Friesencold

My dilemma comes because I am a collector but not a saver. Let me explain.

I love for things to be simple in our home. I like to know exactly what I have and where each thing is. There is a place for everything and if there isn’t a place for it, or if I know I won’t use it, or if I just don’t like it, then I don’t keep it. I find myself often searching around the house for things to get rid of, or things to sell at a garage sale, or to give away to the library or the Goodwill. It’s almost a hobby of mine. And the end result is that we just don’t have a lot of extra, unneeded stuff. I do realize we have a ton of stuff compared to most of the world. But compared to most people in America, we are pretty sparing, and it’s on purpose because we like to keep a simple house, not to mention, it’s a small house with only 3 closets (1 shared between the 2 bedrooms, a linen closet, and a coat closet which is full of coats because we live near Chicago now) and that really forces you to get rid of things you don’t need.

Even with Bauer’s toys, I am very intentional to keep things pared down. Most of his toys have been given to him from different family members or friends for different occasions, and some we have purchased at garage sales. A few things we have bought at regular price, but overall his toy selection is pretty limited compared with most of his buddies, which makes their houses so much fun for him!

I have been thinking lately that Bauer would probably be truly content with 2 toys. One is his wooden train set from IKEA which is actually probably 40 wooden track pieces and 10 train cars, so in reality that is 50+ pieces, but once it’s all assembled (a process which happens again and again numerous times a day — and for anyone who has had to listen to a 2 year old endlessly repeat/whine “new track,” then I feel your pain), it’s really like one big toy that takes up most of our living room floor and which I trip over multiple times a day.

The second toy is actually a group of toys: the Cars movie cars. Here is the line-up.

As you can see, Bauer has ended up with a pretty decent collection of these cars so far, and that was without us really trying at all. His first few were given to him by a friend of ours for Easter this past spring, which is also around the time TJ bought the Cars movie for Bauer. And ever since then, Bauer has really enjoyed the Cars characters. My mom has bought a few of the cars for him, including the green hummer called “TJ” because she just couldn’t resist, and another one was a gift from our cousin Chase this summer at the beach. The rest of them I guess we have bought for him for one reason or another. I know we have given Bauer a couple as rewards for filling up his “Dry Pull-Up” chart on the fridge, but that takes a while so it’s not like an every day or even every week occurrence. Still, I feel like he has collected quite a few different characters since back in March or whenever Easter was this year.

But here is what has happened. I have started wanting to build his collection. First it was only Bauer who wanted to go play with the cars every time we went to Target. But now I must admit that I want to go to that aisle too so I can see which of the cars they have for sale that we don’t have. I haven’t found Target to be the best place for looking, though, as it seems they mostly have lots of the same ones Bauer already has, or ones that look very similar to the ones he has (like the many variations of Lightning McQueen). I still want to get more of the different characters because getting too crazy with the variations on the same characters.

Well, today we ended up in Bolingbrook where we were meeting some friends at an aquatic park, but we were there 45 minutes early after dropping TJ off at the airport and not really having time to drive all the way back home in between. I couldn’t find the Target I thought was nearby, so I ended up going into Meijer, which for those of you not in the Midwest, is a big superstore kind of like SuperTarget or a WalMart Supercenter. Meijer actually has a good toy selection, so we went there to kill some time letting Bauer play with the toys in the toy section. But of course, I had to look at the Cars cars while we were there.

And wouldn’t you know, they had about as big of a selection as I have ever seen of the cars! I got very excited and started picking out all the ones I wanted to get for Bauer. I knew I wouldn’t just give them to him for no reason, but I could already feel myself wanting a reason to give him a car here, a car there, a car everywhere, so he can have more of the characters and a more complete collection. I ended up deciding to buy several of them and telling myself I would think about the dilemma of wanting to help build a collection (I’m thinking this will be a fun thing to keep for years in the future, kind of like collecting baseball cards or something else) vs. not wanting Bauer to end up with too many toys or us end up with too much stuff just because we are so blessed in America and can buy these unnecessary things if we so desire. So I’m writing this blog as a first step in thinking through my desire – what is the truer desire? To have a good collection or to have less?

