a Kenyan-Texan family

separation anxiety?

2012-02-11T08:12:00.001-06:00

A friend (J) graciously volunteered to watch the boys last night. Rodgers and I had not been planning on going out, but we had no problem coming up with a last-minute date night!

Nate was great. He's the one I worry about with babysitters because he is so afraid of strangers and grown-ups who aren't strangers but also are not his parents or grandparents. Also, J had never babysat Nate before. But he was not a problem at all. Bedtime is probably the easiest time of day with Nate because his bedtime routine is so ingrained in him. The rest of the day is too unpredictable to create such a rigid routine. Well, maybe if I were Supermom I could.

Ben was apparently fine until it got close to bedtime, then he just couldn't be happy. J said she tried to feed him his bedtime bottle. He started eating, then decided he'd rather cry. She rocked him. He started to fall asleep, then decided to cry some more. She would soothe him, then he'd look at her and start crying. She'd put him in bed, then he'd cry. She was afraid he was coming down with something. She's taken care of him before, and he's always so happy.

We came home to a crying Ben. I picked him up and he immediately transformed into his usual, happy, bubbly self. He smiled. He laughed. He talked to me. Rodgers took him and fed him. He ate just fine. He just didn't want J to put him to bed!

He's young for separation anxiety, but that seems to be the culprit.

Now, come to think of it, I remember that the past few days he has gotten upset anytime I'm out of his range of vision. I was packing a box on the kitchen table the other day. He was in the bouncy chair, facing me and teething on the many toys I'd put within his reach. I walked across to the living room, just a few feet away in this apartment, but behind him. As soon as he couldn't see me, he cried the most heartbroken, high pitched (but soft) little cry. It was so sad. I have to keep talking if I'm going to be where he can't see me.

relocating via airplane

2012-02-06T15:01:00.001-06:00

For those of you who don't follow Maisha Kamili, we have reached our initial fundraising goal and will be moving to Kenya on February 29. Fundraising is ongoing, as we don't yet have enough to buy land or build the children's home. We do have enough to establish ourselves in country and begin looking for a location.

We looked into the cost of shipping a palette or crate of our stuff over there. We learned that it is cheaper to buy all new furniture (and stuff!) in Kenya. Our luggage allowance is 2 51-lb checked bags each for Rodgers, Nate, and myself and 1 20ish-lb checked bag for Ben (he doesn't have his own seat). All of us get one carry-on bag and one "personal item." This sounds like a lot of bags until you consider that this will be *all* of our possessions that we're taking with us. I much prefer traveling light, with only bare minimum essentials, but our bare minimum is quite a bit more this time than if we were just taking a trip.

As the mom and wife, it is my job to organize, plan, test, and pack. We have 2 checked bags planned, test packed, weighed, and repacked. We have 2 checked bags that are partially packed, but not completely because we are still using some things that will go in them. And the remaining 2 checked bags plus the carry-ons are thus far only planned. We aren't planning to use Ben's checked bag allowance, but we do have a bag set aside just in case we have an extra 20 lbs of stuff we want to take with us. It's also possible we may prioritize one or two bags as "nice to have" rather than "essential" and leave them with someone to bring to us. This would make transferring terminals in Nairobi less stressful.

Three scenarios for when we arrive:

Scenario 1, which has been our Plan A, is to have a rent house waiting for us when we land. Our nephew will secure it on our behalf and put a bed and a case of bottled water in it for us so that we can survive the first night (we arrive around midnight). Day 1 in Kenya, we have to get phones and internet connection, buy a refrigerator, stove, beds for the boys, basic cookware, dishes, cutlery, and linens. The remainder of the week would be spent shopping for the next-highest priority appliances, furniture, and furnishings.

Scenario 2, which is looking better and better, is that we go to a hotel when we first get there. In this scenario we don't have to do so much shopping right off the bat, but we would have to move again once we have a rent house, and of course we'd have expenses for the hotel. However, we would be able to see and choose the rent house ourselves. We could stay in the hotel for the first few days we have the rent house so that we can get essentials moved in before we move ourselves in.

Scenario 3 would be like scenario 2, except that we'd live with someone. Living with people is not preferred, but it is cheaper than a hotel!

results are in

2012-01-17T10:59:00.003-06:00

At his birthday party, trying to make a 2 with his fingers.

With Nate and Ben being exactly 20 months apart, their 2-year and 4-months (respectively) well child appointments were due at the same time. Since we've moved, we had to get a new doctor, who fortunately had two back-to-back appointments available so that we could do them both at the same time.

