First off, I would just like to say that I'm excited to see so many new Immanuel bloggers this week... the trend is FINALLY taking off! Maybe that will provide greater incentive for me to xanga more regularly (note the creation of a new English verb in that sentence). I've certainly been checking my blogrings more regularly this week, and now I feel compelled to post something (It is also Friday, which is quickly becoming my regular posting day)...

 

Hmmm, you know, the problem with only having sufficient time to post once a week is that by the time Friday night rolls around, I have forgotten half of what I wanted to post earlier in the week and the other half is just a big jumbled pile in my brain... I'm about to try to untangle it, so bear with me :)

 

Oh, here's one thing... Anyone else had major customer service issues with AOL? Except for my E-machines comment (which I repented of when we bought another one of their computers), I don't normally like to publish negative comments about specific companies, but AOL takes the cake this week (in my book, anyway) for really poor customer service. I called them a week ago to cancel our account (before the free period was up, because we have broadband now and it's far superior to AOL dial-up, which we only had so we could connect to the Internet immediately after we bought the new computer... I was just so anxious to check up on my xanga buddies). Long story short and some spiel about anti-virus protection later, the guy refused to cancel our account and instead extended the free period for 3 more months. I didn't want the extention because we never ever use AOL anymore and the last thing I want to try to remember with a new baby in the house is to cancel AOL before Dec. 23. So after they charged us for some feature we have never used, I called back again to cancel the account. Again, same spiel about anti-virus protection and the guy (a different one) says, "I can't let you cancel your account before the free period is up because I think once you check out our security features, you'll see how valuable they are." So this time, I say, "No, I would like you to cancel our account immediately." And as if he hadn't heard me, he says, "Okay, so if you decide you really want to cancel, just make sure you call back before Dec. 23! Have a nice day!" and hangs up. Hello??!! I said, "Cancel it now!" Well, I figured, maybe I'm just too gentle. I'll wait till Nathan comes home and he can play hardball with them. So when he got home, he called to cancel our account (3rd time now). Well, the guy (yet another one) gives him the spiel and refuses to cancel the account, at which point, after being very kind to the guy for the first part of the conversation, he actually had to get somewhat rude and remind him that his job was not to give us a spiel, but to service the customer. So finally, we got a cancellation confirmation number. Six requests later. Thanks, AOL. You've given me the chance to use the word "spiel" 4 times in one story. A personal record :)

 

On a much less aggravated note, I've been thinking and praying much more this week about what it really means to be "cross-centred". Nathan and I have decided to try again to read The Cross-Centered Life together (we got through the first chapter or two about 4 months ago, and that was it). Anyway, I've just been thinking about how easy it is for me to go through a day and get everything on my list completed and checked off, and not think twice about how the Cross applies to any of it. Devotions in the morning (preferably before Susanna wakes up, although lately I haven't been sleeping so well at night and consequently have been sleeping later in the morning). Okay, check. Now on to the rest of my list. Not only that, but how often do I actually really meditate on the Cross, on my sinfulness and need of it, and Christ's perfect sacrifice for and justification of me on it, even during my devotional time? If that is the central and most important truth in the Gospel (well, it is the Gospel!), why do I gravitate so easily to more complex and less immediately applicable side-issues? Or, for that matter, why do I so easily go through my days without thinking about truth any more deeply than such inane (relatively speaking) things as "Naps are good" and "Man, the kitchen floor desperately needs a good scrubbing!" (that one is generally closely followed by "Oh, but naps are so much better than clean kitchen floors") If I'm truly living cross-centred, there's still room to think about the wonderful nature of a nap, but it should make me meditate on the perfect rest from all our strivings that the Cross has won for us. And the incredible service Christ poured out for us there should make me desire to scrub the kitchen floor so as to serve my husband and child who share my home. And His unimaginable sacrifice at the Cross should make it seem like so much less a sacrifice to lay aside my own momentary ambitions to read my precious daughter a story. Lord, teach me to think in this way!

