it all started @ 2.53 am this morning

OOOOOOOOFFFFTTT!!

so i woke up and for lands sake i had to go potty. only i couldn't wake myself up because it was the third time i woke up that night. it was like try to surface from deep sea diving. i made it though. then i got out of bed and my horizontal hold shifted in a see-saw pattern. I made it though. And that's all that matters.

It's been about a month since I slept through the night. offt.

then i woke up at 5.30 and decided to screw working out i'm tired.

6.50. Woke up too late to make breakfast, needed to hit the mcdonalds. every time i order a medium latte and an egg mcmuffin. EVERY TIME I ORDER IT'S AN ORDEAL FOR THE GIRL TAKING MY ORDER. The egg mcmuffin part is ok, she gets that. But ordering a medium latte is akin to speaking Chinese appearently.

It's 7 am now.

'A COFFEE?'

"No, a medium latte please".

"DO YOU MEAN A COFFEE?"

"Um, no, I would like a medium latte please."

I don't want a coffee, I want a medium latte. Latte is french for milk. Which is steamed and put into a delicious coffee beverage. Which the girl has never head of despite it being on the menu. RIGHT THERE. UNDER THE WORD LATTE.

Frustrated, I slam my hand down on the steering wheel because I have to do this every.single.time. I realize I look like crazy person but noone can see my hands so it doesn't count. And I don't snap at the McDonald's coffee girl because I'm better than that.

7.35. I get to work and the door is locked. Mondays and Tuesdays are my days at a tiney tiny clinic. With a security guard about the same age as Grandpa Simpson. His hearing aid is constantly high pitched humming. He forgot to unlock the door.

SO. I am noticing something lately. Like everyone else in this world I have an inner voice. However, my filter for this voice is becoming very weak and very useless the more pregnant I become.

So i'm outside the door yelping "FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! STUPID DOOR IS LOCKED!!!"

AND I'M KNOCKING ON THE DOOR. YELLING.

My crazy person is on full display.

The clinic is tiny and the walls are thin and everyone inside has heard me.

Someone opens the door and smiles at me. Luckily they like me and just laugh off my crazy.

7.37 My tailbone starts to throb as I sit down. My eyes feel like sandpaper. I can't breathe and the stomach acid is splashing around in the back of my throat. I open my email to learn I am officially in the third trimester.

Which is awesome really.

I mean, the baby is getting so big he's literally moving organs out of his way. I can feel him so much lately. All kung fu fighting in there. I can't help but feel so happy and proud of my belly. He has about 2 more months to cook and then, God willing, he'll be in our arms, nursing and snuggling.

Then I'll get my body back. And start to sleep through the night again.

oh wait.

;)

Moments from our first weekend as foster parents

We offered respite, aka, temporary care for a kid in the foster system this weekend. We'll call him Sam for our purposes. He's about 5 years old.

Friday night:

Sam's Grandma drops him off and spends an hour. She explains Sam's wants and needs in a lot of detail. I am tired from work and smile and nod a lot. I am thinking, why is this woman going on and on? We've met Sam before and he's a good kid. He'll be fine, I think to myself.

I can tell she's nervous. She tells me she's been Sam's caretaker for a year now. Then it all makes sense. She is a nervous mom dropping off her kid. It'll be his first weekend away, with any sitter of any kind. I'm humbled that she trusts us so much.

Saturday:

We go to a festival. Lots of kiddy rides and ninety degree weather. I am nervous because we don't know Sam in public. Is he a runner? Does he listen when full of hot dogs? Will he throw up at random times?

Mr. Hall and I struggle with juggling three kids in public. Two is easy, three outnumbers us. I begin to groan under the workload. Three kids is a lot of work. Lots of shoes to tie, potty times to enforce, meltdowns to manage, pb and j sammiches to make. I realize how good I've had it.

My kids don't ask for sweets. My kids take direction and listen. They march off to a time out when told. Sam is now relaxed enough that he begins to test boundaries. We discover he listens to Mr. Hall more. Mr. Hall takes the reins.

Later we go for a swim. I am in super nervous mode. Sam doesn't know how to swim but we have a life jacket and I'm holding him. Mr. Hall let's Sam float and doggie paddle back to him. I freak out and shriek a little. I realize I need a cocktail. I realize I can't have one because I'm 7 months pregnant. I go inside and put myself on a time out.