What is Bauer’s desire? What will I desire a year from now? Are the cars going to automatically disappear from all store shelves if I don’t buy them now? Am I going to spoil Bauer by letting him earn cars too easily just because I want him to have more? And do I want him to have more, or less?

Lots of good questions. I haven’t figured out my answers yet, though. And I take solace in knowing all the cars I bought today, which are still in the Meijer bag sitting on our dryer, are 100% returnable, once I decide how I feel about all this. I think I’ll at least keep the Guido/Luigi/Tractor set because that seemed to be Bauer’s favorite one today of all the ones we looked at and hey – you get 3 for 1 in a package.

We had a garage sale Saturday and only made $13. It was like a gas station on a corner that goes out of business. It seems like a good idea to be on a busy corner, but people don’t want to stop or they are too busy getting through the intersection to even realize what else is going on around them.

After the first hour and half of our sale, and having only made $2 ($1 each from 2 different people, and third couple that chose only to take a couple things we had marked for FREE – not that I minded at all by that point, as I was just happy to get rid of the stuff), we decided to pack it all back in our big garage sale box and take everything to Goodwill. When we were about halfway done putting everything in the box, another person stopped by and spent $11. So that gave us $13.

Thankfully, we had decided to sell the microwave earlier in the week on Craigslist and made $20 for that instead of the $8 we had hoped to get at the garage sale. I doubt that would have happened considering we only had 4 customers.

So that gave us $33, but to top it off, as TJ was taking the Fisher-Price tricycle we had tried to sell at the garage sale to this children’s consignment store later in the morning on Saturday, a lady coming out of the store stopped him and offered to give him more than the store would offer him for the tricycle. It ended up she was willing to give him $20 when the store was only going to give him $7.50.

So with that, we actually made $53 on the stuff we had hoped to sell at the garage sale. And with that exact amount of money, TJ found a stroller at the same consignment store and bought it! It’s a Graco stroller to replace the Graco MetroLite we have had since Bauer was born. That thing is just about toast. I wish I knew how many miles I have walked with it. It is just not in very good working condition anymore, so we had been thinking that regardless of whether we get some kind of double stroller, we really were also going to need a replacement for our regular stroller. And we wanted something the infant seat we already have would fit into. This “new” Graco stroller TJ got at the consignment store is just what we were looking for. It’s more like a deluxe umbrella stroller than the MetroLite we have, meaning it is smaller and lighter weight, but the good thing is it still holds the infant seat in it. Or if I want to carry the baby in a sling sometimes, Bauer can ride in the stroller.

We are still trying to figure out what to do about a stroller for both kids, but one thing we are considering is a Bob brand double jogging stroller. They are expensive but seem to be the best, based on the reviews online as well as us checking one out at a local baby gear store. I just want a good stroller I can use to walk for exercise and be able to bring both kids along. We had been considering one of the “Sit ‘n Stand” type of strollers but I don’t really think that would work that well since Bauer would probably just want to get out all the time while I was trying to walk fast. We also don’t really want a regular double stroller because they are just too heavy and cumbersome and wouldn’t be good for pushing while walking for exercise. It seems a nice double jogging stroller is the best option at this point, and even though I know it would be heavy, I most likely would just leave it in the garage and use it just for this purpose or if we were walking a longer distance as a family (like when we walked to Ribfest over 4th of July weekend) and needed a place for both kids to sit. For everyday use (such as going to Target or taking a leisurely walk downtown), my plan is to use the new Graco stroller we just bought at the consignment store and just put the baby in there in the infant seat and let Bauer walk beside me or ride in the shopping cart if we’re in a store.

If anyone has any thoughts to share on what has worked or not worked for them with 2 kids, please comment.

Today was a nice day. We went to church this morning and afterwards we went to our friends’ The Meyers house for a potluck lunch. We had invited some other friends to join us, but no one else could come, so it ended up just being us. It was still a lot of fun to be with them, especially since Bauer loves playing with their little boy Branton. Both boys were pretty tired around lunchtime today, though, so there was a bit of crying and lack of sharing, but it was still nice to spend some time with friends.

