Dinner conversations

You know those kids who are horrified to find out at the dinner table that, once upon a time, their food had been a living chicken or cow. I hear some of these children even become vegetarians on the spot, though I haven’t met one.

Well, our kids are the exact opposite.  Tonight at supper we had beef ribs. Elena asked what they were so I was explaining to her where they come from. I started by pointing out our own ribs, and she interrupts with, “Are we eating a person?” To which we immediately replied, “No! It’s beef. We don’t eat people.”

But wait, it gets worse: One of the kids (I can’t remember which one) came back with, “Why not?”

I guess in raising children, I just didn’t expect to ever need to have the “why cannibalism is wrong” conversation. The things they fail to include in those parenting books…

This kept him occupied for a full 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, it was a one time event. It's rare for him to keep this busy with something that doesn't make a huge mess. This is usually more his cup of tea:

We lost our baby. Those are words I never expected to say. Miscarriages have been relatively rare in both of our families, which tends to give the impression that it won't happen to us.




I went in last Friday for a check-up around 11 weeks. Seth had offered to come, but I told him he didn't need to. As I was walking into the clinic, I had the fleeting thought that I should have brought him in case something had gone wrong.




When the doctor started to look for the heartbeat, I knew it was taking much too long. She couldn't find it and sent me in for an ultrasound, saying not to worry yet because at this stage it was not unusual to not hear the heartbeat. But I knew that it was unusual for me.




Before going to the ultrasound, I prepared myself mentally for what was to come: praying for strength and putting my trust in God, ready to accept whatever outcome lay ahead. As soon as the ultrasound started, I could see the baby. And I could see that there was no movement and no heartbeat as there had been at my 8 week ultrasound.




After she worked silently for a few minutes, I finally said, "It's not moving, is it?" And she mercifully shook her head "no" rather than giving me some crap line about not being able to say anything because she's not  the doctor. The baby probably died a few days after my first ultrasound. So the poor lady got to finish the ultrasound with me sobbing on the table. But I was at peace, too.




I don't spend time wondering what would have been. All we have is what is. And I will treasure the special place this baby has in our hearts and the special role she has as our baby in Heaven (we both have a very strong feeling that we were having a girl). I trust that we will be with our baby someday and that's enough. For now we have our own little saint watching over us. I will cherish the memories of the two happy months we had while the baby was with us.


For now, although we feel the loss, we have a greater sense of gratitude. There has been so much to be thankful for during this experience:
We have 3 healthy children. The miscarriage happened in the first trimester. We hadn't been trying for months and months to get pregnant. There is no reason so far to believe that we can't have more. Elena and Sam accepted the news very well (my biggest fear when I found out was that they would be devastated). We have had so much support from family and friends.


It also helps tremendously having a 1-year-old in the house whose main objective throughout most of the day is making the people around him laugh.


"For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139

Want to know what it's like to get a diaper on a 1-year-old?

Well, if this is one of those things you have often wondered but weren't able to find an answer to on Google, look no further! You, too, can experience this challenging yet important task.


Here's what you do:


1) Find and catch a wild animal of some sort (still alive and awake, of course - no tranquilizers allowed for this activity). If you have a cat handy, you can use that, but not if it's one of those fat and lazy cats who just lies there and moves only when absolutely necessary for survival. That would be cheating. If it's rabid, all the better.


2) Put a diaper on it.


And that's it! That will pretty much give you the exact experience we go through every time Charlie needs a diaper change (albeit hairier and with more claws).


(As an alternative to this exercise, you could just come over to our house change Charlie's diaper)

April Fool's Birthday

Elena turned seven yesterday. Seven! The age of reason. Long past being a little kid. It seems very strange to me to be the mother of a seven year old already - with a 4th on the way. Everyone told me when she was born that time would fly and she would be grown up before I knew it, and they weren't kidding. She's over a third of the way to graduation! (Seth hates it when I say that. I hate it when I say that, too.)


Anyway, she loved turning 7 and had a wonderful birthday. For her party we had over lots of girls and did lots of girly things. They made paper flowers. They had a tea party. Thankfully we had hot chocolate as an alternative. No one but Elena actually liked the tea (to quote my niece Faith, about 1/4 of the way through her tea: "You know how sometimes you're drinking something, but you don't really like it all that much...." and me:"Is that what's happening to you with that tea?"  "Yeah."). I even made the sweet, milky chai tea, but it was a no go.


Here are a few pictures of the party and a video of her opening a gift on her birthday.