This weeks mushyness...

I was watching Tommy play a little bit ago and he was taking this little ping pong size ball that goes with one of his toys, putting it up on the coffee table and watching roll around and off the table with such precious concentration. This week he has figured out how to pull himself up to standing at this table, he used to just pull himself up to a kneeling position. Well every since he's been able to kneel there he has loved putting his mouth on the table. He even bites it sometimes, and has some teeth scratch marks along the edge of the wood. 

The sweet part about this is that this isn't just any coffee table, Kyle made this coffee table with his two hands. He spent hours cutting, piecing, sanding, and shaping this masterpiece of a table. Kyle is a perfectionist so this table does not look like it was made by an amateure woodshop student.  It looks like a nice table you would pay lots of money for in a furniture store. Kyle took two semesters of woodshop during his last year of college and he really enjoyed it. I remember when he brought his first project home for the end of the first semester, it was a beautiful end table, he had it covered in a sheet or towel and he had to explain to me how to take care of it, and how to pick it up if I was to move it, etc.  He had spent a lot of time and energy into making this table.  Well then came the next semester and I had always wanted a coffee table b/c for some reason we never had one growing up (which I think I figured out why, they take up a lot of room in the middle of the room).  So Kyle made me a nice, big coffee table.  He was careful when he brought it home, we did not put our feet on it (for a while).  Needless to say these were two valuable pieces of furniture to Kyle b/c he knew how hard he had worked to do them and was pleased with his finished product.

Well when Tommy first started trying to chew on the table, I'd always stop him and say, "No, no Daddy worked hard to make this table. Don't chew on it." Once I saw the teeth marks were already there I just kind of gave up on it (they aren't very obvious either). And the table it just Tommy's height, so I know why he'd love to play with it. Now he loves to throw his toys up there, and he throws them hard. He bangs with his drumsticks on the table. Thankfully Kyle chose a beautiful grain and type of wood that is very durable.

But I told Kyle the other day that he might as well just accept it, this coffee table is going to end up being our kids table and we might even end up getting little chairs to go with it b/c it really is the perfect height and size for a kid's table. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Probably so."

Oh how I love that our priorities have changed. Those little teeth scratches will someday bring joy to my heart!  He's going to grow up and get big and I'll quickly forget about these precious days that we have together, but I will cherish those little reminders around our home and on our furniture that he left behind. Tommy knows he has to leave his mark. And with his new brother or sister coming I'm sure there will be many more teeth marks, and probably even worse things, to mark that they've been here.



Fearfulness

One of my more apparent big weaknesses and sins is being overly fearful. I have struggled with this all of my life. Growing up I was constantly afraid of being home by myself and someone breaking into the house, or even if my parents were home, someone breaking in and hurting them and me being left alone not knowing what to do with a strange attacker coming after me. It sounds so weird to type that out, but I was seriously afraid. In fact one time, I think I was around 8th or 9th grade, I remember I was home sick during the day by myself (I clearly wasn't that sick or I wouldn't have been home by myself). My dad and mom both worked close to home and my dad would come check on me at lunch. Anyway we lived in what I think people refer to as a quad-level house. Most of the bedrooms were upstairs and the family room was downstairs - well I was in the family room watching TV and I heard a big bump noise upstairs. I knew it was an intruder. B/c logically an intruder would choose to get a ladder, climb on top of our porch roof, then somehow break into the window, and climb through to break into our house. (Before Kyle logic rarely entered my brain). No I knew someone had broken in, I heard it. So I sat completely still for a few minutes (probably really seconds) freaked myself out even more as time went on; grabbed the cordless phone, ran out the front door, called my dad and sat on the neighbor's front porch until my dad got there.

There was no intruder - the globe of my fan (the glass thing that covers the light bulb) and fallen off and rolled across the floor. I really didn't feel that silly either. After all something really did make the noise. There had been so many other times I'd gotten scared and worried but had no real reason other then psyching myself out.

Anyway my fearfulness continued and continues through out my life. It wasn't until a year or so that after Kyle and I were married that I recognized this as a sin. I was not trusting the Lord or His Word as to what or who it says I should fear. God does not say I should fear a crazy, scary, strong, killer man - He says I should fear Him. And He also says that if He is for me, then who is against me? So around that time I started finding verses and writing them down, I didn't really memorize them but memorized the main point of them. Also I remember one night when I was home by myself thinking, Satan doesn't have to even work at getting me to sin - I completely do it on my own. I scare myself, I need no help with that. And I also thought about how the Lord protected Paul while he was in prison, and I was scared being at home, in the free country I live, with the gun we're allowed to keep for protection. So very silly.

