Being Extravagant in Prayer

You know how Christ withered the fig tree and said that if we ask for big things in prayer, we can get them?

Well, I had that in my Bible reading this morning.

Would you join me in asking that the baby be born TODAY?  The Husband has bought his plane tickets for the house hunting trip--we really couldn't put it off any longer--and I'd like him to be here to meet his son.

Thanks!

Cheers,

Breanna

Juice and Coffee and Joshua

This morning Miss Boo woke up at the same time as the Husband and I, which is to say about 45 minutes earlier than usual.  She observed us drinking coffee and reading our Bibles and said, "We always need juice and coffee", asked for her apple juice, and climbed up to sit at the table and pore over her Jesus Storybook Bible.

Her grandma got her this little gem for Christmas, a nicely-illustrated Bible story book that takes each Bible story, from Creation onward, and ties it forward to the coming of Christ.  Today it was Joshua and the battle of Jericho (or "the castle", as Miss Boo puts it).  We talked about how God is strong and keeps us safe.

It was a very sweet moment, and actually has been the first time she joined her devotions in with ours (in spite of the "always").  Just thought that might brighten your day.

That is all. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

No, I Haven't

Had the baby yet, I mean--although I'm working on it, still having contractions and keeping the Husband in a ferment by alternately deciding my water's about to break or that I'll just stay pregnant until Littleman is ready to go to college.  Pfff.  Enough about that.

I thought you might like some homeschooling thoughts!  Because I can!

Here's the thing.  Miss Boo is only 3, but likes school.  However, she doesn't get worksheets, and I don't know that worksheets are the best way to teach concepts anyway.  The way that Miss Boo does a worksheet is to do the activity--say, tracing the letter "T"--but then improve upon it.  Generally this means coloring in the entire box in which she was supposed to trace the letter "T".  Because it was empty, and it looks better to her colored in.  The result of this is that, while she does the work, our worksheets would never pass muster in a state where we had to prove we were doing work.

At age 3 I am not worrying about it.  I doubt the trend will continue, but even if it does, at age 7 when I have to start proving to the state that I'm not locking her in a closet with old Days of Our Lives episodes, she'll be able to reason and understand that she needs to complete a few inferior worksheets for recordkeeping purposes.  My advice, or at least what I'm doing, is therefore this:

1. Don't get too hung up on doing it right, especially at first.  Keep letters, numbers, and learning as fresh and exciting as you can, and have as much fun as you can.  Any "school" is better than watching endless episodes of Dora.  Trust me.

2. Don't spend a lot of money on fancy worksheet books.  They'll just get colored in.  If you feel you *must* have worksheets for a preschooler, you can try Rod & Staff, who sell high-quality, cheap workbooks.  I bought a set for Miss Boo that, in retrospect, I should have saved for next year.  However, it was only $20 for seven workbooks, so I think I'll probably just re-purchase them when Miss Boo has the sit-still-ability for them.

3. Read aloud a lot.  Listen to music.  Look at pictures.  Walk outside.  Don't worry.

4. But try to set up a routine, for your sanity's sake.  It helps to get up, go to bed, eat, and read at vaguely the same times each day.  I expect this one to go out the window any moment when Littleman puts in his appearance.  He may wind up like his older brother and shock me with his good-natured adaptability, but I am bracing myself for the worst--he may be like his older sister, and decide that sleep is a punishment.

(Item: Buddy slept six hours at a time when he was two weeks old.  I thought children like that were a myth.  Miss Boo had so thoroughly trained me to deal with a kid who was, seriously, made drastically uncomfortable by such things as a polyester sock or a crooked blanket that I worried there was something wrong with Buddy, he was so mellow.  This is the irony of childrearing.)

Now I hear Buddy chirruping from his bed, where he just woke up from his nap.  Ciao.

Cheers,

Breanna

Um, Yeah...

...we're like, fans.

We were pretty excited.  (That is not actually the real #43 on the right there...it's a really, really pregnant lady, who is hoping this is the LAST picture of her pregnant.  I've been having contractions every ten minutes for nearly 48 hours now.)

Go Steelers!

Go baby!

And here's a video for you:

(I'm getting old, or overly immersed in toddler culture, or both.  Uncle Deeve had to tell me that this is a riff on a Lady Gaga song.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Providence

Producer: "So, how would you feel about making a change?"

Garth: "We fear change."

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

--Wayne's World

Did you know, in passing, that Dana Carvey is from Missoula, Montana?  Yeah, small world.  Pretty soon I'm going to have to be proud of people who are from Texas, which is odd for me, although I will have a bigger pool of personalities to draw on.

However, in keeping with the movie ghosts I confessed to in another post, the scene above from Wayne's World has been playing in my head over and over again as change after change has been taking place in our lives lately.  Really, having a baby and moving are supposed to be up there among the big stressors possible (divorcing, getting married, or dealing with a death are the others); but as I was telling my sister the other day I am a little astonished at how I've been reacting.