Bauer had a short nap, which meant my nap was even shorter, considering I didn’t fall asleep until probably an hour and twenty minutes into Bauer’s nap. I thought Bauer was in a bad mood after his nap, but he ended up putting on one of his CDs and I think the music lifted his spirits because for probably about an hour, he listened to his music and played his guitar and tried out all his different musical instruments. TJ got some of it on video and hopefully he can post some of it soon on the Vox blog.

While Bauer played his music (which he did in our bedroom – he came trooping in with the big CD player in hand), and TJ participated in that with Bauer (including doing some videotaping of Bauer), I was sorting through the new baby clothes I received at the baby shower my friends had for me last weekend, as well as looking at the items I already had on hand from when Bauer was just born. It was fun to go back through everything and see what we have and what we need. We actually got a lot of really nice things at the shower and in almost all the right sizes. I have just a few exchanges to do at Babies R Us later this week, as well as a few other items to purchase from our registry that were not purchased but that are essentials.

After the music time and clothes sorting time, we decided to take a walk to Trader Joe’s. It’s actually 2 miles from our house, so we decided we better drive to downtown to shave about 0.7 miles off the distance since that’s how far we live from the center of downtown. We took the stroller and then walked the rest of the way. It was fun to be outside and to do something different than we usually do. We could have easily just driven to Trader Joe’s and been back home within half an hour, but instead we spent probably an hour and a half making the trip. By the time we got home and had dinner, it was after 7pm. So before long, it was the bath and bedtime routine for Bauer and then downtime for me and TJ.

Tonight we finished reading a book that we have been reading together for the past 10 or so weeks. It is the book Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner, which is a book my friend Miska recommended to me and I read earlier in the year and really enjoyed. It was one I thought TJ would like too, so we decided to read it together, just one chapter each Sunday evening. It’s good to start something like that and actually finish it. I think TJ enjoyed it too. We might pick another book to read together.

But first we each have our Bradley books to read. At our first Bradley class last week, we were given 3 books, one for mom, one for dad, and one for the both of us. The one for the both of us was the Henci Goer book I had just finished reading, so that’s done already. The one for me to read is Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way (by Susan McCutcheon) and I’m not sure I’ll actually read the whole thing, but I do plan to scan it and look for things I think will be helpful. I am kind of stuck on the whole hypnobirthing method at the moment and really want to get that one down and not be trying to take in too many things at once. The one for TJ to read, if he wants to, is by Robert Bradley and is called Husband-Coached Childbirth.

What I am most excited to read, however, is a book my friend Hannah recommended to me. It’s called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and is by Barbara Kingsolver. I just bought it at Borders with a giftcard that I received at my baby shower (“a gift for mommy” as the card said). The book is about a family that chose to eat locally for a whole year. Either they had to buy their food locally, or grow it themselves, or go without it. It sounds like such an interesting idea to me to do that. It would be really strange not to be able to have bananas for a year. How could I make smoothies?

I had a really great birthday this year. It was last Thursday, July 17th, and I turned 29. I am happy to be odd again.

I received at least 4 voicemails with people singing Happy Birthday to me on the phone (it was a busy day so I wasn’t able to answer my phone much at all that day), I think I had 19 posts on my Facebook wall telling me Happy Birthday, and I got many nice cards and gifts.

My best gift was tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil show “Kooza” that is on tour in Chicago this summer. TJ surprised me by getting us tickets and then he surprised me again by taking me to dinner before the show. We went to La Sorella in downtown Naperville and I had only been there one other time (a long time ago) and had been wanting to go back. I didn’t even know TJ knew I wanted to go back so much, but when he told me we were going there, I was so happy. It is a fine-dining restaurant and though I wore green capri pants and a gray faded American Eagle t-shirt (my new favorite outfit, which is why I was wearing it on my birthday and for the 3 days after!), I didn’t feel out of place at all. We had a great table by the window and enjoyed some delicious Italian food, and on top of that the service was great too. They even brought a little Italian dessert to our table for free, in honor of my birthday, after we finished our meals. I can’t remember what it was called but it had some unusual cookie-type things, ice cream and hot fudge. You can’t go wrong with hot fudge, no matter what.

