ups and downs

well, this is the second day of being home alone with tristan. yesterday went better than expected. he happily watched videos in the morning until my dear friend j'lene came over with her daughter cailyn and took us to the park where i sat on a bench and soaked in the fresh air and sunshine while tristan let go of his contained energy and had a blast playing with his friend. we came back home and j'lene helped me get tristan's lunch together, then helped me stand up at the top of the stairs where my second borrowed walker was waiting for me. from there, j'lene was able to go home while i put tristan to sleep, then napped in my own bed until he woke up. (growing a baby and healing a leg at the same time makes my body super exhausted!) coming downstairs is much easier than going up, so i am able to do that on my own, and the rest of the afternoon consisted of me keeping tristan's meltdowns at bay while making dozens of phone calls to our health care provider, auto insurance, and sweet ladies at church who have offered to drive me to any appointments i have. once josh came home, i breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt so proud of myself that i made it!!!

this morning was a bit of a different story. my mom called this morning to let me know that they arrived home safely last night after driving 2 full days. tristan, meanwhile was having one of his "super hungry" days in which he asks for a snack every 10 minutes and then devours every last crumb. every time i'd get my leg propped back up on the couch with pillows, he'd plead "mommy! 'mon! walter! snat!" (which means mommy c'mon walker snack!) and then it would take me another 5 years to hop over to the kitchen to find him something else to eat before i could hop back to the couch and collapse on it.

writing it all down now makes it seem like not such a big deal, but to be honest, i was in a lot of pain from moving around so much, plus he wanted nothing to do with the TV; all he wanted was to play with his trucks on the kitchen floor, pushing them back and forth to me, which is something i cannot do at this point. so when he finally melted down in a heap of tears and snot, i confess that i did the exact same thing. and then i called my husband at work and blubbered things that probably made no sense to him, but he was busy and had to go, so instead i blubbered things to God that probably DID make sense to him, and after that i felt much better.

my friend suzy came by and took her son and tristan to the park, bless her heart. she also brought over fresh-baked bread and chicken soup for us, and now i'm so very tempted to forget the pain and hop on back to the kitchen to get myself some of that warm bread! i really cannot afford to lose it like this every day. i understand that there is a time for tears and that i need to release those tears every once in awhile. but i know the danger of dwelling on the negative and how its like quicksand...it sucks me down further and further until i feel incapable of looking at the bright side of anything. i am SO thankful for so many friends who have offered to come by while josh is working, to play with tristan and to help me with his lunch and getting up the stairs. i would not be able to do this without them. it is so humbling to need people like this, but it also blesses me to see that they are happy to help.

and so it seems that i have to re-adjust once again to a new normal. a normal that will hopefully get easier with time. i still don't know how relying on the help of others to get me through each morning and to cart me 45 minutes away several times a week for non-stress tests for my baby, physical therapy appointments and OB checkups will ever seem normal. but i do know that if i don't keep my focus on Him and lay all my anxieties at His feet, i will soon be overcome with worry and stress.

and, just in case i was in danger of forgetting this, today's "streams in the desert" was written specifically for me, with the opening verse from Isaiah 26:3
"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You."

me and josh on tuesday evening, out for dinner with my parents. i love the fact that i can go almost anywhere with my wheelchair and sit in comfort.

Healing -- Part 3

i arrived at the hospital near 1:00am. as tired as i was, i was still awake enough to appreciate the fact that i had my own private room with a large window next to my bed. by then, the spinal had pretty much worn off, so i asked for pain medication, which was given to me along with magnesium sulphate to relax my uterus and hopefully stop my contractions. by the next day, my contractions had slowed down considerably. i was brought downstairs, still laying flat in my bed to have a series of x-rays taken of my leg to make sure that the surgery was successful. it was strange to see pictures of a rod and screws going straight through my bone. next i was brought into the ultrasound room where an extensive study was done on my little baby boy. my abdomen was quite bruised from where the steering wheel hit me (or rather, from where i hit the steering wheel) and the ultrasound was quite painful for me, but it was wonderful to hear the technician say that the baby looked great, the fluid levels were perfect and the abruption to the placenta must have been very minor because no damage showed up on the ultrasound.