Well the Lord has been very kind to me and granted me grace to be able to handle with the fear of intruder breaking into our home. I still struggle with it from time to time but overall Kyle and I can both see the Lord's goodness to me in this.

But I've recently discovered that this fear has moved. Ever since I've had Tommy, I've had an outrageous fear of something happening to him - mainly in his sleep. I realize this sounds crazy - I'm just being honest with you. I have been so scared of SIDS, but really I've been scared of not having control over his safety. And then of course that means I am fearing b/c I'm not trusting the Lord. I fear the Lord will choose to take Tommy away from me. For a while I would go check on him every couple of hours while he slept to make sure he was breathing. But that resulted in waking him up sometimes and I had to learn to stop that. I would have tons of dreams right after he was born that I put him in bed with me and then I couldn't find him. I would wake up and have a wad of blankets cradled in my arms, thinking "this is too light to be Tommy!" And here's the thing I never put him in bed with us but for some reason my subconcious was overtaken by the thought. So recently I've been praying for the Lord to help me to trust Him more, and to change my mind to think of being grateful for the time I have with Tommy - with any of my loved ones for that matter.

This year has brought about a lot of loss, not necessarily for my family, but for many friends we know - there have been children who've passed, grandparents, parents, spouses. And it was actually another mom, who lost her three year old son, who helped me realize how backward my thoughts were. She didn't say anything to me directly, but it was her posts on facebook that spoke of their family's gratefulness of the time they had with him that really touched my heart. Sadly I thought, that wouldn't be my first thought - to thank the Lord for the time He gave me. I thought I would be thinking, "Why? We needed more time. We deserved more time." But that's not reality, God is good and He is sovereign, and it is a gift the time that we get with those we cherish.

I can already see some little ways the Lord has helped to change my way of thinking and to calm my irrational fears. And to think about enjoying and being thankful for each day I have with my family and friends who I love so much. I've wasted so much time fearing such frivilous and silly things; I'd rather rejoice in my time. I hope to rejoice in a great, sovereign God; an amazing growing family; and the many friends we are blessed to know.

Encouraging news!

Today Tommy had his 18 month check up - even though he'll be 20 months in 6 days! We had to reschedule his appointment b/c he got strep and was on an antibiotic for a couple of weeks.  Anyhow this doctor visit was such a blessing! First of all Tommy did great! He was such a big boy and was so sweet to the doctor. I have mentioned his pediatrician in the past and I'm a big fan of his. I like him for many reasons and today is a great example of why.

I was feeling very uncomfortable with how we left things at the cardiologist last time and I was very confused. I called to try and get clarification from the cardiologist but I was still pretty lost. I understand (as much as I can as untrained professional) what is wrong with Tommy's heart, his cardiologist does a wonderful job at explaining that! However, we were on different pages when it came to the topic of when Tommy would have surgery. So after our conversation he kindly suggested that we move Tom's appointment up 3 months and make sure we're the last appointment of the day so we can take our time and have any questions answered that we need.  He was very sweet at wanting to accommodate this frazzled mom. Well I had told Kyle that I was planning to talk to the pediatrician about it b/c he's been along with us too for the whole ride and I wanted to see if it made better sense to him then it did to me. And it did, and he explained it so clearly.

Basically he said the information he got from Tommy's last cardiologist appointment showed that the ASD has gotten smaller. Did our cardiologist say this, no. But Kyle thinks he didn't mention it b/c he doesn't want to get our hopes up that it will close on its own and we still understand that the likelihood of that is extremely slim (but we know God can do great things). And the pediatrician agrees that Tommy will ultimately have to have surgery but it's an encouraging sign it's smaller, b/c the smaller the patch they have to put in, the better that is for Tommy.  And he also said perhaps as Tommy grows the bottom part of the Atrial wall will grow up and possibly allow for a heart cath instead of open heart surgery! Now I say this telling you that he does not necessarily think that's what will happen, but it is something to pray for. And to be honest - I am just so excited to hear the ASD is smaller! It's still significant, it's still surgery worthy (trust me we've seen the echos and the hole looks big), but we'll take what we can get! We thank the Lord so much for the improvement, no improvement is insignificant!