Nate screamed the entire time anyone, nurse or doctor, was touching him, regardless of what they were doing. We talk about these things, we watch videos of Sesame Street characters getting checkups, we weigh and measure him at home (on the bathroom scale and the wall), the doctor talked to us for a long time before attempting to interact with Nate, and he tried to interact with Nate several different ways before touching him (and Rodgers was holding him the whole time), but outside of Nate's comfort zone at home, he's having nothing of it. At least I don't worry that he would quietly wander off with a stranger/kidnapper at the store. He has a stranger alarm, and it is loud.

He is growing great, still a roughly average boy, though he is a bit tall compared to his weight. His head remains 95th percentile, and we expected nothing less. He still outgrows the neck-hole of a pullover shirt before it's too small.

I found this formula online: Girl's height at 24 months x 1.92 = her adult height; boy's height at 24 months x 2.04 = his adult height. Based on this, Nate would be 6' 0.5" as an adult.

I don't know why, but I love this serious expression on his face.

Ben loved all the attention he got from the nurses and doctor. He got two shots and an oral vaccine. He thought he was playing with the nurse until she gave him the first shot. Then, he looked at me, confused and betrayed. He only cried a little.

Though he started out life much smaller than Nate did, he has now outgrown his brother in all three dimensions. (This is comparing their 4 month old sizes.) He is slightly bigger than average in weight and height. He has the same 95th percentile head that his brother does.

The doctor gave us the go-ahead to start solids anytime. We haven't started yet, but we will in the next couple of weeks. Though he noticed Ben's teething symptoms, he said we're probably still 2 or 3 weeks away from the tooth actually coming in.

The doctor was impressed with our kids and our parenting skillz, which makes me proud. :)

No sir, Ben!

2012-01-12T16:27:00.000-06:00

Ben is grabby these days. He grabs on to anything he can. He holds his paci, burp cloth, and toys. He grabs my shirt and hair. When I'm feeding him, he holds on to the back of the chair with one hand and my fingers with the other. He grabs Nate anytime Nate is within range.

Nate is in a "No! It's MIIIIIIIIIINE!" phase. You'd think the whole world belongs to him. We are working on the words "share" and "take turns" and things like, "No, Nate, that's Mama's but you may use it."

Today, after eating, Ben was sitting in my lap. Nate came over and gave Ben a big hug. Ben loved it, giggled, and grabbed Nate's arm. Nate did not like that.

"No it's MYYYYYYYY arm! No sir, Ben!"

He shook his finger at Ben.

"No sir! It's my arm! It's my clothes! No sir, Ben!"

Poor Ben, being scolded before he's even hit 4 months old.

Ben

2012-01-10T21:39:00.005-06:00

I feel like I tend to say more about Nate than Ben, so here is a Ben update post.

Ben is nearly 4 months old (will be on Sunday). He continues to be an easy-going, happy baby. He is content to be held by anyone.

sitting with Gigi

He loves to be worn in any baby carrier, any style, as long as it's on my front. I've tried to put him on my back, and he cried the whole time. Maybe my back is awkward. Or bony. He is especially enjoying outward facing positions (either a kangaroo/Buddha carry or outward facing in the Baby Bjorn), so that he can see everything that's going on in the world. If he is overly tired for his nap, often the only way I can get him to sleep is in a front wrap cross carry.

Ben taking a nap while I watch Nate throw the frisbee

My favorite Ben thing at the moment is that he loves to stare at me. Creepy, maybe, but very sweet. He took a nap in the swing the other day, and woke up without a peep. I had that sensation of being watched and looked up from what I was doing. There Ben was, just staring at me from the swing. Seeing Rodgers walk into the room usually evokes a giggle. He is fascinated by watching Nate and their cousin play together, but it wears him out!

staring at me...

Ben doesn't roll over yet, but he is tolerating tummy time more and getting better at the mini-push-ups. He loves sitting up. He will sit in my lap, supported only by holding on to one of my thumbs.

exercising

He chews on anything he can get into his mouth. His and my fingers seem to be the easiest things, but he tries out toys, too.

He drools. A lot. I call him Slimer.

magnificent string of slime

He is quite a wonderful kid.

I break it.

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000-06:00

We had a hard time taking Nate off the bottle. He drank juice and water from sippy cups just fine, but milk had to be from a bottle. Eventually, we just put all the bottles away and let him deal with it. By then, he was eating enough to not need the milk anymore. About a week or so after we put the bottles away, he drank milk from sippy cups.

