With this ever-growing belly and my due date quickly approaching, I am constantly feeling the strain of my to-do list and all of the things I would like to get done before Baby comes.  One of which is catching up on my blog.  So here's a "catch-up" post from back in April when I threw a tea party for all of my pregnant friends.

    As you've probably gathered, there is a baby boom going on out here!  There was when Jocelyn was born too, and it has been so much fun getting together with Moms for play dates, and watching all of our babies grow together.  Being pregnant with friends somehow makes everything seem a little more doable.  And I am so grateful to experience this amazing stage of life with so many lovely ladies.

   Unfortunately it didn't suit for 4 ladies, so it ended up just being 5 of us at the party.  It would have been so much fun to get that picture of 9 bumps all in a row!  But it was still a lovely time.   We enjoyed tea, refreshments, a little baby trivia, and I sent them off with a book about praying for your children.  It was so much fun to sit at a table with women who had either gone through this many times before or were experiencing it for the first time and share stories, advice and little words of encouragement.
   But when we DO come together?  When we put our arms around each other and pass it all along?  Then it somehow makes everything we go through just a little more worth it.  The thought that I was not alone in my journey, and I did not suffer each step of labor for only myself and my child, but for the benefit of sharing my story with others, and hopefully it being a source of encouragement, education and empowerment.

   The rain is back.  And on cue, so is my very own personal mental "little black raincloud" that seems to be attached at the hip with the weather outside my window. 

But that is a lame excuse.

   And it always used to really bother me when people would go all Eeyore just because it was gray and dreary outside.  "Grow up!" I wanted to say.  "Deal with it! That's life! You'll ALWAYS have a reason to feel down, whether it's the weather, bills to pay, disobedient children, a broken-down car...the list could go on forever.  Your circumstances will never be perfect, so this is a battle you have to fight and win in your mind, or you will struggle with it forever."

    I've never actually told anyone that (thank goodness) just thought it in the recesses of my mind, and now I'm extra glad, because my words would all be coming back to me, and I'd have to eat them.  Yuck. 

   Randy and I were at the hospital the other day for a tour/going over the birth plan and the nurse said something that hasn't quite left me yet.  She said, "And really these are just the most incredible times of your lives...but I'm sure you already know that."  And a part of me didn't.  Like, not just in a vague, "I know it but sometimes I forget it" way, but in a deeper, darker, "I really don't feel that way" way.  And it made me quite sad. 

Because really, these days are pure magic. 

   Growing a human inside of you, getting to meet them for the very first time, watching first-hand as they experience the world around you and shower you in unconditional love in great big armfuls that you never quite feel as if you deserve?  Magic. 

But sometimes it just doesn't feel that way.

   It feels more like, survival.  Like pushing through.  Like waking up to another day, and that not really being that big of a deal.  When really, it's all we've got.  We have today.  That's it.  And really, not even that.  We have this moment.  We might not have this afternoon, or this evening.  We just have these individual moments, and as they slip by, they are gone forever. 

  
   And so today I am taking a leaf blower to that little black raincloud, and trying to shoo it away by being thankful for little things.  Because sometimes it seems that is all you have.  A collection of little blessings. (When really, we all know that is an illusion, because we have more incredible, huge blessings than we could ever hope to deserve.) 

Things like:

• A chicken wrap and sweet tea for lunch.  I LOVE sweet tea and would drink it 3x a day if I could, but it is something I never have on hand.  Husband surprised me with buying it the other day. 
• Polka-dot socks.  Life is too short to wear white ones.
• A necklace from Hubs for Mother's day.  He ordered it with two eggs in the nest to represent our two little girlies.  I love it.

   Joss is up from her nap.  It wasn't a long one.  But I will choose to be thankful that she's always so happy to see me, even if sometimes I'm not the happiest to see her (awake).  And she wraps her arms around me tight and lays her head on my shoulder as if that's the only place in the world she wants to be, and really, in about 12 years I'll probably have to pay her to do that. 