The Cirque show was simply amazing. I would have paid the entire amount for the tickets just to see the contortionist act and the juggler act. Both were things that humans shouldn’t be able to do. I just sat there in shock and awe, and thoroughly enjoyed our evening out. I am convinced that all of the Cirque shows (even though I’ve only seen 2 different ones at this point) are worth every penny they cost and more. There is no other entertainment that I know of that is quite so entertaining. TJ did good, didn’t he?

He also gave me the new Jewel CD I had been wanting, plus another gift that I had not thought of to wish for, but it’s a great gift too. It’s a digital postal scale. We mail stuff all the time, it seems, and now rather than wish my package at the post office was 0.1 oz lighter so I could send it first class instead of priority or whatever the deal on that stuff is, now I can just weigh it at home and look at my handy-dandy laminated chart TJ made for me with all the rates and if I need to take out one piece of tissue paper or pop one bubble in the bubble wrap to get the weight down, I can do it and save money. How nice!

Other gifts I received were:
-3 books: The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted (Elizabeth Berg), At Home in Mitford (Jan Karon), and Living Prayer (Robert Benson)
-knife sharpener
-THE coolest apron ever from Anthropologie (see below)
-picnic quilt
-subscription to Kiwi magazine
-Target giftcard
-3 checks ($$$)
-flower topiary (see below)
-a hand-decorated journal
-lunch at Whole Foods with a friend
-and last but not least, my second favorite gift: a homemade “altered” sister scrapbook.

The last thing is from my sister Holly, obviously. It is such a unique gift that will be treasured forever. Holly said she was working on it for over a year, to find the right album, the right kinds of pages, the pictures of us as sisters from all throughout our lives to go in it, and then all kinds of very cool little trinkets/quotes/antique-y looking stickers/etc to decorate the pages with. I LOVE IT!! I cried when I read the note she included with it, and I’m not too much of a crier usually. But this is a most special gift from my third favorite person in the whole world. I wish everyone had a sister like Holly. Not Holly herself, though, because I’d like to keep her for myself. I’m lucky.

Hey you!
It’s your birthday.
You were born into this big world 29 years ago this morning
And you still have life, which, like pizza,
Even when it’s bad, it’s good.

You are a combination chosen from many other combinations
Because the world needed you.
You, with your big toes that are shorter than your second toes.
You, with your one missing wisdom tooth that never came in.
With your blue eyes and nicely shaped ears
And your skinny limbs, which you inherited from your dad.

You did not know it then,
Because you were a tiny creature just arrived on the scene,
But your life was started on a journey that won’t end.
You are becoming more of who you really are
And the start of a new birth year is a celebration of that becoming
Because you are a more whole person than you were a year ago.
And by next year, you will have even more to celebrate.

Having children has brought not only them into the light,
But you as well.
You are opening to the world in ways you have not had to before,
Even on the day you were born.
The world welcomed you, and now you are welcoming the world.
You are learning to live, which is what we have all been waiting for.

Yes, you could still be more free.
And you still need patience and to learn the art of detachment –
Not wanting certain things to happen.
But your simple love for words has given you more life this year
And your awareness of life itself has brought with it
An intentionality that is admirable.
You do feel things even when you wish you felt more
And you are letting yourself embrace more than you think.
And you still love blue. And country music. And birds.

I know you also love those big white-rimmed D&G sunglasses,
The ones that cost $159 at The Sunglass Hut,
Because they make you feel like a celebrity -
Like Mary Kate and Ashley,
Who can buy four pairs of sunglasses just like that.
But you are famous to other people:
To your friends, to your husband, to your children, to your parents.
Your existence has made their existence what it is.
And you have a great sister,
Which is worth a lot more than cool sunglasses,
Although she would probably like a pair too.

Happy Birthday, you!

