Friesencold

My sister Holly came to visit earlier this week. She and her husband Dwight just moved to Boston a month ago, so that is where she came from. We had a really nice time together.

We went to the train station one afternoon with Bauer after TJ got home from work. It is great fun to watch how excited Bauer gets about trains, even though this is probably at least the 47th time we have gone to see trains this spring. He is mesmerized every time. And it just makes you happy to see how happy he gets, especially when he first sees the light way down the track. He literally jumps for joy and wants everyone around to “come see.”

One other thing we did that was really fun was on Wednesday night, after we went to eat dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, Holly and I walked to downtown Naperville and for one and a half hours, we walked and talked and looked for all 40 of the art sculpture pieces that are placed around the downtown area. I do not know how many years this tradition has happened, but it is such a nice touch for the summer. Different businesses in the area sponsor the different pieces and then have an artist paint their piece to somehow represent their business or to have some theme. The pieces add so much life and color to the downtown area and at the end of the season, all of the pieces are sold at an auction to raise money for something (I should know what, shouldn’t I?). Last year there were mermaid benches, dolphins, and some kind of bird baths. In fact, here’s a picture of Holly and me last summer with one of the dolphins.

This year, there are frog seats, dragonfly benches, snail houses, and butterfly birdbaths. Holly and I walked around and found 32 of the 40 pieces and I got a picture of each one. I have since seen 2 more pieces that we didn’t see that night, so I want to get pictures of those sometime, as well as look for the remaining 6. Here are pictures of a few of our favorites we saw that night in each different design. The last picture is me this past Monday, at 27 weeks.

I had my most recent doctor’s visit last Friday, when I was at 26 1/2 weeks of this pregnancy. Having typed that, I now realize I am in the 3rd trimester at this point. Wow.

At the doctor’s visit I had before this last one, the doctor told me it was almost time for me to have the Glucose Screening Test, which is routinely done to check for gestational diabetes. I asked the doctor if the test was required, and he said required is a tricky word. He said it is technically not required, but is routine and that this practice of which I am a patient strongly encourages all patients to have the test done. I remember having it done when I was pregnant with Bauer, but this time around, I have just felt more aware of any and all tests they want to do on me or the baby (once he’s born) and I’m trying to make conscious intentional decisions that I think are best for mine and the baby’s health.

So between the two doctor’s visits, I decided to do a little research regarding the Gestational Screening Test, or Glucose Challenge Test (GCT) as it is sometimes called, before deciding if I felt it was necessary for me to participate. Here are the things I found out:

-The test is done between 24 and 28 weeks.
-It will not give a diagnosis of gestational diabetes, but is only a screening test.
-Only 1/3 of women who test positive on the screening test actually have gestational diabetes.
-It is the Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) which is the longer, more definitive exam for those who test positive on the screening test.
-Between 2-5% of women develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
-The screening test requires one to drink a sugary drink containing 50 grams of glucose, which is equivalent to 2 candybars worth of sugar, or 12.5 teaspoons, or 4 Tablespoons.
-12 teaspoons of sugar causes the white blood cells of one’s immune system to go from destroying the usual 14 bacteria each in a 12-hour period to only destroying 5.5 bacteria each in the same 12-hour period (a 60% decrease).
-High risk factors for gestational diabetes are: obese, history of gestational diabetes, strong family history of diabetes, had a big baby previously (at least 8 lbs 13 oz), unexplained stillbirth or baby with birth defect, have high blood pressure.
-Low risk group (low enough so as not to need screening, in fact) includes those younger than 25, weight is in healthy range, not a member of racial or ethnic group with high prevalence of diabetes, no close relative with diabetes, never had high result on blood sugar test, never had overly large baby or other pregnancy complication.

Based on the above information I found, especially the low risk group factors, I became more and more comfortable with the idea of not doing the screening. I just was a little nervous about telling the doctor at my next visit because I thought they wouldn’t understand my reasoning or might try to make me feel I was making a bad decision. But taking the time to prepare my thoughts and have true reasons made me feel a lot more confident going into the appointment.

