A Good Dad

These days I try to change clothes quickly, but he'll glance sideways and see it. I know he does. I know he sees the extra pounds, the loose skin, and the stretch marks from carrying four babies to full term in the past five years. But he still smiles when I walk in the room and tells me I've grown more beautiful and elegant over the past nine years. He wraps me up in a hug in the kitchen and tells me I'm hot. Even when I have no makeup on and I'm wearing clothes that have spit up and peanut butter and dirt on them, he remarks to the kids what a beautiful mommy they have.

He's tired. I know he is. He stays up late programming or flight planning or studying for another flying exam. He gets up in the morning to try to get some work in before his first appointments of the day. He spends all day talking to people, answering emails, having meetings, fitting in flight lessons, and doing work that comes with being associated with five different companies. But at the end of the day he still comes home and wrestles and gives piggyback rides to kids or takes them for walks and bike rides. If I haven't gotten the chance to go to the gym or if I have smoke coming out my ears, he offers to watch the kids while I get out of the house to work out or have a quiet moment. Usually he does it all with a smile.

He loves cleanliness and order. He always has. But he lets it roll off his back when he comes home and there are toys and books all over the floor and I've stacked things in an "I'll deal with it later" pile on the last clean surface and the kitchen is a mess from the last three meals. Instead of fighting about it, he simply jumps in and cleans up the kitchen almost every night.

He values peace and quiet. I know he does. But he lives here in what could be generously called a 1,000 square foot house with me and four screaming, laughing, wild banshees, and he tells us all the time that he's the happiest man in the world and that he loves coming home. When it's too much, he encourages us to all get out of the house together.

He is busy. He always is. But he still listens to mundane stories about my day and tries to help me with my problems. He helps figure out how to deal with the kids. He listens to their rambling stories and thousands of questions. He takes his daughter on a date every Friday. He makes time to see his friends. If I am at home and feel like I'm LOSING IT and send him an S.O.S., he comes home and tells me to take a drive or a walk around the block.

He is a good dad. One of the best. He's a good dad in part because he's a good husband. Because he's such a good role model. Because he puts his family first. Because he's a good servant and a good leader. A man like that can change the world by filling it with one well-loved, well-supported family. I know all of us agree that we are so blessed to be a family with him. Happy Father's Day, Joseph!

Comedy Hour: Family Date

Joseph and I went on our first date in 2007. It was a real, unmistakable, sweep-her-off-her-feet date. Now, I thought he asked if I wanted to "hang out" (like with some friends) rather than "go out," so I, embarrassingly, was in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie the whole time. But he'd had enough of being just friends with girls and beating around the bush, so when he showed up at my door, he was in a tie and carrying flowers. He opened doors for me and took me to dinner at a nice restaurant where we talked for a while before going for a walk in the moonlight. He even asked to hold my hand! After that we went to his apartment to watch "The Quiet Man" and he asked if he could put his arm around me. At the end of the night, he gave me a hug and thanked me for a nice evening. And that, gentlemen, is how a date is done.

It's now been eight years since our first date and every year on February 26 we go back to McGrath's, the restaurant where we had our first dinner together. Once we had to take a young Diana with us because we remembered that it was the 26th right before dinner time. But mostly it's been a night when just the two of us go out and remember our awesome first date and other happy memories together. This year, because Joseph has a cold, we weren't able to get a babysitter lined up. No worries, we thought, we'll just make it a family date!

SO,
Joseph was feeling a bit out of sorts because he had a cold and had been busy with work all day. I suggested he get in a short workout while I brought the kids to a park. Joseph felt refreshed after a swim and the kids got some energy out at a wet, sandy playground. I was prepared with an extra change of nicer clothes for all of us, so while Joseph was in the locker rooms at the gym, I changed all three kids out of their wet, sandy clothes in the back of the car.

We were quickly seated in a relatively deserted section of the restaurant. When we had one child, I might have been insulted, but now I prefer it that way. Matthew began shrieking obnoxiously loudly so we quickly sanitized all the surfaces we could reach and started laying out handfuls of Cheerios in front of him, which seemed to satisfy him. While he stuffed Cheerios in his little chipmunk cheeks, Joseph and I hurriedly scanned the menu while Liam tried scaling the dividers between booths and attempted to get the attention of the people on the other side of the restaurant by peeking over and yelling "HEY!!!" Choosing what you'd like to order when you have kids along is a ten minute long process of scanning the menu over and over again for appetizing keywords and/or pictures while being attacked on all sides by questions, forks, crayons, and demands for water and French fries. I estimate that at any given time during those ten minutes, only as much as 5% of your brain power is actually devoted to figuring out what you're going to eat. Usually right before the server comes to take your order or deliver food, someone has to go potty, and our night out was no exception. So by the time we'd been in there 30 minutes or so, Joseph and I had the chance to actually make eye contact and at least try to begin a conversation about two or three times. Yes, having kids along will change things.

Now, as a side story, Matthew had been having some, well, digestive issues and hadn't made a dirty diaper in a couple of days. So when I saw The Face, I knew we had an impending disaster of Biblical proportions on our hands. (Parents, you know The Face: suddenly staring pensively into the middle distance, becoming red and straining...) Of course this happened AS the food was being set on the table. So I left Joseph and the kids and took Matthew out through the nearly freezing drizzle to find the diaper bag and change him in the back of the car. It was as harrowing as I feared. Fortunately, I had enough wipes. UNfortunately, I had only brought one change of clothes for each child, and Matthew had just rendered his unusable. His other clothes were soaked and sandy. Liam had wet his pants at the park, so those were out of the question. Out there in the chilly darkness, I had to sort through to find the least objectionable clothes to put on my nearly-naked (but clean!) child. The best option was his sister's mildly sandy pants from the park and his brother's shirt.

So we returned, with Matthew dressed in girls' pants and a mismatched shirt that were both two sizes two big. We fed Matthew French fries and Cheerios and rice, but for some reason what he really wanted were Joseph's roasted vegetables. I'd forgotten to buckle him down after bringing him back from the car, so he tried standing up to grab them and swipe at the check while Joseph was trying to pay, prompting him to observe that it was "like having a demented old man sitting next to you," which made me nearly choke on my food.

So I was trying not to choke from laughing while eating and I was leaning across the table to wrestle Matthew back into his high chair while he grabbed at roasted vegetables and Joseph tried to hold the check out the way and calculate a tip. Liam had seized Joseph's phone and was holding it up to his ear yelling "Hello? Hello?!" while Diana was admonishing me because she had just been informed that we weren't getting dessert. It was a perfect little circus of hilarity. It looked like something out of a sitcom. While it was chaotic, neither Joseph or I really minded the madness. After all, when we went on our first date eight years ago, we liked each other very much. The way he tells it, he knew pretty soon after we started dating that he wanted to marry me, and I just wanted to be with him. What could be happier than two people who after eight years together have a happy marriage and three healthy, energetic kids? It was fun going back to where it began with the three people who are now part of our family. (Though we agreed that next year, we are definitely going to find a babysitter.)