I went to the new Whole Foods today with my friend Jaime. It was the grand opening day, so pretty exciting stuff to be among the crowds. It is a much bigger store than the one I have been going to in Wheaton. They even have a gelato bar and the smalls are only $1.99, which seems cheap to me for Whole Foods.

Instead of price stickers on the shelves, almost every item had a little computerized screen just beneath the item with the price shown on it. I didn’t think it looks as good as the paper print out prices/stickers you normally see, but I guess it will be easy for them to raise the prices as gas goes up. I am always so surprised that the carrots I buy for juicing have continued to hold at $3.99 for a 5-lb bag. So many other things have gone up, not just at Whole Foods, but at Meijer and Target too. What can you do though? You have to eat and I’m not talking Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies at $1.00 for a box of 10 or 12.

Speaking of which, I was craving one of those lately, so I spent a dollar on a box and have had just one so far. Even if all I eat is one, it was worth the dollar.

I am trying to convince Bauer that if he lets me sell his big red Elmo chair (a.k.a. our living room eyesore) and his big orange stuffed Tigger (which we got at our church’s garage sale a while back for $1.00), then I’ll let him use the money from the sale of the items to buy whatever he wants at Target, which means a new Cars car. Either that, or some kind of noise-making garbage truck, which he probably won’t have enough money for. We intended to have a garage sale last week, but the forecast called for rain on Saturday morning, and we hadn’t put our garage sale sign out on Friday like I had hoped, so we decided to postpone it till this Saturday. I’m glad we postponed because Bauer ended up sleeping in till 8am last Saturday so it was nice that we got to sleep in too.

I have had some trouble sleeping lately, but I guess that is to be expected in late pregnancy. I have been having these restless leg syndrome tingles, and it makes it hard to go to sleep. But as long as I can get up and go lie on the couch and read, I’m happy. I slept from 12:30am-5:30am last night, but didn’t feel very tired today after all. I guess it’s all the excitement of the week, and knowing I was getting to read when I couldn’t sleep. I am almost done with the book on hypnobirthing and have been learning a lot about this method of natural birthing. It is so interesting to hear the terms the author uses to describe all the things that go along with birth (surges, for instance, instead of contractions, and breathing the baby down instead of pushing the baby out). I am liking the overall feeling I am getting from the book and plan to begin practicing some of the breathing and relaxation techniques later in the week.

I had another doctor’s appointment today and am continuing to progress normally. They said I probably won’t have another ultrasound, unless for some reason they can’t tell if the baby has turned in a few weeks. I told the doctor I met with today that I am planning for a natural birth this time and she seemed open and accommodating to my desire. The practice I go to has 5 different doctors and I know I’ll be seeing at least 2 others of them before my due date (wait, the book calls it “birthing time/month” so as not to make an expectant mom feel any pressure to go on or even very close to that particular date), so I plan to just tell each one as I see them and hope they are all as open as the lady today.

The Cirque du Soleil is tomorrow – a 2 1/2 hour show!! I can’t wait. And I don’t mind turning 29 because I’ll be an odd number again. And then next year, I won’t mind turning 30 because that’s when I’ll get a tattoo. And then 31 will be odd again. Don’t know about 32 though. At least then, I will have been married 10 years! And maybe that means I will have seen about 4 more Cirque shows by then since I keep telling TJ I want to go to Las Vegas for our 10th anniversary to see all the Cirque shows out there. Either that, or a trip to Europe sans kids.

I have no idea how interested those of you who read my blog are in all my birth plans, but I figured I would write about one other thing I’m going to try that I didn’t think to mention in my post while ago.

I am going to be taking some home remedies to try and prevent testing positive to the Group B Strep test that pregnant women are screened for between 35 and 37 weeks. My doula suggested several things that I can take for a few weeks leading up to the screen that will give a better chance of me testing negative (if you test positive, they give you an antibiotic through an IV during your delivery to avoid possibly passing on the illness to your baby).