And it turned out fine. I indicated to the doctor that I meet every single factor in the low risk group except being younger than 25, and I like to think I’m still quite close to that. I also told the doctor that if there was a way to do the test without having to ingest 12 teaspoons of sugar that I would have no problem doing the screening. He just said if they notice sugar in my urine at my prenatal visits (which they haven’t up to this point), they might do some kind of finger prick to check my blood sugar levels. I would be fine with that, but if I can avoid the damage to my immune system that the sugar would cause, I am gladly going to do it. I know our bodies are amazing self-healing vessels, and I could recover from drinking 50 grams of glucose if I chose to do the screening, but let’s be honest: if I’m going to have something extra-sugary, I would much rather it be chocolate chip cookie dough from Cookie Dough Creations with my sister who is in town visiting than to drink a flat-tasting super-sweet orange cola concoction at the doctor’s office and then having to wait an hour in the dreaded waiting room until they can test my blood sugar levels.

I am not trying to sound judgmental against anyone who may choose to do the screening test. You will have to assess your own risk factors and decide accordingly. But I just wanted to throw out the idea that a “routine” procedure by your doctor (during a pregnancy or any other kind of visit) doesn’t mean you should just do it without thinking and making a conscious decision based on your own health and choice in the matter. It is freeing to realize we do have choices and as long as we are informed and can clearly explain our reasoning to the doctors, they seem to generally be understanding and accepting of our decisions.

I am going back through Kathleen Norris’ book Amazing Grace, which has officially made my list of Top 5 Favorite Books Ever, and typing out all the things I had underlined when I read it a couple months ago. It is really helpful to revisit all of the thoughts of hers that I connected with so deeply and to think on these things again.

I am thinking about Conversion.

“Conversion is a process; it is not a goal, not a product we consume. And it’s a bodily process, not only an emotional or intellectual one. The very cells in our body are busy changing, renewing themselves, every few days. Yet we remain recognizably ourselves. That is how conversion works.”

“…conversion is no more spectacular than learning to love the people we live with and work among. It does not mean seeking out the most exotic spiritual experience, or the ideal religion, the holiest teachers who will give us the greatest return on our investment. Conversion is seeing ourselves, and the ordinary people in our families, our classrooms, and on the job, in a new light. Can it be that these very people – even the difficult, unbearable ones – are the ones God has given us, so that together we might find salvation?”

“It was not until years after I had joined [a church] that I finally felt that I truly belonged there. But by then I had enough trust, enough faith in God to learn to examine even my negative reactions to religion for signs that my conversion was indeed taking root in me. I had begun to comprehend that the Bible’s story is about the relationship of God to human beings, and of human beings to one another, and that this meant that it is our friendships, marriages, families, and even church congregations that reveal what kind of theology we have, who our God is.”

All of those are from the book; now can’t you see why I love it?

I am also thinking about Detachment, and trying to put it into practice.

From Amazing Grace again: “One sixth-century monk, Dorotheus of Gaza, describes detachment as ‘being free from [wanting] certain things to happen.’”

Wow. I think I could put that on a t-shirt and let it be my life mission. But instead, I will keep it in my heart and prayerfully consider how God might want to work it in my life as I am open to it.

Just yesterday, I had to stop wanting certain things to happen. Bauer picked up some sort of stomach flu this past week, and for 48 hours (from Wed evening through Fri evening), he did not want to do anything other than lie on the couch and watch TV or lie in his bed and take a nap. He must have slept for 4-5 hours each day and 10 or more hours each night. Of course, I didn’t like to see him so sick and pitiful and weak (from not being able to keep much of anything down), but it was a couple days of downtime for me, which gave me time catch up on some things around the house and on the desk.

