7 Quick Takes - Volume 4

In case you haven't noticed, my blog has officially become... boooorrrriinnnggg! If it wasn't already! I have had, well, less than no time to post anything now that we're back into school full-swing and little girl is quickly advancing past "sleepy newborn" phase. So, I apologize that I haven't been more faithful in posting, but higher priorities have been consuming as of late!

Speaking of school, we're up and going full-swing again! Phew! It isn't going exactly as I had hoped/planned in this post, but it is going, and going reasonably well, praise God! I came to the very obvious conclusion that it's just better to save most of the "sit down and listen" type stuff for when Judah is napping. He gets plenty of "sit down and listen" training when we have our family devotions, are in church, and other various opportunities that pop up. Trying to toddler train and keep everyone focused and stay on track and juggle a newborn baby just can't happen during schooltime! That small change has brought SO much more peace to our school day!

Oh, and speaking of Judah, he turned 2 this month! Wow! Can you believe he's gone from this:

To this:

SO fast?! He's talking up a storm, although I'd say only about 52% of it is understadable to the general public. He's adjusting wonderfully to being a big brother - in fact, his first question every morning is "Where's Rachel?"... or, if she's awake already, he wants to give her hugs and kisses before he even gets out of bed! I adore the precious love he has for her already!

And since we're on the topic of Miss Rachel, she is almost 2 months old already!! Sheesh! She is, as expected, the object of everyone's affection and doting. She's a very happy baby - except when she's in the car. Apparently, the car is the death trap from Satan himself because she screams in total terror and despair whenever we're in it. It *is* getting better, but needless to say, I have limited my outings! But really, that's the only complaint I can make, and it's such a minor one! She's healthy, growing well, sleeping GREAT (averaging 7 hours a night already, a practical miracle in itself!), smiling and cooing, and just so sweet. I love watching her grow and change! It seems that with each baby, I see the miracle of God's handiwork more than I did previously. It's so awesome! I am so blessed to be a mama!

Do you see how chubby she's gotten?! I love her cheeks and all the little rolls I find on her now!

As a shameless plug for myself and the companies I love... take a peek over to the upper left - do you see the "I Recommend" label over there? The companies I have listed are all ones that I use, love, recommend, and am (mostly) an affiliate for. Of course, I'm not an affiliate for Compassion, but I love the work they do, love being a part of what they're doing, and highly encourage others to get involved, as well! The other companies' banners also come with high kudos from me, and if you're interested in taking a peek at any of them, it does benefit me, as well. Just sayin'... ;-)

Now that I've had two months to think over my homebirth experience, I wanted to try to put into words what a difference it made for me. Yes, I loved being in the comfort of my own home, I loved not having to fight off unwanted interventions or treatments, I loved that our life wasn't "interrupted" with a hospital stay, and so on... but the biggest thing I learned from my homebirth experience was this: awe. Utter amazement at the birth process and God's beautiful design in how life is brought into the world. I know, I've had 5 kids already, shouldn't I have realized all of this by now?! But here's the thing. My midwife was really hands-off. She didn't check my dilation, she didn't hover over me... she listened to the baby's heartbeat once in a while, and otherwise... stayed really low key. At first I was nervous - I thought "how will I know how far along I am?", "what if I'm getting close?", "what if I'm not making any progress, how will we know?". Intellectually, I thought I had to "know" my status. But you know what? I didn't! Because God designed my body to do what it needed to do without my total consciousness of every intimate detail. Instinctively, I knew when we were getting closer. Pushing happened without anyone telling me to, and without counting to 10 and holding my breath. My body knew all of this without my intellect having to know. Truly natural birth is such an amazing, awe-filled experience. It brought me to a level of faith that I hadn't experienced before. I'm so, so thankful I got to experience it.

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of weeks! We'll be enjoying our second-ever Sonlight Box Day (I'm ordering Core E plus Science!), as well as going to our local homeschool convention. I haven't been to a convention in several years, but this one seemed too good to miss - we'll be able to hear both Ken Ham and Voddie Baucham speak, as well as lots of others, and of course, feast our eyes on the wide variety of vendors! My first experience at a convention was totally overwhelming, but now that I've got a good few years under my belt, as well as a solid view of our curriculum choices, I think it's going to be just plain FUN! And many of our friends from church will be there, too, so we're likely to run into a few folks we know, which always makes things nicer.

Well, if anyone is around who still reads my boring old blog, thanks for stopping in! Maybe one day soon I'll be able to get back on the ball. For now, I'll drop a note whenever I can!