I am going to be taking chewable Acidophilus (probiotic), chewable Vitamin C, and liquid grapefruit seed extract which I will mix into juice or a smoothie. I have to take chewable everything because when I swallow pills, I usually start to feel like the pill is stuck or I have a choking sensation. My prenatal vitamins are chewable too. I am really not that good at being consistent with taking pills of any kind, but I am really going to try and do this for at least the next 2 weeks to up my chances of testing negative. I wonder how much just thinking you are going to test negative can cause negative results. Probably a lot, given the power of positive thinking. But nonetheless, I am sure the Vitamin C will boost my immune system and I know taking probiotics is good. So I don’t mind taking these things anyway.

I have some fun things to look forward to this week. Monday night, I am meeting my friend Amber for coffee (my latest drink of choice is an iced vanilla latte) so TJ will put Bauer to bed. That is always a nice break to have.

Tuesday evening I will be picking up my friend Jaime from the airport after her trip to GA so I know I will enjoy talking to her and hearing about her trip.

On Wednesday, Jaime and I are having lunch at the new Whole Foods. Their grand opening is that day so we’ve been planning to go there ever since we found out when it was going to open.

Thursday is my birthday and that night TJ and I are going to the Cirque du Soleil show that is on tour in Chicago. TJ surprised me with the tickets a few weeks back. He wouldn’t have told me in advance except that I heard about the show and was bugging him to go online and see how much the tickets were. We are going to dinner somwhere (that’s still a surprise) and then to the 8pm show. Bauer will be staying overnight with my friend Meghan, Nico’s mom.

And then to top it all off, Friday night is my baby shower, including a cake from “I’ll Bring Dessert,” which is the business this lady at our church has and is where TJ ordered my birthday cake from last year as a surprise. I remember how good it was, so I’m very excited to have another cake made by Wendy. It will be a triple chocolate pound cake with chocolate icing, which doesn’t sound nearly as good as it is.

Tomorrow marks 34 weeks for me, so that means only 6 weeks to go, if I make it that long. We toured the OB unit of the hospital today and I had a chance to meet several of the Labor & Delivery nurses, including one in particular that a friend of mine had a couple years ago when she had her baby (and labored naturally) at this same hospital. She said this nurse Sheila was so happy to have the chance to work with a mom wanting a natural birth since most moms go the medicated route and my friend had a great experience having her as her nurse. So I was hoping Sheila would still be working there and in fact, she was working today so I got to meet her. Not only did she seem very open and accommodating to the idea of a natural birth, but at least three of the other nurses who were sitting at the nurse’s station at that time also seemed very eager and encouraging to help me when my time comes. I guess it is getting to be a little more common these days for people to desire natural childbirth. I was hoping I wasn’t going to feel ostracized or like the nurses would roll their eyes thinking “oh, not another one of these crazy moms.” And I didn’t feel that way at all today, nor do I think I will feel that way when I am at the hospital to give birth. That was very encouraging to me today.

Last week, TJ and I met with, and then subsequently, hired a doula named Lisa. We are very excited to be working with Lisa during the rest of this pregnancy and especially during my labor. Our plan is for me to have a natural birth, meaning no epidural and no pain medications. This is the exact opposite of what I did with Bauer, so needless to say, I am out of my element.

But at the same time, I feel excited about the challenge and the good things that can come of this. I am not even sure of all the good things – I know breastfeeding is supposed to go more smoothly initially, and I know the “hormone cocktail” that is released in one’s brain after giving birth naturally is supposed to help with bonding and cannot be reproduced in any other way.

We are going to be attending a few Bradley classes that Lisa teaches to learn about some relaxation techniques and the stages of labor. We won’t make it to all the sessions before my due date, so Lisa is going to meet with us one-on-one a few times in order to try to give us a sort of crash course on the things we need to know. In addition, she is going to help us write a birth plan. I am very grateful to have help with this because writing a birth plan was something I was already hoping to do in regards to what I don’t want the hospital to do to the baby (no Hep B vaccine, no antibiotic eyedrops, etc). Having Lisa’s expertise in writing the birth plan, both concerning myself and concerning the baby, will be very valuable.

