Just for Fun! Pregnant and Nursing Edition

 

Facts:

• Jason and I have been married for about 10.5 years equalling 128 months.
• We have 7 biological children, 6 of which have been entrusted to us to raise into adulthood, Lord willing.
• I have nursed all our babies, only recently weaning our youngest.

 

So I got thinking one night, in the shower.  I do most of my thinking in the shower and they are great thoughts but all too often my thoughts stay in the shower, going down the drain with the soap and water.  Oh well.  I digress.  Back to my thoughts.  I wondered how much of my married life I’d been pregnant, nursing or both.  So when I got out of the shower, and dried off and dressed :) I made a chart.

 

J

F

M

A

M

J

J

A

S

O

N

D

2001

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

N

N

2002

N

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N/P

N*2

N*2

2003

N

N

N

N

N

N

N/P

N/P

P

P

P

P

2004

P

P

N/P

P

P

P

2005

P

P

P

P

P

N/P

N

N

N

N

N

N

2006

N

N

N

N

N/P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

2007

N/P

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

2008

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

N

N

2009

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

P

2010

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

P

N

N

N

N

2011

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

 

So, facts from the chart:

• There are 8 months where I was NEITHER pregnant or nursing, meaning that 120 of those months have been spent pregnant or nursing, or both.
• I have been pregnant for 63 months; 48 of those were non-nursing.
• I have been nursing for 73 months; 55 were non-pregnant.
• There are 15 months where I was BOTH pregnant and nursing.
• There are 2 months when I was nursing 2 children.

I’m sure the next question you (my readers, friends and family) are going to have is:

 

ARE YOU DONE YET?

 

The simple answer:

Only God knows.

 

My feelings on the topic:

• I feel like I’m done. 
• I feel like if I was never pregnant again, I’d be okay with that. 
• I am ready to move onto the next stage of life.
• Should we get pregnant again, we would love and care for and raise that child, just as we are these.
• Disclaimer on my feelings: These feelings are not a result of the recent sickness in our home.  I was feeling these specific feelings before all 6 children got sick.  The sickness only encouraged the thoughts that led to the writing of this post. :)
• Second disclaimer on my feelings: These feelings are subject to change at a moments notice. ROFL! However, I waited to write this post until I felt certain that the feelings were not going away.  In the past my feelings on us having more children have been influenced by my dh, and him feeling done, not on my own initiative.  This time is different. :)

 

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Sick. Sick. Sick.

 

And let’s throw in a little whine with that sick.  For the last three nights I have gotten not more than 3 hours of sleep, and not a 3 solid hours!  I’m hurting for sleep.  I was so thankful this morning when Kristyn was feeling well enough and was up early enough to look after the little ones as they got up, so I could sleep a little longer.  I didn’t climb outta bed for the day until almost noon!  And still could have slept longer.

 

Almost every hour of the last 2 days I’ve been handing out meds to someone!  And almost every hour of the night, someone was crying out in pain or something.  And whine whine whine and cry cry cry.  Kristyn was hit first.  I think she’s over the worst of it.  Then the three littlest, one after the other!  YUCK!  They are on the way to being better.  I think.

 

Unless, those are chicken pox I spy on Matty’s arms and legs!

 

And Marrissa has been hit with the fever and sore throat.

 

Yesterday I was BEGGING to go to the store to buy sour cream (for a dish J wanted made) just so I could have some peace and quiet, a break from the constant WWWWHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGG!!!!

 

I know Wyatt’s getting better; he played over an hour on the Wii by himself.  Rayna’s not whining as much, but she tires easily.  I’m not handing out meds hourly either.  Now it’s every 5 or 6 hours that someone is miserable enough to deem getting a teaspoon of ibuprofen or acetaminophen.

 

Here’s hoping for a better night’s sleep.  With only one child really needing meds (Marrissa) I might be able to get a couple solid hours in!