But that's not all! While we were packing up, Diana noticed a fingernail that needed to be trimmed. Her middle one. So she kept flipping her middle finger up and sticking it in my face while chattering about how it needed to be trimmed when we got home. When she had finished with that, she pulled up her dress and flashed people absentmindedly, as little girls do. We got the circus under way, but in the entrance to the restaurant, Liam began doing an exaggerated cowboy waddle and complaining suddenly that his diaper was falling off. Our hands were full of leftovers, Matthew, and holding Diana's hand, so we told him to just hoist it up until we were at the car. Once at the car, we fixed Liam's diaper, got everyone strapped into their seats, and climbed in ourselves, at which point Matthew sneezed rice everywhere. Apparently he'd been holding it in his mouth the entire time for just such an occasion.

It's a happy, wild, messy little circus we have. But we wouldn't change a thing.
(But seriously, if anyone is free next February 26, please give us a call...)

Babies

Our own one-year-old boy!

I have been reflecting on the many wonderful qualities of babies lately. Two things have caused this, mainly: first, my own baby turned one year old today! (What?!?! Waaaaahahahaaaa!) And secondly, I tried watching a documentary that was too horrifying even for me.

On the first point, my own Matthew baby has become a person of years rather than months?

That's how I feel about that. 

He is still the nicest baby I could have ever hoped for. He made a frighteningly sudden entrance to the world, but since then he has just been incredibly good-natured. I love the way he loves music. He will dance or sing along to almost anything he hears, especially if it has a good beat. He's starting to love books, though he has little patience for them. And I love how he is so interested in learning about the world. He is clearly very interested in learning to speak and in the nuances of interacting with others. I can tell because of how intently he studies people. He's really trying to learn and he is starting to imitate words and gestures more. Watching babies learn to be like the people around them is definitely one of my favorite parts of parenting.

But I think that one of the best parts of being a parent by far is watching my kids become siblings. Having kids can be exhausting and maddening, but let's not forget that the joyous times are almost divine. There is nothing like watching your new baby idolize and imitate their older siblings, or watching your older kids become protective and caring of their younger siblings. Seeing Matthew grow up is definitely bittersweet, but seeing him become a playmate to his brother and sister- seeking them out to join in their games, or trying to get a laugh out of them and then doing the same thing over and over to keep them laughing, is one of my favorite things about having kids. I know having only one child is just right for some people, but what a joy it is to make your own pack of playmates who love (and sometimes annoy) each other and are all part of your own family! 

As we leave the baby stage behind and begin to look forward to toddler-hood (Matthew is already halfway-successfully walking almost everywhere!), I've been thinking about how very unique and special babies are. The smell of a warm baby is wonderful. Their early grunts and wheezes and then cooing and babbles (and first baby laughs!) are the best. I love the way they feel when they wiggle and snuggle. I love the way their eyes search yours when they are asking for something. I love the way they so completely need people and can be so utterly satisfied by having their needs met. It is wonderful that they are the early stages of humans that can potentially change the world, but I've just been appreciating that baby stage for how incredible it is. 

Maybe that's why I finally met a documentary I wasn't able to finish.

I've mentioned before that I watch a lot of documentaries. It's kind of my way of learning about the world and how people see it while I'm in a season of life that doesn't allow for a lot of exploration. Also, for whatever reason, I'm drawn to the really raw, depressing kind. I am not the type to watch a documentary about food or artists. My style is the kind of film that will leave you down for a week, wondering what kind of world we live in and how you can change anything while you're such a small, insignificant part of it. War, orphans, torture, incarceration, violence, etc. Don't you also want to know about the ugly parts of the world so you can change them? No? Just me then? Fine.

Anyway, I read an article recently that was written in response to the PBS Documentary "After Tiller," about the plight of the few doctors who still perform late-term abortions in the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller. Matt Walsh, the author of the article, made some good points, I thought, but I'd never seen the documentary, so I didn't know if it was particularly fair or accurate. Because Facebook likes to broadcast everything I do or think, one of my friends saw that I'd "liked" the article and said she actually thought the film was very balanced and heartbreaking. We have different political views, but since I respect her and enjoy PBS documentaries and since I usually believe in examining both sides of an issue before making a decision, I decided to watch it. 

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

I should start off by saying that I classify myself as pro-life. Even after I became a Christian, I was probably more pro-choice because I'd never really thought about abortion. It just seemed like adults should be able to make their own decisions about their lives. But I made some offhand comment one day to my then-boyfriend Joseph about how bothersome pro-life protesters on campus were and he stopped me and asked what my views were about abortion and why. He said it was very important to him because of what abortion was to the babies that were aborted: unspeakably cold, cruel, murder. I'd never thought about the fact that there were at least two lives- mother's and child's- that were impacted by abortion. I decided to look into it more and what I found horrified me. I became pro-life and my resolve only strengthened over time, especially after I had children. 

I confess (unashamedly) that I was only able to get through the first five minutes of the film before I became so horrified and disgusted that I had to turn it off. And I've watched a lot of documentaries about horrifying subjects. There is a brief introduction to Dr. George Tiller, his murder, and the other few late-term abortion providers in the United States. Then we are shown a scene in an examination room with a doctor, a nurse or two, and a woman who isn't shown. The doctor performs an ultrasound. You can see a baby on the screen, moving around like any healthy baby. He tells her she can look or not look at the screen, it's her choice. He sounds very soothing and compassionate. The film cuts to later in the same examination room with the same people. The mother is now lightly sobbing. The nurses bustle around. The doctor speaks to her gently, like a father, assuring her how completely natural and okay it all is. It's unclear if he is referring to her reaction or the procedure, but it doesn't really matter. We are to understand that her baby is dead. 

The people in the room killed the baby that was innocently moving around on the screen only moments before. Those that didn't commit the act were accomplices. It is an atrocity committed on what was clearly a human being, though apparently an inconvenient one. And the most sickening part is listening to the compassionate voice of the doctor over the sobs of the mother, who obviously instinctively feels that she just committed an unnatural and irreversible crime. I couldn't watch anymore. Like I said, a baby is incredibly special. And it grieves me that there are people who facilitate the murder of something so precious, and that there are mothers who see killing their children as their best and only option. It is strange to me that I could pay someone to give my baby a lethal injection, then cut them apart and rip them from my body one week; but if, a few weeks later, I were to give birth to that same baby and pick them up and throw them against a wall, I could be charged with murder. It is all unnatural. It is all wrong. 

So those are the reasons babies have been on my mind recently. I don't think my love of babies made the documentary more distasteful than it would have been at any other time. I think the subject matter is just awful. It has made me think about what I can do to help the at-risk babies and their mothers that turn to abortion. I don't have an answer for that yet. Until then, I'll just enjoy and snuggle the babies (and, soon, toddlers!) that I have been blessed with. They are so special.

Because babies do things like this! 

And also they can be cute like my babies!

Are You Done?

There are natural conversation-starters in this world. Children are one of them. From the time you become pregnant with your first child, you learn that you've just opened the door to innumerable conversations with perfect strangers about the subject of having kids. Some of it is helpful and, of course, some of it is idiotic. One conversation topic that keeps coming up for us is, "Are you done [with having kids]?'

Truthfully, I didn't mind the first ten times I was asked the question. I still don't really mind if the person asking is a friend or relative who's genuinely interested in the affairs of our family. But after a year or so (people have been asking us this since I was pregnant with our second child), it does start to feel a little suspicious. I don't know- if you'd started making beautiful cakes for a living and after each cake was complete, people asked you if you were finally done making cakes, you'd start to wonder if there was a hidden point to the question, wouldn't you?