by then it was lunch time and i was ravenous, not having had anything to eat for a full 24 hours. the nurses kept giving me ice chips and small drinks of water, but they had to wait for the orthopedic specialists to come have a look at my leg to make sure that they wouldn't have to do more surgery before they would allow me to eat anything. it took them FOREVER to come to my room and i seriously was feeling faint by the time they entered. they cut the soft splint right off of my leg, looked at the wounds (i closed my eyes) and then wrapped my leg back up again, declaring the surgery a success. as they left the room i hollered after them "does this mean i can eat lunch?" "yes!" one of them hollered back and i cheered. there's only one way to make hospital food taste good and that is to starve your patient before feeding her. that meal was one of the most delicious i've ever tasted! funny how the rest of the hospital meals i had weren't so great...

by the afternoon, the magnesium sulphate was really doing its job and the contractions had all but stopped completely. they lowered my dosage and kept monitoring the baby, hopeful that the contractions wouldn't increase. i had many visitors that day and felt very uplifted, though i was still in a considerable amount of pain. the last of my visitors left right before i was ready to go to sleep. i had waited longer than normal to ask for my dose of morphine, but i assumed that the longer i waited the better. i was SO wrong! the morphine was put directly into my bloodstream with a syringe that was shot into my IV tube. immediately, i felt the lovely wooziness that i assumed would lull me to sleep. warmth spread all over my body erasing my aches and pains...and then the warmth seemed to stop just short of my broken leg. i was sleepy and pain free except for the throbbing in my leg that was was worsening by the minute. i called the nurse back to tell her that the morphine seemed to have not done anything for my leg and she said it was probably because i had waited too long to ask for it. when i asked her if she could give me anything else, she apologetically shook her head and told me i'd have to wait another 6 hours before i could get more morphine.

i was in agony! it got to the point where i honestly felt as horrible as when the accident had just happened. i kept falling asleep because i was so tired, only to be awakened by searing pain ripping through my leg from ankle to knee. i couldn't help but moan and cry and keep watching the clock through my heavy eyelids. finally the nurse called down to the orthopedic specialists and 2 of them quickly came to see me. they cut off my soft splint all over again to make sure that my leg wasn't swollen and infected. when they were sure that everything looked okay, they asked the nurse how much morphine i had been given. she told them and they were shocked; they said that the day after such a surgery, most of their patients would have been given double the amount every 3 hours. of course, being pregnant changed all of that for me. they advised the main obstetrician on my floor to keep my dosage low, but to try to give it to me a little more frequently, at least for the next couple of days. i was so relieved that i only had to wait a couple more hours before relief finally came and i was able to sleep.

by my third day at the hospital, i was completely off of the magnesium sulphate and the baby's heart rate was looking good. i would have irregular contractions every now and then, but nothing that was painful for me and nothing that the doctors were terribly worried about. still, the high risk pregnancy specialist told me that she wanted to keep me in the hospital for a full week, to monitor the baby, making sure that everything stayed normal before i was discharged. though i really didn't want to stay any longer, it was quite nice to have the benefit of physical therapy every day for my leg, as well as a full week of no responsibilities to help me rest up and heal more.

the first few days after the accident, i felt worse and worse as more bruises and soreness seemed to appear every morning. my ribs were quite bruised and my arms felt as weak as spaghetti noodles. i hadn't left my bed at all, and it took all my energy just to sit up in order to eat. i had all sorts of things entering my body via the IV, plus the nurse administered a daily shot of blood thinner to my abdomen to ward off blood clots. no longer on morphine, i was on a painkiller called norco every 4 hours, which worked well for about 3 hours. because of my bruised ribs, inhalation was quite painful, so i was on oxygen nearly constantly, and my blood pressure cuff regularly squished my bruised arm. all of those wires and tubes combined with the 2 strapped to my belly probably made me look like a very freaky version of my former self, especially from a 2 year old's perpective.