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

The Blessing (revised and updated) by John Trent and Gary Smalley

 

The Blessing is a great resource on giving the gift of unconditional love and acceptance to our children and to other people around us.  The authors share five components of blessing:

1. meaningful touch
2. a spoken message
3. attaching high value
4. picturing a special future
5. an active commitment

This book was first published in 1986; this revised and updated version is great because the authors have included special message links for videos and extras online.  In addition to that, there was a challenge issued for August 2011, where a thousand churches across the United States are sharing special, encouraging messages (including skits and such) on the topic of The Blessing.

 

I really enjoyed reading this book. I think growing up a lot of teens think they have the worst life and worst parents ever. I know my parents and I didn’t get along really well when I was a teen. However, reading this book, I now realize that my parents did a great job raising us. We knew we were loved and important. We were blessed, my brothers and I.  I have been challenged by this book to not  only spend more time blessing my own children but to take this concept further, and learn to speak blessing on others in my church and community.  I love that this book is a “how to” manual with real life examples.

 

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Soccer 2011 Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

What My Child Is Reading.

 

The four oldest are participating in a library summer reading program and these are the books that Kristyn has read so far.  If they read ten, write down the titles and take them to the TDBank, the bank will give them 10 dollars in a savings account!  Money motivates Kristyn; here’s her list:

 

Eloise Breaks Some Eggs (Ready-to-Read. Level 1)

Last One Home is a Green Pig (I Can Read)

The Cat in the Hat

Froggy Goes to School

Give Me Back My Dad!

Shall I Knit You a Hat?: A Christmas Yarn

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Stated An Opinion.

And got some great comments on my Facebook status.  Well, that’s the way it goes when you state your opinion in a somewhat judgemental manner, I suppose.  I’m not sorry I said it.

 

This is what I said:

 

Suddenly so mad I could spit nails. Not sure why this topic is so angering to me, but today it is! Babies should not be in daycare for the social development!!!! Babies should be with their mommas if at all possible! Babies do not NEED social development unless that social development is bonding with immediate family and friends! Daycare is a necessary evil in my opinion! Daycare is for mommas who HAVE TO work.

 

It was the heat of the moment.  It was exasperation at an imperfect world where a friend (actually the very first sitter my oldest two girls ever had) has to work to keep a roof over her baby’s head.  He has to go to daycare.  Another comment on her status talked about him getting “good social development” while there.  If you are really interested in all that was said on my post above you can find the comments HERE.  (You might have to be my friend on Facebook to see it though.)

 

The conversation spread to other things – public school, organized sports, scouts, Sunday school and the like.  I said I wasn’t fond of any of them and that I preferred not to use / participate in them.  Nor did I necessarily want my children to participate either!  And so, I thought I’d think on it a little more and I’d post some of my beliefs and opinions and such here on my blog.

 

Maybe I haven’t thought all these things through, and that’s okay.  I haven’t arrived; I’m on a journey and I’m learning.  That’s why I appreciated the Facebook conversation so much.  I was given a chance to look at the daycare issue from other perspectives.  I went to college to be a daycare worker / director, but I may have lost that perspective over the years.

 

So here’s some things that, at this point, I believe to be true and right and good . . . . . .

 

Whenever possible, children should be at home, with Mom.

Home schooling is the better option, for so many reasons.

I do not like age segregated events, classes or programs.

I believe the Body of Christ needs to look out for the widows and fatherless in our world today.  Being part of that body, I need to do my part too.

I think it is bad for children to be with primarily their peer group for hours a day / week.

I believe that children need lots of socialization, just of a different kind than most think.

 

The Facebook conversation today tempered my heated comment and attitude.  There are good reasons for daycares / day homes.  I understand that.  I know that they learn good things there.  I know that there are child care providers that love their jobs and the children in their care.  I get that it can be a ministry for the orphans and widows.  It’s not ideal!  Not in my opinion.

 

And who knows, these beliefs, these opinions of mine may radically change!  And I’ll have to eat my words!  (A very unpleasant meal, every. single. time.)  I may find myself in such a situation where I need to put my children in “public” care.  I will have to re-evaluate my firm position at that point.  It won’t be easy then.  As I’m sure it is not for those moms who have to work to keep food on the table, clothes on their backs and roofs over their heads!  But for the grace of God, I would be there too!