Then he started getting his 2 year molars, and he got attached to one special cup for milk.

from Amazon

The Nuk Learner cup - with handles. He didn't eat as much when he was teething. The spout of this cup is soft like a bottle nipple, but it's shaped like a sippy cup. He liked chewing on it. When his teeth were hurting and he was hungry, he wanted his special milk cup.

And one day he stopped drinking milk out of anything besides that cup. We bought a spare spout because his teething efforts were wearing out the original. I threw away the original spout in November. We started trying to get him to drink milk out of other cups, but he would not.

The week before Christmas, not long after we opened our Christmas gifts, he broke the replacement spout. He has not drank milk since.

It's a bit inconvenient because when he got fussy before, a cup of milk in his milk cup settled him down like nothing else. On the other hand, it's good because he has not been constipated since he stopped drinking milk.

It is sad, though. He will occasionally ask for milk, then remember and say, "Where's your cup? I break it."

best of 2011

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-06:00

Here is what we did this year:

January

We celebrated Nate's first birthday January 15. The very next day, we found out that baby #2 was on his way!

February

We played in the snow, Nate worked on learning to walk, and I tried to hide my morning sickness because we weren't ready to go public with the news yet.

March

We celebrated our second anniversary this year with a quiet weekend in a small town bed and breakfast. Nate started walking for real and found a love for stacking blocks. We made our baby announcement and got lots of "wow! so soon! you'll have your hands full." I also started working again.

April

We got our second look at Ben, and now he looked like a baby! We found out that he is a he, and I started trying to get Rodgers to talk baby names. Nate was (and is) still attached to Black Monkey and Orange Monkey.

May

We worked on teaching Nate to be gentle with his baby brother. We visited my grandparents and met my brother and sister-in-law (who was also pregnant) there. As the year progressed, we did more and more groundwork for Maisha Kamili.

June

We got to experience many joys of toddler-hood, such as refusal to eat (and then eating the very thing he wouldn't even touch 30 minutes later just because it came from Baba's plate) and a major sleep regression. This was a super freaking hot summer. I survived only because of tank tops, a/c (which couldn't really keep up with the heat), and ice water. In June, Nate and I took a roadtrip by ourselves to go to his cousin's birthday party, his cousin who is now a big sister!

July

Nate moved up to the toddler class at daycare and started bringing home artwork - how fun!! He also got a little potty. Baby brother being born and us moving took us back a few steps in potty training, but now we are making progress once again. Also, our friend Mwangome visited us from Kenya.

August

I lost my job again in August. I looked for another one, but really, who would hire someone this pregnant? We spent early mornings in the park before the sweltering heat hit us - by 10 am it would be too hot.

September

Though it was a major change in our lives, switching to cloth diapers wasn't the biggest thing that happened in September. ;) Ben was born! Tragedy also happened in September - my grandparents' home (where my parents also lived part time) burned, along with over 1000 other homes in a major wildfire. (The trees in that picture are all burned and dead.)

October

As we adjusted to being a family of four, which seems to have been the hardest for Nate, we were also packing, moving, unpacking, and adjusting to living in a new place and having new schedules. Nate helped with chores like sweeping and putting away dishes.

November

Life began to quiet down a bit in November. We started getting into a routine, balancing Rodgers' new work schedule and both boys' individual schedules. We took this really awful family photo, trying to get a shot of us to use on a prayer card for Maisha Kamili (see the Christmas post), which by this time was only a week or so away from being an official non-profit organization in the State of Texas.

December

Ben was dedicated in our church this month, along with 4 other babies. He is starting to put things in his mouth. He's drooling like mad, so we suspect he may be trying to grow some teeth. We celebrated Christmas as a family of four, then spent Christmas weekend with my family - parents, brother, sister-in-law, their two kids, sister, brother-in-law, and their son. There is a picture of all of us somewhere but I haven't seen it online yet (hint, hint).

cloth diapers from my perspective

2011-12-28T15:21:00.000-06:00

I learned about modern cloth diapering on the internet. My mom used cloth diapers back in the day (flats) but these days things are much different (though flats are still an option).

I have read many pro/con lists about cloth diapers. Very rarely is there much on the con list. This is not because there are no cons to cloth diapers. I suspect it is because cloth diapering mamas feel that they are constantly defending their choice to people who think cloth diapers are gross. They are reluctant to admit that there are any cons to cloth diapers lest the skeptics get an upper hand in the debate.

Here is cloth diapering from my perspective. It is long, so I will highlight the main ideas:

Cost (pro – cloth is cheaper)

While a 2 day supply of cloth diapers costs way more than a 2 day supply of disposables, said 2 day supply of cloth can be washed every other day and reused over and over and over again.