Well, I think I've written my fair share for tonight. I'm actually starting to feel a wee bit hungry (morning sickness has returned recently, although in a milder form than before), so I'd better eat something while my stomach wants it (the doctor wants me to try to gain a little bit more, which, I have to say, I'm not used to hearing from members of the medical profession!). Maybe I'll actually post something again before Friday, but no promises :)

Out of the Mouths of Infants

Another week gone by and time for another entry... Today is Day #2 of Susanna in the "big girl bed" and so far, so good... *crosses her fingers* We wanted to get her switched over before the new baby arrives, partially because that's what everyone advises (not timing big changes to occur at the same time as other big changes... wouldn't it be nice if we could always control that?!) and partially because I have no desire to spend the first several weeks of sleepless nights with a newborn wondering when my daughter is going to fall/climb out of her bed and come wake me up during one of my middle-of-the-night "naps"! So yesterday morning, we finally got the mattresses to go with the bedframe (twin bed with a trundle which we've pulled out about a foot and a half as a step up and also a fall-breaker if needed), and started her off in it for her afternoon nap. That went well enough that we had her sleep there last night, and she seems to be taking it well. I can't vouch for where she really slept today, but when I peeked in to check on her yesterday afternoon, she was asleep at one end of the bed with her head on the pillow and everything (I'm not actually sure what "and everything" means in that sentence... it just sounded good) She looks so tiny in that humongous (that word looks really odd to me, but I looked it up in the online dictionary and that is indeed how it's spelled) bed... hard to believe that we've got a one-and-a-half-year old who's out of the crib, learning to use a fork, spoon and "big girl cup", talking up a storm and acting more and more like a kid and less and less like a baby... It'll be a little strange getting used to having a newborn around the house again! But he'll be here before we know it... 6 weeks from tomorrow is his EDD (estimated due date)...

On Sunday, Susanna was sick with a cold, so I kept her out of nursery and had her with me at the back of the church service... As much as it is incredibly distracting and occasionally frustrating to have under your care a little person who has not yet learned the art of being quiet and sitting still, this particular time, she was rather amusing. As her basic vocabulary has been increasing, we recently started teaching her some basic "Christian words" such as "Bible", "Jesus", "God", "Lord", "pray" and "Amen". She learned pretty quickly that all of these things go together in some way... So anyway, she didn't want to sit down at all on Sunday and ended up standing in the aisle near my chair, and the whole time, anytime anyone prayed or gave some short meditation from the front, Susanna was sure to yell out "Amen!" and then start saying "Jesus! Lord! God!" and the occasional "happy!" Part of me wanted to keep her quiet, but more of me was just enjoying seeing her "participate" (hey, she was obviously listening as best she could to what was going on) and didn't want to discourage it in the least... During one of the songs, several people had their hands raised and Susanna must have noticed this because she was out in the aisle rocking back and forth on her feet with her hands up as high as she could reach, "singing" (we have to work on melodic lines). No joking. Where is that verse in the Psalms (I think) that says something like "out of the mouths of infants you have ordained praise"?

Anyway, I've really been enjoying having more opportunities for little talks about the Gospel with her, even though she can't yet understand everything, and I think that's been instrumental in the lifting of some of that icky apathy... That and trying to listen to sermons or worship music whenever I have some quieter moments, which I've discovered is a really good way for me to refocus my thoughts on God in the midst of the daily routine... I was actually trying to finish listening to a sermon I started this afternoon, while typing this entry, but wasn't hearing much of it, so now that I've got these thoughts out on the screen - I was going to say "on paper", but I suppose that's an almost obsolete place to put thoughts these days - I'll go back to some C.J. Mahaney on the Holy Spirit... and maybe I'll enjoy another chocolate chip cookie on your behalf while I do so Till next time...
Martha_Martha

Hodgepodge

Well, blogging may become a once-a-week thing from now on... I don't know where I ever found the time to post 3 or 4 or more times in a week! My guess is that it has a little something to do with the difference in caring for a 10 or 11 month old who can't walk yet and still naps twice a day, and supervising a very busy 18 month old who is down to a 2-hour nap (during which time, housework and sleeping take priority over trying to get my thoughts down on the web for public consumption!) Oh well... and I'm not complaining - most of the time, it's fun having a little person around who's able to interact and communicate in an increasingly comprehensible way and is starting to pick up on the things I do around the house and copy me! She helps unload the dishwasher (takes the silverware out and dumps it into the silverware drawer - don't worry, I grab the knives first before she gets to them!), pushes her noisy walking toy around when I'm pushing the vacuum around, and has been caught "plunging" the toilet She's also beginning to show that "little mother" instinct - EVERYTHING is her "baby", which means that she regularly holds random objects close, pats them and says "baby, baby!" I have to confess that as sweet as it is to see her do this, I'm a little worried about what she's going to do when there's a real baby around to pick up, feed and tickle (3 things I don't want to see her attempt!) Aside from increasingly frequent temper-tantrums (terrible twos, here we come!), she is also becoming increasingly sweeter... she LOVES to give hugs and kisses these days!

