When Your Husband Travels for Work

11 Mar

Like Murphy’s Law, it seems that the Law of Your Husband Traveling is that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Back in February, Emma and I were playing in the basement on the second night of Travis’ 4-day work trip. She went around the corner where the stairs are. Being pregnant-lazy, I didn’t follow. Thirty seconds later, I hear her tumbling down the stairs. I race over to her and luckily she’s ok, just scared. Momma is not ok however. That quick movement made my pelvis and hips hate me. If I was moving at a turtle pace before, I was now moving at the speed of a beached whale. Luckily, the pain went away after a few days. Later that night, Emma slipped in the bathtub and bit her tongue, but thankfully it wasn’t bad enough to need medical attention.

Last week, right after our babymoon, Travis went out of town for a work trip. 5 nights, 6 days. Sunday night, I ate a couple of Tums before bed (which I do a lot these days) and hit the sack. A few minutes later, I felt like I was going to explode on both ends. Thankfully, that lasted for only about 10 minutes, I did some business and felt better enough to go back to bed instead of sit in the bathroom. But I couldn’t lay down without feeling awful so I watched an episode of Parenthood and then I could at least recline enough to sleep.

Monday, I still felt off but good enough to venture out to MOPS. (Whenever sickness prevents me and Emma from going to our normally scheduled activities, the week DRAGS by.) I felt mostly fine all day until nighttime came.  I was so miserable that night, I literally got up and drank a cup of coffee at 12:30 to see if it would get things moving, then took a shower and watched a couple episodes of Parenthood. When I finally did get to sleep, it was propped up against the wall in bed.

Tuesday, I had my prenatal appt and my doctor said it didn’t sound like anything to ‘fix’. Since Emma was at daycare and I felt awful, I spent the whole day on the couch. Then Tuesday night happened, which I will elaborate on shortly.

Wednesday, after talking with my mom, I started to think my problem might be acid reflux and not constipation. So I started avoiding trigger foods (citrus, tomatoes, caffeine) and by the end of the day, I was feeling significantly better. Thursday, I felt fine. Acid reflux is a nasty thing!

So Tuesday night. Ugh. I had just fed Emma dinner and was going to give her a bath right after I took the dogs out to go to the bathroom. But somehow, I
got locked out of the house — with Emma locked inside. After unsuccessfully trying to coach Emma to unlock the door (it’s a latch on the knob) and checking for a key in the garage and front door area, I started sobbing and decided my only option was to run to the neighbors’ house to use their phone, even though it meant leaving Emma, who I could hear was crying on the other side of the door. Of course it had to also be the day that we got 6 inches of snow and I was only wearing loafers. Luckily Travis had left a jacket in the garage or I wouldn’t have had one of those either!

Imagine a woman 35 weeks pregnant waddle-running in 10 degrees through snowy, icy roads and down 2 driveways that haven’t been plowed. That was me.

Luckily, my neighbor was home. I called Travis first to ask if we had any spare keys hidden. Nope. They were all in the house. He suggested calling 911 and having the fire dept come out. So that’s what I did. I didn’t want to spend time researching locksmiths. My wonderful neighbor loaded up her 8-month pregnant self and 3-year-old son to drive me back to my house.

When we got back, I went to the front door where we have a window and pounded on it to get Emma to at least come where I could see her. But she wouldn’t. I could hear her screaming hysterically and that made me cry even harder. I decided to head back to the door between the kitchen and garage (where Emma was). I took one step down the front stairs and ended up on my tailbone. I just kneeled in the snow for a few minutes, bawling and thinking,  “Could this night get ANY worse? Please let the baby be ok. OMG, this is so painful. And I’m cold. Travis is never traveling EVER AGAIN!”

The fire dept showed up around 5 minutes later but it felt like an eternity. They tried picking the lock but ended up using an axe between the door and jamb to open the door. Little Emma was fine — shaken up but not hurt. It seemed like she got over the trauma as soon as I picked her up.

Wednesday, I went to the hospital to be monitored just to make sure baby was ok. I wasn’t concerned since I had felt the baby move plenty since my fall but better to be on the safe side. Everything checked out.

Thankfully, the rest of the week was uneventful. I was so happy when Travis finally got home!

He traveled again this past Monday just for a (19 hour) day. Emma had developed a cold over the weekend and had very labored breathing so I took her to the doctor. They prescribed an albuterol nebulizer 3x a day, antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection, and steroids for inflammation. Poor girl! I swear, every time I’ve taken Emma to the doctor for being sick, Travis has been out of town.