We were given some cloth diapers, and we bought some used. A lot of people gave us gifts of money for Ben’s birth, which we used to buy diapers, the only thing we really needed for him since we still have all of Nate’s baby clothes and gear. What we actually spent out of pocket was about $150.

If we were to buy all of our diapers up front, the route I’d take:
For small size:

2 dozen infant premium prefolds: $36
6 size one Thirsties Duo Wrap: $73.50

For larger size through potty training:

Total: $217.49

And these can be used for more than one kid. "They" estimate that using disposable diapers on one kid costs about $1500.

Cuteness (pro – cloth diapers are cute, if you’re into that sort of thing)

Not that it matters, they're just a catcher for poop and pee.

Green-ness (pro – it is more environmentally friendly, not that I know anything about the environment)

Disposable diapers go into landfills. A single baby uses TONS of them.

Pee Leaks (neutral – we have less leaks at night but more during the day for Nate; same leakiness for Ben)

We started using cloth diapers at night. Nate had been overflowing his diapers every night. After some experimentation, we found a cloth solution that he rarely overflows at night. He does still have leaks during the day.

Ben has pee leaks equally in cloth and disposables. He has a knack for peeing out the front of the left leg hole and the back of the diaper at the same time. I’m not really sure how he manages those two in combination, but he does – in every kind of diaper.

Diaper rashes (neutral – no difference for Nate, no difference for Ben compared to certain brands of disposables)

Nate had his first diaper rash at 18 months, in disposables. He has had that same kind of rash in cloth as well. Ben had some blisters caused by Up & Up diapers when he was newborn, but did not have that rash in Huggies or cloth.

Most diaper rash creams will cause problems for cloth diapers. There are creams that are cloth diaper safe. Ben has not needed them so far. Nate has.

Grossness (con – cloth diapers stink and there is lots more rinsing of poop)

Many have told me that cloth diapers do not smell bad. I’m not sure at what point cloth diapers are supposed not to stink, perhaps only when they are clean. When we first started using them, I could tell (by smell) as soon as Nate peed. I had to hold my breath while loading the washing machine because the stench is so strong. Poop smell escapes from them much more strongly as well. I have adapted, though. I don’t smell them as much now.

Then, there's the poopy diapers. Before starting solids, baby poop is water soluble, and some people just through it straight into the washing machine, no rinsing. I can't do that. I rinse all of Ben's poopy diapers (as well as Nate's of course). The argument is that I'd be having to rinse poop out Ben's clothes if he were in disposables because of poop blowouts, to which I say: a) not every day (much less a few times per day) and b) not after he starts solids and his poop becomes more firm. I'll be rinsing poop out of at least one cloth diaper every day until Ben stops pooping or is potty trained.

Laundry (con – twice as many loads per week)

Each week, I wash one load of towels, one load of sheets, one load of light clothes, and one load of darks. Add to that a load of diapers on Tuesdays, another on Thursdays, and two on Sundays (three days’ worth is too much for one load). Using cloth diapers doubles the amount of laundry I do each week.

Time (con – using cloth takes more time than disposables)

Someone said that washing a load of diapers doesn’t take much more time than running out to the store to buy a box of disposables. I say, it takes a lot more time. I’m at the store at least once a week anyway and would pick up diapers while I’m there (thus it takes no extra time). Plus, I have never had to buy diapers three times in a single week. And, we always bought diapers before running out. There were never any late night trips to a 24-hour store just to buy some diapers. Even if there were, it would take far less time than doing a load of laundry, especially cloth diapers which require a pre-wash, extra rinse, and the very absorbent materials take time to dry, then pocket diapers need to be stuffed.

Bottom Line (pro – I like cloth diapers)

We did not choose to switch to cloth because of pro/con lists. My mother asked me if we were going to take cloth diapers with us to Kenya since there are no landfills there, they use more of a trash-heap-in-the-middle-of-town method of waste management.

I remembered our trip to Kenya when Nate was six months old. We often had to carry dirty diapers with us until we found somewhere to throw them away. The locals would expect us to throw them in the street. To pack lighter, we decided to buy diapers when we got to Kenya rather than take all we needed with us. I hate the Kenyan disposable diapers. They only come in two sizes, and they just aren’t very good.

Considering these two things, I suggested to Rodgers that we switch to cloth when we move to Kenya. He trusts my judgment very much and didn’t question me at all, but said that if I thought cloth would be best then that’s what we’d do.

