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there's a BABY in there!

sweet pea is kicking! i LOVE this feeling. it is always the strongest when i'm sitting upright, such as while at the computer.

understandably, the kicking part of the pregnancy is what makes me feel closest to our little one. i can put my hand on a certain part of my tummy and feel the baby give me a good thump. i can't help but think that but for a few layers of tissue, my hand would be touching him/her. it's like a game, trying to guess where the kick will land next!

oh, i so love this little person. tomorrow morning we have the big sonogram. we won't find out the sex of the baby, but i am soooo excited about getting to see.

~~~~~

you know, since i'm on the topic, sometimes i have quiet little qualms about looking at the ultrasound. this is not meant to give anyone a guilt trip, because of course i'm still going to look and be excited, but i still can't help but think of the womb as "the secret place", like in Psalm 139. you know? do you think there could be some unknown cost or consequence to viewing the "secret place"? after all, that is where God is making a person in secret, according to His word.

i guess that'll have to be added to my list of questions i get to ask when i get to heaven. LOL - by the way, that list of questions, is it Biblically founded? isn't there a universal Information Desk mentioned somewhere in the Bible?

(because i have so many questions!)

you know you're a mother when.....

this evening i was absentmindedly washing the dishes, and i got to the silverware. tired, and ready for the dishwashing to be over (as always), i grabbed a handful of silverware to wash several at once. i grabbed several sharp knives as well as some of max's little plastic baby spoons. all of a sudden my mind jolted! i thought, i can't wash these knives with max's spoons! that's dangerous for them!

LOL somehow my mind equated max's dinnerware with max himself! please tell me another mother understands how my mind could jump to such a silly conclusion!

i guess with all children, but especially with a toddler or baby, you become so accustomed to looking to prevent danger at any given time that it just stays with you. now answer me this, just how long does this stay with you? will i still do this after max leaves the home? (my mom still does this to me you know.)

anyway. i washed the knives and spoons together without the slightest incident. whew!

glory

perhaps it's because i'm pregnant, and feeling emotional right now, perhaps it's because it's 3am, but however it goes, i just want to scream out how much i love the LORD. this is more of an outlet blog post and probably many won't find it interesting but too bad, i just can't keep it in right now!

have you ever heard the song by audio adrenaline.... leaving 99.... it is such a moving song to me and i don't own a copy of it, but i wish i did. that is what God did for me - He sought me out, He never let me fall beyond His reach as if there were such a thing, He caught me on my way down and saved me. me! such an ugly heart, so many dark motives and actions. at one point in my life i truly believed i was beyond salvation - i thought i had screwed up royally and publicly rejected God so many times that it was just over with. what a hopeless time that was....

there's something i think about often, and really am not proud to share but i will. when i met randy, i still carried with me the credit card debt i had accumulated while in college. even though i was working full time and putting every penny i could toward the balance, it was such a stressful burden; i couldn't stand owing anything, and especially not having something to show for it. (well, there's student loans, but that's another story :) ) it was a constant source of shame for me, and it was a ring of disappointment in myself carried ever atop my head.

anyway, i met randy and we fell in love pretty quickly. randy has always been so responsible, especially with his money, which made me feel even more shameful in a way, embarrassed. randy had made so many wise decisions with his money and had enough to spare that one day, he wrote me a check for the entire balance of my credit card debt, an amount which heretofore will remain unmentioned. :) so i applied the money and closed my account.

i was incredulous that he loved me this much - all this shame i carried around and stress, and with one check and after years of all his responsible actions, he took it away for me. i was completely moved by his generosity and unselfishness and i cried and cried, touched by his love for me.

as touched as i was, the lesson didn't really hit me until one day my friend kary told me - danielle, what randy did for you - that is such a perfect picture of what God did. He paid our debts with one fell swoop and we did nothing to deserve it. and now they're gone! we can start clean, and anew and the stress and burdens we carried are lifted.