Her doula services also include her being available via phone or email anytime now through the birth for me to ask questions or get advice. And then, most importantly, when I go into labor, we will be calling her to come over to our house to help me labor at home and stay as comfortable as possible during this process. She will use different techniques that we will have already discussed beforehand (such as massage and other things I am not even aware of at this point) to help me make it through the initial stages of labor. Once my contractions are 2-3 minutes apart, Lisa said I will be ready to head to the hospital and she will accompany us. The hospital where I am delivering is less than 5 minutes away, so there should be plenty of time to get there and get situated before the baby comes.

Even though I have some first-time nerves already, I am convinced it will be so nice to have not only TJ’s support (which Lisa said is crucial, especially during the transition stage of labor when I will probably begin to think that I can’t do this), but also the support of someone as knowledgeable and experienced as Lisa seems to be to help me through this.

A book that Lisa highly recommended is called The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer and my friend Shannon (who had a natural birth with her son Chase) recommended a book by Marie Mongan called Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method. Hypnobirthing is an entirely different method altogether than the Bradley Method, but Lisa said to use them in combination would be fine. In fact, one woman she worked with who used things from both methods was so much in a zone that Lisa said she seemed to feel no pain whatsoever. I’d love for that to happen, but at this point, I am just hoping to gain some valuable insights from both methods that I can apply when the time comes in order to reduce the fear of pain, and thus the pain itself. I ordered both books from Amazon and have begun my “before baby” reading.

We are scheduled to take a tour of the OB unit at the hospital this coming Sunday and then the following Sunday our Bradley classes begin. We have made a list of some things we still need to buy and things we need to do before the baby arrives, so at this point, I’m feeling fairly organized. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed a few nights ago, which is what inspired the list, and TJ was great to sit with me and help me think through everything.

We also spent some time that night talking about how we feel we are doing as parents to Bauer and that was a very good conversation to have. We thought of a few things we’d like to change (one is to make breakfast more of a sit-down meal for Bauer, as opposed to him just snacking all morning; another is to be aware of when we are being critical of Bauer for making mistakes when the mistakes are generally just something any 2-year old would do and not something needing criticism or even correction), as well as a few things we feel we are succeeding at (one is praising and encouraging Bauer when he does something well like listening; another is not using the counting method 1-2-3 to indicate when we would like Bauer to do something).

We are happy to be parents because of how it has changed us and continues to change us. And we are excited about welcoming another child into our lives. We have so much to be thankful for, especially the gorgeous weather we are experiencing in Naperville this time of year. We went to dinner in downtown this evening and had burgers and fries at a place called The Lantern. They are known for their burgers is what we had heard. Burger, fries and a Coke for 6 bucks, is what Annette, our Trolley Tour Guide, told us a few weeks ago when we did the trolley tour, and we happened to see her in there tonight when we were eating. It was a good burger and a fun family outing. We walked around downtown for a little while after eating and that is always so much fun to me.

I am learning about St. Benedict. It started with my reading of two Kathleen Norris books, Amazing Grace and The Cloister Walk. Kathleen Norris has spent a good deal of time living among some Benedictine monks within their communities and a lot of her writing and thinking has been influenced by their way of life.

I ordered two books from Amazon to continue my journey into the thinking of St. Benedict. The books are A Good Life by Robert Benson and The Rule of St. Benedict edited by Timothy Fry. I started the Robert Benson one today and all I can say thus far is “yes.” Here are some bits and pieces just from the first chapter.

We are given lots of power tools – faxes and computers and telephones and automobiles – and yet we still have only the one mind and the one heart and the one spirit.

All of the bits and pieces of our lives, large and small, must be held up in the light of our longing to live for and with God.

It was a case of the longing of my heart encountering a structure that nurtured and fulfilled that longing at the same time….I learned that I could live the monastic life interiorly.

I began to see that one might construct a way of living that no longer separated one’s spiritual life from the rest of one’s life.

I am thinking Benedict would be a pretty great middle name for the baby.

Speaking of baby, I’m looking into getting a “Hot Sling” for the baby. My friend Jaime has one for her little girl Callie, and the baby looked so cute and comfy in there.

