Eat your heart out, Alpha moms!

We've all run in to them somewhere. Alpha moms. The women who have schedules, whose homes run like well-oiled machines, who dress their families in coordinating colors just to go out to eat. Women who iron, for crying out loud... We have one patient at our office who comes to mind. Whenever it's time to schedule an appointment for anyone in her family, out comes the planner. This thing is ginormous. It's the size of a five subject notebook, and she uses different color ink for different family members or activities. I honestly believe she cannot function without it.
Well, I have to admit, I'm a proud "Beta mom". My house is clean, but it is cluttered. There are toys scattered around the living room, regardless of how often I pick them up. The kitchen table always seems to have a stack of papers on it. We throw things in the dryer to get wrinkles out, and only iron in the direst of circumstances. I have been know to show up at church without wipes and have to bum a few from another (beta) mom. The laundry basket is always full of clean laundry that never quite makes it into the drawers. I've been know to vacuum the living room but not bother with the bedrooms 'cause we aren't in there much. There are usually clean dishes piled in the sink from my last effort at home cooking, 'cause I haven't gotten them put away yet.
Why confess such domestic sins? Because I've learned to live with myself! It used to drive me nuts that I wasn't organized within an inch of my life. But then I realized that in three years of marraige and two years of motherhood, none of us have ever gone hungry, or been without clean clothes (wrinkled a bit, maybe, but clean!).
Hey, I must not be doing too bad! Beta moms of the world, rejoice! :-)

A busy day during which I accomplished very little...

So, I had psyched myself up that today I was going to get lots of things done: doctor's visit, clean house, and most of all, get started on Abby's nursery.

Lets clarify that last one. The room that will be Abby's nursery currently holds a twin bed, book case, computer desk, my piano, a filing cabinet, and my ironing board. In the closet are all my Sunday dresses, my shoes, my sewing machine, and an assortment of purses, wrapping paper, etc. You get the picture. Before I can do anything, all this has to go, and today I was going to get a great start on it.

As they say, the best laid plans...

Here's what I actually got done:

Doctor's visit: everything was fine. My blood pressure was 102/65, which is freakishly low for some people but actually a tiny bit above my usual of 90/65! Baby's heart sounded good, and I've gained another 5lbs! Thank you, appetite!

Mild housework: I did sweep and mop the kitchen floor, dust, do a couple loads of laundry, and wash the dishes.

Next was Bella's nap time. This is when I can usually get the most done, and when I had intended to really go to town cleaning out Abbys room. Instead, Abby decided to suck all mommy's energy out of her, and I ended up having a nice nap on the couch instead!

After nap time I played outside with Bella for a few minutes, then mom came over and we all went out to eat, then stopped at the mall and Wally World.

We did manage to get the piano relocated. So technically I did start on the nursery. GO ME.

In an aside, let me just say that Bella is the best thing ever. She is jabbering every breath now, and can say pretty much whatever she wants. We have the silliest conversations you can imagine.

This morning I went for a Level II ultrasound of the new baby. Level II just means a more in depth ultrasound, they measure lots of things to make sure they are growing at the right rate, also check for birth defects such as club foot and things like that.

It was great getting to see Abby, she was wiggling around a little bit, then all of a sudden stuck her thumb in her mouth! It was so sweet, luckily the ultrasound tech got a picture!

The doctor said everything looked fine and she is just where she should be at this point in the pregnancy. I will have an appointment at the end of this month with Dr. Anand, a pediatric cardiologist. She will do a fetal echocardiogram and really inspect Abby's heart to make sure she did not inherit my heart defect. She did the same procedure when I was pregnant with Bella.

Anyway, we are moving right along! I am trying to get Bella ready to be a big sis, and ask her if she is going to help mommy take care of baby Abby- right now she says yes!

Oh boy, its a girl!

