The Time has Come, My Little Friends . . .

 . . . to talk of other things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings . . .

I just don't know how it happens. How my little girls just keep growing up. But they do.

Today was the first day of school. It would be a lie to say that I wasn't so excited for both of them. They've been such good girls for me this summer. They've helped so much and played together so very well. They've generally been a joy to have around.

Of course, not all the time, but most of the time.

They both came bouncing up the stairs this morning, dressed and with backpacks on. :) Ready to hop our the door at 7:05. :) That's not a trend that I'm expecting will be maintained for even a week, but it was nice this morning.

Hazel is beginning Second Grade. -- Switching schools again. Man, she's awesome.

And Lilie is beginning First Grade. -- Her first year of all day. She is SO ready for it.

It's just been me and my LITTLE ladies today. It's been kind of a strange day --- with no lunchtime pickup to interrupt the day. A first since Hazel began school. But it's also been really nice to spend some quiet time with just the two of them. -- That won't be lasting much longer - but I don't think any of us will be complaining. :)

Camping in Grand Teton National Park

Last week, in an attempt to distract ourselves from other stresses, Nels and I took the girls camping for a couple of nights at the Grand Teton National Park.

We headed up through Jackson Thursday afternoon. It was a lovely day. We'd hoped to get out of town a little sooner, but things being as they are, four kids and camping just require a lot.

By the time we got into the Park, most camp spots were full. I had no idea that it was such a busy place on a Thursday evening! We finally found a great spot and got all set up. Normally camping within a campground isn't quite our cup o' tea, but seeing as how we have four girls and a VERY pregnant mom that often have to use the toilet during the night, it just worked out best this time around. :)

Friday morning we got up and decided to drive down to Jenny Lake and take the ferry across to a short trail leading up to a waterfall at the base of the Grand Teton. The girls had a great time playing around the campsite as we cleaned up breakfast. They imagined several of the trees into animals for riding and pretended all sorts of He-man stories. (He-man is their new favorite cartoon. :) As they were running to and fro, suddenly Elsie was crying. Hazel came running back to camp saying that Elsie had fallen on a stump. Not too big a deal, but as she was coming back up the trail, she was walking funny and kind of hysterical. Hazel then revealed that as they'd been playing by the stump, Elsie's foot had gone into it and bugs came out. AHHhh! We ran to Elsie to see bees all over. We immediately pulled off her pants, swatted them away, and ran all the kids either back to the tent or to the van - to wait for the bees to disperse.

Amazingly, she'd only been bitten twice. Once on the bummy and once on the hand. She was pretty scared and it hurt for a bit, but she was just fine. Thankfully.

We finally made it down to Jenny Lake and had a wonderful little hike!

The hike was absolutely gorgeous! What a beautiful area. 

No pictures can actually do these mountains justice!

Vi tried, but just couldn't hold onto consciousness. :)

Up, up, up. That was the nature of this 1 mile hike. 

Violet doesn't look thrilled, but that's just because she'd only just woke up and 

was feeling a little disoriented. :)

"Okay, Nels. Smile!"

 "Nels, you're not even looking at the camera! Okay, again."

 "Nels! Are you kidding me!? You're as bad as the kids!"

"NELS!!!"

Sometimes dad's should be more patient with their children. No?

Hooray! Even at 8 1/2 months pregnant, I made it. :) 

Can I just tell you that I hate when people make a big deal about me doing 

things that they, personally, would not do? 

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe you're doing this pregnant!"

Elsie won the award for being the best hiker of the day. She was fabulous. 

Stayed up the whole time and didn't complain even once. Sweet little bug.

Love this picture of Lilie. What a ham!

Hazel was SO tired! Half a mile up just did her in.

"Poor Hazel. Poor, poor Hazel. She'll never smile again. 

She's. Just. Too. Tired!"

"Don't smile, Hazel!"

"What's that?! I SAID, Don't SMILE!!"

