard, but one thing led to another, and we did.  After all has been said and done, we are really enjoying it!  Hiring someone to pull all the old overgrown plants out, level the dirt, clear the drains, take down the dead trees, and lay down sod has made a huge difference in our enjoyment of our backyard.  It even got rid of most of the mosquitoes, a benefit we did not foresee.  Now we just need a kiddie pool to make the summer complete!

I found a little watermelon growing on the vine!  Isn't it cute?

 

My first pregnancy photo: 26 and a half weeks.

 There's nothing like love at the grocery store.

And I leave you with this:

Funny Kid Stuff

Noah:

• "Mommy, maybe instead of being a superhero when I grow up I'll be a scientist." "Noah, I think you would make an excellent scientist."  "Yeah, because I know about everything!"
• "Mommy, how does the baby in your tummy breathe?  I think there are lots of tiny holes in your tummy, too small for us to see, and that's how the air gets in!"  So we talked about what the umbilical cord does. . . . 
• The next day: "Noah, do you still think you want to be a scientist?" "Yes." "What do you want to learn about?" "I want to know about your brain, and I want to know about the pipe that gives the baby food." 
• He has a theory about everything. When talking about gravity: "Dad, fire and heat kill gravity." "Well, no, they don't, kiddo." "But that's how rocket ships get into space."
• Noah sneaked downstairs during nap time, when he was supposed to be asleep, and Nathan caught him playing in the living room.  When Noah saw him, he turned, shoulders and head drooping, and sadly said, "Dad, I just can't go to sleep." It might have been convincing, if not for the eye patch and pirate hook he was wearing at the time.
• At bedtime: "Mommy, I'm so hungry!"  "Well, buddy, you should have eaten more of your dinner.  Remember to eat it all tomorrow.  You can have a big breakfast tomorrow." "Mommy, I want eggs for breakfast." "Okay, eggs would be a great breakfast." "Mommy, I want LOTS of eggs.  I want a big, jolly pile of eggs." 

Jane:

• "Guys, we get to go pick Daddy up from the airport tomorrow morning!" "Can I wear my new dress?"  Typical!
• On the way to church: "Daddy, I like my dress today." "Yes, you look very pretty." "Like Mommy.  But Mommy not pretty in a shirt.  Only in a dress."
• Every time she is supposed to be going to sleep, she spends time setting up her babies and a stuffed animal or two as perfectly as possible on a little pillow on her bed, then she covers them with a little blanket.  Perfectly.  This process can take some time, people.  But it's so endearing.
• About 40 times a day: "Why?"
• "Guys, I'm going to call Granny and see how Papa is feeling today." "Why?" "Because he has not been feeling well." "Why?" "Well, Baby, sometimes when you get old, you just don't feel very well." [Pause.] "Old like Noah?"  Ha!  So funny that she thinks her four year old brother is all that old! Just goes to show you how much younger siblings look up to their older siblings.

 
The other night, when the kids kept getting out of bed, Nathan went upstairs to stop the shenanigans and stopped to open the bathroom door, thinking it was odd that it was closed.  He found both kids laid out straight on the floor, side by side.  What game could that have possibly been?  It's pretty great that they have fun and enjoy playing together, though, the little oddballs.

Sometimes You Forget

Sometimes you forget how blessed you are.  I was just on Pioneer Woman's website, leaving a comment in order to enter a giveaway, when I briefly read someone else's comment.  The woman said that if she could stay any age forever, it'd be the age when she had her baby, because "maternity leave was awesome!"

That just gave me a reality check.  Because, truly, it says a lot.  It says she's a working mom and would love to be home with her baby.  It also says that she wants that life so much that staying home with her baby at the absolute toughest and most exhausting age (0-3 months) was one of the joys of her life. 

Reflecting on that this morning just reminded me of how very blessed I am to be able to stay at home with my kids and not have to juggle the competing priority of work.  It's a blessing I often don't recognize, because, of course, there are a lot of difficult aspects to being a stay at home mom.  But it is still a very great blessing.

Would You Say You Have a Plethora?

Hey guys!  So I took this picture about a week ago.  It represented probably about a week's harvest, plus two nice zucchini and a whole bunch of mint that I had used in a couscous the day before. As it turned out, the bumpy yellow squash weren't good: they were too seedy--Granny said they would be, and, of course, she was right.  Otherwise, though, everything was tasty, and I considered this a pretty good haul for one week.

But since then, our tomato plants have shifted into high gear.

"Ta da!"  Noah and Jane are showing you our four ridiculous tomato plants.  Despite the fact that they look terrible, and also despite the fact that we are competing with caterpillars, stink bugs, birds, and squirrels, our tomato plants have reached a point where they are producing a ton.  And they are really large--as I mentioned before, on three of these four plants, the vines fold over the tops of the cages and reach the ground again.  They're also all intermingled.  It's like a tomato jungle inside there.

And this is the result.  This is two days' worth of picking, and right now I'm getting about a pint a day.  Talk about prolific!  Talk about fun!

In case you're wondering, I do pick them while they're a little underripe, because if I wait, the birds start to nip at them.  Check out all those wonderful colors, though!

My five other tomato plants, the ones I started from seed, are just starting to get blooms and little tomatoes.  I think I set them back with the ridiculous soap bath I gave them a few weeks ago, but they have recovered nicely.  I've more or less forgotten which variety I planted where, and it has become part of the fun for me to wonder which plant will produce what color. 

As for the other plants in the garden, well, most of them are doing fine.  The peppers sure are growing slowly, and I was really hoping to have some cayennes for my tomato salads this summer.  Any tips on growing peppers?  And I think the yellow squash is dying, probably because I planted it too close to the zucchini, which is growing huge and may be crowding the yellow squash plant out.  As for the cucumbers, we've gotten two off our plant so far, and they've been nice and sweet and good.  It's an heirloom variety called a "bush cucumber," but I have to tell you that there is nothing bushy about that sucker.  It vines and spreads like crazy.  It has just reached the wall of the house and is beginning to creep upwards, attaching itself to the vines for support.

Anybody else gardening this summer?

Behold the Awesomeness

Play Doh is amazing.

It is awesome.

It is revelatory.

Why, you ask?  Because it keeps my kids occupied for loooong periods of time.  Jane generally sticks with it longer than Noah, but they'll both stick with it for an hour or so, at least.  The other day, Jane played with Play Doh for a solid two hours.  (What?!)  She was making a great big house, which was basically one layer on top of another until she decided she was done.  Today, they're making apple trees, apple pies, cups with apple cider, and Noah also threw in a worm with a smiley face and green hair.

Of course, I also love that my kids are doing something that stimulates them--it's tactile, develops their imaginations, helps them learn what happens when they mix colors, etc.  But, wow, I am still in shock about the amount I can get done when I pull out the Play Doh!