We got a few hand-me-down diapers from some friends to give us a sample and find out what we liked. We ordered a few diapers here and there to try some other kinds. And we did start trying them. Then, I surprised myself. I started to like using cloth diapers. I like the fact that I’m not throwing away $20 x 2 every three weeks to diaper two kids with disposables. In fact, I like that so much that I don’t even use disposable wet wipes anymore. In fact, I like it so much that I’ve stopped using tampons in favor of a reusable alternative (the Diva Cup). Not to mention the fact that I had need of those our last trip to Kenya as well, but there were none to be found. Not to mention the fact that I gave it a chance and found it to be revolutionary. Throwing things away is so much more convenient than washing and reusing, but I am loving the $aving$ (see what I did there? Clever, right?) of reusables.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-06:00

2011 Christmas card

Grace and peace to you this Christmas season!
Looking back over the past year, we cannot help but be amazed at how richly God has blessed us.
We are now living at Camp. As we’re preparing to move to Kenya (details forthcoming in this letter), Rodgers was able to get a flexible job here. He gets to be home more and is able to take time off as needed for moving-to-Kenya related appointments. Living here also allows Rachel to stay home with our two sons, which is a dream come true.
We welcomed our second dear son into our family this year. Benjamin Richard was born September 15. He is a very healthy and happy baby! We are enjoying watching him discover the world and grow out of all of his clothes.
Our firstborn, Nathanael, will be two years old in January. He is a spirited child and brings so much joy to our lives. He loves Elmo, his stuffed monkeys, the color red, the number seven, “Jesus Loves Me,” and his baby brother.
We have long had a dream or vision to move to Kenya and establish a home for street kids. January 1 of this year, our pastor encouraged us to begin writing a document about our vision. We wrote and rewrote for over a month before we had something we’d let other people read. The writing of that initial proposal was only the first step.
We now have established a non-profit organization in the state of Texas called Maisha Kamili (Full Life). It is headed up by a board of six trustees. Their purpose is to support a children’s home that will be established in Mombasa, Kenya. We are getting ready to go, with a tentative departure date in late January 2012.
The children’s home in Kenya does not exist yet. We are starting from scratch. Our goal is to have churches, individuals, and families partner in ministry with Maisha Kamili. There are many different ways to join in. We have a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/abunchofgrapes.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. Much love!

Maisha Kamili prayer card

good news(es)

2011-12-22T12:06:00.000-06:00

If one is "good news" is two "good newses?"

Number one

our starter stash

When we were ready to have Nate in cloth diapers 100%, we only had enough diapers to last one day. We had been making our stash last 48 hours by supplementing with disposables. My goal was to have enough to last 72 hours, though we would ideally do laundry every 48. That would give us some wiggle room if drying took longer or if we weren't able to wash right on time every time. We did have enough prefolds that we could have stretched our stash that way, but he was very resistant to wearing prefolds, and rather than fight him, we would just go with disposables.

We didn't have the budget to get enough good, new diapers, so I stalked our local Craigslist for a couple of weeks, looking for used diapers. We ended up buying 21 Sunbaby diapers for $1 each. These are horrible, leaky diapers. But, that many, for that price, I decided we could change Nate every 90 minutes if needed. And we did need to. I ended up replacing the microfiber inserts with microfiber car-washing towels. Two of those, trifolded, and we could go 2 hours between changes, which is about how often I change him even in good diapers. But I still hate them.

Nate's and Ben's diapers, Sunbaby included (minus 4 or 5 that were not clean at the time of the photo)

Gradually, we've been adding new diapers to our stash, in ones and twos. Also, with potty training, Nate will usually be in undies when we're home. So we need a smaller stash, but still end up using one or two Sunbaby diapers each day. This week, I ordered possibly the last diapers we need in our stash (assuming Nate potty trains before Ben outgrows size smalls). We don't have to use the Sunbaby diapers anymore!!

Number two

Losing weight post-Ben has been slower going than losing weight post-Nate. Also, I was a size larger after Ben was born than after Nate. Imagine my surprise when my post-Ben jeans started feeling loose! I just went through my bin of post-Nate clothes, and almost all of them fit! At 3 months post-Ben I am the size I was at 6 weeks post-Nate.

My wardrobe has just doubled. Happy birthday to me!

new header

2011-12-20T22:07:00.003-06:00

Hey look! I put new pics in the header - it now includes Ben!

Christmas traditions

2011-12-18T11:50:00.000-06:00

I began thinking of Christmas traditions for our family when Rodgers and I got married. Now that we have 2 kids (and measures taken for no more), it's time to start these traditions!