poor tristan, unable to understand much more other than "mommy has a boo-boo and can't come home yet" wanted nothing to do with me during most of his visits to the hospital. even after i took the oxygen tubes out of my nose, he still hid his face in daddy's shoulder when i asked for a hug. as much as it hurt my heart not to be able to snuggle my little guy when i missed him so much, i still enjoyed watching him playing on his own around my room while josh and i visited. josh, still getting over his pneumonia, had taken a full week off of work to stay home with tristan until my parents arrived the following monday night. i am so thankful for his strength and willingness to step into my role as a stay at home parent without a complaint. knowing that tristan was happy and well taken care of eased my mind so much.

finally, the day came when it was time for me to get out of bed. unhooking me from all of the machines took some time, but when i was free, it felt so good to sit up in bed with my legs dangling over the sides....until the blood rushed down to my broken leg and i realized that it wasn't going to be as easy as i thought! i started out using a walker and hopping along on my left foot. the first day, i think i made it only 4 steps before i begged to go back into bed. each day, though i made it further and further across the room until i was finally able to hop to the bathroom and back. (hooray, no more bed pan!) eventually, the tubes and wires were able to come off one by one until all that was left were the two monitors attached to my belly, keeping track of my baby's heart beat and my contractions. the day after my parents arrived, my mom came to visit bearing gifts of soap, shampoo and conditioner from home. it had been a full week since i had had a proper shower and, despite having my leg wrapped in a garbage bag and propped up on a chair, i didn't want to leave that shower, it felt SO good!

that day was also the day that my leg dressings were changed and i finally felt brave enough to get a good look at my leg. i even had the nurse take pictures of it on my phone so i could show josh. it was pretty crazy looking with jagged cuts held together with railroad track-like staples. i have a long incision down my knee where they had inserted the rod, a crooked one on the left side of my calf where my bones had protruded, and another smaller one near my ankle where the rod and screws had gone in. there were probably close to 30 staples in my leg and i was already cringing at the thought of having them taken out!

when wednesday morning dawned gloriously sunny, i couldn't contain my excitement: i was going home!! my parents arrived at the hospital early with tristan and waited while i signed papers and received strict instructions from the specialist, warning me to go immediately to the hospital at the first sign of early labor. i had a walker as well as a nifty wheelchair with a leg extender to keep my leg elevated on, and as i was wheeled out to the car, the fresh air felt wonderful after a full week of being indoors.

it has now been just over two weeks since the accident, and one week since i've been home. my parents have been angels, entertaining tristan, cooking, cleaning, helping me to and from different rooms, etc. josh has also been beyond wonderful in that he has been working full time, and then coming home to help out instead of veg out, which is what i'm sure he'd rather do! i had an OB appointment on monday which included a no stress test for samuel and he is still looking great. yesterday i went down to get the staples taken out of my leg (oh my goodness, OUCH!) and my heavy soft splint was removed and replaced with some gauze and an ace bandage. the incisions still haven't healed completely (which is what made the staple removal so painful), but after a few days i should be able to take a real shower with my leg INSIDE of the tub!

my recovery has surprised me in how quickly i've been feeling better. there are still days where i feel as if i've taken a step backwards and feel more rotten than the day before, but for the most part every day i feel a little bit better. i've also had days of completely breaking down in tears, thinking too far ahead and wondering how i'm ever going to do anything on my own with a 2 year old plus another one on the way, unable to walk on my own for at least another 4 weeks. at those times, God always seems to wait until i've cried my heart out, vented my frustrations to Him and then He reassures me through His word with verses that just come suddenly to my mind. the main verse that i repeat to myself daily is found in matthew 6:34, which says "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." and He has been so faithful in providing for our needs every day! i'd be lying if i said i had no worries about next week looming before me, with my parents leaving us. but the truth is that i take all those worries before God before they get the better of me, knowing that He will see me through.

thank you for taking the time to read this incredibly long story, and for your sweet comments. i appreciate every one of you and am so thankful for your concern and especially for your prayers.

