The best things in life....

....definitely don't come cheap. :-) I of course am not referring to financially here.

Baby was born at 3:42 Monday morning after a labor that was really fast but, in my estimation, a lot harder than my last one. Ben was the perfect coach again (he's great....he said early on "Just let me know what to do. And not do." And then he was just his quiet strong presence that keeps me going through this mess of life!) And my midwife was phenomenal. I just love the way that midwives do birthing of babies! She was so helpful...with both babies I've had these serious "I can't do this, you need to at least give me IV meds or I'm going to DIE, right NOW" moments. Not only did Liz (the midwife) know that I really didn't mean that, but she knew me well enough to know what to say at which points in labor to get me out of that mindset. It was great.

Baby is positively perfect and beautiful. I don't sleep much (no surprise there), but it's not because he doesn't. He sleeps great...I just have to watch him! I had forgotten how absolutely tiny and amazing little ones are.

So I've been pondering on the grace of God in three aspects of this experience. First of all, things for the semester did NOT get wrapped up. I still have one paper I need to finish, and one that's barely in embryonic state...on Saturday I had set up my plan to finish the one on Monday morning, finish the other Monday afternoon and night, edit on Tuesday and then turn them in. Well, I was off by about 2 days. And I've realized that God's in charge, and that's okay. Everything is going to work out. The second thing is that I'm amazed that babies can even make it into being....with all of the things that have to go right at just the right moments, and all the ways in which they can go wrong...it's amazing that it happens right so much of the time. The last thing is just how cool that we can do so many things that we didn't know we could. Specifically I'm thinking of my decision, about 3/4 through labor, that I just couldn't do it and had made a really bad choice to even try. And then I did it anyway. I think that being able to learn just how far beyond our limits we can go is a really great chance.

Adventures on the bus

So Bee and I got adventurous yesterday morning. Her Daddy had told her that we could go to the farmer's market today, forgetting that he would be gone with the scouts (and therefore the car would not be home). But I was feeling pretty full of energy, so we jumped on the bus and went to the farmer's market. We bought some violas because she wanted them (she picked dark blue and yellow...my kind of color scheme!) and a bouquet of lilacs because I wanted them. :-) We also bought honey sticks and starts for oregano and rosemary. Bee picked out the honey sticks, counting out six, and then gave the lady her dollar and said "thank you." It was a good moment.

When we were on the way back to the bus stop, she realized we were close to Wonderlab and asked if we could go. I told her that would be fine. So we hung out there for a little over an hour. She played in the water exhibit, which she hasn't done for ages. It was good. By the time we got home again, we were both ready for lunch and a nap. I was done in! She really likes the bus, though...I think it's something about the no seat-belt thing.

I've been thinking about lilacs ever since. They're my favorite flower, followed closely by daffodils and daisies. I think they're great...they have woody stems and arrange great, you can't make an ugly or odd-shaped bouquet of lilacs! And they come in all different shades of purple, there are white ones, and they just smell heavenly! But I think that the thing that makes them really special to me is that you can't really buy them from a florist. There's just a two week or so stretch in spring that you have to get as much of them as you can before they're gone until next year. And they remind me of filling up the house in the valley with them in the spring time, especially the times that it overlapped Hannah's birthday. I love them.

FAMILY!

Hannah was at our house ALL DAY yesterday! I felt so special that we got a whole day. :-) It was really nice to talk to her and catch up. And Bee absolutely LOVES her aunt. Especially her aunt's camera bag, which she walked around with all day and filled with an assortment of pinecones, leaves, grass, papers, and (apparently) "responsibilities." I couldn't ever figure out what she meant by that last part, but she insisted that there were some in there.

I finished up a short assignment that I had forgotten about, and one paper is a short tweak from done...now I just have to suck it up and finish the other two, which are each only about a third of the way done. (18 pages to go!)

Things have been....interesting.....in the contraction department. Basically every night I wonder if I'm going into labor...then once I drink some water and go to bed, things slow down. I think that stress is affecting me more this time than it did with Bee. I just hope that baby is none the worse for it!

And SPRING has definitely come. We've spent the days lately (instead of working on final papers that really need to get done, and soon) drawing with sidewalk chalk, blowing bubbles, and going to the park. Hooray! Now our little flowers in the backyard just need to sprout up.

A blessing that I'm really grateful for....yesterday my dryer started making a HORRIBLE burning smell. So I turned it off. Fortunately Dad was coming over to pick Hannah up. He stayed a lot longer than he had intended and got things squared away so that it would vent properly and not burn us all to cinders. I'm really glad that I have a Dad that will still take care of me, even though I'm supposed to be a grown-up. :-)