Then I asked the pediatrician for clarification as to what kind of growth deficiency they look for to know if the heart is causing issues. And he said HUGE growth deficiency, almost to the point of wasting away, and it wouldn't just be physical we'd be able to notice he'd be missing milestones, and he said it would be really obvious to us. He said Tommy is doing amazing. And he said that, that's probably where the big miscommunication was between the cardiologist and us occurred - most babies with this heart defect and down syndrome do not thrive this well. So he explained that the cardiologist was just preparing us for what usually happens and that Tommy is just beating the odds.  Tthe cardiologist had also told us that Tommy is doing better than expected and he is very pleased with his progress but for some reason coming from the pediatrician it sounded way more encouraging. I wish he could join us for our heart visits!

We don't want to get everyone overly excited or give false hope that Tommy won't have to have surgery. But we want to make sure we're giving the Lord glory for His goodness and for hearing our prayers. Recently I've started adding to my night time prayer with Tommy that if it's the Lord's will for Tommy to have surgery that He would give us wisdom as to when he should have it, and before we were thinking sooner rather than later (and by sooner we still mean years, not months) and I feel like He helped guide us in that today. If we know Tommy's heart is showing improvement, that gives us much more of a reason to wait.

Over all we are thrilled with this news and Kyle and I both feel so encouraged. I am sure the cardiologist has gained wisdom over the years that as he does not know each set of parents and how they will react to different news that he is cautious with what information he shares and how he shares it. But our pediatrician knows us a little better, we see him way more often and he knows how I handle Tommy from a medical aspect. So I think he either knew we could hear that and not put too much hope in it or he just thought we already knew and that the cardiologist had told us. Either way I'm glad he did. It's so silly but it did make me feel like, "God you really are listening! Thank you!" I know that the Lord hears my prayers but how awesome it is to see Him hear them. Thank you for joining us in lifting our sweet boy up in prayer and for celebrating with us in all of his accomplishments.

Go Tommy, Go Tommy Go!

I'll go ahead and apologize for being super repetitive and annoying in this video - but clearly the video is not about me.

Mushy Monday

Who's baby learned to dance this week?! Oh yeah - that's my babeh! His dance move - waving his hands in the air like he just don't care!!!

I have to get a good video of this for you all! Check back later in the week and I'll try to have one posted!

If I say, "Go Tommy, Go Tommy, Go!" Tommy will throw his hands in the air and shake them back and forth - I love it and he loves it! The other night we were in a restaurant and I didn't even notice the music playing and Tommy started "dancing." LOVE IT!

I have been hoping that this boy would like music and like dancing - but until recently he had shown very little interest.

He is also starting to cruise along the couch! My sweet boy is getting so big and he is such a joy! I am really excited about him being a big brother too! I think I'm one of the frew who are okay with and even enjoy their babies getting bigger b/c I love seeing more and more of Tommy's personality and who he is and is going to be.

So very thankful!

I love Thanksgiving! One friend put on facebook something about how it's a fun, family, food filled holiday where nobody gives anyone gifts! And it's so true - we all get together, enjoy good food, and fun family time but no pressure of gift giving or gift receiving and it's a time to remember to be thankful.

I was thinking late Thanksgiving night for all the many things I have to be thankful for. First what comes to mind is my sweet family of Kyle and Tommy, and now baby to be. I absolutely LOVE and cherish my time with Kyle and Tommy. Kyle is so attractive, funny, genuine, masculine, a great leader, an amazing father, handy, smart (common sense and book smart), and so much more. Tommy is just a joy - his smile lights up my day repeatedly, his laugh makes me laugh, he loves me as his mom and his friend, he's a boy through and through - he already loves to wrestle (in a modified baby/toddler version), he's so smart and handsome, he already tries to hold his own when he's being told no (not necessarily a good thing but part of his personality that I will still love), he's so silly, and I can't imagine where we would be without him. As Tommy gets older I find us having more and more family time, where Kyle and I play with Tommy together, and oh do I love this! It's so much fun and I just feel like it creates such sweet moments to keep tucked away in my memory. And I'm getting more and more excited thinking about Tommy having a sibling - I'm well aware that the first few months will be a juggling act; but in the long run I love that Tommy will have a sibling close in age and I hope that we can encourage them to be close friends. Also, it's fun to see Tommy becoming Tommy and no longer just a baby, so I look forward to seeing who this little person will be as well.