I know patience is a virtue, but I have to confess I often find myself running a bit short, especially in certain situations. Like waiting to find out the sex of a baby! I admire those women who wait until the baby is born, but I just can't do it. For one thing, I want to know exactly what to prepare for. What color to paint the nursery, what name to pick out. So this past Friday we headed to the Medical Center for my sister's friend, Nikki, to do an ultrasound.
So I got on the table and got my belly all covered in goo, and she got started. I had just taken my eyes off the screen to look over at my sister and say, "I know its going to be a girl!" and Rachel nodded and said, "Yep, there it is!" So I missed the big moment! Nikki measured her and she is at 7 ounces right now, isn't that incredible? Then we looked at the rest of her. And I'm laying there on the table doing a mental checklist: kidneys? check. Bladder? check. Spine? check. Stomach? check? Heart? check. I could almost hear a little intercom in my head saying "Houston, we have a go!"
It would have been nice to have a boy, but I am perfectly content with my baby girl. After all, how can I look at Bella and wish she was anything else? How can I look at my sister, and wish Bella to have something different? I already love both my girls. We are going to name Baby #2 Abbigail, which means my fathers joy. I know she will be! Bella and Abbi...
I'm already imagining the new challenges that will arise from having two little ones...and ready for the extra moments of joy it will bring. Being a mom is the best, hardest, most rewarding, scariest thing I have ever done. I remember it hitting me like a ton of bricks when Bella was an infant: I have to be to her what my mother is to me! Big shoes to fill! I love my mother excrutiatingly, and if she made any failures as a mother (I'm sure she would tell you she did) they were so far overshadowed by her infinite love that they have ceased to exist in my heart or memory.
I look at my daughter now, and seem to measure my life by her birth. There was my life before, and then her. It is sometimes hard to reconcile the two. So much happened before her. It makes me wonder about my parents, because as children we tend to put their life in a neat little box- mommy and daddy grew up, fell in love, got married, and had me! - when if fact our histories are never that simple. Parents had dreams, and heartaches, and triumphs, long before we came along. And so did I.
But for now, my biggest dream is on the couch, cuddled with her blankie and a sippy of chocolate milk. And in a moment I will tuck her in bed, say a prayer over her, and listen for her little voice in the darkness as I close her bedroom door: "Love you too, mommy."

Things I learned from the Dollywood excursion!

Yesterday my husband and I took our two year old daughter and three year old neice, Ashlyn, to Dollywood for the day. It was our first all-day outing with two little ones and boy, was it educational! Here are some of the things I learned:
1. Never schedule an outing after an OB-GYN visit. Even though I've never had to wait more than twenty or thirty minutes for a check-up (during either pregnancy) , of course the day we have plans Dr. Lewis is running behind. I waited 55 minutes to be put in a room. I think the nurse saw I was frustrated and was apologizing. I explained (politely) that normally I wouldn't mind waiting so long, but my husband was in the car with two little ones. She came back in a few minutes and said there were two nurse practitioners there if I wanted to see one. I told her I would see anyone who was qualified! At this point I was about to tell them to give me the stinking Doppler and I'd find the baby's heart beat! So after an hour and 15 minute wait I saw a N.P. for an exam that lasted three minutes. Literally. Babys heart rate was 164, which says girl to mo!
2. It's totally worth the $15 to rent a double stroller. That was the best money I spent all day! The rental strollers are low to the ground and the girls could climb in and out by theirselves. They also have enough room to stretch out and nap- not that they did, but they could have.
3. Never plan on riding a ride once. Especially the carousel. You might as well get off and go right back to the line.
4. By three o'clock in the afternoon, all the kids are grumpy! No one is going to notice yours being whiny or pitching a fit. They are all doing it!
5. Its okay to use the handicap bathroom stall. I admit I've occasionally felt a little guilty using the handicap stall, just in case someone who really needs it were to come it. With two little ones, you pretty much have to. By the time you all cram in to a regular stall, some one is getting stepped on and its impossible not to touch things they shouldn't be touching!
6. It is possible to see a show. You just have to make sure they're really tired, and provide juice and kettle corn as a snack! We sat through a 30 or 45 min show and the girls did great!
7.It's really fun. Okay, it is more stressful keeping your eye on two! Sometimes they want to go in different directions. And it's harder, you have twice the stops for diapers and potty and snacks and juice....but then when they are laughing together and having a ball, its totally worth it!