For what it's worth, as much as it is up to us to decide (we recognize that sometimes God has surprises in store), we are done. Not because, as most people are ready to believe, we are overwhelmed- that three is an unmanageable number and we're somehow in over our heads and we need to quit. As I mentioned before, having three kids hasn't really been that difficult. I love each one of our kids and I will genuinely miss having a baby in our house. But it really feels as if a switch has been turned off in my mind and it's something I just don't deeply desire anymore. There's a lot less hand-wringing and nail-biting than I'd imagined in the decision not to have more kids. I'm pretty much at peace with the idea.

As Liam grew older, we struggled a lot with the decision to keep having kids or stay with two, but I felt like there was someone around that I couldn't see. It felt like someone was missing and that I was always forgetting someone when I was loading up the car or tucking kids into bed. Soon I became pregnant and I found I was actually excited about the idea of having another baby. I calculated their birth date. I thought a little bit about names. I wondered if they'd have the same birthday as Diana (they were due November 2013). I wasn't able to do all of that for long, because one day I started bleeding very heavily and felt sick with heavy heavy cramps that kept me in bed all day. I had a miscarriage. It was very early on. I probably wasn't more than five or six weeks along. But I'd been able to make plans around this little person and suddenly they weren't with us anymore. We hadn't even really gotten to know them. The excitement I felt upon learning we were expecting and the confusing depression and disappointment when I miscarried made me realize I still wanted to have more children. Thankfully, two months later God gave us our Matthew.

Now our family just feels complete. I don't look around anymore with the feeling that I'm forgetting someone unseen. Of course we'd be happy if we had another child, but it's not really in our plans.

That doesn't mean that it's easy in any way to watch our kids grow up. I'm trying to savor Matthew's baby-hood as much as humanly possible. He's almost eight months old and still not interested in solid foods, and truthfully I don't really care. Breastfeeding is still one of the most wonderful things in the world to me. Every developmental milestone is just a little bittersweet because I know it's another step toward being a toddler running around with his brother and sister. He's already too wiggly to sit in my arms for snuggles. My husband has been incredibly patient with my tendency to, within the bounds of law and order in our house, indulge him as the last baby a bit. Still, it's a little difficult. We started having kids before all our friends and now after a whirlwind four years, our baby-having days are done while they're still growing their families. I think we decided we were done before most of our family members too. So while I was able to go through the journey of pregnancy and having kids with a large community of people (especially during my last two pregnancies), I don't know anyone who's reached the end of that road yet. It's a little lonely. There are no other moms to talk to about the slight sadness of giving away baby clothes you'll never use anymore, or disassembling fixtures like the bouncer or baby swing. We have many wonderful years ahead of us with our three goofy kids, but there are no new additions to look forward to, just our kids growing up. Excuse me for a moment-

I'm better now. One wonderful thing about being part of a community of growing families is that there will never ever be a shortage of babies around! I know of three that were born in the last two months. Because of colds going around our house, I've only gotten to cuddle one of them, but there's always more time for that and I know of even more on the way in coming months. I've always enjoyed babies without being baby-crazy, but I may just end up turning into the aunt that won't put down her nieces/nephews/any other babies people will allow her to hold. (Fair warning, relatives! Hide yo' kids!)

How did you know when your family was complete? Or how do you handle people asking about it?

Comedy Hour: The Relatives

I try not to write about things too soon after they occur. Time creates a nice distance that allows me to view events in a more emotionally detached way, which can be very useful. But this just needs to be shared because I think it's something that all parents have experienced.

We're in Hawaii on the island of Oahu. It's beautiful. It's idyllic. It's basically like wandering around through a slightly crowded tropical paradise.

Paradise is full of scenes like this

We've been able to meet up with friends like one of my past swim coaches and we're staying with Joseph's aunt and her family. Absolutely beautiful people. They couldn't be more wonderful and welcoming than if they were actually my blood relatives. I love staying with them. While we were here, we got the opportunity to see some of Joseph's uncles, whom he hadn't seen in decades. We first met them without the kids- Joseph's aunt watched them while we went out to dinner and had a lovely adult conversation. It was especially interesting because it turns out Joseph and his youngest uncle have very similar personalities, thought processes, and interests. They could basically be brothers. This uncle and his wife (may they never find this blog) were friendly, funny, charming people, and they invited us over to their house for an early dinner. 

All of us.

Fellow parents... you know.

These lovely people recently got married but don't have any kids yet. So despite their best efforts to make us feel welcome, their home wasn't really kid-friendly. I totally don't fault them for that. I've never kept a family of ferrets in my house, so my home isn't ferret-proof. You just can't know that you shouldn't leave water bottles or glass picture frames within three feet of the floor until your kids have pulled them down at least once. 

Unfortunately, we were starting this whole evening at a disadvantage. The kids took short, broken naps, or in the case of our eldest child, skipped naps altogether. A lack of consistent sleeping schedule coupled with strange surroundings have made our kids a little off-kilter this entire trip. On top of it all, I forgot my first rule of outings with kids, which is to lower all expectations until they can be lowered no more. It was because these were nice family members and I enjoyed being around them and wanted to make a good impression. My fault. So I got myself all wound up when our kids were acting like kids. 

What happened exactly, you ask? Well...

We pulled up to their house and all got out of the car to say hello. They have an Australian Shepherd who is very smart, very energetic, and was barking at us very loudly. That made Diana and Matthew a little nervous and nearly sent Liam over the edge. He had an experience when he was younger that left him afraid of aggressive or intense dogs, even if they're just being intensely friendly. So the kids were nervous right off the bat. I don't blame the dog for that at all. I know that good dogs, like good kids, sometimes don't act socially acceptable. Whatever. However, Diana is actually allergic to dogs. So though the dog and the kids eventually reached a state of detente, Diana very shortly became horribly itchy and uncomfortable because she petted the dog and because there was dog hair in the house. Her face began to break out in hives and she began to cry. We mostly put out that fire by wiping her down with a wet rag. 

Matthew, who has spent a lot of time riding around in his car seat during this trip, started yelling from his perch on an ottoman because he absolutely did not want to be left in his seat any longer, so I had to hold him the whole time. He was almost entirely pleasant, but makes for a very wiggly happy handful at this point.

Liam was doing what Liam does- thoughtlessly touching everything he shouldn't. He took the tops off of water bottles, pulled on the cords of shades, pushed pillows off the couch, stepped on his sister's foot (more yelling), pounded on the glass shower door in the bathroom- just stuff a little boy will do in a place that isn't really set up for little boys yet. 

After much whining from kids (and some genuine fear because the dog followed them everywhere) while I juggled Matthew and tried to half-participate in conversation with the other adults, dinner was ready. They put together a really lovely dinner with local dishes. It was healthy and tasted delicious. But of course, Diana needed to have mac and cheese (and though she had insisted upon it, literally the first thing she uttered on tasting it was, "This doesn't taste good.") Liam had a hamburger, though only part of it because he was so energetic and distracted that he kept hopping down and using the couches for tumbling practice instead of eating dinner. And Matthew mostly sat on my lap and made eating difficult by trying (and sometimes succeeding) at grabbing handfuls of my dinner. I had given up adult conversation by this point. I was getting wound up and mostly death-whispering to the kids to sit still and/or stop bothering each other and/or stop whining. Joseph was absorbed in conversation with his uncle, and I'm glad they got the chance to talk. But this situation would have been impossible to deal with even if we'd both devoted all our attention to it. We were trying to make kids act like adults and I was setting us all up for failure with impossibly high standards. 