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

I miss it

I have not been blogging and I miss it so much!  So briefly here’s what’s been going on around here.

 

One day I looked after a little boy, same age as Matty.  They played the piano together; it was so cute!

 

Matty learned to climb the stairs!  He’s fast!

 

I created a new 3 day/week homeschool schedule.  I’m kinda excited about it.  We will start on Monday.  I’ll try to write more about it soon.

		ACSI Math Gr. 2	Building A Life Gr. 3	Human Body Gr. 2-3	God’s Wonderful Works Gr. 2	Books Read
Week 1		Do 6 pages.	Do 4 pages.		Do 4 pages.
Week 2		Do 6 pages.	Do 4 pages.	Do 4 pages.
Week 3		Do 6 pages.		Do 4 pages.	Do 4 pages.
Week 4		Do 6 pages.	Do 4 pages		Do 4 pages.
Week 5		Do 6 pages.	Do 4 pages.	Do 4 pages.
Week 6		Do 6 pages.		Do 4 pages.	Do 4 pages.

 

I have talked in the past about purchasing and teaching through the Tapestry of Grace program of study.  I have decided that it is not a fit for us.  Too involved.  So instead what I am doing is taking their book lists as a jumping off point.  I order as many of the books from the library from the list as I can find.  I’ll order 10 or 20 at a time.  As they come in we spend some time looking at them together at the table.  I even ordered from the lists for the high school students.  Right now we are reading about ancient Egypt.  The kids are having fun with the information!

 

Jason got a raise!  I’m so proud of him for working so hard and sticking with this company, even when things were really tough this winter.  The guys (and gals) that he works with are decent people and they get along pretty good.  He likes the work.  He’s working in the shop at the oil field safety company that he was doing fire watch for the last year and a half. 

 

Oh and because of the raise, we’ve also decided to keep the bus!  I didn’t realize how attached I was to my bus until we re-discussed the sale.  I love my bus!  It is perfect for what I want and need.

 

The garden is mostly in.  Just onions and cucumbers left to put in the dirt.  We were planting bean plants (Jason started them in the house.) the other day.  We had to hurry at the end because a storm was blowing in fast!  We were cleaning up the trays and pots just as it started coming down hard.  I can’t wait to see what this year’s garden produces!!

 

I took this picture of my favorite beverage:

 

Just a couple other quick things:

• the 2 big girls went to the store by themselves!  They did so great!
• shingles are on sale this week and pay day is this week!!!!

 

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Our Saturday

 

So we spent the morning cleaning the yard and working in the garden.  Jason has the garden ready to plant.  Cora worked with me and we cleaned up three large garbage bags of “winter trash” from the yard.  (Winter trash is frustrating because most of it is not our trash; it’s trash that has blown in or been dropped in our yard over the winter months.)

 

The deal was (with the kids) that we would work until noon and then go to the dam.  They worked hard right up until the end when they were wore out.  And hot.  And hungry.  While Jason did the final tilling, the kids helped me gather things for the afternoon.  Jason attempted to catch a fish.  He didn’t get one.  We ate a cold lunch by the bus and I snapped some pictures.

 

When we got home, we had spaghetti for supper.

 

 

Mr. Matty loves spaghetti.

 

All in all, a beautiful, productive and fun day.

 

Now I plan to take my lobster arms to bed and hope they aren’t quite so red in the morning.

 

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

No Quite Sure Where The Week Went

 

Well, let’s see.  Where did it go?

 

On Monday, Daddy was home.  We had a really good day just hanging out together as a family.

 

On Tuesday, we spent the day at Tammy-Lee’s.  Matty slept for 4 hours straight!  I was able to have a good visit.  The other children played; I hardly saw them the whole day.