So for now, I'm going to soak it up. 

Like the rain.

   I'm afraid my blog is going to be quite baby-themed for the next few weeks or so.  Bear with me!  It's heavily (pun intended) on my mind.
  
   Today was actually quite profitable.  My mother-in-law Bonnie had an idea (that was nothing short of divine inspiration), to have a once-a-week "Grandma Day".  So she had Jocelyn all day and I was able to tear through the house, getting things done.  I did some laundry, namely washing up some baby things like the car seat and bouncy seat covers.  I already have the bedding, blankets and towels all washed and ready, and it all makes baby girl seem so much closer!

   I am especially giddy about the bouncy seat (which I badly needed) that I found at a garage sale BRAND NEW for $10.  It's a Combi Pod bouncer, which reportedly retails for $90, although I realize it can be found cheaper other places.  Such a steal.


 Another garage sale steal was these baby moccasins!  I just love them to pieces.
 I am so glad I didn't lose my patience and end up buying these:

I saved about $59 this way.:)

   Then Randy came home from work early so that we could go into town to do some grocery shopping and meet with the maternity nurse coordinator at the hospital.  We also got to tour the labor/delivery rooms, and go over our birth plan.  Yes, you read right, we are having our 2nd at the hospital.  This is for a number of different reasons that I won't launch into right now.  Maybe some other day.  But one of which is the fact that when we moved, we moved 20-25 minutes farther away from the birth center where we had Jocelyn, and considering that Jocelyn was born an hour after we got there, and 2nd babies tend to go even faster, we didn't think we should take our chances of delivering along side the road somewhere.  :p

   Like I said, there are other reasons, but I don't really want to go into them now.  In a perfect world, I wouldn't give birth in a hospital.  I would give birth in a jacuzzi in a fully furnished (and air conditioned) hut on the beaches of Bora Bora.  Randy would be dutifully massaging coconut oil into my aching muscles and a midwife would be fanning me with a palm branch as soothing guitar music played softly in the background. 

But this isn't a perfect world now, is it?

  And so sometimes we have to work with what we have, and this time around, for us, that means the hospital.  But I am optimistic.  Hospitals have changed a LOT in the past number of years, and are much more open-minded and even supportive of approaching labor and delivery as naturally as possible.  I am not scared of the hospital, and although I have heard lots of horror stories (who hasn't?) I am confidant that things can go just as well there as they can somewhere else.

   It was evident as I talked with the maternity coordinator that some of the things that were important to me, were very important to her too.  Without me even bringing it up, she mentioned skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the baby happening immediately after birth, and the baby is never "whisked away to the nursery" as is often perceived.   I felt completely supported in my decisions to breastfeed and abstain from medication or an epidural, and other things.  She never once seemed pushy or even subtly trying to affect my decision.  Randy and I both really liked her.

   So, we'll see how it goes.  I am not saying I think everything will go perfectly as planned.  I am not that naieve.  But I am saying that I think hospital's horrible reputations are not always what they seem.  And I am both curious and excited to see how it will be for me, during this birth.  I will keep you posted.:)

In other news, I am 37 weeks along!
   This means that:

• Baby girl is the size of a small watermelon, and boy does it sure feel that way!  I feel like a beached whale most of the time, and it is getting harder and harder to get comfortable.
• Her body is developed enough to survive outside of the womb. 
• Her lungs, now filled with amniotic fluid, are ready to take her first breaths of air. 
• Her eyelids flutter open and shut preparing for her first view of Mommy and Daddy.
• This baby is just about done growing inside of me. It could be anytime now!

   I am so excited to meet this little soul.  To touch her velvet skin, and to see if she has lots of dark hair like Jocelyn or is bald like her daddy was.  To name her.  To hold her close and breathe in that newborn scent that no one in the whole world can replicate.  To watch her meet her Big Sister.  To take her home and start our life as parents of two.  TWO!  Are we crazy?!