It was actually a very weird feeling for me because it was almost as if I did not have a child for 2 days. I mean, of course, I was checking on Bauer often and making sure to offer him sips of juice and water and trying to help him be as comfortable as possible. I even sat on his bed at two different points and sang to him, and keep in mind, I don’t sing. I only know 2 hymns, but I love them both, so I sang those (“Amazing Grace” and “The Love of God”), as well as “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” That is my repertoire, for Bauer’s ears only. But when I wasn’t tending to an immediate need of Bauer’s and mostly because he was sleeping a lot or wanted to watch TV because he had no energy for anything else, this is when I had plenty of time to myself.

Getting back to the point, though, is to say that my mom arrived in town for the weekend yesterday afternoon, and our plan all along had been that when she got here, we would all go out to dinner to one of our favorite places, Sweet Tomatoes. We used to visit Sweet Tomatoes regularly in Orlando, but it was only last month that the restaurant opened here. So we’re still pretty excited about it. When I realized Bauer wasn’t going to be well enough to go out, I had to think about being free from wanting certain things to happen. I had to let go of what “the plan” was and look for the good in the new plan. The good was that Bauer got extra rest throughout yesterday evening, TJ got to go to the driving range and to a movie with his friend John, and my mom and I got to go through Bauer’s old baby clothes and make a list of what I need, as well as watch the rest of a movie I had started the night before. We just had leftovers from the night before as well, but it wasn’t bad at all.

One of my favorites quotes of all time speaks of detachment in other terms:

“Seize from every moment its unique novelty and do not prepare your joys.” (Andre Gide)

And that is what I’m thinking about.

Coming next time: My recent non-experience with the Glucose Screening Test.

here are a few pictures of the amazing free haircut i got a couple months ago that i wrote about in my post yesterday:

A lot has happened since I last posted. I will make a list.

1. My friend Jaime had her baby, a girl named Callie. She was born last Friday, May 16th, 3 weeks early!

2. We got a 3-month family membership to the YMCA, and today I started back swimming. Yay! I used to swim regularly when we were members of the Y in Orlando and I loved swimming outside. But here, I am just happy to be in the water again and that the temperature is holding above 50 degrees so I won’t freeze when I walk outside to our car. Bauer enjoyed his first day in “Kiddie Kountry,” the Y’s childcare program, while I worked out.

3. We planted our garden. We planted 2 Early Girl tomato plants, 2 cherry tomato plants, 4 green leaf lettuces, 1 basil plant, and seeds for cucumbers, green beans, and sugar snap peas. We are also going to plant some pumpkins and watermelons in another area of our backyard, but we are waiting a couple extra weeks to do that since we don’t really want the pumpkins ready until closer to the fall.

4. We had our garage door replaced. It had been a little finicky for a while, but it finally stopped working altogether. So for the last week, we had to park on the street in front of our house (as well as get a permit to do so from the police department) until the door could be replaced. I’m just glad it didn’t happen in the winter.

5. I got my hair cut by a new junior stylist at the salon where I go. Haircuts by junior stylists are only $20 on Sundays, so I went on Mother’s Day actually. The $20 is compared to the $75 haircut I received for free the last time I went a couple months ago. What happened is that I really did not like the way the previous junior stylist cut my hair and I even went back to her the following day to have her try and fix it. But two days later, I was still so unhappy that I called the salon and asked to speak to a manager. I just wanted to see if it would be possible for me to come in and have her look at the cut and tell me if I was just being picky or if the cut was no good. She was very willing to see me, the same day in fact, and once I got there, she redid the whole cut for me. She said there were some inconsistencies in the haircut I had received earlier in the week and she did her best to fix it. Her best was the best haircut I may have ever received. I loved it, and TJ did too. He even said, why don’t you just keep going to her it looks so professional. The ironic thing is it only took her 30 minutes to wash, cut, dry and style my hair, whereas it typically takes the junior stylists up to an hour or more to do the “supposed” same cut. And the manager, who is also (obviously) a senior stylist, wouldn’t let me pay her. She just said they want me to keep coming back to the salon, which I plan to. I got to wondering after that haircut how much it would have cost just in case I wanted to start seeing her on a regular basis. I was thinking maybe $50. How about $75? Plus a tip would make it $90. I don’t think that’s affordable for anyone. But evidently people can pay it because how else could she charge that much? Anyway….I loved my haircut while it lasted. And this latest one I got was by one of the junior stylists specifically recommended to me that day by the manager. So at least I feel like we’re in the same ballpark.