Now you can see why I’m scared to have a newborn to take care of too, right? Travis is done traveling for the next couple of months though. It’ll be nice to have him at home.

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Emma Grace: 23 Months

7 Mar

In just a month, Emma will be TWO years old! How is that possible? This past year went by really quickly. It’s amazing to compare Emma now to pictures from her first birthday — she was still such a baby then! Now she is full-blown toddler.

Emma’s favorite things this month have been:

  • Reading books on her own

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  • Wearing winter gear around inside

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  • Wearing adult shoes (still) — this actually seems to have improved her balance a lot!

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  • Painting and drawing

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  • Playing with clothes, whether hers or mommy’s

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  • Being held by mommy for naps

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  • Eating fruit snacks (she has a 2-pack-a-day habit)

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  • Playing with all the baby stuff that mommy has been getting ready

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  • Stickers!

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  • Drinking bath water, and other water-related shenanigans

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  • Making messes, of course

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  • Starting to show more interest in playing games on the tablet and phone

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  • Being crazy! She loves running around our basement, chasing the dogs, spinning in circles and jumping.

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Emma has continued to make great progress with her speech. She can now point to almost every body part we ask her about. She understands increasingly more complex requests, like when we ask her to find the matching sock or put the red block away. She has started to say hi and bye often, especially when we prompt her and sometimes even when we don’t. Her favorite words right now are “knee” (because she got an owie there a while ago), “ice”, “puppy”, “mom” or “mommy” and “uh oh”. She also says “wah wah” for water, “shoes”, “daddy” or “dada”, and “nye” for bye.

Just in the past week or so (I think), Emma got her first 2-year molar! Her sleep habits haven’t really been any worse than normal (though she has by no means been sleeping through the night every night) so I didn’t even realize that she was getting another tooth.

We bought Emma the Fisher Price Healthy Care Booster Seat to replace her high chair and she loves the seat so much (because of the buckles!) that she will voluntarily climb up into it for meals and buckle herself in all on her own. My parents have the same booster so we knew she liked the chair. Money well spent. Though when we take Emma out to eat at restaurants now, we don’t even ask for a high chair. We request a booth and let Emma stand or sit as she desires. This was learned after a particularly hairy dinner at Olive Garden back in January. She is just go-go-go all the time!

Emma definitely has the typical toddler behaviors of throwing things and hitting when she gets mad. We’re trying to coach her to ask for help instead of getting frustrated, and that we don’t ever hit or throw toys at people or dogs, but it’s a challenge. I’m sure other parents understand this. After a playdate this week, I realized that we should start teaching Emma how to say “I’m sorry” so that she can apologize to her friends when she either intentionally or unintentionally hurts them. She does get concerned when one of her friends is upset — though she doesn’t know how to communicate that with words.

20150306_115530Last but not least, Emma got a new cousin this month! My oldest brother and SIL had their baby boy yesterday. Such a cutie. Can’t wait to meet him! I’d be planning a trip down to visit if I weren’t expecting a baby soon myself. They’re a 13-hour drive away so it’s a little far to go at 36 weeks pregnant! Hopefully sometime this spring or summer though.

We’re having Emma’s 2nd birthday party about 2 weeks early so that we don’t have to worry about Bisky Junior crashing the party (since my due date is the day after Emma’s birthday, and the weekend right before her birthday is Easter). I finally sent out evites and bought Emma’s birthday shirt today. We’re doing a puppy theme and keeping things fairly low key with pizza, fruit, puppy chow and cupcakes decorated with paw prints. We invited our immediate family, a few of Emma’s friends and are planning to have the kids decorate paper dog ears that they can wear. Other than that, it’ll just be letting them play and eat! Should be a good time.

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Babymoon #2

2 Mar

This past weekend, my mother-in-law watched Emma so that Travis and I could have a night away. The plan had been to go to a Minnesota Gopher hockey game but we didn’t realize until after we had reserved a non-refundable hotel room that instead of playing Friday/Saturday like they do 99% of the time, they were instead playing Thursday/Friday. What are the odds? We had even chosen a hotel right on campus so that we could walk to the game. Ugh.

The week before our trip, we also realized that Travis had to fly out for a work trip on Sunday afternoon. That meant we had to drive down to the Cities separately and spend time parking Travis’ truck in airport parking. Double ugh.

Nevertheless, we had fun — though I joked to Travis that with our time away from Emma, we ended up doing kid stuff anyway (like going to the Mall of America and the Como Zoo & Conservatory).

