Waitin' on Critter: Week 12

We've got another active little kid on our hands with this one. Our little critter was completely uncooperative during my 12-week check-up, refusing to stay in one place or hold still long enough for the midwife to get any sort of accurate heartbeat reading. So she fired up the ultrasound machine, apologized for not being a technician who could get me a cool photo, and found what she was looking for. I couldn't have been more excited to get to see my little baby moving around again. (And the midwife wasn't kidding about not getting a good picture. Your guess is as good as mine as to what you're looking at here.)

Three months in I'm finally starting to "pop." I may be ready to admit defeat soon and unpack that box of maternity clothes again. For his part (my fetus is taking the male pronoun this week, for simplicity's sake), Critter is about the size of a small lime now and probably weighs about a half an ounce. He's starting to look less like the alien we saw on the first ultrasound, and during part of today's ultrasound I could clearly make out tiny arms and legs moving around and a little head bobbing.

Abby and Caleb are continuing to debate the sex of this new little one. On our way out of the doctor's office, we had this conversation:

Me: "Abby, do you want a baby sister, or a baby brother?"

Abby: "A baby sister, please."

Me: "What do you think Caleb wants?"

Caleb: "Bruba!"

I didn't even know he knew that word, much less that he was following our conversation. Later Abby insisted that I was having puppy instead of a baby. Thankfully, we've got a few months left to straighten her out.

Please pray with us for the continued healthy development of this new baby. Pray for peace for me as I remind myself that God is sovereign over every part of his development. We praise God for this new blessing and can't wait to meet our little Critter in November!

Beaming

If you've never been in a room full of two-year-old ballerinas that are trying on their recital costumes for the first time, you probably can't wrap your mind around the absolute glee that permeated the studio on this particular morning.

They've been rehearsing for months for their big day, but something tells me the recital is going to pale in comparison to seeing their beaming faces as they performed their first dress rehearsal for an audience of mommies after slipping into their colorful tutus for the first time.

That's my little curly-haired cutie on the far right. The girls were just enamored with the sight of all that brightly colored tulle, the velvety leotard and the sparkly bodice.

Me? I was enamored with how little it takes to make my little girl happy.

Budding artist

I'm adding this Magna Doodle to my list of Things Every Mommy Should Own. It keeps the kids occupied (read: quiet) in the car, it was cheap, and through it, my two-year-old daughter has a found a new medium for sharing her feelings.

She draws two things, depending on how content she is at the moment: "Abby happy" or "Abby sad."

This, she informed me, is her self-portrait of "Abby happy," because she had so much fun with her friends that morning. Sometimes she adds curls, but her hair was in braids that day. When I asked her where the curls were on her picture, she reminded me "I'm not curly right now."

See the impish grin? I think it looks just like her.

Out of the mouths of toddlers

Today at my Bible Study, Abby learned about the story of Saul's conversion in the children's program. According to her, it goes a little like this:

Me: "What was your story about today, Abby?"

Abby: "Saul."

Me: "What was Saul doing?"

Abby: "Going for a walk. On the road."

Me: "A walk? That sounds like fun. Then what happened?"

Abby: "There was a bright light. Jesus."

Me: "A bright light! What happened next?"

Abby, covering her eyes with her hands: "Saul went like this and fell down."

Me: "Did he get back up?"

Abby: "Yeah."

Me: "Where did he go?"

Abby: "To the aquarium."*

*I think she means he went to see Annanias. But I asked to make sure.

Me: "Did Saul go see Annanias?"

Abby: "Yeah, and learned about Jesus."

Not bad storytelling for a two and a half year old. I love this kid. And I love Community Bible Study for taking such good care of her.

Camp is very entertaining

When the 'rents are away, the kids will play. And that's just what they did during their first-ever trip to Grandparents Camp.

Just what is a week at Grandparents Camp like for a 2.5-year-old and a 1-year-old?

Let's ask the grandparents themselves...

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From: Nana & Granddaddy

Subject: Grandparents Camp Day One

Well, Abby and Caleb are asleep now—and we are probably going very soon too. It has been another eventful day.... We went to Longwood Park. The place was virtually empty except for the yard crew. No sharing necessary. We stayed a while there, then went to McDonald's where Abby and Caleb both impressed us with their abilities in downing a cheeseburger and juice box.

We arrived home just in time for naptime.... Then we spent the rest of the afternoon outside.... We were able to read a couple of books after bath time...

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From: Nana & Granddaddy

Subject: Grandparents Camp Day Two

We made little drums—old oatmeal boxes worked great—and sang "Ho ho ho hosanna" as loud as we wanted to.

