We return to evenings spent outside playing after dinner. No more jumping into the tub right from the dinner table and then into bed so as to be ready for school the next day. Water balloons return, bringing the familiar shrieks of little ones chasing a loose balloon down the driveway. Flowers, a garden, eating outside, a daily lathering of sunblock, picking strawberries, walking around our boulevard, wandering around outside from the garage to the backyard to the front yard to the blvd, and mornings spent on our comfy chair on the porch watching the sun come up.
Summer.
The familiar sights, smells, and activities, that summer bring are so comforting to me. And this summer gets an extra bonus....I'm pregnant. What a surprise and gift this baby is to us. A day doesn't go by that I am not aware of what a gift another child is. I get to do it all over again! A new little person growing inside of me. Who will he/she be? I must admit I truly thought I was having twins this time. I was so certain that I asked Lindsay if she wanted to come to our ultrasound so she could see "them". Just once I'd love to hear the ultrasound technician say, "guess what, your having twins." Sadly, I was wrong, but thrilled to see the teeny tiny heart beating at just six weeks.
I am ten weeks tomorrow. Joseph's little heart stopped beating at 10 and a half weeks. Deep breath.
Right after finding out I was pregnant, I was scared of course since we lost our last baby. I stopped running, drinking coffee, and basically sat around waiting for the morning sickness to begin. I was scared to do anything or thought that if I breathed wrong it would cause us to lose the baby. After a couple of days I realized that this was silly, waiting around and expecting something bad to happen. I started running again, drinking one cup of coffee in the morning, and even started a kickboxing class with some good friends three mornings a week. I vowed to trust in God instead of be afraid that
something I would do would cause this child to die. Joseph has helped me realize that it is out of my control. God's will be done, whatever that may be. Once I grasped that concept it was..... freedom. I'm taking it one day at a time.
And while I'm way more tired, a bit more grumpy, and way hungrier, I'm still finding joy in summer. In watching my children play and swim and explore outside. I had to make a few adjustments in my attitude though. After the first two weeks of them being home, instead of being content and happy, I was grumpy, and irritated. I had to let go of some expectations I put on my children. Like reading. Thinking that they would sit down and read for hours, while I slept for hours, was just not working. I was getting mad at them for not doing what I thought they should do.... like read all afternoon on the couch. I also had made a list of all these activities they could do to earn tickets, like last year. I expected them to be more into doing flashcards, reading and writing letters.....
And then I heard some wonderful advice about the whole comparing game we all play with our children. A friend of mine said "after trying everything else to change our children, have we ever just accepted them the way God gave them to us?" The way they came to us. My Thomas may not be a reader, but it's because that's the way God made him. That changed my summer.
Now I'm really just trying to watch them, enjoy them, and not really expect anything from them. I want to be joyful and relax this summer, because it will be gone before we know it.
One more thing, is it possible that the computer can make me nauseous? I'm not kidding. When I sit down in front of it, I seriously start to feel icky. Hence, my absence from blogging for a month and a half. Weird.
Hope you all are having a wonderful summer!