We left our house around 10 am on Saturday morning and stopped at Cabela’s (quite possibly Travis’ favorite store) on our way through Rogers. We dropped Travis’ truck off at airport parking when we got to the Cities and then headed to the MOA for a movie. We walked through Nickelodeon Universe a bit, did some shopping and then saw American Sniper. It was really good, but very sobering. Then we went out to eat at Digby’s in Roseville, where I had a delicious burger and Travis had a buffalo chicken pizza. After that, we checked into our hotel, attempted to watch the Avs vs. Wild game and zonked out.

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Sunday morning as I was getting ready, I started having some crazy Braxton Hicks contractions — like one every 3 minutes. I drank some water and laid back down on the bed, and after 20 minutes or so, they slowed to every 5 minutes. If I had been in Brainerd, I probably would’ve called and talked to a nurse, but since I was down in the Cities, I thought I’d just wait it out. So we checked out of our hotel and went to Panera for breakfast. By the time we got to Bethlehem Baptist for church at 11, the contractions were only coming every 10-15 minutes and irregularly. So weird. (I have my next prenatal appointment tomorrow and will ask about that.)

After church, we drove around our old stomping grounds a bit and then ate lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Mmmm… spumoni ice cream. We had about an hour and a half to kill before I had to drive Travis to the airport so we checked out the Como Zoo and Conservatory for a bit. Gotta live it up in the city while we can!

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I dropped Travis off at the airport around 4 pm and then headed back up to Brainerd. I got home around 6:30 to a very happy Bisky. Even though it was only one night, I missed her. But the downtime was very nice.

Babymoon #2 in the books!

If I’m still pregnant the last Saturday of March, we are planning on going down to the Cities again (sans Emma) for the wedding of one my good friends. I can’t decide though if I want to just drive back afterward or risk being down in the Cities when labor starts. I guess I’m risking that if I go down regardless if I stay overnight or not. Hmmm….

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Learning to Handle Sleep Deprivation Graciously

23 Feb

As my due date approaches, I feel like I’m staring down the barrel of a gun. Whenever Emma has a few bad nights of sleep or takes a few short naps, I’m quickly reminded of how horrible sleep deprivation is – and how horribly I deal with it.

I’m panicking just a little thinking about taking care of both a newborn and a toddler, especially when Travis is traveling for work. WHEN WILL I EVER SLEEP?!?!

I want to learn how to deal with sleep deprivation in a gracious, accepting way. But that would require me to be gracious and accept it. And that’s exactly what I can’t get myself to do.

Instead, I slide quickly down into the pit of self-pity and anger. I find myself countering the misery of a too-short nap with sweets and impulse eating. I let Emma get away with stuff I normally wouldn’t because I don’t care enough to fight her on it (hello fruit snacks for breakfast). Or I snap at her for little things because I don’t have “the patience to deal with this.” I don’t spend time in the Word because I’m either too tired to concentrate or I’m attempting to not be a complete and utter zombie by using the time to sleep – and that lack of time shows in my attitude.

From there, the self-pity deepens into: I don’t have time or energy to exercise. I don’t have energy to clean my house. I resent having to make dinner (almost) every night. I feel guilty for not planning fun and creative activities with Emma. I silently mock Travis for mentioning anything about being tired – like he even has a CLUE.

Some parents seem to handle being sleep deprived rather well. They continue functioning and enjoying life. I go into self-destruct, wallow mode. I go into THE WORLD COULD BE ENDING BUT I’M SO EXHAUSTED I WOULDN’T EVEN CARE mode.

I know that to handle sleep deprivation well, I have to stop demanding to NOT be sleep deprived. I have to accept it as a fact of life with a toddler and soon, a newborn. I have to stop digging in my heels and throwing a mental tantrum over the fact that I was up every 3 hours during the night, and my toddler did not take a nap like I expected her to, and she got up after ‘resting’ with 0-to-60 energy while I can barely hold an eye open as I stumble to the pantry for some chocolate.

It is times like these that I am forced to think out the full implications of my faith in God. If I truly believe that He provides ALL the grace I need in EVERY circumstance, He’s providing sufficient grace right now. Even though it REALLY doesn’t feel like it. Because I’d prefer His grace come in the form of some shuteye.

And you know, sometimes it does. But if it doesn’t (and it often doesn’t), what am I going to do about it? What happens when God’s grace comes to us in a form OTHER than what we’re yearning for? Thinking bigger than sleep, what happens when God DOESN’T heal us of cancer? What happens when God DOESN’T provide the answer we prayed for? What happens when God doesn’t take away the dirty mess of life, the pain, the sorrow, the frustration, the challenge? Do we go looking elsewhere for the answer that we do want? Do we act like Jonah, and sit sulking under the blazing sun, convinced that we do well to be angry, angry enough to die because God has given us something OTHER than what we wanted?