I love annoying smiles out of my family. :)

As we were packing the day before, Nels found some old, unused shoelaces. And used them as a bribe to get Lilie to help with some of the work. (Lilie loves to tie up anything and everything, so shoelaces are very appealing.) Once in the van, Lilie also found an old hook that I believe broke off of one of our suitcases. She tied the two together and spent all weekend carting around her awesome tool everywhere. Hooking branches, sticks, rocks, sisters, shoes, etc. It was great entertainment. 

At the lake, she was determined that she'd be able to catch a fish with it and had lots of fun dipping it off the dock while waiting for the return ferry after the hike. Eventually, she allowed Hazel in on the fun --- who promptly threw it out into the lake BY ACCIDENT. 

Lilie was devastated. And WAILing.

And everyone waiting there with us was staring.

As I tried to calm her down, Nels (being the awesome dad that he is) quickly stripped of his shoes and socks and waded out to retrieve the priceless toy.

A shoelace. With a hook tied to it.

Hooray!

And then Violet took a nosedive off the bench onto her head on the dock and started wailing.

And everyone waiting there with us was staring.

Again.

Awesome parenting moment #57,156.

We finally made it back onto the ferry with our little circus. 

As everyone else was having a great time enjoying the boat and watching over the side, 

true to form, Elsie almost immediately made friends with a stranger from Australia 

and asked her if she could sit on her lap.

What a funny little social girl we have!

Tired and hot, we headed back to our campground, changed into our swim gear 

and headed down to Jackson Lake to cool off.

We all had a wonderful time together.

Camping with little children is a LOT of work. But it is always SO worth it. For our children. For the memories that we make. For the friendships that we build. 

I love my little family!

Naught

As I read over the past few posts I've had here --- well, for weeks and weeks --- I can't help but notice how boring and whiney I am. Ick. I hate that.

Oh well. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. This is just me right now. Preoccupied and annoying.

Thankfully, I still have so many sweet friends that love me so much --- regardless. Many of you, through your loving words of encouragement, have been an enormous boost and so many who live close have been there to help me out and serve me in ways that I will never, NEVER be able to repay. I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I am so blessed.

Wednesday, Nels and I celebrated our anniversary. My sweet friend, Hannah, fed our girls dinner and then brought them back home and put them all to sleep! We didn't do anything too fancy, but we went to dinner and a movie. It was really nice to have a night alone. Nels said, "This is like a Parents' Anniversary." :) Yep. Pretty low key.

However, during dinner and throughout the movie, I started having pretty regular contractions. They continued through the night - waking me up a couple of times. The next morning, they were still there and I had them all throughout the day. By evening, they were good and hard - - but a little irregular. We got the girls to bed and my friend, Stefanie, came over with her new little baby to be with our girls while Nels and I ran some errands and then went down to the river to walk for a while.

When I called my midwife at about 11:00 pm, contractions were good and regular - about 3 to 5 minutes apart - and lasting about 45 to 60 seconds a piece. She said to come on into the birth center. We were so excited!

We got there and set up - contractions still coming strong and regular. Not too intense, but we were worried that after about 30 hours of regular contractions, things may move pretty quick. However, after being there for a while, things started to actually slow down and by 3:00 in the morning, they were almost completely stopped. 32 hours of contractions - just to have them peter out.

I felt so bad to have gotten everybody there, just to have things stop.

With all of my other labors, the doctor or midwife has broken my water. At that point, things progress quickly and regularly. So I almost felt like my body didn't know what it was doing. Almost like it was waiting for somebody else to get things moving. So frustrating.

I finally lay down next to Nels and just slept until about 6:00 am, when we packed everything back up and went back home. My midwife assured me over and over again that this happens all the time and to not feel bad. But there was really no getting over that as I apologized to the three women who had spent the night at the birth center and as I came home to Stefanie, who had spent the whole night taking care of my kids - and also taking care of her own newborn baby - at my house.

And all for nothing.

As I've written several times over the past month or so, if there is anything that I hate more than waiting, it's being disappointed. Yesterday I got a healthy dose of both.