I’m also considering a “Hooter Hider.” These seem to be pretty popular these days and since I plan to nurse, I think I would have plenty of opportunities to use it since I won’t be sitting at home as much as I did with Bauer since now there is Bauer to take out and do things with.

I have less than 8 weeks now until my due date of 8/25. But I am hoping for an August 16 baby. There are a number of reasons. One is that my birthday is July 17 and Bauer’s is Sept 15. So to have Aug 16 in the middle would be perfect. The other reason is that my good friend Jaime’s birthday is Jan 17 and mine is July 17. Her son Branton’s is Feb 15 and Bauer’s is Sept 15. And her new little girl Callie’s is May 16 and so to keep it up, we need Aug 16. Also the other Jamie in our playgroup had her little girl back in Jan on the 16th, so all the playgroup 2nd babies thus far are born on 16s. And since I’m already stuck with an even-numbered month and year this time around (8 and 8), I might as well go for an even date in there too.

A little Bauer update is that he still is a train fanatic. TJ took him on the train to Chicago on Monday morning so that I could have some time to myself. I took him to the train station yesterday afternoon and we watched 5 Metras come into and leave the station. Bauer is in heaven when we are at the train station. And then when we get home from the train station, or anywhere for that matter, he just wants to play with his train. We even have the rug pulled back in our living room lately so that Bauer has plenty of room for his wooden track on the floor. We just leave it out all the time now, although it does get moved from room to room at times.

A few other things Bauer loves lately are:
1) The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales, one of those Usborne books with the little yellow duck hiding on each page, although Bauer cares nothing about the duck. It’s a book of 20 stories that my grandmother gave to Bauer for his birthday or Christmas last year and all the stories take place on a farm. There are four stories at the end that involve a train and don’t you doubt that Bauer knows and loves those four especially.

2) Cold toast. Bauer asks for this daily, often multiple times a day now. It is the Ezekiel Cinnamon Raisin bread that we keep in the freezer and Bauer loves to eat it cold off of a plate.

3) Being barefoot. He likes taking off his sandals, like at the train station yesterday, and going barefoot. Ever since the beach, I’m more okay with him getting dirty. He even ran around at the park for over an hour yesterday with no socks and shoes after he wanted to play in the sandbox there and I let him. When we get home, he gets to sit up on the bathroom counter and we wash his hands and feet at the same time.

4) All things Cars, as in the movie. He wants to listen to the music from the movie on our computer and run around the house with TJ. That’s what they did this morning while I was at my doctor’s appointment and what Bauer asks to do after dinner lately. Bauer has a collection of the cars toys from the movie and he is earning more by keeping his pull-ups dry at naps and nighttime. He has to fill a chart with 16 Cars stickers and then he gets a new car.

5) Not sure if this is one of Bauer’s loves, but we did take him to his first movie this past weekend. He had been enjoying watching Cars so much on our vacation that we thought perhaps he would enjoy a full-length film at the movies. We went to see Wall-E, and TJ had prepped him for it earlier in the day by showing him some of the trailers online. We had heard it got good reviews in general, although the reviews for a small kid were mixed, especially with this movie not being as action-packed as Cars or other Pixar films. But it was a rainy day and going to the movies as a family sounded like a fun thing to do. So we did. And Bauer sat through the whole thing and did great. He had to go potty two times, but that was expected, and I had to go once, and that was also expected. The movie was okay – not too much of a storyline – and sort of dark (not dark as in scary or bad, but dark as in not bright and colorful and cheery like Cars or Toy Story). I think that actually could be why Bauer was able to watch the whole hour and a half of it without wanting to turn it off. When he watches Cars, he is usually done after about an hour but I think it’s because it’s too stimulating for him with all the colors and noise and characters to keep up with. So maybe Wall-E was a good first movie for him. Now that we have seen the movie, Bauer asks to see the “trolley” but he leaves out the L’s, so it’s more like “tra-eee.” At first we weren’t sure what he was asking for, but we realized that is what he calls the Wall-E trailers. So the Wall-E experience lives on, although I don’t plan to buy him any of those toys, if they even make them.