I am often like Jonah. I often reject God’s grace and make myself miserable because I want what I want, period. I wish that knowing joy comes from accepting the circumstances God allows would make It easier to accept those circumstances. I wish my desire for joy in the LORD was bigger than my fleshly insistence on having my own way. I wish that I could relinquish my need for sleep as easily as I relinquish my need for a shower, or that simply drinking a cup of coffee could make it feel like I got a solid 8 hours. I wish that I truly trusted God to provide sufficient grace in whatever form in the midst of sleep deprivation.

I don’t yet. And I can’t get myself to the place of graciously accepting sleep deprivation on my own. I am asking God to do it in me. Like A.W. Tozer says, I must insist upon the work being done, but I’m not actually the one to do it. My part is to focus on God and on what Christ purchased through His death and resurrection. As I behold Him, at 2 a.m. or 5 a.m. or while bouncing a swaddled baby on an exercise ball with a toddler tornado running rampant around my house, I will be changed.

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Cleaning Up Our {Eating} Act

18 Feb

After the holidays, Travis and I felt like we needed something to motivate us to get back to eating healthier. Even though we were no longer consuming cookies and treats like they were going out of style, our eating habits had declined. In Travis’ case, he was drinking too many beers (on average 1-3 a night) and eating too many snacks during the day, instead of actual meals. In my case, I had been eating too many refined, ‘easy’ carbs like Ramen noodles, Kraft macaroni & cheese, quesadillas on white tortillas, bagels, and cereal.

Since I’m pregnant, I knew I couldn’t go crazy — after all, I’m still growing a little human inside of me! The goal of this ‘challenge’ was just to be healthier anyway, not detox or lose a bunch of weight (though Travis was hoping to drop a few pounds).

So here were our ground rules:

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The first week of the challenge was tough. We both realized how many of the snacks we ate during the day were refined carbs or sweets, or at least contained chocolate (like trail mix and granola bars). We didn’t enjoy our morning coffee as much without the added sugar, and Travis missed the relaxation aspect of having a few beers at night while watching TV.

The second week was better. Travis made eggs and bacon for breakfast fairly often, until I told him we couldn’t afford for him to eat 3 strips of bacon every morning. I ate oatmeal, whole wheat bagels, and smoothies for breakfast. We started snacking on more fruit and nuts, like clementines, apples + peanut butter, mixed nuts, and granola bars without chocolate. For dinner, we made our pizza dough with whole wheat flour and used whole wheat noodles in our pasta.

The third week, I was visiting my parents and Travis was on a work trip and visiting friends, so we didn’t follow our plan exactly. Still, we made different choices than we would’ve otherwise. For example, I ate a taco salad one night instead of using a white tortilla (though I SO wanted one!), and declined ice cream when my dad offered. But other days, I ate some pretzels and drank some cranberry juice (pregnancy craving!). Similarly, when eating out, Travis opted for salad instead of french fries, and ordered a leaner cut of steak, but drank some beers with his buddy when it wasn’t a cheat day.

The last 10 days or so, we mostly stuck to the rules, but also cheated some. I ate some of Emma’s fruit snacks (for some reason, pregnancy makes me crave them!) and a few pieces of chocolate. Travis had a friend/co-worker visiting so he drank some beers/cocktails on non-cheat days.

Regardless, we feel like the challenge accomplished our desired purpose. Travis lost a few pounds, but mostly, we were motivated to eat healthier snacks, reacquaint ourselves with whole wheat products (we used to eat them more, but got out of the habit for one reason or another), and relax at night with air-popped popcorn and water instead of beer and/or sweets. I also totally kicked putting sugar in my coffee — though I still use liquid coffee creamer. I know it’s not very healthy, but it makes me enjoy coffee, and coffee keeps me sane. So there.

I will say, though, that this challenge has reinforced my belief in Intuitive Eating. The idea of IE is that no food is off-limits or labeled ‘bad’. There are only 2 rules: You eat when you’re hungry, and you stop when you’re full. IE got me out of the rut of obsessing about food and calories. By giving myself the freedom to eat whatever I wanted, and focusing on listening to my body’s hunger signals, food stopped having power over me. Knowing that I could have more ice cream whenever I wanted (instead of telling myself “I really shouldn’t have any, but I guess just this once…”), I didn’t feel the out-of-control impulse to eat an entire pint in one sitting. With this challenge (and being pregnant!), I started once again salivating over treats. I do best when I can have a little bit of chocolate everyday.