It would be a huge underestimation to say that I spent most of the day feeling a little depressed.

However, Nels stayed home from work and let me sleep much of the day away. (I was SO tired!)  Hannah called mid-morning asking if I would LET her take my girls with her and her two kids to the lake. I took myself out for a pedicure while Nels took a nap with Violet. And then Hannah called again telling us that she was bringing over dinner and asking if the girls could come over to her house for a sleepover. After she'd taken them to the lake all day!!!

Between Nels, Stefanie, and Hannah - I couldn't have felt more loved. I am truly blessed with such wonderful people in my life.

Last night, as I knelt in prayer and cried for a while, I was reminded that faith is a choice.

I've felt so frustrated at times over the past month. The house isn't sold. The baby isn't born. And I have NO control over either.

I was SO genuinely excited with the prospect of getting to hold this tiny little baby in my arms and bring her into our family -- but I would be remiss if I didn't admit that there is a small portion of me that was just excited to be able to focus on something other than the house. It felt so good.

To have it all come to naught was really crushing for me.

For the first time in my life I feel like I am coming to perhaps understand the passage in Mark where a father brings his possessed son to Jesus - asking him if he can help them at all.

23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are^apossible to him that ^bbelieveth.

 24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine ^aunbelief.

It's always felt like such a strange statement. "I believe; help thou mine unbelief." But over the past month, I've come to understand, in my own way, that there is a way to believe and to hope, but still have a hard time believing.

I believe that the Lord is aware of me and my family. I believe that he will help us. But sometimes I have a hard time believing that things will be the way that I hope. I want to have faith, and I do, but somehow there is still fear.

But last night, as I said, I was reminded that faith is a choice -- that I will make. I will choose to have faith. And I will ask the Lord to please help me with my unbelief. And today was a brighter day.

Put me in a Wheelchair, Get me to the Show . . . I Wanna Be Sedated

Can you see my feet? Me neither. :)

Well, I'm still here. :) No coma induction, yet. But the lyrics of that Ramones song keeps running through my head. "Put me in a wheelchair, get me to the show. Hurry, hurry, hurry, before I go loco. I can't control my fingers, I can't control my toes. . . . I WANNA BE SEDATED!"

It would be no surprise to me if Nels was also singing it on his way to work yesterday morning after dealing with me. Apparently, it must have just been time for my scheduled weekly meltdown. Complete with tears, ranting, and hup-hups. :) Not really a pretty sight, but I was tired. And sometimes I just get worried. And anxious. And uncomfortable. And anxious. And anxious. And anxious. And tired.

But I'm feeling better today. Which is good. Just thank your lucky stars that I didn't actually publish the post that I wrote at 5:30 in the morning yesterday in an attempt to blow off some steam.

I went to one of my weekly Midwife appointments yesterday. Everything is going well. I'm less than two weeks from my due date. I have contractions constantly. It's lovely. But I've had enough children now to realize that it's pointless to time them or even give them any heed at all at this point in the game. The baby is engaged down so low that I'm pretty sure she's going to fall out any day now (or at least that's what I'm praying for ;) and yesterday it seemed she may do just that - using my diaphragm as leverage in an escape attempt. Funny enough, people still seem surprised that I'm as far along as I am. I just seem to carry my babies very far inside. Someday when I need corrective surgery to return my stomach from my armpit and my intestines from somewhere up around my neck to their proper places, I'll let my five children know that the bill is all theirs.

August is quickly winding down and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We've decided not to go up to Sandpoint to look at houses until we get some serious idea of what's going to be happening with our current home. That's actually a huge relief to me to have one less thing that's on my docket. And I've decided to go ahead and enroll the girls in school. I've been vacillating back and forth on this -- seeing as how the schools in Sandpoint don't even begin until the 7th of September -- but I've come to the realization that there is a very real possibility that the girls and I may be here for a while after Nels leaves to start work up there, so I might as well be prepared. Praying constantly that that is not the case, but still - better to be ready.

