The mobile...of the military persuasion

At last I've been able to put my hobby to good use. Amanda suggested to me months ago, that I create a mobile using some of my scale models that I had kicking around. I finally finished the mobile this week! It contains 3 planes and 2 tanks. Keep in mind folks, that we don't know the gender of our child. So regardless of its gender, it will have this mobile hanging over its head. (Yes, if its a girl she will need to learn to love planes and tanks!)

Our Ode to Christmas

The cookies have been baked,
The appys frozen for a later date,
The nutcrackers have invaded,
The nativity has been recreated,
The tree has been set up,
The pregnant woman is fed up.
And now we wait for the baby Jesus (ahem, we mean our baby) to show up.

Pssst...baby. There's no more room at the Inn. Come out to the stable so we can put you in a manger (and by that we mean dresser drawer!) And hurry! Christmas comes tomorrow! (at least to the Dutch community!)

4th Annual Christmas Tree Caper

For four years, it has been our tradition to carry our Christmas tree home over our shoulders. And just because Amanda is nine months pregnant, it does not change this tradition. (yes, she did carry it home over her shoulders hoping that it would induce labour) Nor, did the fact that it was pouring rain change our plans. The only thing that changed was that we got our tree at the end of November instead of the beginning of December.

For the past two years, we've added a trip to Starbucks for a hot drink to our tradition. It was there that two customers gave us the looks that we've come to look forward to. The "are you two crazy?" look. It makes us giggle every time. Our baristas were good natured about it. They've come to understand our craziness and congratulated us on our creativity.
Needless to say, the tree has been in our possession for five days and all that we have accomplished is putting up the lights, the tree topper and three decorations. Amanda has this strange dream of decorating the tree between contractions. Dan isn't too thrilled with this idea, but we've been too busy or tired or not in the mood to put anything on the tree. Hopefully we get it decorated before Christmas!

Jacob Moon

Last weekend, we went to see Jacob Moon (from Ontario) play at House of James. We are avid fans of him and try our hardest to see him every time he comes to BC. He is singer/songwriter who plays folk music. He plays a live looping machine which allows him to add depth to his music using only a single guitar. He has recently played for Rush at their induction in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. We've gotten to know Jacob over the past years (thanks Matt for the introduction and house party). Whenever he sees us at a concert, he makes an effort to come over and say hello to us. This concert, we sat in the front row and during his first song, he looked over and realized who we were. Then, he realized that we were 9 months pregnant and gave us this "congratulatory" look.
Our baby has grown to love Jacob Moon. In fact, while at the concert, our baby was dancing away to his songs. When Jacob played his two new songs, the baby stopped moving as if to protest, "I don't know who this is!!!!" But as soon as Jacob played songs from his Cd's the baby would start dancing again. Then Jacob Moon decided to play some Christmas songs from his Christmas CD which is currently being played continuously at our house. The baby went nuts, as if to say, "Christmas, Christmas, CHRISTMAS!!!" like any excited child exclaims. Needless to say, our baby LOVES Jacob Moon Christmas!
Jacob came to talk with us during intermission and congratulated us on our soon-to-be arrival. He said that anyone who would attend his show two weeks before delivering a baby should be inducted into the Jacob Moon fan club as devote members. The reality is that unless we were in labour or had just delivered, we probably would have been there. (yes, we like him that much!)

Sleep: the final frontier

Every morning, Dan asks me, "How did you sleep?" Recently, its been "Not so good." He can tell it was a good night, when I say that I managed to get 3 or 4 consecutive hours of sleep. Otherwise, I was awake every 1.5-2 hours. Usually with a bout of alertness at 4am, when my brain wakes up and refuses to shut down pondering anything from diapers to ways to stop Dan from snoring (sometimes the only solution I can come up with is a permanent one).
I've been told that this is my body preparing for what is to come. The reality is, I hate the practise. I wish that I could sleep through the night and save up sleep for the deprivation to come.
Its just another one of those lies that people tell you to make you feel better. Much like the "your baby is healthier when you're throwing up." That's not comforting...its annoying. (it really makes you want to puke on the person telling you this wonderful tidbit)
Sleep is blissful....give me every last moment I can have of it, before the baby takes it from me permanently.

Road Rash Warrior

Monday morning, Amanda went on a trip. Down the sidewalk....literally down on the sidewalk. She tripped on the curb on the way to the bus, stumbled a few steps before going down and sliding down the sidewalk. She flew about 9 feet.

The wounds in these pictures are already a week old and healing quite nicely. The swelling has subsided and her knee and both hands have returned to "normal" size (minus the pregnant swelling).

The downside of falling (hehehe), is that in the process of landing, the large belly stuck out and got landed on. This probably stunned the baby and it refused to move for the next two hours, which by our child's standards is an extremely long time to stay still. The midwife recommended a trip to the hospital to get checked out. Of course, our baby, being who it is and "loving" hospitals, began to protest as soon as the nurses started to strap on any type of instrument. What followed in the next twenty minutes, was the worse case of hiccups known to man, followed by some intense kicking and punching (and probably screaming, if it could), to try and remove the fetal heart monitor. Needless to say, "it's alive!!!!!!" and we were discharged without further incident.

But now, every time Amanda leaves the house, Dan likes to tease her by saying, "Don't trip on the curb on your way out!"

Does this bike make me look fat?

Here I am, 7.5 months pregnant, still riding a bike. Yep, just another one of those things that I did to help Dan achieve a million steps and win a bike. If only this bike wasn't "borrowed........."

I only wish Dan would let me back on the bike after my recent meeting with the sidewalk.