Advent calendar
I love advent calendars, as I've mentioned in Christmases past. I have one now, a fabric one with pockets for each day. It's lost right now, but we will find it! I have 25 little ornaments, one for each day, and slips of paper with scripture references to be read when we put the new ornament on. Usually, I forget about it for a few days, and we end up doing 3 or 4 at once. I don't know whether we'll be able to find a Christmas tree in Kenya, but we will for sure find somewhere to put our ornaments!

Gifts
Of course we will give gifts. I don't really like the idea of really big gifts. I prefer small gifts that the boys will enjoy, but not things that they really need. We're going to buy them what they need regardless of gift-giving occasions. I like stockings and stocking stuffers. Last year I filled Nate's stocking with books (which I got second hand via Goodreads book swap). I want to do this again, however, with our upcoming move, it isn't practical. We are going to get a Kindle Fire before we leave, and we can get picture books for it. So even though it won't be in the stockings this year, we are going to "give" each of our boys some picture books on the Kindle. For now, Ben's stocking has a few baby toys in it (all of his clothes are hand-me-downs, I decided we could get rid of Nate's baby toys that I didn't love and get Ben some new ones). Nate's stocking has Elmo pjs (he doesn't have any in this size yet) and Elmo sunglasses.

Cookies
I like cookies! I like to bake them and eat them. Last year, I found a gingerbread cookie recipe that I really like. I baked them again last night. My glaze turned out horrible this time, but the gingerbread men aren't falling apart as much as they did last year. I've put them in the freezer to save for Christmas weekend. Maybe when I thaw them, I can try to re-glaze them. This may be a tradition.

23 and 3

2011-12-15T11:20:00.000-06:00

My boys are 23 months and 3 months old today. Surely it hasn't been that long since Nate went through his 19 month sleep regression and got us in practice again for middle-of-the-night newborn feedings. Surely Ben isn't old enough to grin, giggle, hold up his own head, and weigh 16 lbs, right? The days may be long, but the months are fast!

Nate is still tall and thin. He wears 2T, but if he's not in double-stuffed cloth diapers, the pants fall off of him. I do have some clips to put on the waistbands to cinch them up, but I forget... He's wearing undies more and more, though. So far, he never wears pants with them - he just wears them when we're home for a few hours. He is peeing on the floor less, so we may be ready to brave undies with pants very soon. He repeats everything, and occasionally he even uses complete sentences. We took the side rail off his crib yesterday to convert it into a toddler bed. However, we don't have a toddler bed rail. He has fallen out of his bed once. It was nice this morning, though, that when he woke up at 5:30, instead of yelling for someone to come get him, he just crawled up in bed with us and slept for another hour. He fell out of our bed, too. Good thing he's tough!

His favorite thing to do (besides watch Sesame Street and Dinosaur Train) is play outside. He likes to kick a little soccer ball around and throw frisbees (which he calls frizzy). If we go somewhere without a frisbee, we get about 80 seconds down the road, and he will say, "Aw, man! I forgot the frizzy!"

Ben is wearing 3-6 month clothes. I think he is bigger than Nate was at 3 months, though he was smaller at birth. He is getting into more of a schedule. He usually goes to bed between 7 and 9 pm and is up for the day between 5 and 7 am. He wakes up once in the night to eat. He sleeps between every bottle, which he likes to have every 2.5-3 hours during the day. We still feed him on demand. He takes a long nap in the morning and another in the afternoon. His other naps are just short catnaps. He likes to fall asleep in the swing, but he sleeps well in the pack and play bassinet. He is semi-swaddled at night (arms only). He loves for me to carry him in the wrap or Baby Bjorn. For a few weeks, he would only take a long nap in the wrap - glad we've outgrown that phase!

He is starting to reach for things, such as the baby in the mirror. I keep putting little toys in his hands for him to play with. They fascinate him, but I don't think he realizes he is holding them. He gets very mad when he accidentally grabs his own paci and takes it out of his mouth.

January is a big month! 2 years and 4 months old, here we come.

Christmas shopping

2011-11-23T10:19:00.001-06:00

Yesterday while we were picking up a few things I'd forgotten we needed for tomorrow, I asked Nate if he wanted to pick something out to go with what we're giving his cousins for Christmas. I wasn't going to let him run wild through the toy department; I directed him toward some simple, inexpensive options.

