Announcement

=======================IT'S A BOY!======================

Yep, that's right! There's a 15 oz little man in my belly (at least as far as modern medicine is able to tell). So Susanna is going to get a little brother, and we will have a son. I'm excited, but also don't quite know what to think about the idea of having a little boy in the family. I mean, I'm the oldest of 4 girls, so I know girls. But boys are a whole new territory. I have no idea what to expect. When Susanna was born, I was worried about being an incompetent parent in general, but as far as teaching a girl to be a girl, well, I'd seen it done several times and I had some ideas as to how to go about it. And I know how girls generally think, how they communicate, what they need, because I am one. I suppose the downside to that is that it's easy for me to think that raising a girl is no big problem and I tend to look to my own strength and skills to do so, rather than leaning on God's grace and wisdom. But this time around, the basic parenting stuff is the part I'm not so worried about. I've got a little bit of experience in that department now (although I have plenty more to learn there, too!). This time it's the raising-a-boy-to-be-a-boy part that I don't have a clue about. I have enough trouble figuring out how to understand the way my own husband thinks and feels and communicates and what he really needs Add to the gender difference the fact that a small child of either sex is generally verbally incomprehensible, and, well, this will be a whole new learning experience for me! None of this is to say that I'm not happy to be having a boy. And in many ways, I'm excited about the new challenges and chances to learn that God will bring into my life through this. I just need to trust Him for wisdom to train up a godly man and the Holy Spirit to make it happen! And I suppose having a husband who happens to have been a little boy once, too, won't hurt either!

We're going to wait a little to start calling him by name, just incase we change our minds in the next 4 months, so that surprise will have to wait. Stay tuned...

P.S. Lest I forget the most important part, he is also a very healthy looking little boy and growing at exactly the right rate. Thank you, Lord, for a healthy child!

Discipline

Susanna has turned into Little Miss Verbal lately. She is picking up words right and left, and is enjoying her new communicative abilities and enthusiastic responses she gets from her parents... It's kind of crazy to think that in another year or so, she'll be talking in full sentences and be comprehensible most of the time! *sniffs* They grow up so fast! Of course, by the time we don't have to guess what she's trying to say anymore, we'll be playing that game with another little one! Only 7 more days till we find out whether Susanna is getting a brother or a sister!

Unfortunately, despite the fact that Susanna is so eager to utilize her expanding vocabulary, lately she has "forgotten" the word "please". She seems to be entering the "gimme" phase - pointing at various things she wants and grunting... and then throwing a temper tantrum when we ask her to say please, after which she then sticks her thumb in her mouth and sulks... repeat request for "please", repeat tantrum, repeat sulking, etc., etc., ad infinitum... I tell you, for all her calm, happy, sweet personality traits, this kid is STUBBORN! So these last few days have been ones of many disciplinary episodes... I now believe my parents' "It hurts me more than it hurts you" and "I'm doing this because I love you"! I hate having to withhold the thing she wants and I hate having to spank her, but I also hate the thought of having a wild, disobedient and very impolite child who is headed for Hell, so I have to discipline her consistently. I think we might be seeing some fruit of this week's discipline, too, because today she seemed much more compliant in the "please" department (I think we only had about 3 tantrums, which is MUCH better than Friday's something like 20!) Anyway, all this is helping me to better understand why God has to discipline us, so it's all for our good.

How You Walk

"I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless." - Psalm 101:2b-3a

I read that this morning and was particularly convicted by the second phrase... How often have I used precious time to watch some worthless TV program, read some worthless magazine article, thought about things that were of absolutely no consequence, or worse yet, actually harmful? I don't have anything against TV or movies or magazines or R&R in and of themselves, but I know I need to be more careful to choose wisely what I will spend my time and energy on. Lord, grant us wisdom to discern the worthy from the worthless and to pursue that which is full of integrity and weight,that our every moment might bring you glory.

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." - Ephesians 5:15-17

Flutters

Okay, so life is finally getting back to normal (whatever that is!)... we've settled in to the new place, we don't have any upcoming vacations or visitors planned, and so I once again have the occasional block of time to write new blog entries and keep up with my subscription list! We'll see how long that keeps up

And just to prove that I've got all the time in the world again, all I have to say today is that in the last few days, I've started feeling some discernable movements and nudges from Tookie (I started getting that "fluttery" feeling a couple weeks ago). And I just have to say that that has got to be one of the coolest sensations! I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed feeling Susanna move around and how much I missed it after she was born. We find out whether Tookie is a he or a she in 3 weeks...

Things Go Up and Down But God is Always Faithful

Oy vay! This has been a bit of a crazy weekend... not too long after I posted that things were really looking up at the new apartment, Nathan decided to head over and do a little more work... at which point we discovered that the keys were nowhere to be found. Now I NEVER lose keys. I have never lost a key in my life (not counting momentary misplacements). So the one time that some keys disappear on my watch, they are the keys to our new apartment, which we a) need to get in to work and b) don't want to have to call the new landlord about. We searched the whole house (Susanna has a habit of finding keys and moving them to odd places, like the bucket of cleaning supplies in the room she is not allowed to play in), we called the restaurant we had been at Friday night, we searched the car... no luck. So no work. And then on top of that, I noticed that one of my glands was a little swollen, which, among a million other possible diseases, happens to be a symptom for toxoplasmosis. Of course, the pregnant hypocondriac in me was immediately convinced that I had somehow contracted it. Nevermind that my research had informed me that the parasite can only live for a certain amount of time without a host, and the cat guy has been out of the apartment for more than 6 months. Nevermind that cats only shed the parasite in their feces for 2 weeks after they get it (so they would have to have happened to contract it right before he moved out). Nevermind that symptoms of toxoplasmosis don't appear until 2 or 3 weeks after exposure and it's only been one since I've been over there. I was certain I must have it. So I didn't sleep too well Saturday night, between the keys and the fear for my unborn child...

However, lest I begin to depress you, read on... Sunday morning, I read Psalm 23, and began to pray that God would grant me a green pasture to lie down in and rest from all my anxieties and frustrations. And then, encouraged by the promise that goodness and mercy follow the righteous all the days of their lives, I started to pray that God would grant me grace to rest in His sovereignty and promises of faithfulness even if worst came to worst and the landlord told us we couldn't move in because he no longer trusted us, or I really did have toxoplasmosis and our baby was the 1 in 10,000 who ended up severely deformed, or Susanna got really dehydrated and ended up in the hospital or dead, even if we lost everything, every hope and dream we'd ever had, God would still be our God and He would still be faithful and somehow working goodness and mercy in our lives through the suffering, and at the end of it all there is the hope of future glory that far outweighs any earthly pain or decay. And thanks be to God who lifted me up out of my pit and gave me a great sense of peace and a deeper trust in Him!

Thanks be also to the God who could have allowed any of the terrible things above to happen and instead showed us the mercy of a landlord (who is a Christian, by the way) who heard about our key predicament and offered to drive into town right away to give us a new set of keys so that we were able to get some good work done last night (we also now have 2 copies, so that shouldn't happen again)... who gave me the peace of the knowledge that the slightly swollen gland is actually much more likely caused by the painful gingivitis I've developed in the last week (admittedly a risk for preterm birth if left untreated for several months, but not anywhere near as serious... I just need to make a dentist appointment soon)... who has brought healing to Susanna so that aside from the crankiness of incoming molars, she is happy and eating again and not soiling 4 outfits a day anymore... and who has also allowed Nathan to come down with a touch of the flu today - oh, it never ends, but God is still faithful!

"All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies... My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net." (Psalm 25:10, 15)