Prayers & Peace ~ Part 2

it was the strangest experience i've ever had being in that operating room. though i couldn't feel any pain, i could definitely feel "sensation" so i knew when my poor leg was being cleaned out with what felt like the force from a fire hose! i was seriously scanning the ceiling, looking for bits of bone flying through the air. i felt them hammer that rod into my bone, and could hear their staple gun working overtime near the end. i decided not to count how many staples were holding my leg together. amidst all of the chaotic noise and medical jargon, i chose to focus my attention on the most beautiful sound: samuel's tiny heartbeat rhythmically pattering away on a machine that one nurse was holding. it was her sole responsibility to keep my baby's heart beat monitored during the entire surgery. the anesthesiologist was also there, answering the questions i threw at her now and then, and the other nurse near my head was busy for awhile removing the glass from my left hand with tweezers. i confess that i also asked her a couple of times to scratch my nose for me since my hands were tied down!

just before surgery began, the surgeon asked if i'd like to see my leg. even though the nurse shook her head at me, i still said "okay". they lifted my numb leg up just enough for me to get a good look at it. right above my ankle was a gaping hole, about the size of my fist and out of that hole i could see my two broken bones protruding. lovely. glad i was already laying down! once the blue curtain went up obscuring my view, i lay back, enjoying being pain free. suddenly i felt my throat begin to constrict. "i can't breathe!" i tried to yell, but my voice came out so hoarse that no one understood me. i attempted to take a breath, barely got any oxygen and again shouted " i can't BREATHE!" this time my voice resembled that of piglet from winnie the pooh. thankfully, it was loud enough that everyone paid attention and one of the nurses quickly stopped the flow of gentomyacin, an antibiotic that was being administered via IV. now i know that i'm allergic to it!

the surgery took a total of 2 1/2 hours. my sense of time must have been completely warped because it seemed like i was only in there for half an hour. during that time, i literally felt awash in peace. at the time, i attributed it to the spinal allowing me to feel no pain, but later on, once the pain returned, i came to realize that the peace i continued to feel was so supernatural it could only be attributed to God's peace that passes all understanding. as the hours passed, news of my accident spread and more and more people from all over began to pray for me and for the baby. God knows that i tend to be a bit of a worrier, that i sometimes suffer from anxiety and He knew that i'd need an extra strong dose of His perfect peace, which is how He chose to answer so many prayers. even as they wheeled me from the OR into a sort of recovery/holding room full of people in pain, unable to see my husband for another half hour, i maintained such a calm exterior that more than a few nurses commented on how relaxed i was. one nurse, coming in from the waiting room told me that i had quite the "fan club" out there waiting for me. "oh, those are probably people from my Bible study come to see me!" i said. she winked at me and said "THAT'S why you you look so good. you've got lots of prayers going up for you today."

once my hospital room was ready, i was wheeled down the hall past the waiting room and i got to see, through teary eyes all of the friends who had come to see me and wish me well. when all of the various tubes and machines were properly hooked up to me, in they came to chat with me, share treats and to pray over me. it was so encouraging to feel that kind of love and support so early on in my hospital stay.

soon visiting hours were over. josh also left to go home and try to get a good nights sleep (he was battling pneumonia at the time) while tristan spent the night at my in-law's house. apart from my regular nurse, i was also assigned a special nurse who was to spend the entire night in the room with me monitoring the baby's heart beat as well as the contractions that had started to become more regular. an obstetrician came in to examine me a few times and i couldn't help but notice his growing concern. at around 9:30pm he came in to check my cervix once more and, with a deep sigh told me that things were not looking so good.

he said that my contractions were every 1.5-2.5 minutes apart and had been going on for hours now. i could feel my uterus tightening, but so far they were not painful for me. he also told me that my cervix was not dilating, but it was shortening--another sign that my body was going into pre-term labor. my blood work had just come back from the lab and the results showed that there were some fetal cells in my blood, which meant that the trauma from the crash has caused part of my placenta to break away from the uterus wall. all of these factors together gave the doctor cause for concern. he said that i had about a 20-30% chance of delivering my baby very soon. he wanted me to be taken to another hospital in san diego where the facilities are better able to handle such a young infant at 27 weeks gestation.

despite all of this scary news, that cloud of peace never left me. i called josh and calmly informed him of the situation. then i said goodbye to the sweet nurses i had just been getting to know and, at around midnight, i was in another cold ambulance traveling even further away from my home, but closer to place where my little samuel would have the best care possible.