For dessert, Joseph's aunt had made a lilikoi (passionfruit) chiffon pie from fruit grown in their yard. (I told you this was a tropical paradise!) However, because our kids don't react well to sugar, I suggested to a very interested Diana that we would share some pie. That didn't sit well with her, so she slipped into the kitchen where Joseph's aunt was dishing out pie and asked for (and got) her own piece. Of course his aunt couldn't have known that Diana wasn't supposed to get her own piece of pie. I only discovered it when Diana marched into the living room where we were all sitting munching on a generous slice of chiffon pie. That was straight up naughty, but we couldn't really discipline right then because we would risk making his relatives feel bad. So I told Diana she could eat half of the pie and we would take the other half home (where she would never ever see it again, but I didn't tell anyone that part). It was only when I began eating my slice of pie (minus a handful that Matthew claimed) that I had a shocking realization.

Chiffon pie is light and silky only because it's made with eggs. Beaten, lightly cooked eggs.

There are only a few things in the world that Diana is allergic to enough to throw up if she ingests them: Peanuts, tree nuts, and eggs. 

Yes.

Right on cue, Diana began to cry and complain because her stomach hurt which rapidly became "my throat is stinging" and her cheeks began to swell up. I experienced her reaction to undercooked eggs in the past, so I didn't really fear an anaphylactic reaction, but I knew she needed antihistamines fast. Thankfully, there was some Benadryl in the house so we gave her that and made our exit. She was wailing because she was in genuine distress. I had to put Matthew down in his chair to carry him to the car, which caused him to scream to high heaven. They live on a hill, so I had Liam follow me down the steps, but of course he managed to trip on his ever-present blanket and tumble past the side of me. I don't even know how many times he hit his head on the concrete steps. He wasn't bleeding, but he was definitely hurting. Joseph's aunt and uncle were so nice. They came out to wish us goodbye through the screaming symphony of our whole little circus. I was wound up as tight as could be and fuming at the way things had played out. The kids fell asleep on the car ride home, but each woke up to yell in turn as we carried them into the house. Diana was the last to come in, and though Joseph sprinted admirably, she still threw up on both of them. And the sink. And the other sink. On the plus side, he now finally believes me when I tell him Diana is allergic to eggs. It only really takes one time being vomited upon to make you a believer. 

And now, we all rest. I'm going to bed. I'm sure by tomorrow this will all seem laughable.

Do you have a cry-larious story about visiting relatives with kids?

Nine reasons why kids are the best

I know many stay-at-home moms, myself included, who will acknowledge how blessed we are to be able to stay at home with our children, but in the next breath can talk (at length) about how frustrating and maddening is our job. That's kind of the nature of things, isn't it? We're not here to be buddies with the kids and have fun all day long. We're here to train them to be good people, and that means that sometimes there will be friction.

There's a fine balance between sharing enough with other mothers to encourage camaraderie or raise awareness and just venting in a negative way about your family. I'm still trying to find the right balance, but lest anyone ever doubt it, I love my kids- sometimes so much I can't even describe it. And while some days are bananas, there are a lot of reasons why being around kids all day is really awesome. Here are nine reasons that kids are the best:

1. Unconditional love- This is easily the best and most overwhelmingly beautiful reason why being around kids is so awesome.When I mess up (which is on the daily- maybe more like every few minutes), I miraculously don't have to worry that my kids are going to love me any less or even hold a grudge. It wouldn't even occur to them. If I am becoming a loud and grouchy mama bear, they still tell me I'm their best and favoritist mommy. When I am eaten up with guilt over having lost it again and apologize to them, they forgive me completely and freely, with smiles and hugs. They don't think to compare me to other mothers the way I do myself because in their minds I'm the only mommy for them and of course I'm perfect. It is so precious to have such soft and open little hearts to take care of!
2. No judgment- You don't feel like changing out of yoga pants, doing your makeup, eating healthy like a grown-up, or leaving the house? No problem! Kids could run around naked eating chicken nuggets all day (in fact, that may be child Nirvana), so they seriously don't care if you do the same. 
3. Complete acceptance- I realize this is kind of a double-edged sword. There are bad people, bad behaviors, and bad ideas in the world, and kids need to be taught about them. However, I love watching the complete open acceptance of people. Kids are just open. My dad is Pacific Islander, so he looks different from the rest of our pretty white family. Even if I pointed that fact out, I doubt my kids would notice it. They adore him. We go to an International Moms and Babies group and the kids just don't see any difference in each other, even if they're from vastly different cultures. Are you a different race/ethnicity? Don't speak English? Are you handicapped? Rich? Poor? Who cares? Don't pull my hair, and we'll share animal crackers. I love watching that.
4. Playtime!- If you want to surround yourself with people who love blowing bubbles, painting, running around, or playing in sprinklers, stay home with your kids. They are always up for fun.
5. Human Growth and Development 102- This part is a personal favorite because it's something that I find fascinating. I love watching the way people's brains work. It is amazing to watch three people at three different stages of cognitive development who are constantly learning.  It's like having your own observational study right in your own home. (Nerd alert.)
6. Creating your own family culture- It started with inside jokes and shared beliefs between me and my husband. Now, as a family we share our own special language, memories, nicknames, preferences, goals, values, you name it. And I get to hold a special place in shaping our culture. Dads may traditionally be the head of the family, but mothers are the heart. I find my husband and kids becoming interested in the things I value, and I've become interested in the things they like. It's like creating your own club.
7. Seeing yourself and your loved-ones- This is beautiful and bittersweet. I see my husband in my kids, which is wonderful, because I love him dearly. Liam looks and sounds like my Pacific Islander dad and his side of the family, and acts like my brothers. Diana reminds me often of my little sister, and causes me to dwell a lot on how I treated her growing up. Matthew looks like my mom's side of the family, which makes me wish they were closer so I could share that with them. In my kids faces, sometimes I catch glimpses of my paternal grandmother, who I miss even now. She would have adored getting to meet them. She would have appreciated the fact that Diana loves eating seaweed. I see reflections of myself in them, which can be good and bad. Children are like little mirrors for whatever bad attitudes or habits you might have, which is humbling. Mostly, though, I see in my kids the combination of generations of remarkable people. 
8. Company- Life with kids is never lonely, and not just because they won't even let you out of their sight to go to the bathroom. You're always surrounded by little people who love and need you. And in times that would otherwise be very lonely, that's a great feeling.
9. Physical affection- I remember visiting my mom when I was in college, and she asked for a hug. I thought it was odd, but she pointed out that she never got hugs anymore. She was single and my siblings and I were all either in college or high school, and none of us ever thought to give my mom or each other hugs. In fact, if you're an adult who's not in a relationship, you probably don't experience a lot of physical affection. When you're surrounded by kids, you're smothered in physical affection all day long. Hugs, kisses, climbing, wrestling, snuggling, sitting on your lap, trying to suck/chew on your face/elbow/hands (that'd be the baby), playing with your hair... sometimes it's overwhelming, but I know I'm going to miss all these joyous physical expressions of affection.