 

On Wednesday, we went for a walk with our new friend, Jacqueline.  We try to go once a week, for about an hour, but the last couple times we’ve been walking / visiting for over 2 hours.  We are now talking about adding a second day to our adventures.  The children love it; we are exploring places we’ve never been since moving here in 2007.

 

On Thursday, we stayed home and did some sit-down school.  The older girls worked in their math workbook and we started a new science book about the human body.  The girls are really enjoying learning about the body’s systems.  Marrissa worked on some sheets I’d printed out for her some time ago.  She got an A+ on every page!

 

On Friday, I tried to get some cleaning done, and although the children did their chores well, the house never seemed to get much cleaner.  It was just one of those days.  We worked more in the human body book too.

 

I’d say it was a good week and there are lots of good reasons why you didn’t hear from me this week, dear readers!

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Her First Haircut

I don’t have a before picture, but here’s my cutie’s new-do.

 

 

It’s adorable on her.  Marrissa’s is similar right now.  Personally, I like Marrissa’s a lot longer (like it was), but Rayna’s is gorgeous like this.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Arts Festival–Dance Time

I was too far away from the stage to get a good picture of the actual dancing, but here are some snapshots from before their performance.  They had so much fun.  One more final performance for the parents and friends of the families on the 15th of May.

 

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

It didn’t work.

 

Ok, so the plan was to wash the dishes at the table.  That turned out to be way too much hassle.  So instead, I used the basins to carry the dishes to the kitchen where I washed the dishes. 

Kristyn was put in charge of the baby instead of doing the dishes.  Marrissa still cleared the table – put the “middle stuff” away, helped scrape, sprayed and washed the table and swept the floor.  Marrissa is almost 6.  Cora did the little kids’ bath.

 

For the last 2 nights this has worked fairly well.  Matthias is often tired after supper, but a bath and one on one contact will often keep him happy enough for me to finish the dishes.  This is working well.  I plan to keep it up.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

A follow up on the car seat issue now that it is winter.

Remember a while back where I posted about car seats – here.

 

We still haven’t been able to replace all the seats that needed replacing but we did get a new seat for Matthias (the new baby).  I thought it was going to be a major chore to get 6 seatbelts done up every time we get in the vehicle but it’s not too bad.  The older girls work together to do their own belts and the little kids.  I just have to do Matty’s and Wyatt’s bottom latch.

 

However, winter creates a new dilemma.  Winter coats and seat belts do not mix.  It’s cold here.  We have to wear really warm clothing in the vehicle, especially when we forget to start the bus before getting everyone into it.  Now, the bus gets nice and warm but takes a little while to get there.  For us to go to church, the bus would just barely be warm by the time we got there, if I started it as I was buckling everyone in.

 

My friend, Christi, shared a facebook link with me.  These photos and captions (MAKE SURE YOU READ THE CAPTIONS) were very informative and gave some great ideas that I will be implementing.  It’s funny how the kids HATE to wear their winter coats under their seat belts.  Kristyn has never liked it.  She will be so happy to learn that she doesn’t have to wear her winter coat under her seat belt anymore!

 

The woman suggests (in the captions) to wear fleece on the children and have them wear hats and mitts and then a blanket for each one.  I might try that, but blankets are going to probably get wet and dirty quickly.  We’ll see.  The other idea is to wear the winter coats backwards once the seat belts are on.  I didn’t like the other idea she suggested, but you can read it for yourself if you choose to look at the pictures on Facebook.  All my kids have nice fleece coats / sweaters that they can wear.

 

Now to re-weigh everyone in the near future to make sure they are not too big for their seats.  And to start purchasing the seats that need to be replaced.  It’s a long process sometimes.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Our First 6 Weeks – A Review

Wow, what a great first 6 weeks.  The kids tackled their school work well.  Let’s see what we did.

 

We are all learning Genesis 1.  So far we are working on the first five verses.  The science curriculum is working through the days of creation, so we are memorizing the first couple chapters of Genesis.  Even little Wyatt and Rayna are getting in on this memorizing.  Kristyn and Cora are working through the science stuff while the other two listen from time to time.  So far we got through the first day of creation.

