These mornings

There are mornings like yesterday. When Jack is in a mood from the moment he wakes up and no matter how much I love on him or offer him juice or yogurt, he isn’t for it. And he cries and fusses all day except for the two hours of sleep he gives me and I lay in bed with him and enjoy his niceness for the short time it lasts. And during the day I wonder what in the world we were thinking wanting children so close together and how I don’t feel totally comfortable in this new “mom skin” yet and it worries me if I ever will.

Somedays I just feel like I’m babysitting. It hurts my heart to say this. I love Jack. An insane amount and I’d step in front of a bullet, rabid dog, semi truck and anything else trying to hurt him. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not yet used to drinking my morning coffee on the floor so a child isn’t pulling on my pants in want. Sometimes I don’t want to walk him down the steps for the 1071st time, just so he can turn around and walk back up. There are times I don’t know what he wants and I just have to walk away for a few seconds because it seems I can’t take it. And I wish it wasn’t that way. I feel like this should all be natural feeling by now.

And then there are mornings like today. When we both sleep in until 7 a.m. and I pick him up and we snuggle his duck and bear and puppy and he leans his head back on my chest and hugs all four of us. When we eat watermelon and oatmeal and head out to the porch with coffee and apple juice and watch the trucks drive by. When it’s cool and calm and my heart is so full and my body is not sleepy and all I want to do is write it all down so I will never ever forget these seconds.

These mornings I have so much pure, joyful love that I feel so motherly and content and I yearn to be holding my fresh sleeping newborn while we watch Jack play. Five months seems like an eternity and all I want is for all three of us to be enjoying this morning together.

That is one thing that I will be in ever wonderment of and grateful for beyond measure – elasticity.

The elasticity of our minds to quickly forget the insecurities and shortcomings and doubts of all the yesterday mornings and hold onto, much longer, the beauties we are given at times like today.

No one ever said it would be easy, but it will be worth it. And during mornings like this, it is so clear to see the worth beyond life itself. The challenge is to remember why we do it all. To pray through those rough patches and hold onto the knowing that it is all, in wonderful fact, worth it.

Pregnancy #2: 17 weeks

Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Street Photography

How far along: 17 weeks

Total weight gain: 6-8 lbs. Jack started screaming during my weigh-in at the doctor’s.

Maternity clothes: All pants. Some shirts. Love me some yoga pants and pajama bottoms.

Sleep: Very good. Besides child numero uno waking up at 4:45 to 5:30 a.m. every morning the past three weeks. Eight, I repeat EIGHT teeth are coming in that boys tiny mouth. And a he has had a fever 😦

Best moment this week: Jack started kissing! Not me or Scott, but grandma Shelly!! It’s adorable.

My mom and sister came to Williston this weekend for Mother’s Day. We shopped and ate and played cards and hot tubbed it up.

On Saturday we came back to the house and I saw a big vase of purple assorted roses and lilies on the dining room table. Then saw a bouquet of calla lilies on the kitchen table. And then a dozen pink roses on the island. It was like an exciting maze of wonderfullness that my sweet husband picked out himself 🙂 VERY exciting for this mama!

And we had a family milestone – Jack was dedicated at the New Hope Wesleyan Church. Scott and I promised to raise our child to love and fear the Lord. I cried. It may have been one of my favorite life moments.

What I miss: I’m doing pretty good. I guess I miss holding Jack without him hurting my belly. It’s getting hard. We have been practicing walking  a lot.

Movement: A little! Just a few bumps here and there. Which is different from last time – I felt Jack readily at 16 weeks. We have a shy one.

Food cravings: Does spoonfuls of rainbow chip frosting after dinner count?

Making me queasy:  Scott gave me his sickness the past few weeks. It was congestion, coughing and nasty terrible headaches. I finally have been feeling better and am reminded to be thankful for my health. I’ve been eating normally since feeling better, I was a little peckish for a while.

Starting to show: Yes. But it’s a little flabbier than last time. I blame Jack. And my love for carbs. So I just look chubby still at times.

Gender: Our ultrasound is on June 10!!!!! I canot wait.

Happy or moody: Happy

Things I’ve been experiencing lately: Heartburn and a slight loss of breath at times. Maybe I’m carrying higher this time?

What I’m looking forward to: Ultrasound. Whoot whooooot!!!

What I’m nervous about: Wrangling a newborn and a 1.5 year old around the grocery store in five months.

Days until due date: Baby will be here Oct. 15 or 16. Why, here.  156-157 days. (That’s a little exciting 😉 )

Size of baby: onion

Link to 16 weeks pregnant with Jack

Link to 17 weeks pregnant with Jack

My second Mother’s Day

The Kingston family, Mother’s Day 2013. Williston, N.D.

It’s a sweet thing, being a mom.

There is a whole day dedicated to what you do. It’s like an extra birthday.

This past year I have identified as a mother more than anything else (besides being a wife.) Or at least learned what being a mom means and began growing into the ever-changing role. (Link to last year’s Mother’s Day post.)

It has been a challenging year. With joys and embraces that swelled and made my heart overflow. But motherhood is hard. Everyday. Some ladies make it seem effortless and seamless. Is it really like that for anyone? It sure itsn’t for me. Momming is the most demanding, at times frustrating, never ending job I have ever done in my life. But it is also a job that I have never once wanted to quit. It is my biggest source of pride and that one thing I just know I was made to do. I am so grateful God let me be Jack’s mom.

This weekend was so wonderful. My mom and sister came on Friday. Two of my absolute favorite people.

We went shopping around town Saturday, had lunch, shopped more.