After writing all these down, I just want to go give my kids big hugs. Being a mother really is incredibly special. Can you think of any more reasons kids are awesome?

Three kids: the end of the world?

Mothers know: as soon as you're pregnant, people like to give you advice and tell you their horror stories. It goes something like this:

When you're expecting your first child: "Good luck! Get some sleep now while you still can!" (<The favorite piece of advice from every human being you'll meet, whether they've had kids or not.)

When you're expecting your second child: "Watch out, now you'll really have your hands full!"

When you're expecting your third child: "Everyone says that three is the hardest number. After all, now you guys are outnumbered!"

People are full of encouraging gems like that when you're pregnant. No wonder so many pregnant women are grumpy.

Some of it is well-meant, of course. But there's not a lot of positivity surrounding pregnancy and motherhood. (Pregnant ladies, how often do you hear something like, "Congratulations! What a miracle. You'll so enjoy having [x number of] kids!")

Now that we've started mingling with people in the wide world again, mothers of one and two kids ask me with some awe and trepidation, "So how is it having three?"

It's really not bad. It's not even as bad as I thought, and it's certainly not as bad as people have been telling me.

In fact, having three kids has, so far, been (knock on wood)...

...easy.

(I've been a mom long enough to know that now that I've said that, one kid is going to have attitude problems, another is going to start teething, and the baby is going to go through a growth spurt.)

First, it might help to define what "easy" means when you have three kids. I'm not saying there aren't times when I close myself in the laundry room just so I can cough without someone(s) asking me a thousand questions. I fight multiple battles every day about eating food. Good, healthy food that I lovingly prepared to nourish their growing minds and bodies. There are mornings when I deal with the poop of three small people all in rapid succession, and not always where it's supposed to be. Often at least one person is crying, though more often it's two and sometimes it's a trio of voices raised in delightful harmony.

No, it's easy because I've been doing this for three years and now I'm used to all of that. A little bit of chaos is normal, and it's interspersed with a lot of fun and endearing times. I don't usually get a shower or change out of my PJs before 11 AM, but I do get to see my baby give smiles so big he has to put his whole face and body into expressing the happiness inside him. We can't get out the door on time, but I get to witness my older kids playing cheerfully together at games that they made up.

Truthfully, it was a lot more difficult transitioning to having one child, or even from having one child to two. In the first case, you're caught unprepared (at least we were) by the reality of around-the-clock neediness and your own susceptibility to hormones and uncertainty about how to care for your baby. In the second case, you have a better idea of how to care for an infant, but at that point you have a toddler or preschooler who is used to being the center of attention. Suddenly they need to entertain themselves and they don't always adjust to that easily. They can't understand why mom is suddenly obsessed with a small, uninteresting blob of a person that they can't even touch. To compound things, my toddler still needed help getting into and out of her high chair, having meals made, having her diapers changed, etc.

SO MUCH is different by the time you have three kids! Diana is three now, and at this point she and Liam have been playing together for a long time. I was exhausted in late pregnancy, so they had to learn to run around and entertain themselves. I still need to sit down and feed the baby frequently, so they just dive into their toy box (literally) and make a mess and play doctor. She "reads" him books. They watch TV. (Yep, my ultra-strict attitude about the electronic babysitter changed too after three years.) If they're hungry, I tell her she can get grapes out of the fridge. If the baby throws up the contents of his stomach all over me, I can ask Diana or Liam to get towels or burp rags. They're old enough to play by themselves in the back yard and then let themselves in and take their shoes off when they're done. I can throw their lunches onto the table, sit down and feed the baby, and have them climb up into their chairs and feed themselves. Also, touching on the idea of being outnumbered: is there any family in which there are two caregivers at home all day long? My husband works- I was outnumbered as soon as we had two! And now when we go on family outings, one person grabs the older two and the other grabs the baby. It's not so complicated.

I don't want to ignore my older kids, but it's nice to see their relationship with each other develop and deepen. They're more self-sufficient. I'd like to think they have a greater appreciation for what it takes to be a mom because they see everything I do to take care of Matthew, but I know that's not true. They won't fully appreciate everything their parents did for them until they're pacing the floor for the fifth time one late night, covered in four different bodily fluids. Still, I know this has been good for all of us. The nature of dealing with small children means that an easy period can become very difficult in a matter of months or minutes, but so far, this has been a lot easier than I expected- maybe because so many people (so MANY people) gave me dire warnings about having three kids. I fully allow that it might be different when Matthew is crawling around and needs more than just feeding, changing, and sleep, but until then, this has been a pretty easy transition.

So if you too are thinking of stepping off the edge of the world and having more than two children, take heart! It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It's a miracle. You'll love it (especially after that first month). Especially if you can make your peace with not sleeping and dealing with lots of diapers. I jest. But only a little.

(P.S. I know that last paragraph is irrelevant as there are only two people who read this blog, and at least one of them already has more children than I do. Seriously, I don't even think my mom reads this. I hope instead she's busy catching up on the sleep that she lost for years caring for me and my three siblings. I can appreciate that now.)

Matthew Timothy Sullivan

Early in the morning on Wednesday, January 22nd, we welcomed our sweet new baby boy to the world. He was born at 12:38 AM. He weighed 8 lbs, 10 oz and was 21 inches long.

Though many people thought we were secretly holding out about knowing the gender of our baby, we honestly didn't have a clue. It was about 5 minutes before we even checked. That's how concerned we were about it. ;) We were surprised and delighted to find we had a new baby boy. I think I mentioned before that I thought Liam would enjoy having a little brother to roughhouse with more than Diana would enjoy having a little sister to boss around play with.

His Name

We had a short list of boys names and girls names picked out for our mystery baby. Joseph has known his best friend Matt for over 20 years and wanted to do something to honor that, which is why we went with Matthew. Timothy was a pretty easy middle name choice too. I know a lot of good Timothys: it's my dad's first name, Joseph's dad's middle name, and also the name of my unofficial dad in Virginia. It seemed like a good solid name for a boy. 

Kids' Reactions

Diana holding Matthew for the first time!

Labor with Matthew began to pick up around the kids' bedtime, so we just put them to sleep at home. It wasn't my plan to have them around for the birth since I am LOUD and I worried they would be concerned for me, but labor progressed so quickly that we just let them be. Despite the fact that I was louder than I've ever been, the kids slept through everything. (Also, I am forever grateful to our next-door neighbors for not reporting us to the police through three disturbing-sounding home births.) Liam was the first up the next morning and he blinked thoughtfully, pointed and said "Baby" several times, then made a peace offering of a toy car to the baby. Since the baby didn't seem interested, Liam just went on with his day. Diana was absolutely *IN LOVE* with Matthew. She was excited and immediately wanted to hold him. She looked him over and talked about all the things she would teach him and even hummed him some songs. She loves this baby and will be a wonderful big sister to him. I suspect Liam will be more interested when the baby is more interactive. 

Labor and Delivery

(If you are not interested in all the details, run away NOW.)

I'd had false labor on the Friday before Matthew was born, so I was slightly bitter and determined to ignore any more contractions until the last possible moment. On Tuesday, the day I actually went into labor, I went to the gym, picked up some things at the grocery store, and even went to my scheduled appointment with my midwife. By 2-3 PM, I was having contractions that were decidedly different than Braxton-Hicks. They were deep-inside crampy contractions. But since they weren't particularly strong and were 8-15 minutes apart, depending on whether I was lying down or walking around, I decided to ignore them. I mentioned them to Lisa at our appointment and she told me she bet I would be having my baby that night. I tried not to get my hopes up and went home, where they still weren't very strong or close together, but definitely weren't going away. 