That is why, barring medical necessity, I will never follow any of the more extreme diets like paleo, vegan, gluten-free, etc or declare any foods off-limits. I don’t do well with restriction. It might make me physically healthier, but at the cost of my mental and emotional health. I’d rather focus on eating mostly healthy and enjoying sweets in moderation. That said, even though chocolate is back in my life, I’m hoping to stick with the healthier alternatives to my beloved refined carbs. 😉

Valentine’s Day Weekend 2015

17 Feb

Our Valentine’s Day weekend didn’t really pan out as we had planned, but it was a nice weekend anyway.

On Friday night, some friends were going to watch Emma while Travis and I ate a Papa Murphy’s pizza at home, played Scrabble, drank beer/sparkling cider, and chilled. But our friends ended up being sick, so Emma stayed home with us. We still ate pizza but we played with Emma and watched hockey on TV instead.

Saturday, I made Overnight Blueberry French Toast Casserole for breakfast. I had had it for the first time at MOPS and it was amazing. Sadly, my version did not measure up completely. Considering how much work it is (I hate prepping things the night before), I probably won’t make it again.

For most of the day, we just hung out at home, playing and picking up after Emma. After lunch, Travis headed into town to run some errands and worked a bit. I honestly don’t remember what I did while Emma napped, but I’m guessing it was some version of tidying up, reading and napping myself. After Emma woke up, we went out to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings. We figured that was a safe bet on Valentine’s Day, since it’s always a madhouse in there anyway.

Sunday, we went to church in the morning. During Emma’s nap, Travis put the pulls on our kitchen cabinets (only 8 months after moving in):

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I read a bit and fell asleep. About 1.5 hours after Emma had gone down, she woke up and I held her while she slept for another 1.5 hours. I used to get frustrated when that happened, but when I plan on taking a nap myself anyway, I really don’t mind. I don’t sleep that well holding her, but it’s better than chasing her around!

Emma finally woke up around 5 pm and we got all our gear together for checking out one of the local indoor waterparks (there are 3 in town, plus the YMCA). Unfortunately, we totally spaced that it was President’s Day weekend and all of the waterparks were closed to the public. Whomp whomp. So instead of swimming, we went to Target and let Emma run around (this is what you do with a toddler when it is 10 below outside). We thought of several things we “needed” and ended up spending $120 before we got out of there. #targetvortex

So the weekend wasn’t very ‘romantic’ you could say, but Travis and I are getting away for a night at the end of this month, so we weren’t too bummed.

On a side note, I have never really gotten into decorating or doing stuff for Valentine’s Day beyond getting Travis a card and eating lots of chocolate. But now that Emma is old enough to kinda/sorta notice as well as participate in crafts, I had her make Valentine’s Day cards for her grandparents, her 3-year-old cousin, and Travis. Here was her Valentine for daddy:

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I used the scraps and extra hearts to decorate our kitchen:

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I also took a blank canvas, wrote the word LOVE on it with masking tape, and let Emma go to town with paint. It took some coercion to get her to paint the whole thing, instead of just paint and repaint the same 6-inch square, but I think it turned out well. Kid-made Valentine’s Day decorations!

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The last thing I did was check out a few books from the library about love and Valentine’s Day, and I bought Emma a new book called How Do I Love You? Even sappy holidays are more fun with kids! Now on to Lent and Easter…

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Pregnancy #2 Update: 8 Months

11 Feb

My lack of blog posts lately is the result of pregnancy exhaustion. Even though I have ideas about posts to write, I just can’t bring myself to sit down and write them. By the time Emma’s naptime rolls around, all I can think about is a nap myself. And by the time bedtime rolls around, I’m wiped and either want to read or watch TV and then hit the sack.

I’m 32 weeks as of today and being pregnant is definitely getting challenging. Being pregnant while chasing around a toddler is no joke!

32 weeks then now

I can only stand for a few minutes before needing to sit down. My big belly makes it hard to hold Emma on my lap or get down on the floor with her to play. Sleep is still decent — I get up 2-3 times a night to pee, and have started to be awake for 20-30 minutes at 3 a.m. for no apparent reason, but I can still get up before Emma 3-4 days a week. (It really just depends on when I go to bed.) I’ve started to have some back pain if I stand too long, or sit slouched over (which is easy to do when you have no core muscles!). Overall though, I am still blessed with a very easy pregnancy and a healthy, active baby. Only 2 months to go!