6. I have felt more uncluttered in my brain the last week or so. I was having a couple down days recently and just feeling like I needed time to think about what my problem was. I finally realized there wasn’t really a problem. It’s just that not every day is going to be anything to write home about (or on a blog about), so I just accepted those days for what they were – BLAH! – and I moved on. And now look, I’m back to being happy and busy on the outside, and still and quiet on the inside, and it’s lovely while it lasts.

7. Heartburn, heartburn, heartburn. I bought some of the new Tums Quik-Paks to try today. I took one after lunch and man, it really seemed to work fast. I’ve noticed if I have anything for breakfast besides a smoothie, I get heartburn in the morning. And I usually have heartburn after lunch if I have a sandwich. And I definitely have heartburn after dinner. I just don’t want to be taking Tums all day long. They aren’t the most natural thing if you’ve ever looked at the ingredients.

8. I went to the dentist and was told I have 5 cavities. My first cavity ever was 6 months ago, and they did X-rays at that time and so I’m thinking if these 5 new cavities were in existence back then, they would have noticed them. Which makes me want to know how the heck did I develop 5 cavities in 6 months’ time! I think it might have to do with my morning smoothies….even though there is no added sugar of any kind in them. But the dentist said bacteria love sugar, even natural sugar. And if I’m not in the habit of swishing with water or chewing gum with xylitol after having a smoothie, the bacteria just get in there and stay in there, and especially so if there is any plaque built up on my teeth. What a bummer. And for Bauer, too, since has has smoothies almost every day too. At least he will lose his teeth, but this latest revelation makes me see I need to be more diligent about getting us both to drink water after we drink smoothies. I’m just usually not very thirsty after a smoothie because it has water in it, as well as all the high-in-water-content fruit.

No #9 or #10. I have to go now. But I must say, it sure feels like Thursday today. And my mom comes to visit on Friday for the weekend. And then my sister Holly is coming on Monday just after I drop my mom off at the airport. It will be a fun week ahead.

Today was such a good day, even though it was cold again.

This morning was Bauer’s preschool graduation. It is funny to think of a 2 year old graduating from anything (except maybe diapers), but it was quite a big deal for the kids, and for their high school teachers. As I’ve probably mentioned before, the preschool takes place at a high school and the high schoolers are taking Early Childhood classes to get experience working with preschoolers. It has been a great experience for Bauer, and I’ve been so impressed with how attentive the high schoolers and the adult teacher is to all the little preschoolers. There were 12 kids in the class, ranging from ages 2-5, so obviously it was an actual graduation for the older ones who will be going to kindergarten next year. For Bauer, it was his first group thing with a class of other little kids on a stage, so I knew it was going to be quite amusing. Bauer cried a little bit at first when he got to the stage (I think because he knew we were sitting in the audience), but he soon calmed down and lasted the whole time up there just fine.

The best part was that they had all the kids dressed in green caps and gowns. Adorable. Absolutely adorable. And after the ceremony, we attended the reception and got to talk to some of the other parents, as well as some of the high school students who had cared for our kids throughout the semester. I even got some phone numbers for potential babysitters!

After the graduation and reception, TJ took Bauer out with him to run a few errands, including buying a tee ball set for Bauer, while I came home and made pasta salad and cleaned the bathroom (not one of my favorite activities, but I enjoyed the time alone to get something done).

When Bauer and TJ got home, they went in the back yard and played with the new tee ball set, while I made our lunch – veggie sandwiches, veggies, and roasted red pepper pasta salad. That was a good lunch, and it was during lunch that TJ gave Bauer the little graduation gift he secretly bought him while they were at Target just a bit earlier. Bauer has been collecting (or should I say, I have been collecting for him) some of those Cars Movie cars that they sell at Target and Meijer and plenty of other places probably. We see them most often at Target, though, because every time we go there, Bauer wants to go look at the cars. Anyway, there are many, many of the Cars characters we do not have, but one that we really have been wanting to find for Bauer is Tow Mater. And today TJ saw it at Target and bought it! I think they must have just restocked the shelves because most of the time we go, they are almost completely out of all the characters and especially the good ones.