I'm also thankful for my immediate family outside of Kyle and Tommy. For my mom and dad - we are so blessed to live in the same city and to get to spend so much time with them. And they sacrifice so much time, energy, money to host Thanksgiving for a big family event so all of us can come and enjoy the holiday together. My parents are the greatest - if you know them, you know I speak the truth. And I'm thankful for my three sisters! I love when we're all in the same city and get to hang out and spend time with each other's families. Jennifer and Dave we get to see most often b/c we live in the same city and it's so nice, we wish the other two couples would move here too! Jennifer is just craaazzzy over Tommy and spoils him rotten. She goes through Tommy withdraw if she hasn't seen him often enough. But we love their company, Dave has a great laid back nature and Jennifer dances like a mad woman just to get a laugh out of Tommy. Jeanne and Jody are so sweet and expecting their little boy very soon! They will be amazing parents and we cannot wait to meet him! They are always so much fun to hang out with and I'm always thrilled when I know they're coming into town. Julie, Brian and Eliza are such a blast too. Eliza and Tommy are close in age so it's fun for them to have time together to play - sometimes Tommy loves to play with Eliza and other times he acts like she has cooties but she just LOVES him and it's so precious. (She really loves everybody though, she's a very outgoing little girl) Brian and Julie always make me laugh and I love when Julie comes for random trips and we get to have lots of playdates together! And I'm going to be so jealous when Julie and Jeanne get together all the time with their two little ones and I'm stuck here, without them and their babies. (Jennifer that means you have to quit working and come hang out with me and Tommy and new baby, so I'm not sisterless during the day)

And the other big thing I'm thankful for is close friends who love me and don't judge me. It is so encouraging and also freeing (sounds weird but I'll explain) to have friends who you know you can talk to about your sin and they aren't going to think differently of you b/c of it but they can help you think through it. When I say freeing, I mean b/c you can literally think what you are sharing with them is embarrassing and stupid, but you don't feel embarrassed and stupid when you tell them. Does that make sense? If you have a friend like that then it should make sense to you. It's a pretty awesome gift to have someone who isn't your spouse and hasn't made a life long commitment to you, to know you - sin, stupid, embarrassing you - and all and still love you and even like you.

Now we know I'm not going to leave out my thankfulness for love and grace of God. Selfishly I thought about how all the above things wouldn't be there if it weren't for the Lord. They physically wouldn't be there b/c nothing would be created, but what I really mean is none of those things would be the same. My relationship with my husband, son, family, and friends would all look so different. So I'm thankful we have the bond of Christ to deepen and strengthen our love for each other. And selfishly I'm thankful we can all be saved by the blood of Christ and not fear death or hell b/c of the sacrifice of Christ. While they are selfish thanksgivings to the Lord - they are still b/c of God's glory.

It's time for another one...

Another baby that is! Tommy is going to be a big brother in May! We are very excited and look forward to adding another sweet child to our family. I am just at 13 weeks; we had an ultrasound around 8 weeks and everything looked good and I had a belly check last week and the heartbeat was strong. I've been feeling much better than I did when I was pregnant with Tommy, thank the Lord! I do get a lot of headaches when I'm pregnant, but have discovered taking benadryl ASAP helps a lot.  Sometimes the benadryl doesn't quite get it though and my sweet husband rubs my shoulders to help. (Apparently tension headaches are super common for preggo women.)

Tommy has no clue I'm pregnant. He's a very intelligent little guy but that's just beyond his comprehension at this point. We did however use him to announce our pregnancy. We put a fake tattoo on his arm that said "Big Bro" and took a picture of him and sent it out in the mail to our family. Most people were a little suspicious when they saw they had mail from us, b/c we don't usually send out random mail.  It was a fun way to tell them though - on the front of the card it said "Tommy got his first tattoo!" then they opened it to find his picture and a message asking them not to tell anyone but call us when they got it. It was a long day waiting for people to check their mail but also pretty nice not having to make individual phone calls one right after the other. I remember making sooooo many calls when Kyle and I got engaged and when we were pregnant with Tommy - it's a lot of fun but a lot of work. So we took the lazy way out, we let Tommy tell everyone and calls excited calls trickled in through out the day. The first phone call was from my parents b/c Tommy had spent the night with them - the day after we put the tattoo on. Well I tried to get the tattoo off before he went over there but it was a pretty untemporary tatoo - I think he wore it for a good 3 weeks or so. (Side note - we learned rubbing alcohol takes temporary tattoos off nicely) Anyhow, my mom went to give Tommy a bath that morning and found the tatto. At first my parents were confused and then my mom said, "She's pregnant. Call Jill and ask her if she's pregnant!" So my mom and dad called - both on the phone at the same time. And I just laughed it off and said Tommy wanted a tatoo. Then I kept changing the subject - telling them how the dog and cat had both already thrown up that morning - and my mom kept saying, "Are you pregnant?" and my dad would chime in, "You're not answering the question." So finally I told them I was and they were very excited. One of the funniest things is that they thought our friends from church (Christina who I've mentioned in other posts and her husband) did it as a joke for halloween. Anyway it was a lot of fun.  Here's Tommy sporting his tough tattoo:

You would have thought the kid was getting a real tattoo with the fight he put up to hold his arm still for each letter to be blotted on. And once we were finished he pulled his arm back and rubbed the whole thing off, since it was still wet, on his high chair. But it turned out great - he didn't care about it at all once he was able to move his arm freely.

We are so excited and feel so blessed to be adding this new surprise addition to our family.  We weren't planning for this sweet little one but I'm glad that the Lord does things in His timing b/c I had no idea when I'd be ready for another baby. I think it will so much fun for the kids to be close in age and play together and hopefully be close and love each other very much!

I was a little afraid that I wouldn't be as excited this pregnancy, that I would worry that something would be wrong.  Whether it was DS or something else.  And to be honest I was worried in the very beginning, but more about having a miscarriage, not DS.  But I prayed specifically that the Lord would allow me to be excited and joyful and that I wouldn't worry about something being wrong.  And to be completely honest I'm not worried (at least not all right now) about this child having DS.  There is a higher chance once you have one child with DS to have another one, but here's the thing we know what a blessing any child is and that it's something we can handle (not on our own but with the Lord).  We won't be having any special tests done to check for DS, it did change my perspective on them though - I do see where people would choose to have them, not for abortion reasons, but to mentally and medically prepare.  There would definitely have been a perk to having done more research and talked to other moms who had been through it before b/c it's a lot to take in, especially in the hospital when you're having to schedule what seemed like a bajillion doctors appointments and you haven't even taken your child home yet.  But I did some research and Kyle and I talked about it and there's no guarantee with the tests - they can be wrong either way.  The test may say you aren't having a baby with DS and you really are, or that you are and you really aren't.  So I don't see the necessity in putting our emotions through something that may not be accurate. We will have a special ultrasound done on our baby's heart, we had one done with Tommy, b/c heart defects run in our family. They couldn't see any of Tommy's heart defects in utero though, so mainly major ones are apparent. Now if there was a major heart defect connected to DS that shows up in the ultrasound then Kyle and I might reevaluate and have one of the safer tests run, but we'll cross that bridge if we get there.

I do think Tommy will be a great big brother, I don't know if initially he will be but I know he'll grow into one and love this baby so much! My main concern with him right now is learning to be gentle. He likes to hit. We try correcting him, it really has no effect at this point but we're trying to be consistent but at the same time try different things to see if he responds more. But I think he'll be great at sharing his toys and us, he seems to like when we hold other kids as long as we stay close to him too. Oh we won't be finding out if we're having a boy or girl, we didn't with Tommy either. We don't even ask the heart rate at the doctor visits so there are no hints! Kyle thinks we're having a boy! I love that he even made a guess, with Tommy he made no guesses until like a week or two before we had him b/c we did know the heart rate then after being monitored many times b/c of my blood pressure. I'm due at the end of May 2012! We do not have names picked out and Kyle will not talk to me about names. He's not happy with me b/c we did have names picked out from way back when we were pregnant with Tom but those are both very popular names now and I don't like them as much. So he says I'll just change my mind by the end of the pregnancy if we pick out other names (not true...could be true...but probably not). Kyle's never had a love for talking baby names, so I understand his disappointment in me changing my mind, but I have always been a lover of talking about baby names so my fun continues. I have a girl choice picked out but no boy ideas - we want to use all family names if we can. Some day if we talk about and agree on names I'll let you know what they are.

My next doctor's appointment is mid-December and then we have an ultrasound in the beginning of January (where the sex of the baby will NOT be revealed).  And then two or three weeks later we'll have the special heart ultrasound done.

There will be plenty of updates on here. I kind of wish now that I would have blogged while I was pregnant with Tommy so I could go back and read what it was like at this point.

This is my mushy monday post by the way. What's mushier than having a sweet, little, snuggly, hopefully calm and happy and laid back and good sleeping and good eating, baby?!