the thing is, randy and i weren't even married yet. randy's generous act required nothing from me, and he paid this debt before i was ever bound or obligated to him in any way. i could have taken that money and ran with it. of course i never would have done that, but there is still a parallel to me - Jesus had done that for me too! He paid it thousands of years ago when he finally gave up His spirit, hanging on a cross. before i was ever born, before i had ever had a chance to sin. that is incredible!

so here i sit at the computer, simply amazed at a God who loves us this much. much more than this much. as awesome as randy's gift was to me, God's Gift to us cannot be compared. i love Him so much and like with most of those that i love, i am so bad about showing it. God has taken away my old life and started me over, with no more burdens to hang over my head. He has blessed me with the perfect husband for me, and the greatest family and friends. He has blessed us with a baby inside of me! i am utterly shocked at a Perfect Being that would choose to bless such UNperfection.

God, You deserve all the glory there ever existed. May YOUR name be forever praised and honored. i love You.

Baethge Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology - Roots

predictions

yesterday randy told me that a friend of ours said we were going to have a boy. he said he's been 100% lately on his guesses.....

and today while i was working at the church, a fellow church employee, mr. smith, said that he had a dream. in his dream, we were up at a church function and he walked up to my husband and said: "the Lord told me you were going to have a boy." and that was the end of his dream.

crazy huh? well, we won't find out if they're right or not until february, Lord willing.

i kinda feel like it's a boy as well. that makes me happy.

there was cheese in the parmesan, and it's over.

well, this last week we were in fredericksburg, and randy's mom made eggplant parmesan for us all. i ate to my heart's content - it was utterly scrumptious. then, later, sitting with randy, i thought about eating the eggplant parmesan and burst into tears.

why on earth would that be a sad thing? well, it marked the end of a relationship for me, it put a period at the end of my first breastfeeding experience. you see, max is allergic to dairy, so as long as i was breastfeeding, i had to stay away from milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and anything with dairy in it, to keep max's skin from breaking out.

when i found out i was pregnant, i knew i couldn't cut out the dairy anymore. i'm going to need all the nourishment i can get from all sources. so that meant i had to wean max. yes, max is fifteen months and he can certainly survive without my milk, but was i ready to wean him? NO! i had planned for it to happen slowly, at his pace, and without him even noticing he didn't want it anymore.

the Lord helped us out in such a big way with the weaning, and it did happen rather quickly, pretty much from twice a day to none in the course of a week. He had to do it; i was not motivated in the slightest.

i LOVED nursing max! what a treasure! what a way to connect with him. i miss it so much, the way his beautiful big brown eye would stare up at me, the way he would fiddle with my necklace or pat my chin or chest. that pride of knowing i can always get him to sleep, that "i'll take him" attitude whenever all else has failed. he seemed like still a little baby while he was latched on, and i will say that never, not once the whole time, did i resent our nursing relationship, not even in the beginning when the pain was so unbearable.

i am still getting teary-eyed thinking about it, but i don't want to dwell on it too much. i am so excited about our little sweet pea and i don't want to let my sadness ever get in the way of loving and appreciating the new baby. even so, i will always treasure that time.



in the meantime, i am reeeeeeally enjoying the heck out of cheddar and yogurt. and thinking about an upcoming breastfeeding relationship....

And Sweet Pea Makes Four

okaaay, so i secretly started another blog. seeing as how it's been about two years since i've blogged, i thought i deserved another one, right? anyhow, if you're reading this then it's no longer a secret. just a place to lay out a few thoughts.

baby makes four. i'm going to be a mommy again! i was shocked to see the positive test at the lakehouse on our vacation. this time it's different, though: now that i know what it's like to have a child, the ambivalence i felt with the first few weeks of my first pregnancy is nonexistent. i know what it is to love a child! a great one! and i am so unendingly excited about loving another one. i am somewhat intimidated by the thought of having more than one, but i haven't been thinking much on it.... yet.

i told max that there was a baby in my tummy. so now he keeps pulling up his shirt and saying, "baby? baby?" hehe, he thinks there's a baby in his tummy too! it's pretty cute. i told him, "no, only in mommy's tummy," but i don't think he got it. LOL!

anyway, this is really rambly and i mainly wanted to write something so that my blog didn't look so naked anymore.

over and out
dandy-lion