Then there was the non-nap event.... Obviously they couldn't stand to be away from their grandparents even one more moment. Ha. We decided that we had better plan a very short outing today...so we piled in the car and drove to the mall.

...then it was off to the carousel for a ride. Abby says she has done this before. Caleb decided that he would be brave since Abby was enjoying it. She said thank you very sweetly to the token lady on the way out, which probably made her day.

We came home and had a wonderful meal of fish sticks, ketchup, and macaroni and cheese.

After storytime and Bible reading, it was bedtime. Abby—very smart girl she is—wanted to know just why it was that she was going to bed before dark. Explaining daylight savings time didn't quite make the grade...

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From: Mimi & Papa

Subject: Grandparents Camp Day Three

We had a play day morning outside with a wagon ride, chalk and the bubble blower. The kids even helped us with a little yard work with your old plastic rake. They had fun on their tricycle and bike, too....They're having a ball!

We had sooo much fun with the kiddos today! We went to Buddy's farm and petted horses and little baby bunnies and saw BIG turkeys and peacocks. I think Abby loved feeling how soft the little baby bunnies were. We took our picture under the Tin Man and on our way back Abby spotted the Big Green Egg in front of Ace Hardware, so we had to stop and take a picture with it, too.

Then it was off to the airport where we saw airplanes take off and go "zoooom!" The kids had a ball. Next was lunch at Chick-fil-a which was a huge success after a busy morning.

...what a great vacation they are having!!

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From: Nana & Granddaddy

Subject: Grandparents Camp Day Four

We took the kids to the Yellow river game ranch today...

Dad pulled out some of your old Tonka trucks tonight and, after a thorough cleaning (the trucks, not the kids) we threw them in the back yard and the kids had a blast with them.

Abby and Caleb really seemed to enjoy today. We don't know how they can have this much energy—Caleb seems to get his second wind after bathtime at night...

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From: Nana & Granddaddy

Subject: Grandparents Camp Day Five

We decided to try the Georgia Aquarium today since the outing yesterday to the game ranch worked so well....Today's trip wasn't quite as easy—Abby decided to have a 2ish day and really didn't like it as much as we had thought she would. Despite that, however, Caleb thoroughly enjoyed himself—and I think we could have stayed all day with him.

However, Nana and Granddaddy have decided that outings for the next two days will be parks—Abby keeps wanting more parks.

We have told them that Mommy and Daddy are coming home in two days (whatever that means to them). Abby was talking to Daddy and Mommy on her telephone (a.k.a. her wet wipe) on the way home...

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Abby's favorite part of Grandparents Camp was without a doubt the incredible amount of time she got to spend swinging "super high" at a bunch of new parks. The highlight of Caleb's week seems to have been the trip to the Georgia Aquarium and getting to be up close and personal with real live sharks.

Getting them back to normal after a week of non-stop one-on-one attention from four grandparents who find their every move adorable is not going to be easy. But in the end, it's totally worth it.

We're already counting down to Grandparents Camp 2011.

Look ma, no kids!

After over two and a half years of non-stop parenting, Justin and I finally got to take a break. A week's break, to be exact, and in another country.

Turns out, we still like each other.

I cried when we put the kids down for naps at Nana and Granddaddy's house on Saturday as we prepared to leave for the airport. I cried again when the plane took off.

"You miss the kids, don't you?" asked my darling husband.

"Yeah," I sniffed. "But I'm excited about our vacation." And I meant it.

We touched down in Spain on Sunday and wandered around the city for a while before heading to our hotel. Back home, we knew the kids would just be waking up. We called them on Skype, and that's when reality struck. They didn't miss us. In fact, quite the contrary, they were having a blast at Grandparent Camp and seemed a little annoyed at the interruption of an online overseas video call from mom and dad. We chatted long enough to remind me that the kids were in good hands and weren't falling apart in our absence, then hit the ground running for our whirlwind tour of Barcelona.

We walked miles and miles around the city. We toured famous parks and buildings designed by oddball artist Antoni Gaudi. We ate delicious breakfasts at quaint little patisseries around the town. We stayed at an awesome hotel, Praktik Rambla, overlooking the heart of the city. We hunted for, and eventually found, the world's most perfect cup of hot chocolate.

We rode the metro from one end of the city to the other, and stopped everywhere in between.

We visited the hostel Justin lived in during his study abroad trip back in 2003 and hit up Ugarit, a Syrian restaurant he frequented often during his time there.

We ate tapas in the city, paella by the Mediterranean, and won a free sandwich at Pans & Company, Barcelona's equivalent of Subway. I learned that sesame-seed encrusted fried brie is the best cheese stick ever. We dined on soup with shells in it and were served whole fish with the head on. We ordered things we couldn't pronounce and couldn't identify and loved most of it.