He picked out something cute and girly for Lauren (I did show him girly options for her) and a blue glittery bouncy ball with stars on it "for James," or so we said. He carried it all the way home, and I kept reminding him that we were going to give that to James. He agreed. Once we got home, before I could wrench it out of his hands, he promptly took a bite out of the ball, got it all muddy outside, and lost it.

This is not the way Christmas presents work, my dear.

our cute game

2011-11-04T11:50:00.002-05:00

Nate and I have been playing a cute game. We look at a picture, and I ask him about who is in the picture, but I ask him about people who aren't there.

"Is it Gigi?"
"No! Coo-coo!" (That's Cookie Monster.)

"Is it Baba?"
"No! On Keer!" (Aunt Claire)

So he's sipping a Gerber Grabbers banana and blueberry thingy right now. He just took it out of his mouth and pointed at the picture on the front.

"Baba? No! Fwoot! Mama? No! Fwoot!" (That's fruit.)

here's hoping there's no such thing as jinxing

2011-11-01T08:45:00.003-05:00

I am almost ready to say with certainty that we have come through Nate's sleep regression for real. At the worst, he was getting up several times a night and wouldn't go to bed awake. We were rocking him to sleep. At the time, we didn't care if it was spoiling him, we just wanted him to sleep! When B was 3 weeks old, we got Nate to fall asleep in bed on his own again. It was kind of like sleep training all over again. Three weeks later, he started sleeping through the night consistently. Life is beautiful again!

moved.

2011-10-27T14:45:00.000-05:00

A while back I had blogged about purging our unused/unneeded possessions. As we were packing to move, we purged even further. Being that we moved into a furnished apartment, we went to the extreme of selling most of our furniture. It really feels good to be free of things. As a result, we moved in Friday, I have a toddler and an infant, my husband hasn't been here most of the time (he's still working at his old job and camping out at the old apartment this week), and I only have 2 boxes that are not unpacked. Not that I'm such a good unpacker, we just didn't have much.

Nate and his cousin chasing each other around the kitchen island at cousin's house.

Nate is loving living in the country (our new home is an apartment in a barn at a retreat center/camp). He gets to play outside all the time. His cousin lives right down the road. Nate is a bit too rough for his cousin sometimes, but they usually play really well together. He is sleeping better at night, which I think is him coming out of the 18-20 months sleep regression (at 21 months, but I think he started it at 19). He is still a handful, still throws fits, still refuses to eat sometimes - he's still a toddler after all. However, things are going better with him. It's a one bedroom apartment, so his crib is in our bedroom. There is also a bunkbed in there, and we are going to try to get him used to a big boy bed soon. We just thought that he would make the move transition easier if he had his familiar bed to sleep in.

The living room is big, and we are using the loveseat with a bookcase behind it as a partition to make Ben's bedroom on one end. At 6 weeks old, he is starting to get on a schedule. This is all new since last week. He is up for the day around 5:30 (4:50 yesterday). I've tried to get him to eat/play/sleep during the day, but usually it's eat/play/eat/sleep repeat. He has been taking a good afternoon nap about the same time as Nate's. It didn't happen yesterday, but he did Monday and Tuesday and today! He gets fussy and cluster-feeds starting about 7 pm and goes to bed around 9. He gets up to eat once during the night (it had been 2 or 3 times).

Rodgers will start his new job here at the camp on Monday. What will he be doing? I really don't know. :)

My c-section recovery has been a breeze. I am feeling great! I need to buy some new pants because my hips are bigger now than they were right after Nate was born. I can barely squeeze into my old pants and they look horrible. I have only one pair of jeans and one pair of black dress pants that fit well.

Next item on my agenda: establish a new schedule for us.

stay home and eat all the freaking chips

2011-10-18T21:14:00.001-05:00

QOTW with a personalized twist: Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been [cuddling this cute baby] all day long...

Also, check out his tiny shoes!!

Well, maybe I haven't been cuddling him all day long. Lots of packing going on, too. And of course playing with Nate. We're moving soon. I'll be back for real then.

2011-10-04T21:24:00.000-05:00

Two kids. Moving = 3 weeks. Life busy. No bloggy.
Some pics:

September 2011

October 2011

Ben

2011-09-20T21:19:00.001-05:00

Benjamin Richard

We checked in last Thursday morning at 7:30 for the c-section. They took us back a few minutes before 9 and told us that we'd been bumped, as had the first scheduled c-section of the day, due to emergencies early that morning. Nurses came in and out of the room, gradually getting me prepped. Around 11:40 or so, they took me to the OR.