By the time the kids went to bed, contractions were 7-9 minutes apart. After a few hours, they hadn't gotten any closer together and I began to despair that I'd really have a baby. I went to take a shower and the contractions jumped to 2.5 minutes apart. Since I was still not really "feeling" them, I was a little doubtful, but we called Lisa anyway. That was at 11:30 PM. By the time she got to the house, I was on all fours on the floor having to make sounds to get through each contraction. The contractions were deep and involved a lot of back ache, so I moved on to the bed and squeezed Joseph's hands through each one while Lisa rubbed my back. It felt so good. It was late and I was feeling tired, so I was basically quiet and relaxed between contractions. When they came, they were very deep and hard to take. I started yelling through them. The urge to push came not long after they got very strong. After only a few pushes, my water broke and also all hell broke loose. With the last two kids, my water broke only in heavy labor, but with this labor, it basically exploded. (Ew.) I was afraid it had gotten the opposite wall. The midwives said it soaked the bed. At that point, I had no sense of time, but it felt like there were two HUGE pushes and then Matthew's head was out. Huge, frightening pushes. Aside from being pushed way past the point of pain I thought I could take, I was actually a bit terrified. I probably looked like a terrified wild animal. I am surprised I didn't scare the living daylights out of Joseph. I was pulling myself up with his hands, bellowing and screaming to God to please give me my baby, arching my back, and letting my breathing get way out of control. I remember Lisa calling to me to breathe more slowly and not arch my back. It was so scary and intense for me. But it was very quick and his head was out. Another push and his body came out too. One of my favorite miraculous parts of natural childbirth is how once the baby is out, nothing else matters. I went from being terrified and way beyond my pain level to pushing myself up, looking at the baby, rubbing him, and telling him how much I loved him. The labor pain was instantly gone. Of course that was at 12:38, less than an hour after Lisa had arrived.

Matthew cried not long after coming out. He has a healthy set of lungs. His little head was very round and his face wasn't squished, maybe because he spent so little time being pushed out. For my entire pregnancy, I'd been worried that since I had two healthy births, this was the one where something terrible would happen to me or the baby. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. God was with us and taking care of us. I tore again, but I'd kind of expected I would, so the stitches weren't a surprise. Matthew was born with a tongue-tie, so Lisa clipped it before he even tried nursing the first time. I was surprised at how un-phased he was by the very quick process. He cried more at being unwrapped from his warm blankets. 

And that's how our new baby boy came into the world! His eating and waking schedule is currently pretty mixed up, so Joseph and I are getting most of our sleep in the early/late morning. Thankfully, we have lots of help from wonderful family members with our other kids, which is such a blessing. I love my kids and want to be with them, but it really is nice not to have to worry about them, and for Joseph to be able to get some sleep since he's taking care of the kids and house and work these days. I know from experience that these sleepless days that are so frustrating for me because my body is healing and I can't do everything I want to do will pass soon. Soon breastfeeding won't be excruciating, soon we'll be able to massage Matthew's schedule to fit our own, soon I'll be able to help out more around the house and spend time with my big kids. Everything keeps getting better, and we're so happy to have a new baby and for everyone to be healthy. 

Christmas Card 2013

Merry Christmas! And welcome to our Christmas newsletter!

Last year there was *ahem* some disagreement about what kind of Christmas cards we should send out and what pictures we should use. (Cute Christmas cards? Do you include a picture with them? How about a newsletter? Can you just put pictures in that? What about an all-inclusive photo card...?) That culminated in not sending out any cards, so if you didn't get a card from us, it's not because we didn't think of you.

This year, though, is different! Hopefully you've gotten one of our Christmas cards. And to save the trouble (and also paper!) of writing and printing off dozens of newsletters that people may or may not care about, I just included a link to our blog where I'd post a newsletter for people who care.

And I see that *you* are one of the caring few! Aww... A special gift for you at the end of this post. If I could figure out how to make chocolate peppermint cookies appear out of your screen, I would.

So here's what we've been up to this year!

Family Adventures

One of the most exciting developments this year was when we found out we were expecting a new baby Sullivan! Baby is due January 24, 2014. We've been very happy with our choices to have home birth with a midwife for our other kids, so we're planning to do that again for this baby. Since our insurance doesn't cover this route, and since ultrasounds are crazy expensive when they're not covered by insurance, we're going to leave the gender of this baby a surprise. We're already prepared with baby girl and baby boy necessities anyway! You can check back on the main blog page to find out baby's name and gender when we do! (For the record, we were both certain this baby was a boy early on, but now we're both leaning toward girl, so anything could happen.)

Joseph in the new car in Lynchburg, VA.

With a third baby on the way and only a small, faithful sedan to our name, we knew we'd have to upgrade to a larger vehicle. Our main requirement was that the car we found would not be even a little bit like a minivan. After a lot of research, we settled on a 2012 Mazda CX-9, a sporty seven-passenger vehicle with a pretty good fuel economy.  After even more research, we found that the particular car we wanted basically didn't exist on the West Coast. The same model and year could be found in larger quantities for $5,000-$10,000 less in places like Texas, Florida, and Virginia. It made the most economic sense to buy a car from one of those places and then drive it home ourselves. Because we have good friends in Virginia, we bought our car in the Washington, D.C. area. With our two adventurous kids, we traveled from Virginia straight through the middle of the country to West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and finally back to Oregon. The entire trip took about two and a half weeks. Along the way we visited friends, stopped in at some fire departments that used Active911 (more on that in the "Joseph" section), took a tour of the nation's playgrounds for leg-stretching and kids' sanity breaks, saw Monticello, visited adorable little towns and local farmer's markets, and learned to be road trip experts. There were lots of charming and picturesque places along the way, but we didn't see anything that compared to our home in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. 

The view from our future driveway.

In fact, we love living in Philomath so much that this year we bought a new piece of property in the same town, only about a mile and a half east of where we live now (in the Neaback Hill area, for those who know Philomath). It's about half an acre in a nicer part of Philomath and on a hillside, so it should have an incredible view of the town, the countryside, and the coast range with Mary's Peak (when it's not covered by clouds) when we finally build a new house. We hope that will be within the next year or two. 

In the meantime, we've still been fixing up our current house. Since buying it in 2010, we (mostly Joseph and his family) have: rewired the house, re-plumbed the entire house out to the water line at the street, removed an old porch and sidewalk, designed and planted a new front yard, poured new front and back patios, insulated and put up new sheet rock in the two bedrooms and hallway, completely torn out and remodeled the bathroom and kitchen, and installed a laundry room and a laundry sink in the garage. Our house is SO much nicer to live in now than it was even when we first bought it! This year, we: installed a new fence, designed and planted a new back yard, put carpet in the bedrooms and hallway, and had someone come to put on a new front porch (that Joseph designed and built) and redo our roof, install new skylights and doors, and replace our icky aluminum siding. The house looks great with the face lift!

Before (top) and After (bottom). Still needs a few cosmetic touches like new paint, but it's already so much better than it was!

Joseph

Joseph during a rare and relaxing weekend at the coast.