The Accident~ Part 1

while in the hospital, i did a lot of journaling because i know how quickly memories can fade and i wanted to record all the details of my crazy experience. i apologize in advance for the length of this post...i have decided to divide my story into parts so that it may be easier to read. i hope that writing my story out will answer the many questions i have been receiving lately. thanks for taking the time to read!

even though my "afternoon away" was to be little more than a trip to the lab where i'd have to drink a nasty, sweet concoction and have my blood sugar tested, i was sort of looking forward to it. over an hour of alone time with a good book sounded lovely to me! originally, tristan was to be dropped off at his gran's house, but josh was home sick with pneumonia and the antibiotics made him feel well enough to want tristan to stay with him. i kissed my 2 favourite boys goodbye and left the house around 2:15 in the afternoon

it was a sunny day, but chilly and i was wearing my warm jacket--the only one that currently zipped up over my pregnant tummy. though i had sunglasses on, the bright sunlight still made me squint at times as i rounded the many curves down the hill on towards the next city. i remember feeling quite drowsy as i drove, especially without a little boy in the backseat to chat with and point out cows and horsies to. i made it down the hill without any problems and continued on the flat, though still curvy highway past the ostrich farm and palm tree farm on towards the vineyards, feeling very warm and cozy and sleepy.

i can't say exactly why i closed my eyes... it could have been the glare from the sun. i think, however, that it may have had something to do with the fact that i hadn't brought a snack along with me, since i didn't want my blood glucose levels to be high. whatever the reason, i clearly remember the moment where i opened my eyes to find myself completely on the wrong side of the 2 lane highway, with a very large F350 truck coming straight towards me. i had just enough time to slam my right foot on the brake and then we hit. i was driving over 50 miles an hour in a little honda civic. as my car crumpled all around me and began to spin in crazy circles, i remember yelling "NOOOO!" and desperately trying to cradle my pregnant belly with my hands.

the car stopped spinning and landed at the side of the road near a barbed wire fence. i didn't feel any pain at first; just disbelief, fear and panic. my car horn was stuck and the deafening sound only fueled the anxiety that was beginning to build inside of me. inhaling the fumes from what used to be the hood of my car, as well as from the deflated airbag in front of me made me feel nauseous. though the steering wheel was pressed up tight against my abdomen, i managed to put my hand to my belly and when i brought it up to my face, it was dripping in blood. that's when i began to wail.

through the bent and shattered windshield, i saw a few people with stunned yet concerned looks on their faces carefully making their way towards my car. they asked "is anyone in there? are you okay?" my high-pitched, shaky voice sounded strange in my ears as i answered their questions. someone tried to open my door, but was unable to. he informed me that 911 had been called and that help was on its way. one woman carefully took my glass encrusted hand through the open window, held it in hers and gently began wiping away the blood with a wet cloth she was holding. i still don't know if these people were other drivers who had witnessed the accident, or if they were from homes nearby, but i was so grateful not to be alone. i am sure that there were angels among them.