It may very well have frozen over...

I hate eating my own words. No matter how you season them, they never taste good. See, in the past whenever anyone would mention going to a high school reunion, I came back with "When pigs fly", or "over my dead body" or some other cliche' phrase. You might gather from this that high school was not an altogether enjoyable experience for me.
Don't get me wrong, there were parts of it I loved. Like playing on the tennis team, and running cross country (even though I was slow!), and Mrs. Rice's English classes. And even getting my heart broken, every girl needs to experience that in high school! And it's not like I was beaten up in the girls room or stuffed in my locker. There are much more subtle ways to be shown you aren't quite up to par. Some people may think the most deadly animal is something like the Alaskan grizzly, or Africa's Black Mamba snake. I beg to differ. That distinction belongs to the American Teenage Female.
So no one was more surprised than me when I went to my high school reunion today. Or to clarify, the picnic preceding it. And it was fun getting to see the people who came, and remember the one's who didn't. It's funny, even though we weren't all there, you could still find almost every stereotype. The class clown, the really sweet girl, the really smart guy, the wild child, the girl who (for reasons known only to her) is just a little bit snobby.
Ten years didn't seem to change us all that much. But it did give me a new perspective on the trial that was my high school experience: I wouldn't change a thing. Oh, if you asked me that question in the middle of my sophomore year, I'd have said "Heck yes, get me out of this!" But one thing I've learned in my life (going to wax poetic here for a moment, sorry!) is that everything happens for a reason- get this- especially the hard things. And because of high school, I learned some very valuable lessons, lessons I can pass on to my daughter. Lessons that maybe some people didn't ever learn, and never will.
Like how everyone should be treated with respect. (I was guilty of breaking that one a lot myself.) Like how it doesn't matter what you are wearing on the outside, it's how you feel about yourself on the inside (That one took me a long time). Like your self esteem doesn't come from who you sit beside in World History, it comes from inside and once you find it, no one can take it away.
And most importantly, that friendship isn't a temporary contract that you keep as long as it's convenient for you. It's a commitment that you make, even when you discover that person's imperfections. Especially then.
Because if you do, they'll always be there for you. They're the ones that keep your kid from falling in the creek at the class reunion picnic.
I love you, Jess.

A Lesson in Being Grateful...

Sometimes we just need a kick in the rear to remember how good God really is to us. My sister send me a link to a foundation called Kari's Heart Foundation. It was started in honor of Kari Schoondyke, who passed away recently at 7 months of age due to a congenital heart defect. My sister and brother in law are friends with Kari's parents, and the Schoondyke's have begun this foundation to provide assistance to families who are dealing with a hospitalized child. So I went to the website to check it out. (http://karisheartfoundation.org)
At the bottom there was a little video of Kari's short life. And so I started the slide show. I knew it was going to be sad, but I told myself that since I already knew how the story ended, I should be able to watch it without getting torn up. Wrong.
I did good till about halfway through. There was a picture of Kari after one of her open heart surgeries, laying there in just a diaper, with that scar down the center of her chest and tubes plugged in everywhere and her eyes covered up. That's when I lost it.
The reason? In a cabinet in my mother's house, there's a picture album with a picture of another little girl. She is 11 months old. She is naked, with a scar down the center of her chest, and a clear box over her face, and tubes plugged in here and there. This little girl was also born with a heart defect, a hole in the septum that seperates the ventricles of the heart.
This little girl is me.
And I sat there, with tears running down my face, and though about how wonderful my God is. I know Kari is in heaven, because all children are innocent. And I thought, how wonderful that he saved us both.
How wonderful that, years after he guided the doctors at Vanderbilt University as they patched my heart, he did it again, when it had been broken beyond repair. He truly does bind up the brokenhearted, like the Bible says!