Is it a baby or an old man in a blanket? Maybe it’s inspired by Benjamin Button. Either way Michelle.co.uk should rethink this cake idea. Where do you cut in? Do people get a slice that includes a toe or an eye? Is it red in the middle? I would be requesting a corner piece for sure, one that only has a bit of sheet and blanket, thank you very much.
I haven’t blogged very much since finding out I was pregnant. The thoughts and feelings are so deep and so many that I haven’t even known where to begin. This morning I woke up remembering what lies ahead in the day–boy or girl?? I finally sat down and wrote out some thoughts that I’d thought I could share. It’s an intimate glimpse, but one that I think you could appreciate.
How will it all look? How will I handle the hard times? Can I love enough-deep enough? Can I be devoted enough? Can I sacrifice enough? Will the good truly outweigh the bad? Will the lack of sleep drive me to distance myself from others? Will my wonderful, perfect marriage become dull and full of daily chores and exhaustion?
Will I lose a sense of myself-the young me, the artistic me, the adventurous and a bit crazy me? Will it all be taken over, like some alien abduction where I return as a “Mom”, robotic and set in a routine?
No amount of planning, praying and waiting could have possibly answered these questions. They are deep and surrounding.
It’s all been an idea of a baby-a concept. On paper it all seemed so simple. I just want a baby. Now all I really know is that I am almost 15 pounds heavier, it looks like I have a globe of the world stuck under my shirt and I can barely roll over in bed at night. It’s become a mystery, like looking into a deep ocean and seeing shapes of what lies just beneath the surface. Even when I look to others who have gone ahead of me in this craziness, I still feel a vagueness about the whole thing. No amount of books or friends can make me feel “ready”.
In about 2 hours we will find out if you are made of sugar and spice or snails and puppy dog tails. It will be another step in the reality of YOU. A person, not an idea or an event to plan for. A person with dreams, with hurts, fears, desires and accomplishments. A person who will be brave, loving, full of questions and unspoken hopes. You will grow, you will explore. You will struggle. You will be unpredictable. You will love Jesus. Your daddy will be your hero and your best friend will be Ripley. You will fish with grandpa, you will take walks with grandma. You will be spoiled by Aunt Mary and go camping with Uncle Henry. You will taste fruit and climb mountains. You will play in piles of yellow leaves and splash in puddles after rain storms. You will scrap your knees and find comfort in my arms.You’ll laugh and splash in the bath and I’ll wrap you up in a towel with your little wet head poking out. You will be the most loved, the most cherish, the most beautifully perfect-and you will be all mine.
I want the world for you, my baby. And no amount of questions or fears will ever change that.
I can’t wait to meet you.
btw- you are a BOY!!!
My insanely talented husband has started a tumbler page.
It’s artsy, it’s cryptic, it’s fabulous.
Check it out
People deal with change in their very own, unique way. Some people truly hate it, some people get all giddy over it. I am the kind of person who acts like I hate it but inside I am secretly all giddy.
Everyday I get to know myself a bit more. This time I have discovered that I actually really enjoy change, even if it’s scary or uncertain. I feel all excited that something is stirring and I am a part of it. I can always see the positives of the change. Always. Unfortunately somewhere along the way I have picked up a bad habit of acting really stressed and complaining about it the whole time. Why do I do this? I don’t know. It makes no sense. Maybe now that I see the truth, that I love change, I can stop pretending to despise it and start receiving it with giddiness and positivity.
Naive? Yeah, maybe. Oh well, I’ve definitely never said I wasn’t naive.
As David Bowie said:
Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I’m going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock ‘n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you’re gonna get a little older
More about these changes next week…
The Strip.
We stayed at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay. We each got suites, a little upgrade action thanks to Judi slippin’ the check-in lady a twenty. Seriously.
The pool
Our cabana by the lazy river- special thanks to Mark and Judi.
The Coca Cola Store-Bear and I have never laughed so hard in our lives. That Judith can really tell a joke.
Under water adventures at the Shark Reef!
Finding the courage to reach out and touch the stingray.
My husband was brave and put aside all thoughts about Steve Irwin.
Pretty, pretty jellies.
The Bellagio
Looking (sorta) normal next to the Bellagio fountain…but then…
THE FOUNTAIN TURNED ON!!! YYAAAA!!!
Lots of other stuff happened, but I hate being the trip photographer, so those events are not documented. Sorry! Guess you’ll have to just imagine me dominating the roulette table and taking the old men for all their money at Poker.
What a great trip.
::sigh::
Oh, we’re just here-
Staying here-
Relaxing here-
With these 2 people-
That’s all. NBD.
Be back Thursday, ya’ll!!