the foremost thought on my mind at that point was whether baby samuel was okay. unable to explain much, i kept moaning "my baby! my baby!" alarmed, a few people outside must have seen the empty car seat in the back and they began looking for a child nearby that may have been thrown from the car. one gentleman concernedly asked, "ma'am, how old is your baby?" realizing what they must have been thinking, i told them that there was no baby in the car, but that i was pregnant. "have you felt the baby move since the accident?" someone else asked. "no!" i said, and then my whole body began to shake uncontrollably. searing pain soon became apparent, but it was difficult for me to tell exactly where the pain was coming from. my legs felt very wobbly and i had the strange feeling that the floorboard of my car had opened up and that my right leg was dangling through the hole. curious, i craned my neck to look down and that's when i noticed that my knee was in the right place, but the rest of my leg looked somehow terribly wrong. my shaking increased and i began yelling "my leg! something is wrong with my leg!" all of the confused pain i had been feeling cleared up in that moment to pin its entirety onto the awful throbbing in my leg. i felt cold and dizzy and i started to pant. that's when a young man urgently stuck his face in the window saying "look at me. breathe. just look at me." he told me his name and that he was a lifeguard and that he needed me to focus so that i wouldn't go into shock. he instructed me not to try to move at all, but just to stay calm and then he began asking me random questions about myself, keeping my attention on something other than the situation i was in.

i have no idea how long i sat waiting in that car, first for the paramedics to arrive, then for the jaws of life to get me out of there. it felt like i was sitting in that wreck for hours. at some point, i noticed my purse sitting on the passenger seat and i immediately grabbed it and called josh at home. it was impossible to keep the shrill panic out of my voice, though the last thing i wanted was to completely freak him out. i told him that i thought i was okay, that something was wrong with my leg and that i didn't know if our baby was alive or not. my husband, as always, was my rock. even just hearing his calm voice telling me "it's going to be alright" soothed me tremendously. he asked to speak to someone else at the scene, so i passed the phone onto the lifeguard, closed my eyes, and prayed and prayed with disjointed words for my unborn child, knowing that "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8:26)

praying really helped slow my breathing and soon i began to take more notice of my surroundings. through the broken and wrinkled glass of my windshield, i saw a man not too far away talking to someone and i recognized him immediately as one of josh's friends from church named karim. something about seeing a familiar face amidst the horror around me did something to me. i told the men who were working on getting my door open, "i know that guy. that's karim. i need to talk to him!" someone called him over and he came to my car as they finally pried the door open and were able to get me out. as i was lifted up onto the gurney and carried to the waiting ambulance, i asked karim to tell the church to pray for my baby. i cannot remember what he said, but his words were reassuring as he held my hand all the way to the ambulance. later i found out that, after speaking with me, josh had called 2 of his friends who are mail carriers for the city that the accident happened in. he asked karim, who was closer to the scene to go and be a familiar presence for me there. karim not only found me at the accident, but also drove to the hospital to be there when josh arrived.

the ambulance was cold, hard and sterile. the two paramedics inside were both trying to get an IV into me, one into each arm at the same time, while the speeding vehicle bounced and jostled me, sending shooting pains up my leg. i asked them if they could give me any sort of pain relief and i was told that since i was pregnant, they had to wait until we got to the hospital. once at the hospital, i was wheeled into a large room with bright lights and lots of medical staff busily making preparations to transfer me onto another surface. i heard the words "compound fracture" and "surgery" and "fetal heart rate monitor". i was given a little bit of morphine, which didn't really make much of a difference, and then josh was right beside me, holding tightly to my hand and kissing me. my panic began to fade and i kept my eyes locked onto his as my clothing was cut off of me and cold aprons were lay over my belly to keep the baby safe from the x-rays.

then came the fun part. they had to pull my twisted, broken leg out and re-set it before i could go in for surgery. the nurse on the other side of me said "okay, this is gonna hurt like hell!" and she was right. i yelled in pain, but i know that without josh right there next to me, it would have somehow felt a lot worse.

while we were waiting for the surgeon, a fetal heart rate monitor was wheeled into the room. i held my breath, hearing only silence while my belly was probed all over. and then i heard it: a sound like tiny little horses galloping. "that's your baby's heartbeat!" i was told with a smile. all i could do was breathe a deep sigh and say "thank you God" even though, deep down i knew that just a heartbeat didn't ensure that little samuel was going to be okay.