After lunch, Bauer had a 3+ hour nap. That was definitely needed, as he’s been waking up around 6 or 6:15 most days lately. He had a few late nights recently as well, so I was expecting him to take one of those marathon naps any day now. And it happened to be today, when TJ had taken the day off (he worked all day Monday, which is his usual day off). So it was nice for TJ and I to both have that extra time today while Bauer slept for so long. I even got in a 45 minute nap myself, and I still felt like I had extra time. I had pretty much run out of everything to do, and had just sat down to read some in my book for book club, when Bauer finally woke up around 4:40pm.

Bauer remembered his tee ball set and wanted to go out and find it in the backyard, so TJ took him out again to play for a few minutes before we headed to downtown Naperville. We had been planning to go downtown to look for some new shoes for Bauer and to eat dinner. We were hoping to get another pair of the Geox shoes that Bauer has had for his last 2 pairs, but unfortunately the store was all out of the Geox shoes in the Toddler sizes, plus the Geox ones that we have seen online for Bauer’s next size weren’t all that cool-looking to me. The bigger ones are much cooler, so we are just going to try and get Geox next time when he’ll wear a bigger size. We just love the Geox because of how they let air in through the little holes on the bottom. They really seem to help keep Bauer’s feet from sweating. The shoes we got are pretty cool, though. They are a brand called Tsukihoshi, and the ones we got are blue (mine and Bauer’s favorite color) with a camouflage design.

After the shoe store, we went next door to the local bookshop and let Bauer play with the Thomas train set they have there. It is the best Thomas set in town (we know of at least 3 places that have a Thomas train table), but the one at this bookstore is the best, with the most tracks and add-ons and especially the most different train cars for making a really long train.

We finally went to dinner at a place in downtown Naperville that we’ve been wanting to go ever since we moved here. It is called Heaven on Seven and is a Louisiana-cooking restaurant, as in gumbo, jambalaya, etc. It was pretty expensive, but we thankfully had a coupon (yes, I do still keep coupons for restaurants) and we thought of it as a little graduation dinner for Bauer! We normally bring along his food with us when we go out to eat (for health and monetary reasons), but tonight, even though I had brought his food with us, we decided to let him get grilled cheese and fries. He was excited and did so well in the restaurant. I think having that long nap put him in a fun mood, and it was quite a pleasure being out as a family in the restaurant and experiencing a new restaurant together. TJ got the jambalaya with a side of creamy garlic mashed potatoes. I got the Louisiana sampler platter, which had red beans & rice, black eyed peas & rice, andouille sausage, collard greens, and sweet potato polenta. We also each got a jalapeno cheddar cornbread muffin, but they were huge, so we easily could have shared one. We had leftovers to bring home, so at least we’ll get more than one meal out of it

After dinner, we came home and Bauer was relentlessly asking to go see the “choo-choos.” He wanted to go on a bike ride to the “top,” meaning he wanted to go to the train station near our house and see the trains on the tracks up there. So we all bundled up (by this point in the day, it was quite cold and windy, but not yet dark), and went on a family bike ride to see a couple trains. Bauer loved it and even started to cry when we told him we have to go home now. He truly is in love with trains. He never stops asking about them, he mostly wants to play with his train track on the floor when we are home, and first thing this morning he was asking TJ about the “stuck train” we saw on the tracks yesterday.

We got Bauer bathed and to bed, and then it was time for our one TV night of the week. We just got done watching The Office and LOST, and both were good episodes tonight. So that was a fun, relaxing ending to a fun, relaxing day. It’s not too often that I have a day that I enjoy as much as I did today, so I don’t take it for granted.