After shower we put in a movie. For 30 minutes Sam snuggles on my lap, not moving. I breathe in his hair and little boy stillness. I realize he's like every kid. LOTS AND LOTS of work during the day, unbelievable sweetness when the storm settles. I have trouble not crying.

Sunday:

I wake and I fumble with my cell phone to check the time. 5.53 am. I realize Sam's awake but didn't make any noise. Didn't wake up my kids either. I know he's awake because a mother knows when children are not sleeping in her house. I find him in the sun room, looking at the pool. I give him a hug.

"I miss my Mommy cause she went to jail. She's out now. My Daddy's still in jail because he made naughty choices.", he says. Then, in the next breath, "Can I have mini wheats for breakfast?"

I give him another hug and make him mini wheats. I don't really say anything about what he said. I see he's focused on the cereal so I just let it be.

After cereal he sits on Mr. Hall's lap, watching Simon the cat videos. He relaxes and puts down his matchbox cars. The ones he's been clutching all weekend.



We drive to church and he's a chatterbug. Says more in those 15 minutes then he's said all weekend.

At church there is a sermon on how God gave us gifts for a reason. We are to share what we have. I am humbled.

We have this marriage, this parenting partnership, this house and these good kids so we need to share them with others. If not just for a weekend. I realize I have a lot of work to do too. I've been too short with Sam. I'm not a patient parent and while I'm getting better, I need to get a lot better. I'll pray about this.

I realize that without Mr. Hall, I couldn't do this. I love that when I get ideas (like becoming a foster parent) my husband is right there, encouraging me and giving of himself right beside me. I am humbled to have such a husband. I don't even try to hold back the tears.

When we get home, my son, Sam and I all lay on the grass in the front yard under a shady tree. I'm exhausted and know his Grandma will pick him up in an hour. We don't say much. After we're done we get up and go into the house.

When his Grandma comes I can see she's still tired. She wanted Sam's mom to come along for the pick up. I don't say much about that, just look kindly in her direction. Then, as Mr. Hall loads Sam into the car, I give her a big hug.

How to Handle Your Wife

Sadly there is no picture I can post here because my work doesn't support the new blogger platform. So close your eyes and envision people holding hands and hugging. Nice huh?

Now, imagine everything below being spelled right. :)

In the last month of my pregnancy my nausea has receeded. OH GLORY DAY!!! I can eat again. Food tastes like food. Apples taste like apples. Rasberries taste like rasberries. Snozberries tastes like snozberries! My belly, it grows so big and round!

I'm six and half months now. I feel the baby move. He's so strong that if I lay right, others can feel him move too. Like my daughter and my husband. My son says he can feel the head, the hands and the string that's feeding him. It's all very unbelieveable and makes me misty eyed. We love him so much already.

Praise Jesus!

My waking up from five months of nausea and the misty eyed love of my unborn son, has caused a bit of crazy to pop up. It's coming to a point where we need to figure out what to do with our fertility after the babe is here. I don't want this squishy love to ever stop. I want to be like the Duggar family. You know the one, with the 19 kids and counting.

But Houston, we have a problem. We aren't a family supported by a church who own storage shed facilities or radio towers. We aren't a family with two stay at home parents. That is not our reality.

Which is harsh, when the world I live in collides with reality. The reality is, Mr. Hall is tired. He is so happy for the new baby and this will be it for him. The last butt I wipe he says. Last food we'll cut up. We are so close to freedom he says.

It's sad but I agree. I'm just never going to feel right about being done having kids. But you have to cut it off sometime. Sniff sniff.

Then, I enter my maternity leave request at work and that was huge for me. Having people notice my pregnancy and openly talk about it is huge. It's very scary still because of the losses. But, I'm getting better at trusting God with all this. And the more I let go, the more gooey eyed I get.

Wait, where was I?

OH YEAH-

Feeling cute preggy + baby moving so strong = crazy

So, we've decided to revisit the foster care family idea. It's been on hold while I was five months of pukesville. And lo and behold, once I got better we starting getting calls for respite care needs. The social worker suddenly started calling us again.

So we'll start small. Having a foster kid for a weekend here and there. Dipping our toes in the water.

"This will handle your energies, give you something else to focus on for a while." says Mr. Hall.

Which makes me wonder. Who alerted the social to my wellness? Maybe these calls aren't so 'out of the blue' after all.