the surgeon briefly told me and josh what he would be doing to my leg--both the tibia and fibula had snapped and broken through the skin. he was going to clean my leg out, getting rid of all the bits of broken bone, then a rod was to be inserted from my knee to my ankle with screws keeping it in place. inserting the rod meant that they had to make an incision just below my knee, which would then be stapled up along with the the hole that was already in my leg from the bones poking through. he told me the surgery may be as long as 3 hours, but he said, "don't worry, you'll be asleep the whole time and won't feel a thing." i wasn't so sure about that, thinking that i had heard somewhere that it wasn't safe for a pregnant woman to go under general anesthesia. sure enough, once the anesthesiologist came, she explained to us that i would be given a spinal, similar to an epidural, which would be safe for the baby and keep the pain away during surgery. she said it would only last up to 3 hours however, which made me slightly nervous. i also wasn't looking forward to being completely awake during my own surgery, but i had no other choice. i bravely waved goodbye to josh as a stylish blue shower cap type hat was put on my head and into the operating room i was wheeled.

Thankfulness

For He will command His angels

concerning you

to guard you in all your ways;

they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you do not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread upon the great lion and the serpent.

"Because he loves me," says the Lord,

"I will rescue him;

I will protect him,

for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him

and show him my salvation."

~Psalm 91:11-16

Feeling Sorry for Samuel

from the beginning, this pregnancy has been quite different than my first one. the excitement is there, but the over-the-top can't wait to hold him and dress him and nurse him and smell his little head thoughts are not the foremost on my brain most days. in fact, i have to admit that there are still twinges of fear when i look at the calendar and realize that little Samuel will be out of my womb in a mere 3 months and that once he's out, there will be no putting him back in!! i'm not sure if its like this for every second-time mom, but i think that having the same gender twice only contributes to the problem. getting "in the mood" by picking out brand new items for the nursery isn't the smartest thing to do when we already have nearly everything we need. and so, in thinking more about this recently, i've begun to feel a little bit sorry for samuel. so much so that i erupted into a puddle of tears the other night much to my dear husband's bewilderment just because he couldn't think of a single item to add to the gift registry i had just created.

and so i have decided (more for my benefit than samuel's) that our newest addition needs to have some things to call his very own. tristan was, even before birth, our "little all-star" with bedding and room decor and tiny little clothes all declaring his utter love for sports, though he had no choice in the matter (thankfully, all those balls in his room must have given him subliminal messages as an infant because he LOVES sports of all kinds.....so far). samuel's theme? well, the day that my neighbor brought me over the cutest and tiniest pair of cowboy boots i had ever seen, i was smitten. it was the first and only item that has been given specifically for samuel so far. josh grew up playing cowboys & indians and was a fan of john wayne practically from birth, so he has no problem with calling samuel our "little cowboy".

though samuel will inherit many of tristan's things, including the bedding and clothing, i wanted just a few things to add to his room that will make it sort of cowboy-ish. when i searched "cowboy baby" at etsy.com last night, i realized i had stumbled upon the jackpot! pages and pages of adorable handmade bibs and blankets and quilts and booties and so much more, all cowboy themed! after wiping the drool from my face, i went back to our registry (at http://www.alternativegiftregistry.org/ in case you want to take a peek) and somehow refrained from adding all 500 cowboy baby items to the list and added only two.

for some reason, i now feel much better about treating my second child like he's a second child even before he is born. he won't give a hoot about cute little cowboy things in his room, but his mommy sure gives a hoot and right now, her fragile emotional state matters more than the fact that it is simply ridiculous to make a newborn wear cowboy boots, no matter how adorable they are.

what i've been up to

we've been a little busy lately, so its nice for me to just sit down and type a blog update with pictures that i made sure to take. 2 weekends ago was my very first night away from tristan EVER. yes, i know it was long overdue! every year josh's mom and her sisters put on a scottish tea at one of their houses. this year, it was up in glendora at her younger sister's house and, since it was a bit of a drive, we all spent the night.



my sis in law jessica and i were the only "young" girls there this year, and we had such a blast! the first order of business once we arrived was to get the food all ready so that we could eat and eat and eat. there were lots of little finger sandwiches (cucumber with dill & cream cheese, egg salad, tuna salad and salmon) there were strawberries with whipped cream, mini chocolate mousse tarts, lemon tarts, scones with clotted cream, shortbread, empire biscuits, dream bars, nut cakes, currant cake, and the most delicious flavored tea ever. we stuffed ourselves full, then filled our purses with chocolates and set out to enjoy a chick flick at the movies. we shopped, then had our traditional dinner of meat pies, mashed potatoes with gravy and peas (oh so scottish) and then we all put on our bathing suits and soaked in the hot tub outside. once our fingers and toes had turned into raisins, we donned our coziest jammies and watched 'fried green tomatoes' until one by one we dropped off to bed.



