***Please note this blog site is giving us some problems(mainly with uploading pictures)... stay tuned as we will be moving to a different blog site ASAP. We will let you all know when this move occurs!***
Everyone keeps saying that the older you get the faster time goes… It’s totally true... I was just telling Andrew yesterday how when I was a teenager I couldn’t wait to be in my 20’s. I couldn’t wait to live on my own (check), fall in love (check), get married (check), buy a house (check), be pregnant (check), and have a baby (check). Now I am already on my second baby and by October I will be **gasp** in my LATE twenties!!!! Time really does go by fast. I must say though, these last 5 years have been the best of my life! Thanks Andrew and Aurora, and Aliaugy (that’s what we are calling baby# 2 until it gets here.) There are some hints at the name(s) in there…
Since I have updated last there hasn’t been any major changes in our lives… just trying to adjust to our pretty hectic schedules… Andrew is working 2 jobs, which is heroic, but the thing we are grappling with is since he is working two jobs he has jumped a tax bracket, and now we are getting taxed to the point that we don’t know if it is worth Andrew working all these extra hours… So we are trying to figure that out. As for myself, I realized a couple months ago that if I don’t get enough hours with my work at home job (quality analyst with Advanis, a market research firm) that I wasn’t going to qualify for my 600 hours for mat leave… So I looked into my options… It was either getting more hours with my current job or getting another job. A scary thing to think about when we already feel like we don’t get enough family time… Anyways…I was able to get more hours doing a different job with Advanis, but that meant going back on the phones, which to be honest I am perfectly fine with… Until I ran into a little problem… With my last pregnancy I developed conditions called Symphis Pubis Disorder and Pelvic Girdle Pain. Both involve immense pelvic, back and hip pain. This lovely little pregnancy side affect reared its ugly head a lot earlier with this pregnancy, and after a week of being on the phones, which involved me sitting in one position for a minimum of 3 hours straight, I realized I couldn’t do it. I was in too much pain, and what little family time we had left completely disappeared. So life being what it is, we just have to suck it up. Money is not worth trading in for my physical and our families mental health. That means no extra income now and no supplemental income when the baby comes… Right now we are praying that God will provide, and that God will give us the self discipline to be good stewards of our money. Budget, budget, budget.
This past winter was overly long. The last bit of snow we got was during the second week of May… Ridiculous. As someone who needs to go outside and breathe fresh air for my mental well being, this last winter was challenging. Because while I need to get that fresh air, I also HATE being cold in the cold. Spring has finally sprung… Or rather it has finally stopped hitting the snooze button. Almost all the leaves are out on the trees, and hopefully (for my tomatoes) there will be no more frosty nights.
Speaking of tomatoes leads me to gardening. This year, we have found it of the most importance to child proof our yard. We had a random concrete block patio, with a random walkway down the middle of our backyard. The weeds and grass that grew in the cracks could get up to 1 foot high, and for a little gal who is barely two feet tall herself, but determined to walk, that was a very scary landscape. When we first moved into our house there was a lilac tree out back that was so overgrown you could barely get into the back yard. I hacked it all back, but not knowing much about these kind of trees, I left to many of the stumps at the base. These “stumps” are like 1 foot sharp spikes, that while they would be prefect to be in the bottom of a bear trap, are not something I want my 1 year old to be playing near. We also had a clump of rose bushes that were so overgrown they were invading the lawn and reached a diameter of about 8 feet. It was starting to look like the briar fortress that surrounded sleeping beauty while she slept under the curse… Again not something I want my little princess Aurora to fall into. We also had to contend with random animal holes, and unlevel lawn (where the previous owner just dumped mounds of dirt). So, I found an add on Buysell.com entitled Dirt Cheap. And yes, it was dirt that was cheap! I ordered 12 cubic yards of screened loam (couldn’t get a half order) and had it delivered on our front lawn (couldn’t put it in the back because the gravel truck that delivered it was too tall to get past the power lines)…. That is a lot of dirt. More dirt than I realized. It was a dirt pile the size of our Echo. Thanks to our friend Mat and Pizza 73 we were able to move 95% of it to our backyard that night. That’s a lot of work.