Joseph is constantly busy, which is secretly pretty much the way he likes it. There have been some particularly stressful times, but mostly he comes home every day telling us that he is the happiest man he knows and he loves his life. I'd say the year is pretty successful by those standards! 

He is still running two growing businesses. Alyrica Networks is a local wireless internet provider that he helped start about 11 years ago. They've been hiring new employees and have just reached 1,000 customers! However, he stepped away from the day-to-day operations of Alyrica about a year ago to focus on growing his newest company, Active911. Joseph created Active911 when he was part of the Philomath Fire Department and realized it would be much more useful to get information about emergency calls sent to his smart phone rather than listening to a clunky old pager all the time. He designed a messaging system that sent out much more information about each emergency to smart phones and tablets registered to a fire or police department. Emergency responders (firefighters, EMTs, police officers, etc.) using Active911 will get a text alert sent to their phone. Instead of having to hunt through giant map books in their responding vehicles to find the correct address, they also get a digital map in the same text alert that has the emergency location pinpointed, shows information about nearby fire hydrants, etc., and also shows the location and statuses of other emergency responders in the same department so they can see if there are other people on the way. It has been very useful for hundreds of fire and police departments around the country, and has saved some of them thousands of dollars. Instead of complicated and clunky computer systems for their stations and vehicles, they just need some smart phones or tablets and to pay a small fee for the Active911 service each year. Active911 is even used internationally! It's rewarding to Joseph and all his employees to know that they're building a business that is helping people and saving lives.

When he wasn't busy with work, Joseph and his coworkers and some family members joined a local city slow-pitch softball league. Even though he's athletic, Joseph has never played organized sorts before and really enjoyed the experience! He's also gotten pretty good at lap swimming while working out. To relax (as much as someone who loves working can relax), he visited New York City and San Jose del Cabo, Mexico with friends this year.

Nichole

Me and eight months of New Baby

This year I've been keeping busy being the pregnant mom of two very active little ones. It turns out you don't need much more than that to take up all your time. However, I've also been part of an International Moms Group that meets near the Oregon State University campus every week. Most of the international moms are here because their husbands are studying for advanced degrees at OSU and they are new to the country or at least Oregon. Every week we hang out and hear a speaker talk about a child health-related topic while the kids play. Occasionally we have events like cooking demonstrations and holiday parties that are lots of fun. Diana and Liam have been enjoying playing with the other kids (usually between 1.5-2 years old). I also got to take a solo trip this year back to see my friend in the D.C. area and her brand new baby!! It was so much fun seeing them (and holding a warm, snuggly baby!), but a very strange experience to be away from Joseph and the kids for four days.

Diana

Our Diana Bean turned three years old this year! She is a smart girl who loves learning, talking, reading, singing, and alternately spending quiet time by herself and spending quality time with people. We have our struggles- in particular, her eczema, which we are still trying to cope with after seeing multiple doctors- but in general, she is a happy and healthy three-year-old. She knows her alphabet well and can identify all the letters in a word and even sound out small, simple words like "dad," "cat," "mom," etc. I think she will be excited to start reading. She has already memorized most of the stories in her books anyway. She likes the library, playing at parks, and roughhousing or going on walks and stargazing

Diana the flower girl

with her dad. She is beginning to be interested in Disney Princesses (Yessss! Soon I'll be able to justify a trip to Disneyland!), but still loves trucks, trains, and robots. Some of her favorite books right now are, Good Night, Good Night, Construction Site and Steam Train, Dream Train. This year, Diana got to be the flower girl in a friend's wedding, and what an adorable flower girl she was! She loved her "princess dress," and still talks about weddings. According to Diana, a wedding is when you get married, but most importantly, there is a party with cake and FIRE! (Her fire obsession may lead to a career in the fire department like her daddy.) 

Liam

There never was a louder, goofier, happier, more energetic or people-loving boy than Liam. He is incredibly good-natured. He's a year and a half old now, and running and roaring around everywhere, creating happy chaos. He doesn't speak in sentences, but he knows a lot of words and communicates well by using the words he knows and his incredibly expressive face. Mostly he loves to laugh and be with people. Currently he has a small obsession with Elmo and Cookie Monster. He also likes for people to read books to him, but mostly if there are lots of sound effects and hand gestures to accompany the story. He loves his sister, and he loves babies. I hope this will still be the case when the new baby comes along. Right now he has three baby cousins under six months old, and two of them live nearby. He loves those babies. I think he'll make a good big brother.

Our 2013 was full of growing families, growing businesses, travel, home improvements, and happy, busy times with friends and family. I don't think you can ask for much more than that. We have been incredibly blessed. We look forward to 2014, especially meeting the newest member of our family.

And now, for you caring few, a selection of hilarious pictures that we didn't include in the Christmas cards because there was always someone or other who didn't look quite right. Enjoy, Merry Christmas, and have a happy New Year!

This picture would be adorable... if Liam didn't look like he didn't trust the photographer...

Great picture of mom and dad. Diana looks very relaxed and Liam again looks like he is suspicious of everyone.

And, for what it's worth, a picture showing that Liam was actually happy during the photo shoot.

Baby is a....

Today we went in for New Baby's first ultrasound. We're very happy going the home birth-midwife route, and insurance doesn't cover that, so it doesn't cover full diagnostic ultrasounds either. Luckily, occasionally our local Pregnancy Resource Center puts out a call for ultrasound models to train their nursing staff. The ultrasound is free (!) they just can't medically diagnose anything, including gender. It's great if you just want to make sure there is indeed a baby (instead of a pterodactyl or something) in there, that they have all their limbs and vital organs, and they're moving around in a healthy way. Since that's mostly what we want to do, it's a great fit for us. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at reading ultrasounds. ("Oh, is that it's little eye? It's the stomach, you say?')

I remember when we had Diana's done around 20 weeks and the tech was repeatedly scanning the Area in Question and asking "Does that look like anything to you?" "Can you see anything that's there or missing...?" No, I couldn't. Joey thought afterward that he saw a distinct lack of anything, and he was right. The same thing happened at Liam's ultrasound and he definitely thought Something was there. Later on, to satisfy my curiosity (in a very expensive way), we had a full diagnostic ultrasound done at the local hospital and confirmed that Liam was our Liam boy. This time, Joseph wasn't able to make it, so I didn't have any help. In fact, I had two small people in the room gleefully competing to make the loudest dinosaur scream, which is the opposite of help.

(Oh my gosh, Nichole, we don't even care about your rambling. We're just here to see whether you're having a boy or a girl. JUST TELL US IF IT'S A BOY OR A GIRL.)

I have an oversharing problem, and I warn you all it's just going to get worse as this pregnancy goes on. Anyway, when the Area in Question was scanned in passing a couple of times, I really thought I distinctly saw Something. However, as the nurse pointed out later, the cord was showing up very strongly, so I might have been seeing the cord passing over the Area in Question and connecting to the body. When I asked if they could just scan that general area again for my sake, though I knew they couldn't tell me anything, they came up from the underside, as if the baby was sitting on a glass table and we were looking up from underneath. Honestly, I didn't see anything there. So who knows, maybe we're having another girl. Rather than spend $200 and a trip to Portland to get a diagnostic ultrasound when we're pretty sure the baby is healthy otherwise, I think we're just going to leave this one a surprise. We're already prepared either way. We're not hoping for one more than another. I think Liam would probably appreciate having a little brother to rough house around with (Heaven help us all) more than Diana would enjoy having a little sister, but I know I'd have fun dressing up another little girl. (Moms of girls know they have a way better clothing/accessory selection.) We already have a short list of boy names, so we'll pick some girl names and be surprised in late January, I guess!