I made a ridiculously long to-do list of all the stuff — baby-related and otherwise — I want to get done before Junior comes. I’m trying to do at least 30-45 minutes of something during Emma’s naps instead of heading straight to my bed after putting her down, but some days that doesn’t happen! I keep waiting for that whole nesting instinct to kick in, but so far, it hasn’t.

Junior’s nursery is pretty much done though, so at least there’s that. We hung up the curtain rod this past weekend, and I found and hung picture frames for the prints that I made. I still have to paint the frames though, and finish a few minor details. I also bought newborn diapers and a few more gender-neutral sleepers so we’re good to go on that stuff until we find out if Junior is a boy or girl. Slowly but surely! I’ll do a separate post on the nursery once it’s all done.

So far, since signing up for the Northwoods Triathlon on August 8, I’ve swam and biked twice each. My speed and stamina are pretty pathetic (I’m blaming pregnancy), but I only want to get familiar with those activities again before giving birth, not actually make much progress. I swam for about 30 minutes each time (doing about 1,000 yards total I would guess). As for the bike, my butt is SO not used to a bike seat (I set my tri bike up on the trainer in the basement), so I’ve only lasted 5-7 minutes before switching to our elliptical. And my belly is too big for me to reach the handlebars, so I just hold myself up with my fingertips on the aerobar pads… But still, it’s better than nothing! I have to admit, I’m a little nervous about this whole thing, but it has been good motivation.

I haven’t done one of these ‘lists’ yet so I’ll close with one for this post:

Symptoms: Braxton Hicks, back pain, exhaustion, some inner thigh/pelvic pain

Cravings: Chocolate, but I think that’s mostly because Travis and I have been doing this ‘diet’ for the past month where we can’t eat sweets or refined carbs (more on that in a separate post)

Weight gained: 23 lbs at last week’s prenatal appointment (same as last pregnancy)

Movement: Baby is kicking a soccer ball in my belly — and only on the right side! I am noticing more defined times of activity and rest though.

Rings on or off: On, but sometimes tight in the morning

Belly button in or out: Starting to poke out!

Stretch marks: None that I can tell

What I Miss: Running! Wine. And my pre-pregnancy clothes.

Favorite Moment This Week: It’s not a single moment, but Emma has been really fun the past couple of weeks — I’ve been loving her quirkiness and crazy antics!

Least Favorite Moment: One of our dogs having diarrhea all over our carpet, causing an impromptu carpet cleaning on Saturday.

Looking Forward To: My sister-in-law having her baby — she’s due March 7!

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Emma Grace: 22 Months

7 Feb

Emma’s obsessions this past month have been eating yogurt and wearing adult shoes around the house. She also loves wearing Mommy’s socks instead of her own. The ‘water play in the kitchen sink’ obsession has mostly run its course, which I’m thankful for. It was getting old!

Emma’s still holding strong with naptime around 2 and bedtime between 8 and 9. She does sleep in until 7:30 or 8 on a regular basis now though, which is nice. Her eating habits are mostly back to normal and she will sit in a booster seat at the table (as we discovered at Grandma and Grandpa’s house) so we plan to buy one of those and put her highchair away until Bisky Junior needs it.

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Emma is babbling up a storm now, and trying to use words at daycare. The things she says most often are “Ah na” for all done and “Meh meh” for more while signing. Other words she has said at least a few times are “Bubble”, “Emma”, “hot”, “on”, and “off” (osh). And her favorite non-word thing to say is “Ah dubba dubba dubba dubba.” Her little voice is SO CUTE, it makes me melt every time.

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Our schedule is finally back to ‘normal’ after the holidays, which has been nice. It helps me to have places to go and things to do. During Travis’ most recent work trip, Emma and I went down to Rochester and spent the week with my parents. It was nice seeing them.

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Emma got to push her very own shopping cart around the People’s Coop — making it the most exhausting, chaotic grocery shopping trip I’ve ever been on! She loved it though.
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Emma also found a balance disk to bounce on, which she thought was extremely entertaining. Little girl wore grandma out!

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I forgot to bring Emma a sippy cup so she had to drink juice and milk out of her bottles. I think she actually prefers that… so it probably goes without saying that weaning her off her bottle was a no-go. She was just cranky all the time so I finally caved. We’ll try again later.

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Emma and I went to the Children’s Museum on Saturday, and she had a blast running around and ‘playing with’ the other kids. She dressed up like a mailman for about 30 seconds.
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After I unpacked from our Rochester trip, Emma discovered that playing in my suitcase was lots of fun! (And in that picture, you can see that she’s wearing some of my socks.)20150202_171424

Playing with grocery bags and wearing Mommy’s socks. That’s what we do.20150205_192818Emma got her 3rd haircut this past week, and even though we went to the same lady as we did the 2nd time (and she did a good job then), Emma totally ended up with a bowl cut this time. I think she looks like a Friar. Oh well. At least it’ll grow back out, right?