:)

The time I got hit on and didn't know it (x2)

I was studying to become a mental health nurse practitioner and spent a lot of time in the library. Mr. Hall, who was my boyfriend at the time, bought me a sweet Acer laptop to facilitate my learning. He tricked it out with everything I needed.

Let me just say I had, and still don't have, any idea how much that man loves and supports me. I didn't ask for a laptop, he just saw the lines at the computer lab and made sure I didn't have to wait. Love you babe.

ANYWHO

I was studying and a dude came up asked me about the acer laptop. He keep asking about this feature or that feature. It was kind of weird, I mean, I didn't really know what he was asking, but the string of questions kept coming. I remember he was sort of blushing and nervous. Somewhere along the line I mentioned it was a gift from boyfriend. Dude promptly disappeared.

THEN SOME YEARS LATER

I was in the grocery store with a big old can of Swiss Miss hot chocolate. Some dude came up to me and asked me how I liked that particular brand. What was the taste/texture? How did it compare to the others? He said he ran an office and wanted to have hot chocolate in the waiting room for his clients. This discussion went on for a good five minutes. Somewhere along the line I mentioned that Swiss Siss is my husband's favorite brand and the mix was from him. He promptly disappeared.

Which makes me wonder.

What was I wearing/doing that attracted these people? These were just ordinary days. Nothing spectular about what I was wearing or how I looked. Why then?

What does it take for a guy to come up to a girl, all cold calling like, and hit on her?

I feel for the men. Women live such a life inside their own head. We have no idea what men go through trying to reach us. No idea when we are being hit on. :)

Yep, good times :)

Pam and Eric from True Blood, marriage and a dream I had

Spoiler alert. True Blood is a show about vampires. Eric is a older vampire that made Pam a vampire. That makes Pam his creation, his protege, and sort of his wife. He released her during the last episode. Which means he kind of divorced her. She is free to go about the earth all free from him now. No longer beholden to their relationship. She didn't really want this, but, it was time.

Which made me sad for her and her fictional storyline. I mean, what is she to do with the mounds and mounds of love she has for Eric? Pam and Eric have been together for a hundred years. I wonder what that does for love?

Which brings me to my dream last night.

In my dream last night, Mr. Hall and I were in a hotel room. We were spying on a man climbing into bed. We were hidden in the closet. The man . . .

TOTAL ASIDE HERE . . . the man was John Cleese of Monty Python. In drag no less.

NO idea what the heck that was about but. . . .

The man crawled into bed and the mirror above the headboard opened up to reveal another man. This man was some sort of judge who judged Mr. Cleese's marriage. Again, John was in drag so it was sort of homosexual relationship he was judging. Not judging the homosexual part, but the quality part.

Had John been loving enough to his partner? Had John been in the marriage for the betterment of that person, and not just for selfish reasons. Or, put another way, did John put his partner first and not be all selfish gimmee, gimmee about things. Things like the love between them. Had John given and not just taken? Had John respect the gift that had been given to him?

Which brings me to me.

I am currently doing a class on Beth Moore's bible study called, "Living beyond yourself". It's all about giving up the idea that I am NOT the center of the universe. Which is hard because-I was a very spoiled child raised in western society. This society assumes and trains people to be indignant at the very idea we are not the center of the universe and everybody owes us something. It's a good study, an excellent one. I highly recommend it.

Which brings me full circle to the Eric/Pam separation, the judgement dream and my marriage. Stay with me now, all two of you who are still reading!! :)

I've been married lo these last 11 years and our love has grown so much. It's so tender and sweet. Vast, wide and deep. I had no idea the gift God was giving me when he sent me Mr. Hall. NO idea that love could be like this. It has caused me to surrender my selfishness in so many ways. And with each surrender, our joy has bloosomed up exponentially. And we are only 11 years in.

Like I said, I wonder what a 100 years would do for our love? :)

However, the fact of the matter is, I still have a lot of work to do. I do hold back, I do be selfish, I do be grumpy and pull away when my hubby needs me. I recognize he has needs and sometimes I just ignore them. I'm not proud of this. So I am actively changing this, asking God to help me be a better wife. Give more back rubs, listen to his day more, smile and relax more. To return the love I've been given.

It's amazing what has happened so far when I pray for this. Our love was bananas before, I can't wait to see what happens next. :)