All the Possibilities . . .

God holds so much in store for our little family in the near future! It's incredible, and thankfully, not overwhelming (at least, not yet).

We are expecting a girl the end of August. Yay! We are both so excited, and I am especially blessed to see and hear how excited my husband is to have a daughter. I thought perhaps he wanted another boy, but he was just as eager as I for a girl, perhaps more so!

She already has her own personality. She is far more active then her older brother was in utero, a lot more steady motion and kicks during the day, and is growing steadily stronger.

About 3 months after she is born we will most likely be moving into a bigger town, just a block up from our church! We'll be so much closer to all the places and stores we go to, which will be so helpful. And most of our friends live in that town, too, so that makes things slightly more accessible for us to spend time with them or invite them over.

The house we are thinking of renting is owned by some church friends. It's an old Victorian style home, with a lovely design and great wood floors...I just love the sound of old, big, Victorian houses. There's a lot of work to be done in it first, especially the plumbing which leaked from the upstairs and drove our friends out of that house to their current house! But, to help out our friends to rent or sell it, and to help us out with a good home, our church is going to finance all of the repairs and remodeling!

That news floored me. I almost cried (and I still wish I had!) when I realized that our tiny church of roughly 40 members were going to take care of us and our friends in one fell swoop. On top of that, there's another family in our church who have fixed up a number of homes and sold them, and are very knowledgeable in construction. They will be doing the work, and so they will also be blessed by this project. I don't know of many congregations that would just offer to do this without someone coming and asking for help. We didn't ask anyone, we were all set to find our own rental and we thought we had to move in less than a month. I was strangely not bothered by that, but I was incredibly moved when I learned the church didn't want us to have to move and also had a wonderful back-up plan for us.

God certainly is good, and over and over He proves to me that His mercy endures forever.

One More

Hmm. I don't think I've mentioned the news here, but we are joyfully and eagerly expecting another bundle of cuteness this August!

The due date is August 24th, and I'm almost 13 weeks. God has been so good to us, and we asked Him for another child in His timing. I got pregnant right before Beowulf turned 6 months, but didn't find out until he was almost 7 months! I feel that this is the perfect timing. Anything later and we'd be dealing with a brand new baby in the middle of the school year. As long as this baby isn't too much later than the due date, we'll have a couple weeks to enjoy our new one and get adjusted to the newborn routine before we have to add in school to our schedule.

As Beowulf has grown, even though he isn't a year old yet, we have definitely seen that children are a GREAT blessing, a true reward from our gracious Lord and God.

You Know You're a Mother When...

- You don't hear the phone ringing when you're asleep, but you can hear through a wall and closed door and the noise of a fan and white noise machine a muffled fuss from the baby beginning to stir from his nap.

- You are very aware of how often he poops, and also rejoice when he fills his diaper because that means he's not chronically constipated, which is what you've been worried about for the past several days.

- You are acutely aware of noises outside your home while your baby sleeps, and are ready to spring outside to ask the neighbors to please quiet down whenever they are near the baby's window.

- You have deep conversations with your baby about lint between his toes, and you just know he understands completely your point.

- You look at pictures of other babies in your immediate family, and, reminded of your own cute adorable child, have the almost-uncontrollable urge to wake him up at 11pm from his solid night-sleep just to play with him and see him smile again.

You're a mother. And you love everything that comes with it.

New Horizons

That's a cliche title, but I feel like we're living cliche days . . . it's all happened before.

There's a home for rent that seems to be in our future, and if the Lord is willing we will be renting it in a mere few months!

We were "burned" earlier after accepting to rent a dream house. The circumstances of the burn are unimportant, but the gist is that we were crushed. At least I was. I know Luke was disappointed, but I was *crushed* when I heard it wasn't going to work.

As I said in my last post, God seems to be teaching and reminding us through disappointment and other random struggles that He is in control and we need to lean on Him for every big and little thing. Lots of "golden opportunities" seem to be waved beneath our noses, and we look around for any potholes, but when we step to reach for it, we sink a few inches, or feet as the case may be. We realize we forgot to say "please," and were snatching, rather than holding our hands open to be filled.