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Embrace Your Life {Or, Why I’m Writing a Book on Joy}

3 Feb

Just the other day, I was driving from Rochester to pick Travis up at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport and had found a Christian radio station to listen to. I’m not a huge fan of radio in general, but I usually choose to listen to Christian radio over Country or The Hits because 1) There are fewer commercials, 2) I don’t have to worry about the song lyrics, 3) I like at least 60% of the songs, and 4) Christian songs can serve as good reminders of Truth.

But every once in a while, I hear something in a song or some musician says something that I think is not entirely helpful. On Sunday, it was this statement:

“The only thing we have to fear is living an insignificant life.”

I disagree with this statement on so many levels, it gets me riled up. It’s statements like that that are the reason I’m writing a book on how joy in life is found in accepting the circumstances God allows, and embracing your current place as God’s will for you.

You see, I struggled for years believing statements like the one above. I thought that God’s will for me must be Something Other than what I was doing, Something Out There that I hadn’t yet discovered, and I went crazy running in circles trying to discover what God’s purpose for me was, and what I should be doing in order to be doing His will.

All the while, the Enemy (Satan) was laughing hysterically, thrilled to the core that he had gotten me to focus on Me and My Life and How I’m Living Out My Faith, instead of focusing on Christ and His Cause and His Power to change me from the inside out.

Here’s what I discovered: God’s will is that we focus on Him and let the rest go. We lay down our expectations and standards and ideas about what makes life significant, and we spend time at our Savior’s feet. As we grow in our relationship with God, we are inspired to pray more. Our eyes are opened to the way the Spirit works, and we start watching for His direction and guidance throughout the day, instead of living out our own agenda. The most amazing thing about living this way is that it brings us the most joy, and God the most glory. Because He gets to be all-sufficient, and we get to be all-dependent.

If you’re like me, you might be thinking “But if stop striving for things in my life and self to change and make a difference, how will anything get done?!?!” To that, I would answer: Make God your focus and it will happen. It is impossible to truly fix your eyes on God and stay the same. Like A.W. Tozer so eloquently put it in The Pursuit of God, “The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.”

Another question you might have is “What do you mean by ‘look to God’ or ‘fix your eyes on God’?” What I mean is: Study the Bible. Read commentaries and wise Christian authors. Pray about everything, even the menial stuff. Meditate on verses. Sing and listen to worship songs. Practice forms of fasting. Research what God says in the Bible about cultural issues. And I say all that with a caveat: The purpose of doing those things is connecting with God, not building up your spiritual resume or checking off things on a to-do list. If you feel guilty about not doing something, examine why. Maybe you’re just not there yet. If your desire is lacking, bring that very thing to God in prayer, and ask Him to change your heart.

Fixing your eyes on God also means turning away from your expectations and standards about life. You stop trying to determine your life’s worth. To borrow the words of Tim Keller, if you have been declared righteous by the blood of Jesus, accept that the verdict is in and get out of the courtroom. Then move forward in faith that if something in your life needs changing, or if God wants you to go in a different direction, He will tell you. Jesus says in John 10:27, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” If the message is truly from God, He will keep repeating it until you get it.

What is the result of living this way? Freedom. Rest. Joy. Peace. No more do you have to worry that you might not be doing everything God intended for you to do. No more do you have to agonize over the fact that you fall so short of who you want to be. God knows that you can’t do anything without Him — and He doesn’t expect you to. What He wants is YOU. He wants a relationship. He wants your honesty and humility that comes to Him and urges for Him to accomplish in your life through the Spirit what you want to have happen, but cannot do yourself.

He doesn’t want your failed attempts at living what you think is a significant life. He wants YOU, fully surrendered, willing to accept whatever He has for you — even if, especially if it’s nothing like you pictured it would be. Even if it’s nothing glamorous or monumental or earth-shattering. Even if it involves a dead-end job, or mounds of laundry, or tasks that no one appreciates or even notices.

Or maybe you’re one of those rare people who is called to something big (and you know specifically what it is), and it scares the poop out of you. Maybe you wish you could just stay in the shadows and not take a risk. Being faithful to God’s calling for you is taking that leap and trusting Him to be everything He has promised to be.

So instead of saying “The only thing we have to fear is living an insignificant life,” I would say:

The only thing that brings us true joy is living the life that God has for us, in dependence on the Spirit, for God’s glory and favor.