On a completely different note, my parents, who've been in town this week, left this morning and we had to say good-bye for a while (well, to my dad at least... my mom will be here for a couple weeks after the baby's born). They're moving to Germany on Monday, where my dad is teaching at a seminary and overseeing some church-planting efforts there. He's been teaching J-terms there for the past couple years, but now he's going full-time so they're moving. Kind of strange to think of them not being in Toronto, or for that matter, in North America, anymore... I don't think it's quite sunk in yet... Now all of our parents will be much more than a reasonable day's drive away. When I was younger, I might have thought that sounded pretty good (desires for independence and all), but whether it's just getting older, or related to having a family of our own now, I wish they lived closer than across the continent or across the ocean... If somebody'd told me that I'd feel this way at 25 when I was 15 or 16, I probably would have laughed in their face! Anyway, I do think it's pretty cool that my parents are willing to pick up and move to another continent and do something new after having already raised a family and lived in a relatively settled way for so many years... Who says you have to get all the adventure out of your system before you get married or have a family?

Well, I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and wait for Nathan to come home from work while I relax and listen to this CD - I love hymns set to contemporary tunes/rhythms... Depth and beauty of lyrics not regularly found in modern praise songs (generality though, not the hard-and-fast rule), with a really good beat... I'm currently enjoying Jars of Clay's modern rendition of one of my favourites (It Is Well With My Soul). Okay, and that's it for this hodge-podge of a blog entry... see you next week

Martha_Martha Returns

I'm BAAAAAACK! A new computer (and I have to admit that it's another Emachine, but it was really affordable and everyone else we know who has one hasn't had any problems, so we're hoping we just had a dud...) and a couple weeks of hecticness later, I finally have a chance to post again... not that I have a whole lot to say tonight, other than to rejoice that we WERE able to recover our old harddrive (is that one word or two? it looks odd to me), so we didn't lose any of our photos or documents, and now that we've added the old hard drive (that looks weird, too - is it hyphenated? hard-drive? ) to the new computer, we have lots of memory... And also (long run-on sentence... the verb here still being "rejoice") that I just managed to unclog the toilet in the master bath that has been plugged for the past two or so weeks... Don't ask me how I did it, seeing as Nathan and I have both tried several other times with two different kinds of plungers and no success... I think it's actually a problem with the flushing mechanism on the toilet (it's always been a little finicky), seeing as it's gotten "clogged" before with nothing but urine (not even TP) in it! Anyway, lest I digress into the actual disgusting nature of this problem, I'll leave that topic well enough alone. I am just thankful to have a clean, working, 2nd bathroom in time for the arrival of my parents on Monday! (And, for that matter, just to have an extra working toilet... the roughly 3 lb little boy sitting on my bladder 24/7 is making that fixture an especially important one lately!)

Speaking of 3 lb little boys, we've only got 8 weeks till D-Day! Can't believe it's gone by this fast, although I have to admit that things are slowing down lately.... Why is it that the closer you get to the end, the farther away it seems? Maybe because I'M slowing down! Well, it's actually probably mostly that I'm just really looking forward to meeting this little guy and 8 weeks doesn't seem soon enough! Ah, well, I can hardly believe I have a one-and-a-half year old already, so I'm sure all of 6-9 weeks will, in retrospect, seem like no time at all! Want to know something that will surely brand me as some psychotic I-don't-know-what? I'm actually also kind of looking forward to the labour process itself... Don't ask me why... I'm not a sadist or anything!... I just find it kind of exciting... Now ask me about that after I've been through it again I'm also looking forward to having some emotions back (not the crazy I-just-gave-birth-and-my-hormones-have-gone-nuts kind of emotion, just the normal everyday kind). For some reason, I get really numb-feeling in the last trimester. First trimester = cry about EVERYTHING, Second trimester = relatively normal, Third trimester = what's a feeling? Life just seems blah to me lately (was that way with Susanna, too). I mean, I get vaguely excited about unclogged toilets, but really, don't much feel one way or the other about, well, anything. And as frustrating as that is, I don't feel anything particularly strongly even about not feeling anything... Get me out of Apathy Land! I'd rather feel crazy than nothing! Makes me feel spiritually dry like almost nothing else and makes life pretty boring, too!

Anyway, that's about as much posting time as I have if I want to get to bed at a decent hour (midnight being a "decent hour")... but now that we've got a working computer, hopefully I'll be posting a little more frequently! (at least until I've got two kids to occupy me... I make no promises about posting-frequency after the birth of Little Man!)