God gives freely, and we need to receive freely. Grabbing never gets you anywhere, ultimately, and certainly trying to hang on will lead to disappointment. But holding your hands open means God can give and take without scarring. God gives and takes, but the amount of pain depends on whether you trust Him to give you good things and more good things, or replace good things with great things.

Watching Beowulf bob his little blond head up and down as he struggles to hold it steady to look around the room while sprawled on his tummy on the floor reminds me how very much I love him and how very sad I'd be if anything happened to him. It reminds me of fears I had while pregnant, fears unfounded but nevertheless fears of things going wrong. It reminds me of fears I had during childbirth, and afterwards, and even now I still struggle with fear for him. I am constantly reminding myself to open my hands and keep giving my baby back to his Creator.

But through disappointments I've learned (or re-learned?) that better things have ALWAYS come from them. If something amazing you want or desire is taken away, something far better is found in its place. When an opportunity falls through, a far better door (or window or kitchen cupboard) is opened for you to walk through.

It's cliche, but it's true.

3 Months Old

I obviously have not kept this up-to-date, since my baby boy is 3 months old, in exactly 3 hours!!

Beowulf Arthur Nieuwsma was born June 10th 2010 at 2:07a.m.

It's always the middle of the night or the wee hours of the morning, isn't it? At least an overwhelming majority of babies seem to come in the darkness. Maybe it has something to do with mother being active during the day, so by the time the baby comes it's well into the night.

At any rate, I had an excellent birthing experience! Beowulf was 8lbs 14oz, 21 inches long. Despite his impressive size it took only 9 minutes to push the bear out. I had an excellent OBGYN who gave me clear instructions before I began pushing. My mother said that she had never heard anyone describe it so well, it's exactly what needs to happen, but no doctor ever explained it as clearly. I was so grateful for that!

Recovery went well, and I am feeling fit as a fiddle, aside from my middle. There's extra skin and stretched muscles there. That's what sit-ups are for! :)

Beowulf is such a wonderful kid. I am blessed to say that in his first 3 months, he hasn't ever had his days and nights mixed up! I think he was so "active" during the day (with various people holding him during his naps, keeping him from being in a deep sleep for no more than 2 hours) that at night when he was in his crib, he would sleep generally 2-3 hours straight before needing to eat. There were rough nights, to be sure, and I had to go through baby blues during the time when I was getting the least amount of sleep, but that was only a few short days (and long nights).

We began training him to sleep through the night (6 hours was our goal) just before he was 3 weeks old. He didn't get the hang of it until around 3 1/2 weeks, but he was definitely sleeping 5 hours straight fairly quickly. That was a HUGE difference to me from a mere 3 hours. Heaven!

Now, he can easily sleep 9 hours, and a few times I've had to wake him before he sleeps 10 hours long. Beowulf just went through a growth spurt, which meant he was waking at 4am or 5am and was HUNGRY. Also, he cut his naps during the day in half because he was hungry, but once I shortened time between feedings, that seemed to help after a few days. He's back to normal nap routine (which doesn't mean that every nap is 1.5-2 hours, but usually only one might be shorter) and his nighttimes have been much better. Tonight was a bit rough. It was shortly after 11pm before he fell asleep. Before his growth spurt, he would be asleep anywhere between 10 and 10:30pm and would stay asleep until 6 or 7.

Luke is back teaching at school, and is the Assistant Director of Prayer Rock Academy. I'm so proud of him, he was been working hard every evening, and even though the last few evenings have had a few hours cut out of them, due to an evening class and a few meetings, he had consistently been finished with work before midnight. He loves teaching just Latin and Omnibus for 7th and 8th grade. It's great that he has 3 boys in the 7th grade, since last year he taught 3 girls all their 7th grade subjects. This year he has them as 8th graders, but only for two classes. They are all a delight, and he is loving teaching them Eusebius and Wheelock's Latin.

My grandparents are visiting from tomorrow through Tuesday morning. I am so glad to see them again! We didn't get much time with them while we were in Idaho after Beowulf was born. Partly because our schedule was off since Luke and I were sick for a few days, and Beowulf was also keeping me up at night every few hours...he was messed up due to our traveling and relocating from Luke's parent's house to my family's farm halfway through our vacation. And then in the afternoons and evenings we often had engagements away from the farm, so my poor grandparents didn't see much of their newest great grandson. But now, he's more alert, definitely responsive with lots of ah-goos, boos, smiles, chuckles, squirms, drooling, some squeaks and a few screams of joy.