Hopefully the next few weeks fly by, because I am one, impatient (and uncomfortable) mama!

   This day is off to a good start, with devotions with my man, and eggs on toast and chammomile tea in my belly.  I am going to try and get a post written quick before Jocelyn wakes up. 

   I have figured out some sort of reason and rhyme to my lack of posts lately.  When I run into trouble loading pictures, or can't figure something out technologically, it just completely stymies me, and I avoid posting for a while.  I hate the way it makes me feel utterly helpless and useless.  Why doesn't anyone offer a technology class for stay-at-home-moms? Online? While their child is napping? *sigh*

   Another area in which I've felt completely stumped/mystified lately is sewing.  I can't ever seem to get things to turn out right.  Is it too much to ask to want to simply re-cover my pillows?! I tried this one recently to no avail:

   And I'm sure as far as sewing goes, that's like learning to scratch your head and blink your eyes at the same time.  But it just didn't work!  I desperately want to make things for my girls, as I love and cherish handmade things from someone, but I just don't know how to get there.  Any tips?  Suggestions?  Do you just really have to waste precious time and energy and resources until you get better?  Who wants to do that? I only like to do things I'm good at! (wink)

  In other news, I am just loving this girl more and more each day.  Every time I think she's stolen my heart completely, I realize that I'm still falling.  Like the way she has recently formed a fierce attachment to her "jammies" and would love to wear them all day, every day if I let her.  I know that 263,374 other kids do this, but I'm really enjoying watching her follow in their footsteps.

  Tousled little bed-head and a hint of a tan on her velvet skin that tells me summer is slowly but surely arriving.
   The way she finds her belly button, and pats my belly saying "Baby" over and over while giving it big, sloppy kisses.
   The way she can be so "busy" in her kitchen.  Sometimes it's more serious than just playing.  Like she's really hard at work in there.  It just makes me so excited for the day we will bake bread, pies and cookies together.  Considering by then I have gathered up my nerve to try and bake a pie.

   Well I hear her stirring, so I should probably wrap this up. We've been goinggoinggoing lately, and so the plans for today are to stay home, and hopefully get a little cleaning/laundry/organization done.  Hope you all have a lovely Thursday.  Keep your chin up, it's practically the weekend!

"Becoming a parent is a lot like breaking up with yourself."

   That quote from The Gypsy Mama caught my eye, and I would highly recommend you hop on over there and give her post a read.  It's so well written, and spot-on in her descriptions of what motherhood "took her from".
 Sometimes I feel as if I have never been more alive at any other time in my life than now, as a mother.  There are days when I feel as if the "pre-baby Shelley" was a mere shadow of the woman I have become, since adding "Mama" to my titles.  I wasn't nearly as patient.  I wasn't as strong.  My endurance and stamina and multi-tasking abilites were a whisper of what they are now.  Yes, there are moments when I feel this whole motherhood thing has really molded me, shaped me, and formed me into the best me yet. 


   BUT.......then there are days when I sorely miss the old me.  The life of the party me.  The go-go-go, rock-around-the-clock, stay up late and sleep in late, eat when I feel like it, go wherever, whenever I want to, me.  The fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, never make plans, spontaneity-is-my-middle-name, me.  


  
   When a typical summer's day itinerary was sleeping in, meeting friends at the pool, sunning myself and getting lost in a magazine.  Enjoying ice cream or frappucinos and lounging at a coffee shop afterward, just letting the hours roll by.  Making a brief appearance back at home to shower and change before heading out for the evening.  "When will you be home?" Mom would ask.  "Oh, I don't know, I might watch a movie and spend the night over at so-and-so's house."  I never had it all planned out, and didn't have to.  I did what I felt like, when I felt like it.  And Holy Huggies sometimes that sounds so deliciously wonderful I wonder why I ever left it!!


But then I remember why. 