I shouldn't be; when we first learned that this move might be a possibility I told God that He was going to have to make me able to handle it emotionally, because I didn't see a way that I could work myself around to that without Him.  He answered that prayer as cleanly as lancing a boil--there was an inital "eeeeeeeeew" moment where all my anxieties came rushing out, but since then I've been remarkably okay with it all.

Here's the kicker.  Now both the Husband and I are not just okay, we're excited.  It's even, in a twisted sort of way, getting to be fun, in the adventure sense.  For the first time I can really understand the passion and humor of people who voluntarily choose to live on a frontier, a ship, or in an army camp.  I can understand doing any of those things because they're your duty, or you can't get out of it and you might as well have a good attitude, but how to explain the people who get addicted to frontiers?  Well, this crazy enjoyment might do it.

Knowing that you'll be packing up and moving to a completely new place, and that you can do it, lends kind of a zest to otherwise hard work.

Don't get me wrong.  If I had been consulted about how my life was going to shake out, I would certainly not have chosen to have a baby and move 1700 miles in the same month, nor would I have wanted to try to sell a house with the market bottomed out.

However as of today it looks like God has sold our house for us, so that's not a problem.

The Husband looked at me and said, "if we get signatures today, then I bet you have the baby tomorrow."  I asked him if he'd had a premonition (he rarely does, but when he does they're generally accurate and strong), and he said no, but it would fit the pattern we've noticed with the Lord's provision so far on this little faith journey--He's been giving us one thing at a time, settling them for us before settling the next thing.  One step.  Here a little, there a little.  Then he humorously pointed out, "can you imagine negotiating the offer and counter-offer from the hospital?"

Yes, yes I can.  And no, I'd rather not have to try to sign papers between contractions, with a Pitocin drip in my arm.  Happy to wait that extra 24 hours, if that's how it's supposed to be.

We tend to only see His providence--His "providing", if you will--in terms of physical events.  So if I need $250, and God has a check for that much show up just in time, that looks obviously to be His work.  But we like to take credit for our emotional states, among other things.  If I am relatively happy one day, I either think of that as the product of circumstanaces--I am happy because I had a good day--or the product of my own efforts--I am happy because I thought positively today.  The truth, of course, is that while both of these things might have affected my happiness, both of them are the provision of God.  I have no more power to have a "good" day or to control my thoughts than God gives me.

So my attitude about moving is not my own doing, although I could have resisted the Lord and been determined to pout and make myself miserable.  He has graciously given me not only acceptance but actual joy and even fun.  Isn't that like Him?

Not only does He give us light to see by, but he gives us sunrises, sunsets, and, early this morning, a clear white moon in a stark black sky, shining over the dying lights of the city.

Think about it... what has His providence given you today that you didn't think about, before, as coming from His hand?

Cheers,

Breanna

Out of the Mouths of Babes

(Finding her belly button, which is still what she does to relax.)

So yesterday morning Miss Boo looks at my belly, frowns, and says, "Mama, isn't your belly big enough?"

Yes, dear.  Yes it is.  I don't need it to get any bigger.  I'd be more than happy to move to the phase where it gets smaller.

Midwife appointment today... will keep you posted if anything interesting turns up. :)

Cheers,

Breanna

Update: The midwife says baby has moved down a centimeter lower.  I believe this because I have to pee four times per night now versus three.  She says this means, "could be another week, or could happen anytime."  Big help, huh?

Mad As Lorries

Turkish: Why did you throw away my milk?

Tommy: Because milk-drinking isn't in sync with evolution.  Cows have only been domesticated for the last 6000 years.  Before that they were runnin 'round mad as lorries.  Humans aren't designed to drink milk.  I just did you a favor.

--Snatch

There was this game we used to play when I was young that involved one person quoting a movie, with or without accent depending on how difficult you were making it, and everyone else would try to guess which movie.  Occasionally this got esoteric like when we'd say, "Dude" and have to figure out whether the quote was from Bill & Ted or some other show.  (Accents helped there.)

The problem with this game is that I am haunted by movie ghosts.  Literally for almost every situation a movie line pops into my head, and sometimes almost uncontrollably quivers on my lips.  I learned to control this in nursing school, when the lines were invariably inappropriate (as in, the patient would not have found it funny) and also because nobody else would have understood what on earth I was talking about.

So I include this long intro and the quote above, from Snatch (a movie that you should not know, you bad person, if you are snickering--it's violent and has swears and is not for houses with kids in them, although it's occasionally hilarious) so that you can understand why, when looking at my dear, sweet children, the first thing that popped into my head was Tommy saying "mad as lorries".

Indeed, my kids are running around mad as lorries this afternoon.  This is partly because they had no naps, and partly, I think, because they sense that soon I'll be holding a little person more or less constantly and they will have to give up using me for scaffolding, which will put a kink in their day.  They've been climbing on me more lately to make up for it.

So there you are, a new phrase for you, to be said in a British accent if you can pull it off.  (By the way, my research shows lorries to be pickup trucks, so I think the phrase isn't foul or anything.)

Hopefully we'll be a little less pickup-y tomorrow.

Cheers,

Breanna