As a result, I feel very emotionally unprepared for school to happen this year. I finally bought school supplies, but still need to do a little bit of clothes shopping and helping to get the girls both ready for this adjustment, but I'm just having a difficult time "feeling it."

Too many things going on. Too many things that I'm waiting for. I don't know how to be emotionally ready for all of them.

I need to feel a little more prepared for the fact that a new baby is coming to our home soon. I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around how we're going to pull that off at the same time we're selling a house and it needs to be clean and ready to show at a moment's notice. I've finally taken the initiative to get the house listed with the MLS --- through a flat fee listing, rather than a realtor. I'm praying that this is the right choice. It makes it so that buyer's realtors can now find the house and know that they are welcome to show it. I'm just nervous about trying to do this with uncertainty about the baby coming and with four little kids already living here. And ME.

I feel tired, worn out, and absolutely no ambition to do anything.

The house isn't a mess, but how on earth am I going to keep it "show ready" with a brand new baby? and most likely, my mother won't be coming either. Even though she was scheduled to be home next Monday, there is a fun little twist to that expectation also. She called me Sunday to let me know that because of a tropical storm, the ship that she's serving on (she is an RN and has gone to Haiti to volunteer on a hospital ship) will be out to sea until at least Wednesday. The storm has now escalated from a "tropical storm" to the first hurricane of the season. Hurricane Irene. She has no idea what's going to happen and they've asked if she could possibly stay longer, because she will be needed and then, of course, she'll have spent most of her time there sitting on a ship out in the ocean instead of giving medical care. - Which was her whole point in going. And I hate for her to come home to help me and then I don't even end up having the baby until later anyway.

I know she's going to call me in the next couple of days to see what I think she should do. I don't have the slightest idea what to tell her.

{sigh}

Tomorrow is mine and Nels's anniversary. Nine years. Almost a decade. I'm so lucky. He's my best friend. I love him with everything that I am. He is so good to me. Over the past couple of weeks, he's really held everything together here at home. Last night I sat and watched him thoroughly wiping off the stove and cleaning up after dinner, SO overwhelmed with gratitude and with absolutely no desire to help. I am blessed. And this anniversary is going to be pretty uneventful. Poor Nels.

Maybe if I schedule things a year in advance, I could convince my mom to come watch the kids and let us have a "real" vacation next year.

Regardless of all that I've complained about this last month or so, I'm so very grateful. The girls have really been wonderful the last little while. They've helped out a ton and have played together so well. I'm so thankful for my little women! Violet - as with any one year old - is an incredible handful and has started getting spats on the bum lately for doing things like playing in the toilet, climbing up onto the stove, and amazingly figuring out how to scale the bunk beds (WITH NO LADDER!) up to the top bunk - in the dark - to pester Elsie at bedtime. But she is also an enormous source of joy for everyone in our family as well. She is incredibly sweet, absolutely idolizes her sisters, and has recently started copying everything. She is the first of my children to try to say everything that you ask her to. And her vocabulary is exploding. Yesterday at the grocery store, she was holding the string cheese in the front of the cart. As we were almost finished up, she held the package up to her face and said, "I love you, Cheese." LOL! Cheese is her favorite food, if you can't tell. :)

For all that's uncertain right now, as long as I can get past the anxiety for our future, I realize that we are incredibly blessed. I get so caught up in the HOW that I forget everything else. I have a husband that I love deeply and that loves and supports me. Nine years ago today, there was nothing in the world that I wanted more than to be HIS. And today I still feel the same way. We have four beautiful daughters that are so very good and love each other so much. I will soon have the opportunity to give birth to another amazing little child that the Lord is sending to be a part of our family. She will change our lives forever and I'm so excited. Nels has a job. Nels is happily looking forward to his new job. We get to move to a new town, a new environment. I really am excited for all the new experiences that we will have there! We have a wonderful home that WILL sell. I just don't know when. But when it does, we get to move into a new house that we get to start all over again making into our home. And I'm really excited for that. All the new paint and new rooms and new . . . everything to make OURS. It's going to be fun.

