A Roller Coaster of Emotion

Well, I'm 26 weeks (and 4 days) along and have found the pregnancy symptoms coming in waves. I spent a week depressed and EXTREMELY edgy. Michael was very sweet despite my horrible attitude. I am beginning to feel more uncomfortable and unattractive. It is more difficult to get around and bend over; even getting into the van is becoming a challenge. I truly love being pregnant but am beginning to deal with more of the insecurities. It is beginning to remind me of high school and early college when I was overweight and extremely insecure. I know I am getting bigger for a good reason and would be worried if I wasn't gaining weight (and truthfully I have only gained about 13-15 pounds and I'm almost to my 3rd trimester!!).

I have also begun dealing with back pain around my rib cage. Michael has been so sweet to rub my back when I ask. It is such a dull ache that it doesn't really go away but it feels good to have someone rub it for a while. He also came over the other day and started rubbing my feet. Later he asked me if my feet have started hurting or swelling yet. That is a definite no but I love a good food rub.

I am also dealing with some major cravings. I don't want anything that is good for me. I try (unsuccessfully) to deny some of the cravings for sweets but come 9 p.m. I can usually be found on the couch with a big bowl of cereal, some chocolate thing (whatever I can find in the house), crackers, cheese, last night it was tuna (not usually all of these but some random combination). Last Thursday I was craving doughnut after our pastor talked about dunkin' donuts. Michael was so sweet, he picked some up at the food room. He truly tried, however, the donuts were horrible. I still ate three of them but they did not satisfy the craving. I was just wanting a good chocolaty doughnut. I began thinking of Krispy Kreme...the chocolate covered kind with the white kreme whipped filling...YUM!! Last night the hubby had to pick up a couple of our kids from town and since it is the end of the month we were a little tight financially. When he arrived home, he said something along the lines of, "I know I shouldn't have done this considering our finances but here." He pulled out a box with a half dozen of the krispy kreme craving. I feel so loved!! He ate one with me and I have actuallly been able to refrain from eating the rest of them today.

I feel so blessed right now. I have so many friends and family who are supporting me and giving me a TON of advice (which I LOVE). I have an amazing husband who is taking wonderful care of me despite my mood swings and trying ever so hard to make me happy. God is providing for us daily and showing us that He is our provider. One example is that we had to get new tires for our van today (without question...we have driven 5000 in 2 months and the tires had already had some wear on them). Unfortunately we did not have the money in the bank for a set of new tires. I thought we would be getting paid tomorrow but we couldn't wait that long. However, when I checked our account, I found that our paychecks had been deposited today!! God is so good. Not only that but we were able to get a discount and we found a rebate for it online. The Lord is good!! It is crazy how often I take so much for granted. I am so blessed and loved. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support during this journey we are on. I can't believe we are getting so close to the end of the pregnancy and the beginning of Michael being able to take part in caring for our little boy in a more hands on way.

26 1/2 weeks

With the pretty flowers

Skunks, Squirrels and the Tooth Fairy

Living in the country you expect to see a lot of road kill. I can't count how many times over the last few months I have driven by a dead skunk and had the lingering smell in the car for several minutes. While growing up I can only remember a few times when we would drive by one and cover our faces to block out the smell. However, it always took me a couple of seconds and someone always had to tell me what it was. After this summer, I don't think I will EVER forget that smell again. It's strange though, with all the dead skunks we see on the side of the road I have never seen one that was alive...that was until yesterday morning. I was taking the kids to the bus stop and saw this white head moving around the parking lot. I slowed and realized it was a skunk. I got so excited as it skurried into the bushes while our high schooler stated that she would not be walking from the car to the bus (all of maybe 50 feet) and one of our grade schoolers stated that "I can smell it". I assured our high schooler that the skunk went the opposite direction and the grade schooler that the skunk was moving to fast to be able to spray at that point. It was pretty awesome.

We have also seen quite a bit of squirrels lately. Oddly, they are not dead as often. It's odd because they seem to have a serious death wish. In one hours time I nearly hit 4 of them. Since that day (about a month ago) I have nearly hit another hand full. I don't remember seeing so many squirrels during the summer but apparently they are preparing for winter because they are ALL OVER THE PLACE!! They are very cute but every time I see them now, I go for my brakes, preparing for the inevitable. Fortunately I still have not hit an animal while living in the country. Praise the Lord. I have come close though and know that it is really only a matter of time. I am just hoping it is not one of the dogs that run rampant outside their yards. I think that would just about do me in. I felt bad enough when Michael had the thump, thump incident with the cat (see earlier post).

Onto the last of my stories. About 2 months ago, one of our teens had a tooth pulled. Come to find out, about a month later, she stated that she had put the tooth under her pillow for 5 DAYS waiting for the tooth fairy. I felt so bad when she told me that. I felt like a slack parent. I am still learning. However, one of our grade schoolers got her tooth pulled two days ago. That evening I had several things to do in town without the kids and when I got back and tucked her into bed, she said, "I know what you were doing in town tonight. You were shopping for my tooth fairy present. I know how the tooth fairy works." She was so excited. I remember wondering how long it would take her to get to sleep and being confident that I would not repeat my last failure. The next morning I woke her up and as she is getting her stuff ready to pile into the van to head to the bus stop, I see her put her tooth in her book bag to show the class. The first thought that entered my head...I FORGOT...AGAIN!! I felt so bad. So last night I set an alarm for late so I would know she was asleep and remember this time. I put the money under her pillow (fortunately she sleeps very close to the wall) but didn't try to hard to find the tooth (I really didn't want to wake her up). However, she didn't mention anything this morning. I haven't checked her bed yet to see if she found the money. I guess she'll find it soon enough.

IT'S A BOY!

Lets see...what all has happened recently...oh...I saw both the Miley Cyrus movie and High School Musical 3 in their entirety. So that was exciting. Gotta love having girls in the house. What else has happened...oh yeah! We had our ultrasound and are having a BOY!!! Unless we find another name that strikes us his name will be Samuel Owen. We have been trying to post about this for awhile but life keeps getting in the way. But we are so excited. Jen has been feeling him and getting bigger but before I saw the ultrasound there was nothing tangible that I could grab onto about our having a child. It was just a happy idea. Once we saw his head and his foot and his...little Sammy...the whole thing became so real. The day we found out we went into town to celebrate and bought him a little Rock Star shirt. It's great, it has a guitar on it and everything. Hey any kid of ours is gonna have to get into music young.
In other news one of our teen girls moved out and 10 year old twin sisters moved in. We had finally found a set of rules that we could stand by and enforce that were directed toward teenage girls. Then we ended up with a house dominated by youngster's. Back to the drawing board. Instead of dealing with more emotionally charged teenage issues we are now spending most of our time getting the kids to be quiet and stop running in the house. Back to the basics. It still takes a lot of patience but we feel that it is less draining. It is mind blowing the things that the young kids that are on campus know and don't know. Sometimes they don't know even the most basic aspects of personal hygiene. They do know about gang-banging and having sex. Some of the youngest kids are coming on campus having had sexual experiences and knowing how to cut cocaine. It makes me so angry. It also makes me determined to be the best father to my son that I can be. My wife is currently sitting on the couch stroking one of our girl's hair because she is scared to go to bed. We have no clue what went on in this girl's life, or most of our kid's lives for that matter, but all we can do is try to be there for them in the little ways. It's strange that Jen and I are having the most beautiful experience of our lives amidst the ugly mess of this place. I've found that that is how God works. But he redeems the mess while at the same time creating new beauty. Speaking of new beauty here are some pictures of our kid. He's handsome like his papa if I do say so myself.