   Because I loved someone dearly, and wanted to begin a new life with him.  And because I wanted a child that was a part of us.  I had a burning desire to experience life WITH someone.  The idea of living just for ourselves is all peaches and cream until you start to think about getting old.  Who would you spend the holidays with? Who would you enjoy vacations with?  Who will those little details of your life matter to? We wouldn't have any reason to be involved with schools, sports, plays, pageants, recitals, and all those other parent/child activities so what would we do all summer?  Garden?  Knit? 


   I know, I know, it sounds like the only reasons I had a child were selfish.  And sometimes they are selfish I guess.  I want someone to want me.  I want someone to depend on me.  I want my daughters to grow into women of God that love life and drag me into all kinds of adventures with them.  I want these two young women to know me in a way that no one else ever will.  I want to form a bond, a friendship with them, that I will never quite experience with anyone else.

   But some of the reasons aren't selfish.  Reasons like, wanting them to leave a legacy and impact on the world far above and beyond what I ever could.  Hoping that their dreams are realized, even if some of mine never are.  Praying that my ceiling will only be their floor.

   In one week it will be exactly 17 months since our little Jocelyn Kate made me a mama.  So much has changed since then. 

• We moved to a bigger house in the country, with plenty of yard space for the little ones to play.
• We bought a bigger vehicle, saying a sad little goodbye to the sporty 2-door BMW that was so much fun, but not car seat/stroller/lots of groceries friendly.
• We have made new friends, and been welcomed by a wonderful church family.
• We have traveled to weddings, and visited family and friends from out-of-state.
• Randy's business has grown, and new opportunities are presenting themselves.
• My blog has grown, even though I continue to slack at it.
• My brother has come to live with us for a year, serving with Gospel Echoes ministries.
• We discovered in October that we were expecting Baby #2.  

   The list could go on and on.  So much has changed.  And will continue to change.  Because life won't allow you to stay still for long.   I just hope that as this second little one enters our world and changes me forever once again, I will choose to remember the "reasons" why I chose to become "Mama".  That I will not lament the old me, but celebrate the new me.  That I will not always be caught looking back, but looking forward with hope, ambition, and a vision for the future.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

   How about this WEATHER we've been having lately?!!  I feel so torn.  Part of me just wants to exclaim about it and jump up and down with joy, and act like a giddy, little school-girl what with all the sunshine, balmy temperatures and cool breezes we've been enjoying lately.

   The other part of me wants to pout and throw a royal tantrum that it took over a third of the new year to arrive.  With only 2/3 left of 2012, and knowing that at least half of that will probably be cold and rainy again, I get a little desperate and panicky. 

   But really, when I complain about the weather, I'm complaining about God's handiwork.  I guess that could go for most of life circumstances, huh?  Hence, I'm trying not to complain.  And just be thankful that it's FINALLY here. 

   So that's the main reason I haven't been posting lately.  I've been too busy enjoying Randy's grilling, eating on the deck, sunning myself with a magazine, bike riding, walking, and any other activity I can think of that will get me outside. 

   The other main reason I haven't been posting is because lately I have felt Lazy with a capital "L".  My poor husband has been enduring a new game called, "Let's see how many days I can squeak by without cooking" and also one called "How long can I go without cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry and we still have clothes to wear and can see ourselves in the bathroom mirror?"  Fun, fun times I tell you.
 
   But I am proud to say that today has been a productive day so far, with a bike ride, lunch that I actually made, laundry, and my room and bathroom are delightfully clean.  I give all credit to the morning nap I was able to take *cue Halleluiah chorus* because of Shelby being home and offering to watch Jocelyn for a while. 

   I must admit, this little Firecracker is wearing me out.  Jocelyn was my little snuggle bunny, all content to curl up in my womb and relax.  (A little TOO relaxed, as she came 3 days late!)  This one is a different character.  She tumbles and turns, flails and kicks, tosses and flips until I'm completely worn out, and that's when I'm sitting down!  I wonder what I'm in for with this one...I'm afraid she may have a little too much of her mother in her....In any case I hope it means she wants to get a jump-start on life, and comes early!!  MAN would that be nice.