For the last couple of years, I've really reveled in the "sameness" that we've had in our lives - the predictability. But sometimes I've longed for change. I just hadn't expected all the change to happen at the same time! New job. New baby. New town. New home. New schools. New friends. New experiences.

I'm excited and I'm thankful.

But please bear with me when I can't help but feel a little scared at the same time. :)

Pressure

{I wrote this post and never published it at the time. I really just needed to blow off some steam one morning. However, after finally coming out the other side of this stressful time in our lives, I came back to read over it and realized that while this post is a little erratic, it was still a part of my experience at the time and my feelings were valid. I don't mind every one of my readers not reading this post (since it is now buried under months of other posts), but I don't want to delete it either. I want to remember, because it's a part of who I am and who I become.  ~~~ May 6, 2012}

I need to vent. But I don't want everyone in the world to read it. I'm sick of complaining.

But I just need to get this off my chest. Literally?

I was sitting in bed this morning - have been for about an hour - thinking over what we are doing with the house. I don't know what to do.

I really want to be able to list it ourselves. I don't want to pay the extra money to have it listed with a realtor. If we can sell it for what he's saying, we'll be out about $2-4000. Money down the drain. Money that we still owe on the house. We could could come up with it, somehow. But how will that reflect when we're trying to buy a new home at the same time??? But we need to get this ball rolling as soon as possible. REALLY.

Second, I could list it with a flat fee mls service. They charge about $3-400, and then it's in the mls. But what if we do that and just end up listing with a realtor later . . . then we're out the time. Right now, if we sold this week, there is still a possibility that we could get out of this house and into a new one before we move. Or very shortly thereafter.

Do we take the gamble and possibly waste time?

I've had one recurring dream (nightmare?) since I was a kid. Sure, I used to have several -- things like godzilla breaking into the church or dinosaurs in our backyard - but this one has remained. Only to creep up at weird times. I haven't had it in a long time. But this morning as I sat in the quiet, the feeling was there - even though I wasn't dreaming. And it was even worse. It remains with me.

I am in a dark space all alone. It's endless. Just dark - with one light shining right in the center. In that center there is a pin. Standing on its pointed end. On top of it are stacked boxes and shapes. All heavy. Up as far as I can see. All balancing on the head of this pin.

That's all it is. It never changes. It never falls. The light never comes on. Just a dark space with a pin, heavy shapes stacked on top of it.

And silence.

But the silence and the balance of it all feels as if it is on my chest. In my arms. All around.

Pressure.

The silence and the anticipation of the inevitable all just feel like an immense pressure weighing on me.

It feels hard to breathe.

That's how I felt this morning as I sat in the dark and quiet thinking about the house.

Pressure.

Pressure and weight wrapping up in my arms. Constricting. All through me till I just needed to move. To break the stillness. To unwind the tightness.

I feel like I don't know what to do.

I feel like I don't know how to get the answers.

I feel a little disconnected.

Am I depressed?

I've feel like I've been smashing down all relevant feelings because they do THIS to me. I've been avoiding the questions - and to some extent productive actions - because when I don't, I can't sleep and I feel really overwhelmed. It's so much easier to not think about.

And then there's the baby coming too.

So much coming.

And I don't know how to do any of it.

I want to move forward - but I don't actually have any control over any of it actually happening.

The house is going to sell, right?

When?

Are we stuck here? While Nels goes. Me with a brand new baby. Five kids all by myself. For how long. And a brand new baby. With Hazel's and Elsie's birthdays at the end of next month. And Nels will be 8 hours away.

And he'll have to pay for housing. Somewhere to live. While we are here.

I want to pray. I want to get some direction. I want to get some answers.

But I don't feel like I "hear" very well.

And that's depressing.

I feel like I'm second guessing any feelings that I actually allow to come through.

I don't want to feel that everything is going to be okay --- only to have things not turn out the way I want them to. I feel like it will just make me feel worse. And so I don't pray at all.

I know I'm wrong.

I just don't know what to do about it.