Hungry for God: A Childlike Perspective

This week, while reading the "Rejoice" daily devotional, we came across a story about being hungry for God. We asked Cypress what that meant and she responded that we needed to feed Jesus growing foods.

Dan and I got to talking about that. Children really don't understand the concept of being hungry for God. Their extent of understand is that they just love him. (and yes, those are Cypress's words). This got us to talking about the child-like faith we are supposed to have. If you really examine the faith of a child, their beliefs are quite simple. They believe that God loves them and they love him. There is nothing more complicated than that. But often, we as adults get caught up in the mentality of "doing" rather than "being". Are we praying enough? Reading the Bible enough? Serving enough? And there is often guilt associated with those thoughts. Children don't have those types of thoughts. They are masters in the art of just living in the moment, just "being". They don't really worry about what is for supper or if they are "Christian" enough. And if they do, often these are feeling put on by adults.

I can remember in grade 2 having the Gideons come in to talk with our class. I felt like I was a good Christian, until they talked about how we should read our Bibles every day. After that day, I started feeling guilty about missing a day's reading or not praying every night. All of a sudden, I wasn't the Christian that I was supposed to be. Or so I thought. I was wracked with guilt about not "doing" enough to prove my faith.

Please don't misinterpret what we are saying. We know its good to read your Bible and to pray. But these shouldn't be the markers of a good Christian. In Jesus' time, the Pharisees were the ones "doing" all they could to make themselves holy, yet Jesus condemned their behaviour. Martha was the doer, but she was chastised for not being like Mary who sat at Jesus' feet, being in his presence.

Perhaps the children have it right. We really just need to "be." It's not that we need to stop doing all those wonderful things, but perhaps we need to readjust how we evaluate ourselves. Perhaps we need to spend more time "being" in God's presence than "doing" all those holy things. And perhaps, we just need to be like a child. Realize that God loves us and we love him and go play.

Prenatal Class

Just one little story to share! The men in the class were asked what are the emotional changes that a woman goes through in the last three months of pregnancy. Every single man looked down at his feet, not wanting to say anything lest he be banished to the proverbial dog house. But no, I have Dan for a husband. He's not scared of that dog house. So he pipes up, " They're irrational!" All the men look at him and stare at him with fear in their eyes as if they were saying, "You are soooo dead." Then they glance to me, wondering what my response will be. These men are frightened that a rational response will be given and he will be reprimanded for his honesty. Instead, like a good wife, I laughed. Hard. Cuz I know its true. The men relaxed and began to share freely about the emotional changes their wives were going through. And we shared my irrational story about whipping cream and cake.

6 weeks to a brand new life

....give or take a few days! The end is drawing near and we are about to welcome a new little life into our midst. We are filled with fear and excitement. It's crazy to see how fast it has come. In those early days we felt like we would never make it to this point and here we are, 6 weeks approximately from delivery. The nursery is ready, and we have only a few more things we desperately need to get before junior arrives. The parents are just about as prepared as we can get. The baby is engaged (read: head dropping into lower pelvis. Amanda can breathe, but oh the pain to move!) Prenatal classes have been attended and the preparations for home birth are complete. We are literally just waiting for the baby to make its appearance.

We've learned a lot along the way. Here are some lessons, painful or otherwise, that we have accumulated along the way.
#1. There are certain foods that should never make a reappearance...no matter how good they are going down, they are terrible coming back up. (eg. applesauce, banana, cheerios etc.) Oddly, these are often the best foods to eat when you feel nauseous.
#2. There is a reason that God created baby brain. You forget how awful it is to puke for 10 weeks straight. And (hopefully) you will forget the pain of labour and will have more than one kid.
#3. The baby moving feels wonderful for the first 2 weeks or so when it flutters like a butterfly. What no one tells you is that when it moves, rolls and otherwise switches positions , it can really hurt. And random strangers will constantly ask if you are alright when you grimace as the baby kicks your bladder for the millionth time.
#4. Baby kicking bladder can lead to mild urinary incontinence. This usually occurs in the most inconvenient locations.
#5. Eating right, and staying on track can lead to appropriate weight gain. This can lead to such comments as, "You sure look small for having 6 weeks left! I thought you had 3 months to go!" It really makes every other mother jealous and you feel quite smug for looking sooo dang good.
#6. Even if you gain the recommended 20-30 pounds, you will still feel like an enlarged hippopotamus is taking over your middle section. Its even worse when a foot/hand pushes out your belly to the maximum expansion and then keeps pushing.
#7. Husbands may love touching your baby. But realize that baby is next to bladder. See #4.
#8. Husbands, realize that while your wife is suffering from morning sickness, you will also suffer. You will be restricted to eating and otherwise talking about eating only what she is eating. Otherwise you will see the wrath..literally and sometimes projectily.
#9. Husbands, you will loose bed space. Accept this fact and move on with your life. (and literally, just move over!)
#10. Babies in utero respond to sounds. Music can make them dance and snoring can make them jump. Fire alarms just freak 'em right out!
#11. Under no circumstance should you consume any amount of caffeine. This will lead baby to be extremely "high" and lead to some internal bruises!
#12. Certain smells will make you do irrational things. Some foods (especially in the first three months) will make you want to jump people to consume what they are eating. Other smells will make you vomit. Accept this fact and move swiftly away. Otherwise harassment charges may follow.
#13. Irrational emotions are just a part of pregnancy. Cry about them and move on (without whipping cream!)
#14. Birthing videos should be shot from the mother's perspective. There is a reason she has a belly obscuring the view!

There are more lessons....but you'll figure them out as you go along!