    Sorry for the fuzzy picture, and also sorry that I put all of these on facebook before my blog, and so it gets a little repetitive...that's the only way I've figured out so far how to get pictures from my phone onto my blog!  Pathetic, I know. 

   At 35 weeks, I'm much more ready to be done than I remember feeling with Jocelyn, although it may be my memory just isn't serving me correctly.  I feel bigger, clumsier, more tired, and over-all just more PREGNANT.  I catch myself thinking, (as I have probably thought 1,000 times by now) how did my mom do this 7 times?!  SEVEN? Was she invincible? Crazy? Both? 

   In all honesty, I am so grateful to my mom (and Randy's mom) for going through pregnancy so many times.  It makes for big family get-togethers, the best holidays, lots of cousins/grandkids, people to play games with, talk to, make memories with, and is over-all just a lot of fun.  I want the same thing for my daughters, but I'm not sure yet how many times I want to experience the life of an oompa-loompa, so we'll see which one wins out. ;)

   Hope all of you are having a splendid Tuesday!  I'm off to a Mother/Daughter dinner tonight and may actually break out my camera! *Gasp*

By George, I just think the whole world would be better if we all spoke French.

   Take my title for example.  Doesn't it just sound so polite, charming and a tad bit romantic? It means "Leave me alone."

   And when it comes to fashion, the French just get it right.  With their feminine dresses, red lipstick, berets, stripesstripesstripes and elegant hair...and don't even get me started on the interior decor! Sigh. 

   Lucky for me, I will get a little French fix tonight as we are invited over to a friend's house tonight for dinner and that is the theme! And they've instructed us to come in proper attire.  I am so excited.  If you know me at all, you know I love any excuse to dress up. Haven't always been that way, but have definitely morphed into one of those people.  So.  I think something striped is definitely a must....





  Too bad I'm not skinny though...wish I had something from this fabulous French maternity line!  SO expensive though.  I really should start my own company.  Affordable, fashionable maternity is just almost un-heard of. :(

And how to do the hair...so many choices....

Any thoughts?  Suggestions?  Maybe this combo would be nice for the Hubs.....


And for Little Miss?  I don't know yet, wish I had something like this....




   Who knows what we'll come up with.  All in all, I think it should be a splendid evening!  I hope you all are enjoying your Friday so far as well! 

For your slow-moving Wednesday, I figured I would give you some pictures to look at.

   I shot these senior pictures last fall, before I was big and huge and could still muster up the motivation and energy to take my camera out.  That's out of the case, not out as in outside, if you were wondering.  My poor little Nikon buddy feels more like a stranger these days.  On more than one occasion I have caught him jealously eye-ing my iPhone.  I'm sure he feels replaced.  And I guess he has been for now.  But not for forever!  Don't worry little Nike, I'll be back.

   Looking back through these photos now, there are things that bother me very much (i.e. FOCUS! Arrrg) that I just cannot quite seem to get right.  I am learning, and I am improving, but it seems it is at a snail's pace, and I am tempted often (super often) to give it up completely.  After all, I like doing things that I'm good at. :p  Don't we all?  It's humbling, stretching and challenging to take on things that I don't feel like a pro at, and photography is one of those things.  And so when life gets a little crazy, it's also one of the first things to get put on the back burner.  Or into the chest freezer.  But Baby coming in June will bring my dusty camera out of hiding.

   Thankfully, Trent was very easy to work with.  He was willing to try my posing ideas no matter how weird or cheesy they must have felt, and didn't once complain about tromping through grass and weeds in places we probably shouldn't have been.  Only got in trouble once.  :/











Well, that's all for now.  I hear a little munchkin who woke up an hour early from her nap calling for me.

Sigh.

Happy Wednesday everyone, it's all downhill from here to the weekend!