We rode a cable car to Montjuïc and toured the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. We took an incline train to the top of Tibidabo where we enjoyed spectacular views of the city from a mountainside Ferris wheel and climbed to an altitude of 568 meters at the top of the Temple de Sagrat Cor, which shamed the awesome view we thought we'd had previously.

Two of our days were spent hanging out at Hotel Rey Juan Carlos, a yuppy hotel that charged me $6 for a coke one day, while Justin attended the Black Hat conference and learned about "digital self defense." The up side of being at Black Hat was enjoying the free internet (the hotel charged over $20 a day for internet access). The down side, of course, is that being in a hotel full of computer hackers means nothing is secure. I enjoyed just relaxing, editing and uploading our 1,000+ pictures and reading my 600-page book while Justin was at the conference. Eight hours to myself with nothing to do and nowhere to be is a luxury I haven't enjoyed in a long time. And I loved it.

On Friday we headed over to a little coffee shop for some suis xocolate (hot chocolate with cream) which I'd been wanting to try since we arrived. Hot chocolate is prepared very differently in Barcelona, in a giant carafe instead of individually by the cup, and once a restaurant runs out, they're out for the day. I'll admit, I was getting a little nervous toward the end of the week when I still hadn't had any. We finally found some on our last day and it was worth the wait. Excellent! (And they gave me one of those little punch cards, so if I go back 5 more times, my seventh cup is free. Justin was not surprised to see that my love of frequent shopper cards transcends time zones and language barriers.)

My talented hubby did an excellent job communicating with the locals (and with some guy from Moscow who started speaking to him in Russian when he overheard him mention he was originally from Georgia...not that Georgia) and I was impressed with his confidence and ability in getting us where we need to go without giving away the fact that we were from the States right away. I, on the other hand, opened all my conversations with a question: Un poco ingles? ("A little English?") So our methods were different, but we both managed in our own way. Justin used his Spanish to find himself a pharmacy and drugs when some bad olives didn't agree with him, and I used my English to upgrade our room at the yuppy hotel. So I can see the benefit of both.

We missed the kids. But to be honest, we were having a great time without them. We had a blast, just the two of us, being the us we were before there were little people relying on us for everything. We slept in until 10 a.m., we ate dinner after the sun went down and didn't go to bed till well after midnight most nights. We came home refreshed, renewed and only slightly jet-lagged. The week was, in a word, perfect.

Special thanks to the grandparents for making this week possible. If you're not too worn out, can we do this again next year?

Photography 101

Getting a good shot of the kids requires more than the right equipment and a good eye. Around here, it helps if you can see into the future.

If I had known she was about to go airborne for a high-flying sneak attack on her best friend, I might have gotten Abby Jean's head in the shot.

Poor Abby Mae never saw it coming.

Happy Shark

Somewhere between obsession and addiction lies my son's affection for sharks.

We thought it was just Sharkie, his own little stuffed shark, that he loved so much. He asks for it whenever we're in his room, he can't go to sleep without it, and even Abby understands and respects its ownership.

But we've come to find out that our gifting of the stuffed shark has cultivated some sort of odd affection for Great Whites. So I was none too surprised when Caleb darted away from me during storytime at the library for a front row seat during the "Baby Shark" song. There he was, front and center, clapping along and chanting "duh-duh" with all the two-year-olds as the librarian playfully snapped at him with her stuffed shark puppet. Later he stood up to get closer, ignorant of her pleas for him to sit down so the other kids could see.

I hung back and let him enjoy the moment. He seemed a bit confused when the librarian, instead of handing him the shark, tucked it away behind the felt board.

"Duh-duh?" I heard him ask, then watched with joy as he did his sign for please (a hand flapping gesture that I don't expect other adults to understand).

I intervened before he darted behind the board to retrieve the shark for himself. Together, we waved goodbye to the shark as I explained that when it was naptime he could have Sharkie back.

I shudder to think what will happen if we ever misplace this toy.

Crazy is my new normal

And when this little critter makes his or her debut in November, there will be no denying it.

Seeing this little blob of a person bobbing around on that ultrasound screen is officially one of the happiest moments of my life. Just two months ago, I experienced the exact opposite emotions, and they still creep up at times. But now, the Lord has turned my mourning into dancing as we celebrate this promise of new life and anticipate our life with the newest member of the family of fish.

God has brought me unspeakable joy through my calling as a mother and this growing family He's blessed me with. To Him be the glory and honor forever and ever. I continue to pray for all of my children that their lives will glorify their Father in heaven. They are His, after all. And as this little life forms inside of me, I'm reminded again of the blessing, the joy and the responsibility of being able to care for His little ones.

Welcome to the family, Critter.