This past week we have been moving dirt, digging dirt, and planting in dirt and I now, thanks to my friend Teddy we have a garden planted!!! Yeah!! We planted carrots, beets, Swiss chard, spinach, 3 different kinds of lettuces, radishes, onions, and dill. In the other bed that we just got prepared, we will be planting zucchini, cucumbers, potatoes, peas, beans and squash (hopefully I have enough room) tomorrow. I never thought we would be able to use all that dirt, but it looks like by the time we fill all the flower/vegetable beds, grade the sides of our house, fill in the pits left by the patio stones, and top dress our front and back lawn we will have barely enough to do all this… So in the long run it all worked out!!! I know this may not be very interesting to you readers… but I love gardening… I just can’t describe how much I love it!!! It is so interesting and important to me… The other day I was experiencing a bit of the “over emotional pregnancy blues” so I put Aurora down for a nap and went out and worked in the back yard for 2 hours. It was the best anti-depression medication I could have taken!!!! So now I try to get out every day and do something if my schedule or body allows me.
Speaking about my pregnant body… I am actually feeling pretty good! This is the best I have felt being pregnant ever!!!! With Aurora I had all day sickness up until I was 22 weeks pregnant. All day nausea and vomiting at least once a day. Then I had issues with Symphis Pubis Disorder and Pelvic Girdle Pain which made moving excruciating. Plus I had the worries of my breast tumors, and not to mention the terrible side effects of having high blood pressure. I was a sorry hurting mess when I was pregnant with Aurora. With this baby I definitely had morning sickness, but it was fleeting, it would happen every other day, with nausea and maybe a bit of vomiting. It was also over at about 16 weeks. I also had to deal with a couple of flu bugs, but I was able to get over those with just the side effect of weight loss. A couple of months ago, when I was working my previous hectic schedule I had to deal with my pelvis pain, and in fact because of all the hormones being released to loosen up my joints for the up coming labour (groan) I actually threw out my neck and back within weeks of each other, so I did have that to deal with during this pregnancy. But as soon as I cut back on work, and was able to get adequate rest and exercise (more doable with the nice weather) I have felt great! This pregnancy so far has been a lot better!
With Aurora I was so sick I could only eat whatever I knew I could keep down, so I only ate Raman noodles for the first 5 months, which probably helped contribute to the high blood pressure. Plus I was working at some points between 8-10 hours a day at a job where I had to sit all day, working a wonky schedule, which didn’t allow for a lot of exercise. With this pregnancy I haven’t been near as sick so I am eating a LOT healthier (I crave salads instead of hot wings), my schedule for work has been very flexible, I have lots of time to lay down, a wonderfully glorious baby who gives me so much joy, a husband who does ANYTHING for me and I get a lot of exercise and all these things helps to keep the high blood pressure away!!! God is good!!! I think I actually don’t mind being pregnant!!
I love feeling the baby move!!! I forgot how amazing and weird it is!!! No thoughts either way as to whether it is a boy or girl though… With Aurora, I knew it was a girl from the beginning!!
Aurora has been growing up and getting so big!!!! She is supremely efficient at walking, and is just figuring out the run, she is climbing, and generally always on the move!!! She is best friends with our fat boy cat Damien, who will let Aurora do anything to him… pull his tail (goes without saying), pull his ears, whiskers, and paws, sticks her fingers down his ears, tries to kiss him on the mouth, steps on him, lays on him, and hugs (aka strangles) him… He just sits there and takes it… and to top it off he normally purrs through out the whole assault. If it does get too much for him, he just saunters off, and reappears within minutes for more… Aurora loves to garden and loves flowers! She can occupy herself for hours out in the back yard with a clay pot, dirt, and a spoon (her constant companion). It is wonderful to be out side with her and see her overwhelming affection for the out doors!!!! She is SO smart! I know most parents (the good ones) always say that, but man this kid understands EVERYTHING that is being said, and that is going on around her! She understands and responds to every command, she is completely absorbed by books, she knows just about every word we say to her, and is continuously adding new words to her vocabulary! In addition to all her other words, she now says on a regular basis, "cheese"(her absolutely favourite food) "uhhh ohhh," "wow!", "hello", and today for the first time she said “I luh you ( I love you)” to Andrew!!!! I have to brag a bit here… she has already accomplished some 2 and a half year old milestones!!! This girl is a smarty pants!! Just like her dad! In fact she is the spitting image of her dad. We got out Andrews old photo album, and in most pictures we have of Andrew at around the same age, they are identical! If it weren’t for the hair color (she has my hair color) and the eyes (she has my shape of eyes) you wouldn’t know who you are looking at!!! It’s a bit eerie. I want to change her name to Andrewette, but Andrew won’t let me!
Well that is all that is new in the land of Pahl. We are just enjoying the sunshine and each other, and waiting excitedly for Aliaugy!!!
-Naomi