 

We’ve been continuing with our Building A Life, character study as well. Kristyn and Cora are enjoying this curriculum a little more.  They don’t like filling in the worksheets as there is a lot of writing involved.  We need to work on penmanship, but when they aren’t interested this is tough.  One day we’ll really get on that.  You can read what we did in the last six weeks in Building A Life here.  This chapter was about meekness and loyalty.

 

Both Kristyn and Cora are working through the Grade 2 Math from ACSI.  Kristyn completed pages 109-146.  Cora finished pages 63-104.  Or thereabouts.  They’ve learned a lot about money, telling time, addition and subtraction, beginning ideas being planted about multiplication, geometry, sorting.  They are learning lots!

 

All the children have been participating in our preK / K program.  The bigger girls love to color with the little ones and help them do their crafts.  We are using a combination of a couple Letter of The Week curriculums.  Confessions of a Homeschooler put together the main curriculum I am using.  I’m adding a few things from Brightly Beaming Resources as well.  We started with the vowels and then completed the six week session with the letter B.  Wyatt asks for school work every single day!  This week long break is going to be hard foe him.  Marrissa could use something a little more challenging but is not quite ready to push herself yet, so I’ve just started to add a more difficult activity here and there.

 

Our book exposure has been huge this last six weeks.  Each week I choose about 15-20 books that relate to the letter of the week.  Some of our favorites (not necessarily connected to a letter) have been: The Napping House by Audrey Wood, The Umbrella by Jan Brett, and Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  Kristyn and Cora have also been choosing books to read.  The Magic Tree House series has been popular as has Junie B Jones (Cora).  Kristyn has discovered comic books and especially enjoyed The Adventures of TinTin.  Unfortunately our library system only has ONE book!  Marrissa is learning to read using Bob Books.  I caught her reading to Wyatt the other day.  She whipped through three or four of those little books with no trouble.

 

A few other odds and ends include movie night, poetry, dance, and choir.  Family Movie Night also corresponds around the letter of the week.  We’ve watched Prince of Egypt, The Incredibles, Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella and The Bee Movie.  (I forget what the letter A was.)  The kids have really enjoyed watching movies together.  Dance and choir happen weekly for Kristyn and Cora.  They come home so excited each week!  This is a great time that I use to allow Marrissa to help out more around the house.  So often it is just easier to let the older girls do the chores, but Marrissa needs to learn these skills too!  The favorite poem by far has been Inchworm, Inchworm.

 

In addition to memorizing Genesis, we have a number of other verses we are working on.  Each week from Sunday school the children have verses to memorize.  Also each week has a verse that goes with the letter from that week.  We are using Sing the Word songs for that.  I have been programming the stereo to play just the songs we have worked on, so A, E, I, O, U and B.  That way the children learn by repetition.

 

Some of the topics discussed and learned about include:

• ants
• elephants
• inchworms
• iguanas
• octopus
• umbrellas
• butterflies
• telling time
• measuring
• being proud

 

I am excited for the next six weeks.  I’ve been planning and printing and searching for stuff on the letters C, D, F, G, H, J. The topics include (but not limited to) caterpillars, dinosaurs, fish, gumballs, hippos, jelly beans and Jesus.  I am planning the next 60 or so pages of math for the big girls.  Building A Life is all about self-control and honesty; these topics NEED to be discussed in this house.  Science will be about day two of creation.  We will memorize more Scripture and read a pile more books.  (We keep our little local library busy!)  The children are enjoying the break to do other things – mostly play outside and watch TV.

 

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

Matthias James Ilmari

 The boys!

Striving to learn and live God's purposes,

K finally got her turn with Auntie Tammy-Lee

K and my my friend Tammy-Lee had a great day together. They did some baking. And honestly, I don't know everything they did. K is a pretty private person and doesn't tell me a lot of what goes on when she's other places. Here's some pictures of their day together.







Striving to learn and live God's purposes,