God has been SO good! There are always things that seem to look pretty bad, but often putting things in perspective helps. Last year, we thought that some situations were looking pretty dire, and this year similar frustrations continue or new ones develop, but seeing how God provides and carries us through hardships (of which we have had to endure little) is strengthening and encouraging. His mercy endures forever, and His promises are sure.

We are learning, as we watch Beowulf grow, to cling to God's promises regarding children in the Old and New Testament. Being a parent, and realizing the responsibility it brings with it has been some of the scariest stuff to handle, but knowing that it is only through the power of the Holy Ghost that we can be faithful and faithfully train, love, and discipline our son, and only through His power will Beowulf follow Christ and His law.

Babies babies babies....

That's the way my mind goes these days. :)

Or rather insert the name of my baby...no, I'm not telling! Someone was SHOCKED the other day when they discovered that Luke and I were the only ones who knew our baby's name. And that we hadn't told our parents yet. I think it is a really good idea to keep the name a secret for now. Besides, he'll be here any day!

Speaking of that, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and things are going swimmingly! Baby is growing nicely (don't know just how big, but I'd say he's roughly 6-61/2 lbs...if not more!) and my body is doing the right things to prep for labor and delivery of the little man. My doctor wrote something down for her assistant "Here's a new acronym for you to know. BBW." The assistant said "Ooo, a new one for my book! What does it mean?" My doctor responded "Bulging bag of waters." And then she told me they could rupture on their own at any minute.

Meet me, the walking time bomb!

Random people are talking to me everywhere I go. A baby belly is an automatic conversation starter that you can't stop! So people just jump right in and ask how far along you are, when you're due, is it a girl or boy, what's the name, tell you that you haven't dropped yet (when you have, thank you very much), or that you'll drop 2-3 times (what?), and all sorts of good stuff like that. Sometimes I'm in the mood for it and cheerfully chat about my baby, but lately I've been tired and don't want people commenting on my body and passing on wisdom to me when they really don't know me from Eve. It really is great to see how women ARE made for taking care of children, they naturally are drawn to babies from even before they are born. But surely Miss Manners would have something to say about what you do and don't say to a pregnant woman?

Luke has been faithfully attending childbirth classes with me! It's so great to have his support, and he's made it a priority for us to be at every class we can before the baby is born. Tonight our class got to ask a lot of questions from one of the local pediatricians. If we didn't already have a family doctor in mind and if it didn't make more sense to us to go with a family practitioner who could take care of our whole family (and who is a Christian and recommended by two families we trust) we'd go with this pediatrician. He seemed very well balanced, careful to not tell us what to do as parents (even though a few parents asked questions that are more personal preferences and not medical concerns). It was good to get a view at what the local pediatricians are like, as well as be able to ask a doctor specific questions for advice and what he'd do in thus and such a circumstance.

Something that has been very encouraging, even though I've been more and more uncomfortable over the past week is that bearing a child and then giving birth to him is all a part of being a woman in this world. :) That may sound cheesy, and it may sound morbid for me to go to Genesis 3:16 and find comfort, but I do honestly take comfort in the fact that the discomfort and pain of the whole process is God-ordained. Sure, it's a result of the fall and a curse, but it's the part of the curse that I have to bear. Luke bears the curse daily, toiling for the herb of the field and for our bread, and I will willingly bear my part, which is bringing forth children "in pain".

Many times I wish I didn't have to, especially since I've never delivered a baby before and doubt my own strength. But God works all evil for good. I know even now He is using this fear of the pain to show me that He will make me strong in my weakness. I know I can't do this on my own, but I trust Him fully that He will bring me through, that the Lord will protect both the baby and I during the whole thing, and that I can lean on Him completely, letting go of my own will, wishes, and strength. AND that the only way this will work is if I trust God's perfect will.

This makes me remember a song Mom used to sing to my siblings and me when we were little:

Trust and obey,

For there's no other way

To be happy in Jesus

but to trust and obey.