Complete package

Today we celebrated the man of my dreams and the wonderful father of my children. Well, we didn't do anything spectacular for him, but enough to let him know how much we love and appreciate all that he does.

I'm in a state of bliss with Clint right now and have been for the last few months. I know it's not the pregnancy hormones because as I wrote in earlier, I was in a bemoaning state. I like totally ADORE my man. I mean, I have always loved him but adore him, I found that a little too far fetching. I remember a friend talking about how she wanted to adore her husband and I thought it was a weird thing to say. I thought maybe he was being a lazy ass and she felt like she had to "mother" him and love him even though she was picking up his dirty socks off the floor. Or she was being a drama queen and not realistically seeing that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. But at last - this flood washed over me and I fell in a deeper love for him. I so adore the man and I don't think he could do much to come down from this perch of which I have placed him.

All the nights we hunkered down in the deep trenches of marital hardship has come to an end. We are no longer in the trenches but in the comfort of peace in our own slice of heaven. We fought the good fight and learned many ways in which we could live out our hearts' desires, despite not having all the things we thought we needed to be in that space. I know I always have that "I worked my ass off in this marriage!" attitude but lately it's been more of a realization that no matter how hard someone works, without grace, it still might not work out. So, I have to give a shout out to our good mother, father and example of all encompassing love from up above. Without wisdom and guidance I wouldn't be here writing this today. We are truly blessed right here, right now and it feels good!

I know this sounds so flowery and bullshitty but we have always had that "country bumpkin-ness" to us but somehow we got stuck on the side of the road and stayed there for a little too long where it felt this was as good as it was going to get. Never settle for anything less than what you know you deserve, is what I have learned if anything.

Pregnita

Here I am in all my pregnita-es. That is Clint's pet name for me every time I am pregnant.

I'm feeling great - just cruising along right now. Baby is growing and I'm starting to feel hard parts like a rump and head. Crispin loves to feel the baby move. Yesterday, he sat on my lap and said, "baby GET!" and put his hand on my belly. I thought he was trying to tell me to GET baby out and I started saying how baby needs to stay in a bit longer and blah blah blah. He said it again and this time kicked his feet too. Finally, I understood he wanted to feel baby KICK and not GET! Baby was moving around, so it was perfect. Sonny heard me say it was kicking and rushed right over to cop a feel too. He asked how it feels inside and I said, it felt like rubber reverberating in my stomach. That's about how it feels to me when I think of the little limbs bouncing off each other while it's doing somersaults.

I'm getting excited - finally. I think this has been the pregnancy full of complaints. I was too sick, too tired, too annoyed w/ everything to appreciate a growing baby. Finally the clouds opened up and the sun came out and I passed that magical marker and I fell deep into a narcotic induced high. I still did a lot of complaining up until last week - I was complaining how BIG I got in a week's time and how this has been the longest pregnancy in the history of pregnancies! I've been pregnant all winter, spring and will be all summer!
I'm doing better this week and not complaining too much. I'm enjoying my swelling belly and not having too much achyness in my pubic bone.

Other than complaining about petty stuff - life has been absolutely positively wonderful. Everyone is in good spirits and things have been going swell. You can't ask for more!

Lookee Lookee

Look who has access to a camera! Last week we took out our old manual and shot some pictures around town. We went for a walk to the bumps and got a few photos there before the rain came down. It's really expensive developing photos and especially ones you don't like! We were all tapping into our inner photographer. Someday we will have our own dark room and taking pictures with that thing will actually be fun. S enjoyed using it and can't wait to take classes on photography and sign up for the yearbook.

I was able to borrow Mrs. T digital camera for awhile. She's so silly. Somebody must have told her to buy a digital and so she went out and bought one w/ all the bells and whistles and used it once but never downloaded the photos. In fact all the equipment and cd's where still in the box when I went over there. So, I am borrowing her camera for our trip. I've been playing around with it but haven't gotten any good photos worthy of framing.

I'm so bored. Clint works from home but not on Monday's and I am here on the computer because he's not home using it. I did meet a very nice woman today while we were outside. I've seen her many times and we have smiled at each other. She has a baby bump too, so today she was close enough for me to ask her about her due date. We got to talking and honestly, I thought she was going to be from another country (she is - Estonia) and would have a hard time communicating, but she has been in the states some time and our conversation flowed. She asked if I was delivering at the U and I told her no at home and then asked her where she would be delivering and she will be delivering at a birth center about an hour drive from here. It was so thrilling to have a like minded soul to talk birth with! We talked for a good hour while our kids played in the sandbox. She's due a few weeks before I am. I feel like a schmuck for not being my chatty self earlier to have gotten to know her sooner. It made my day to have a neighborhood person to talk with. I get it all the time about living here in family housing about how there must be tons of mom's to chat with. While there are tons of moms around, everyone has their own cliques they belong too - there's the Asian crowd, the Mormom brigade and not too much in between. Oh, the CHILDless crowd too. *****(WHY DO I KEEP SAYING "MOTHERLESS" INSTEAD OF CHILDLESS? THIS IS THE SECOND TIME I'VE DONE THAT!)**** I'm praying for a sweet fun woman to move in right next door to us. The neighbors on the other side of us have a new baby (about 4 months old) and the mom never pokes her head out the door. I'm always outside doing this or that, but she is like a hermit. Her husband is really nice and will always chat me up on his way in.

Well, that is all for now and probably for a long time - unless we get this IBook powered up that Mrs.T gave us. We need a power cord (on it's way via Ebay!) and some kind of internet card - airport card? We will know more when we fire it up. It should be perfect for me and the boys to play around on.