When we came back home, a beautiful bouquet of purple roses and lilies were on the dining room table. Hottie Scottie did good.

I walked over to them and noticed something out of place on the kitchen table. A dozen cala lilies.

My sister stood there smiling and said, “There is more.”

On the island was a dozen of the biggest, classiest pink roses you have ever seen.

Three arrangements, when I barely expected one. And each one picked out as favorites by my sweet husband himself.

Oh, I was and am one happy lady.

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready for church. We all drove together and sat in the middle, close to the front. Very out of the ordinary for us.

We had decided to dedicate Jack. About 10 other children were being dedicated at the middle service. Our family went first.

We vowed to show Jesus through our words and actions and talk about God in our home. To pray for Jack and look to God when we don’t know what we are doing. I held Scott’s hand as the pastor prayed for Jack.

Those moments quickly became some of the best of my life.

I have never been so proud of our family.

This day was just sweet. It was a nice break from the mundaneness of our everyday routine.

I was able to be with my mom and watch here with my baby and see how that love just flows right through us.

I prayed with my husband over the child we made.

I laughed and snuggled and joked with my sister.

I kissed and peek-a-booed and brushed my baby’s teeth before bed.

I ordered Chinese and ate a million crab rangoons.

There is not much more I could ask for. Except… Dad, I miss you on days like these.

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there. I hope you had a wonderful day.

And you, there, I hope you called your mom. She won’t be too mad if you call her a day late. Just be sure to call.

Didn’t enjoy mom’s kisses…

But leaned in and gave sweet, open mouthed kisses to grandma 🙂

Little boy is getting eight teeth in at once and had a fever Saturday night. He sucked down Tylenol and snuggled up nice on the couch with Grammy Shelly. He really loves her.

At New Hope Church, pastor Chris prays for Jack as we dedicated to raising him knowing the Lord.

This just sums up our weekend and all our picture taking tries 🙂 Love you guys!

My wanting vs. His plan

Yesterday I had my 16 week OB appointment. It’s always really exciting for me. Jack and I were able to hear Baby’s heartbeat for quite a while. Jack wasn’t as impressed as I was.

I met my Williston doctor for the first time and she is really great. I don’t know where doctors learn to portray their knowledgeably-laced confidence, but I’m ever thankful for it. She made me feel small in my medical knowing (which I am) but large in that I am a woman who is having a baby and this whole process is deeply personal to me, and she respected that – without verbally saying either. Lord, I am thankful for those you provide in our lives.

She went over my chart and started talking to me about a VBAC (vaginal birth after a cesarian.) Giving birth naturally is one of those bare roots, natural, stripped-of-everything basic functions of a woman that I have always wanted to experience. Like a right of passage into motherhood that, in all my thinkings my whole life, I took for granted. It was just going to happen.

Well, Jack needed to be a c-section. And I appreciate and respect Western medicine for it’s advances and protocols and quick-thinking in dire times of need. And as we all know, Jack turned out adorable with a nice round head that just popped out of my tummy. Recovering from the surgery wasn’t that bad.

But I wanted for this baby to have him/her the way babies were meant to be had and have that new baby be laid on my chest all wet and new.

The doctor told me that since I am having my babies less than two years apart, my risk of having my c-section scar break open and rupture my uterus is higher and there is a risk of my baby dying from that.

That it is a national standard, not just something that Williston hospitals follow, but I am not allowed to have a VBAC and we will schedule a cesarian date.

I tried to push that burning feeling back in my throat. But I couldn’t. And I burst out in tears in that white, boring room. The doctor just sat there with poise and handed me a tissue and let me cry it out. She told me that was a natural response to this information. I composed myself to tell her that I understood. “I can tell you do,” she said. Lord, I am thankful for the people you put in my life.

Now, I know there is information and options and alternatives to this kind of information. And I could fight it. I could break out my feminist side and demand a natural birth because they have been successful before and it is my right and all of that. I know.

But for me, this all stopped being about me the moment I tied my life to my husband. And my “self” especially became third on the list when babies became involved. My yearning for a natural birth is something for me, it’s something I want. For me it isn’t about the natural path for my child to enter the world. I know there are studies to tell me the problems a child born via cesarian may have, but a million babies have grown to be healthy adults who came into the world that way.

My immediate response was sadness for something I wanted, but won’t have. I am an emotional being. But my logical side quickly stepped in.

There is something I can choose to do that will lessen a risk to my baby. I can protect my child from harm. And that is my duty as a mother. And that’s that.

So suck it up buttercup.

Things don’t always go the way you planned.

So, our baby will be here October 15 or 16. I’m hoping for the 16. Who wants to be be born on an odd-numbered day? No one.

I am happy to know a solid date. Another plus is that we will go to the hospital and know we will have our baby in our arms in a very short time.

So it’s not going to go how I thought it would. There has been a plan set in place for our lives and He knows what he is doing, in every detail.

The forwards of it

Jack and I made a stop at the park today. He held mama’s hand for a while and then just took off. He was walking from slide to slide on the high crosswalks, climbing stairs, walking straight off slides (almost.) I know every other mom there was saying, “That’s her first kid.” I was hovering like no ones business.

Yesterday the little boy helped me plant veggies. And ate dirt.

Now he’s walking in and out of the kitchen to the deck and smooshing his face against the screen and saying “pup” while pointing at our dog.

He’s a boy. A toddler. He still has chubby baby legs and toes, but summer will surely take those. I love this little person that accompanies me all day, but it hurt my heart a little (and made me a bit proud) to see him reach and want the other children at the playground. Ahh, the heartbreaks of motherhood. I don’t need to have them justified.