Keep your eyes on the Savior, and rest in the good that He has planned for you.

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2014 Recap + 2015 Outlook

20 Jan

I better get on my year-end / year-beginning post before January is over, huh?

So, 2014. Another year of big changes. Here were my “areas of focus”:

1) Spend time with God daily.

I didn’t spend time with God every day, but it was close. God gave me a renewed desire this year to spend time soaking up truth through His word and prayer. And now that Emma is going through a tough phase of toddlerhood, I need to be refreshed and grounded in God every day to have a good attitude and patience. But let’s be honest – there’s no season of life when I don’t need that.

2) Eat healthy foods.

It took me a long while after Emma was born to get back into healthy eating habits, but I did finally! And with this pregnancy, I haven’t been having many cravings, so I’ve been able to stick to our normal meal plan for the most part. So I’d say this was achieved.

3) Exercise.

Finding the time and motivation for exercise is still a challenge, but nothing motivates me more than signing up for a race. Training for and running the Hot Chocolate 15K in April got me running again, and so did finding a friend who enjoyed running and lived close to me (thanks Brenda!). I wasn’t as consistent as I’d like to be, but it was an improvement.

4) Stick to a budget.

We nailed this! Honestly, starting to use YNAB (You Need a Budget) changed our budgeting lives. I love the software and cannot speak more highly of it (I am not getting paid to say this). While it took a little getting used to at first, once we got the hang of it, it has helped us track where our money is going, save up for biannual and annual expenses, and make decisions about purchases based on whether or not we actually have the money for it (which we can check on the go on our smart phones). One of the YNAB ‘rules’ is to live off last month’s income, and it seriously takes the stress out of paying bills or having paychecks arrive late. And Travis has been getting a lot of overtime pay, so we can budget based on the actual amount of money he earned instead of a hypothetical number. It has been an adjustment to actually forego or postpone purchases until the next month (and the next infusion of money) at times, but it is teaching us delayed gratification and helping us be better stewards of our money. Now if I could only figure out how to spend less money on groceries…

And now on to 2015.

I know they say that goals are supposed to be specific, measurable, timely and whatever else. Well, this year I have a lot of intangible, nonspecific goals. Though I do have 2 specific, measurable goals:

1) Give birth.

2) Start and finish the Northwoods Triathlon on August 8.

My other goals are things like:

  • Don’t let newborn sleep deprivation turn me into a raging b!t@h. (Trust God to provide sleep.)
  • Pray for and see my mom be healed.
  • Spend more time playing with Emma instead of getting stuff done.
  • Support my husband more sacrificially and selflessly.
  • Read more books and watch less TV.
  • Go on bike rides in the summer.
  • Be more intentional about inviting people over, or getting together.
  • Finish my book and either self-publish, or seek publication!

I find that life is a constant balance between being realistic and being lazy. I want to live intentionally but I also don’t want to beat myself up over not achieving arbitrary goals that I chose in an over-zealous mood one January day. The way I balance those two things is by reminding myself of this (my memory verse for Jan/Feb/Mar):

“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” (John 17:4)

If Jesus glorified the Father by accomplishing the work that He was given, that’s also how I glorify the Father. And the work God has given me to do is revealed every day through my roles and circumstances. I am called to be a wife and mother. Some days I am called to use naptime for holding Emma instead of accomplishing my to-do list. Most days I get up early to read the Bible, but some mornings (after particularly hard nights), it just doesn’t happen. I adapt, and continue walking with God through whatever that day brings.

The past month, I have been learning and relearning how to LET GO. No matter how many times I learn that embracing God’s will for me is the path to joy, it is still SO HARD to do — even with little things! Because often His will involves hard or unappealing circumstances. But I am learning. I am learning to let go of my goals, dreams, plans — not in a defeatist mentality, but in faith that “God…fulfills His purpose for me.” (Psalm 57:2) I can trust all of me to the One who knows me, and created me for a specific purpose. He is shaping my life, this life, into something beautiful. (On a related note, read this blog post about The Invisible Mother that a MOPS mom shared yesterday. SO GOOD.)

I wrote this in my journal back at the end of November and I think it ends this post nicely:

“It is a constant battle to surrender my will, my expectations, my standards, my desires, my longings [to God]. To lay my whole self down at the foot of the cross and to say with full sincerity that I will follow the Lord anywhere — even into the day of mediocrity and petty frustrations and klutzy moves and stupid mistakes and minor inconveniences. But I will only find joy in accepting what God has for me.”

That’s what I want for 2015.

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