Baby in profile at 21 weeks! Can you see the little heart? It was beating at 140 bpm.

Another baby profile shot.

Happy Five Years

Just married! 2008

This weekend, my husband and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. Five years has gone by so quickly! Having kids and the ensuing sleep deprivation has, granted, caused many of my memories of at least three of those years to become pretty fuzzy, but hey, five years is still longer than college or high school. I hope we'll be together for decades more, but five years begins to feel like at least a minor milestone. As we approached our anniversary, I reflected on how relatively little we knew each other when we got married and how much closer we've become. Granted, we met each other about four months before we began dating, dated for just less than a year, and got married about eight months later, so there wasn't a lot of time between meeting each other and getting married. In that sense, marriage really does seem like a leap of faith, because you have no idea how much you don't know about each other!

Some people will say you should get to know each other for a long time as friends first, or at least have a very long engagement. I think it's unnecessary. Probably prudent, but if you know you belong together and have covered your relationship in prayer, I really don't see the point in waiting. And five years later, I still don't. Certainly our relationship deepened after we married. We've grown closer in ways I couldn't have anticipated. But I think that's just something that happens after you've made that marriage commitment, regardless of how long you've been together. All I knew when I married Joseph was that I loved him, I admired him, I wanted to be with him, and it seemed like God wanted us to be together too. Five years later, all of those are still true.

I know one thing for certain: I have never regretted or wished away a moment of being married. (This post may also be subtitled: "Justifying my quick marriage at a young age.")  I was 21 when we got engaged and 22 when we were married. All the adult members of my family balked in ways great and small and insisted I should wait until I was at least 30 until I got married, God bless them every one. (Literally, they believed 30 was a magical number.) That way I would have time to "grow as a person," "finish schooling," "establish my career," "accomplish my goals," etc. It seemed silly at the time, and five years later it still seems laughable. (I love you all.) The fact that I never got a graduate degree or pursued a career had to do with my uncertainty about what I wanted to pursue, and nothing to do with a lack of support or encouragement from Joseph. (Quite the opposite.) If God has lessons to teach me, He can use any part of my life, whether I'm married, in school, a mother, or pursuing a career.

Also, how did marriage become the great End of Everything? Why on earth couldn't a person still grow, establish a career, go to school, or accomplish their life goals while married? Wouldn't having a constant support in your life just help you with all of those? Children are a completely different story. It's a much bigger challenge trying to do any of those with children. But people act as if getting married ends your life. You never get to grow or change or progress. I remember in one of my graduate level classes one day, I mentioned I'd just gotten engaged, and everyone was floored. "I can't imagine making a commitment like that!" "Yeah, I'd be scared out of my mind." "There is no way I could even think about doing that." I understand that everyone is different, and not everyone wants to get married or is ready at the same time at their lives, but why is marriage actually frightening? Again, I don't go in for conspiracy theories. I don't believe there's a war on marriage. But it's sad that so many people have such a negative view of something so beautiful.

I didn't have any reservations about getting married to Joseph. (My parents were going through a separation/divorce at the time and I worried that I would somehow ruin a marriage, but that's another story.) I've always liked guys names that started with "J." I don't know why. I like blue eyes and darkish hair. I like big shoulders. Since I was a teenager, I've been keeping an almost-impossible list of what I wanted my future husband to be: he had to like kids, like animals, be spiritual (I wasn't raised a Christian, but I knew I wanted someone who had good morals and a deeper meaning behind them), enjoy cooking, enjoy classical music, be highly educated or very intellectual, be well-read in the classics, among many other traits. I was also looking for that loving, caring, strong, protective, gentle, prince-like quality. The way I know that God meant us to be together is I got all that in Joseph and more. He was literally everything I'd ever hoped for in a man, but still better than I could have imagined. A prince among men. The kind of material that knights and great leaders are made of. Brave, wild, a dreamer and deep thinker, hilarious, has a great way with words, able to encourage others, inspiring, a sharp businessman, able to teach himself anything. Honest- as far as I know, he's never lied to me or anyone as long as I've known him. I grew up in a family where little white lies were acceptable. It's very important to Joseph that nothing either of us says even borders on a lie to anyone. Not even little white lies. He's a wonderful father. He's a great friend, and he's a strong Christian. I haven't even mentioned that he's super handsome and fit, with a great Welsh singing voice. Or that he was an entrepreneur with a successful business (two, now!), a pilot, and a volunteer firefighter/EMT. I couldn't have in my wildest imaginings even designed a man like him. I certainly couldn't have imagined I'd meet him one day. And how lucky was I to meet him when I was only 20?? When we were dating, we both prayed about our relationship a LOT and were very open to God's prompting. But since there were no barriers and we both just kept liking each other more and more, we assumed it was meant to be. I would have been happy (and I still am) to be with Joseph the rest of my life. He was the man I'd always wanted. Since he felt the same way about me, there was no reason for us to date for another nine years just so I'd grow or learn in some hard-to-define way. (Plus, as Christian couples who are waiting for marriage can attest, it reduces temptation drastically if as soon as you get the green light from God, you put a ring on it.) Though I saw no reason marriage should hinder my education or career, I decided that love and building our life together was more important than both of those things. We're both enormously thankful for the experiences we had when we were younger and single, but I wouldn't wish for any more of those if it also came with the loneliness and longing of waiting for your perfect match.

Was that too braggy? What I'm trying to say is that Joseph is one of my sure proofs of God's grace. How could I ever deserve a man like that? How could I deserve his unconditional love and constant forgiveness? How could I manifest him with positive thoughts and energy sent out into a big uncaring Universe? No, God definitely exists, He designed Joseph, and for reasons I'll never understand but always be thankful for, He brought us together. (Really, as nerdy as I was when we met, it was a miracle he wanted my number.) I could never deserve or understand God's grace in choosing to save and protect me, but I'll always be thankful for it, and I'm always reminded of that when I think about my relationship with Joseph.

I'm sure your spouse (or future spouse) is great too, but I love mine so much! I'll say to single people: get out and enjoy life! Do all the things you'll be proud of yourself for later on. But if you meet the person you know is right, marry them whether you're 20 or 70. At the end of my life, I can't imagine I'd look back and wish we'd had nine fewer years of marriage so I could have "grown" more for nine years. I can only imagine I'll be grateful for every moment I've had with my amazing husband. In fact, I'd wager that the last five years, the challenges of life (both major and mundane), keeping our marriage healthy (even through having kids, which is no easy feat), adjusting our personal attitudes and behaviors, and just living together, has resulted in more personal growth than I would have experienced in either graduate school or through work. We've both changed and helped each other as iron sharpens iron. It's not always comfortable,  and it's definitely hard work, but I'd say we're both better people.

This feels a little rambling. I guess other than justifying my Great Marriage Experiment, I don't know exactly what I want to say, except happy five years, Joseph! One day I'll actually let you read my writing before it's complete... it might take another five years, though. :)

The happy couple five years later... plus three bundles of joy.