(that's my mom in law chris in the middle, with aunt marion on the left and aunt nancy on the right. try to ignore the 'redi whip' can in the photo, its not very scottishly authentic looking :)) of course, the next morning i awoke at 5:15 sharp, looked at my watch, smiled to myself and rolled over to fall back into some more delicious sleep. i slept in until 7 (which, before i had tristan i never would have dreamed of calling "sleeping in!") and then leisurely made my way to the kitchen for some coffee and leftover scones with jam. we went on a gorgeous walk after breakfast, well more of a hike really, to a lookout point over the city and then we did some more shopping before grabbing in-n-out burgers on our way home. it was a fantastic weekend and my only regret is that i didn't enjoy a night away sooner! the boys did awesome at home on their own. apparently tristan never even really cried the entire 2 days i was gone, though he did somehow manage to get half a peanut lodged up his nose which josh didn't discover until the next day. i came home to big hugs, washed and folded laundry, vacuumed floors and a sparkling kitchen. WOW! again, why didn't i do this sooner??!



2 days later tristan and i were off to the airport to pick up my friend christy for her 3rd annual visit. josh and i always enjoy her company and this year tristan really did as well, calling "kissy! kissy!" up the stairs while she attempted sleeping in. we got to visit the wild animal park as well as the beach and we also fit in a little bit of shopping. we had hoped to do more, but the garage sale we had been planning for weeks just happened to fall on the saturday she was here. i've never actually done a garage sale before, and christy's an expert, so i was extremely thankful that she was here to help me price things the night before the sale and to keep me sane during the sale. it wasn't a hugely successful sale, we only made $60, but that's more than we'd have made by hauling it all to the thrift store like we normally do.

that same day was tristan's first ever sleepover at his gran and grandpa's house. my mom in law wanted to try having him over as a test run before the baby starts to come and he has to sleep there anyway. she had the great idea of having tristan's cousin johnny spend the night as well, to make it a little easier on tristan. i know i've mentioned this before, but tristan ADORES his cousin johnny, so it worked perfectly. they even shared a bed and when tristan shed a couple of tears after gran turned out the light, johnny comforted tristan with some of his stuffed animals and within minutes they were both sound asleep. the next morning, i couldn't manage to sleep past 6am, so i got up, made myself a cup of tea and sat down in a *quiet* house while reading my daily devotions. it was heavenly!

christy flew back to her snowy home on sunday while we enjoyed 80 degree weather. (sorry, just had to rub it in a little!) josh had his first full week of work since december, which we are SO grateful for. he even has a couple of side jobs lined up as well, so i think that this month is looking pretty good so far. we were hit with a pretty awful shock when we discovered that the ultrasound i had a month ago was only partially covered by our insurance, so we have to pay around $800 for it! if we had known beforehand, we never would have had it, so that was pretty depressing news, but we just continue to take things one day at a time and God always provides.


today i used a bit of spare change to buy a couple bags of potting soil and i had fun in the backyard planting some of the flowers i seeded indoors. i've got snapdragons, african daisies, cosmos, zinnias and bachelor buttons all growing strong with some grape tomatoes popping up as well. i can't wait to see them begin to bloom so i can take some pictures to post. gardening is so therapeutic for me and tristan just loves running around the backyard, "helping" me by watering his little sunflowers with bucket after bucket of water. i've really been drinking in these special moments lately with tristan still being our only child. he is talking so much now and making sense finally and josh and i burst out laughing every day at something he says or does. these are happy days...we have so much to be thankful for.