This week’s big developments: Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he’ll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you’re having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.
In other news: Your baby’s stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body’s growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that’s in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He’s starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby’s liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it’s doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can’t feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist’s hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.
Last Thursday Dustin and I saw David Bazan perform a “house show” at our friend Josh’s place. There was about 50 of us nicely packed into the living room where Bazan strummed his guitar and played a great acoustic set that even included some classic Pedro the Lion songs.
Bazan always has a question and answer time at his shows. Dustin saw him a few years back and was really struck by some of the answers he gave. So I was really interested when someone asked him if he believed in an afterlife. I’m not going to write out the whole reply because I don’t remember it accurately enough to do it justice and also I’m a blogger not a reporter. But there was one part that stuck out to me- Bazan said that he is no longer afraid of death and hell. He said he has come to realize that hell is something that some mean people made up as a threat. (He didn’t talk about heaven so I don’t know if he feels that it is something nice people made up or not.) After stating some disgust at the state of the Evangelical church he went on to say that he would just like to see people follow what Jesus taught. There were supportive “yeahs” and light clapping around the room.
I’m not trying to single out Bazan, but he is a good example of a common theology among our culture. It has become popular to see Jesus as a sort of Ghandi figure, quoting the couple of verses that fit their personal idea of who Jesus is- love your neighbor as yourself, take care of the widows and the poor, turn the other cheek, ect.
I find that they often leave out the parts where Jesus talks about the divisive things: the kingdom of Heaven advancing by force, worshipping God and serving only Him, how Jesus will turn people away from heaven, how real hell is and how many will end up there, and don’t even get me started on the parts where Jesus starts predicting the future and talks about a final judgement. These are not the things that you hear when people reference how great Jesus was-WAS-and how we should all follow his example.
People think of Jesus as some really great guy who taught us how to live in love and peace with humanity. The ultimate hippie. That is partly true, in a very pathetic, watered down way. Jesus didn’t see himself that way. He said: “Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace on the earth! No, I came to bring a sword.” Surprised? Read Matt 10:34-39.
Is this the Jesus that you know? If it’s not then it’s time to open a Bible and read who it is you claim to know and follow.
All day I have debated whether or not to write about the 10 year anniversary of Columbine. I hate being on any bandwagon and I especially hate when people use large-scale tragedies as their own personal drama. I decided to go against my usual ways and just let myself write. Who cares if it will seem cliche and typical.
10 years ago I was a freshman at Christian Fellowship School. We were sitting at lunch when a rumor starting going around that someone had been shot at Columbine. We were a small Christian school but all had friends at Columbine. It was the public school that kids would leave CFS for, and all the rest of us would be jealous of their freedom. One of those students who left us for the cool, public school was Cassie Bernall.
Hearing that someone was shot could not have been more foreign or hard to understand to a bunch of kids from the suburbs. This was before cell phones, remember, and we were hearing crazy stuff about bombs and kids lying dead all over. Instead of feeling sadness it was more like an electric buzz of excitement. Lunch ended and we all went back to class as usual. I was in my English class and it was about 12:30. We were asked to write a paper about something I don’t remember when all of the sudden I felt a surge of fear and grief so strong that I started crying and couldn’t stop. They sent me to the Vice Principals office so I could talk to someone and calm down. No one else was crying at this point. We didn’t really know what was going on enough to take it in and cry. I didn’t know at that time that Cassie Bernall was in the library and had just been killed.
I wasn’t that close to Cassie. Her brother Chris was actually a close friend and the last time I had seen Chris and Cassie was when we all went to a OC Supertones concert. We all swore we would love Ska forever.
I don’t know why I was overwhelmed with sadness so strong at the same time that Cassie died. We wouldn’t find out that she had been killed until late that night when she never came home. Coincidence? I have no idea. There really is no connection that makes sense. All I know is that it is what I experienced.
The weeks that followed I now interpret through an adult mind. I was just such a child still. We would visit the make-shift memorials at Clement Park dropping off flowers and slowly walking by the TV booths where Tom Brokah or MTV was broadcasting. We attended Cassie’s funeral and for some reason all went bowling together after. We saw Michael W Smith and Amy Grant play a tribute concert on the steps of our local movie theater, down the street from Columbine. It was all so surreal and I don’t think I ever really have understood the depth and the horrible things that happened that day. It’s forever frozen in the mind of a 15 year old girl with limited understanding.
Cassie has become a living legend in my mind. Part of her reality and another part folklore or fantasy. If she were alive today I’m certain we would not even be in touch. But yet in her death she is important to me and I’ll never forget her. The deepness of death can sometimes take years to really set in. In my case it has taken about 10.
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