Rodgers had to stay in the recovery room until we were ready to go. It was 11:53 when we started, and Ben was born at 12:03. There was a bit of excitement as Ben tried to swim away from the Dr when she was delivering him. It was a completely relaxed, uncomplicated c-section. I had a spinal, but could feel movement and pressure. I did feel Ben trying to climb inside my ribcage.

When Ben was born, the Dr told us that he was still a boy and that he was awake, alert, and looking around. I imagine they were sucking fluid from his mouth and nose with a bulb syringe like they did with Nate. Then, he started crying, and I did, too.

They brought him around for me to see, then carried him off to clean up and get checked out. Rodgers made sure I was ok, then went with them. When they had Ben wrapped up, they gave him to Rodgers, and he brought him to me and laid him down on the table with me. Another 30 minutes, and we were back in the recovery room. I got to hold Ben as we transferred.

No one was expecting him to be small. Ben was 7 lbs 8 oz at birth, and 19" long (though I was sure I heard them say 19.5", and that's what I told everyone the first day). He's 1 oz shy of a full 2 lbs smaller than Nate was at birth. He is so tiny! He is long, but super skinny. Our NB clothes are way baggy on him. I am glad that we went ahead and got some NB clothes (some hand-me-downs and some new), despite expecting him to be close to Nate's size and not needing them much.

Here are Rodgers' pics from birthday.

Nate is adjusting to having a baby brother. He likes to love on Ben when Ben is upset. But if Ben is happy, and we are paying attention to him (i.e. feeding him), Nate gets very jealous.

My recovery is easier than I expected. Ben is eating well and sleeping well (for a newborn). He doesn't sleep well at the right times of the day for us to sleep well, but we are coping with that. Nate had us well prepared due to his recent sleep regression (which really has been better). Today, Ben's been waking up to eat every couple of hours, but is otherwise passed out, except for a brief time this morning when he got a sponge bath (in the kitchen of course).

in the meantime

2011-09-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

I am writing this post in advance, scheduling it to be published tomorrow, September 15.

Today is the day! BB should be born any minute now. I will be publishing his beautiful baby pics as soon as I care about my blog again, but in the meantime, for your viewing pleasure, here is a slideshow of my growing baby belly, which should be (mostly) gone by the time you're reading this. :)

From 12-18 weeks, I was excited enough to be taking pictures weekly. From 20-34 weeks, I was tired, lost enthusiasm, and only took pictures every other week. The last month, I took pictures weekly again because I was growing exponentially...

And a comparison: (left) the night before Nate was born, 41 weeks; (right) the night before BB will be born, 39 weeks.

last week

2011-09-08T14:44:00.000-05:00

Not as in the week preceding this one, but as in the last week of pregnancy. It's here. At once it seems too fast and like we will never make it to Sept 15.

I suddenly feel huge. This is what I think of as the "beached whale" phase. My big chair + ottoman + 6 pillows is about as comfortable as I can be at this point, but it's going to take me awhile to get up! It's a series of wiggles and flops until I work myself to the edge of the chair and lean over until my weight is all on my feet. Nate is frustrated because he wants me to hold him and rock him in the rocking chair before bed, but I have no where to put him. This would be a really great time for him to have a big boy bed because we could just lay in his bed and cuddle, but he's still in the crib. The majority of my maternity clothes no longer fit. Shorts and capris don't fasten; tops aren't long enough. It's a good thing I only have a week to go! But don't be surprised if I wear the above outfit every day for the next 7 days. It's very stretchy. :)

I was just reading my post from 38 weeks last time. It's pretty much the same this time, except that I am sleeping better than I was then. Not sleeping great, but I'm not up all night like I was before Nate was born. So that's a plus. Also, I haven't gained as much weight but at this point, the difference in weight gain = what I didn't lose between pregnancies.

Anyway. I'm ready.

In other news (and this is about bathroom stuff)...

I've learned a lot about cloth diapers. I am working on building up a stash. I have a few different types and brands already, and a few more coming in the mail. I was a bit reluctant when we decided that this really would be the best thing, but now I'm actually excited about it! (Of course I'm excited about the shopping and new stuff, but I don't think that's all I'm excited about.) Also, Mom wants to make me some covers, and that's exciting, too!

Nate is making progress in daytime potty training. He says "pee" and "potty" now, but he doesn't tell me he needs to go. He just says "pee" if he sees himself peeing, and he says "potty" if I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty. I have a few pull on training pants for him, which will make sitting on the potty less trouble, but we aren't using them because I haven't washed them yet. I've just been letting him sit on the potty before I change his diaper. He tries to pee every time, even if he doesn't really need to, because he LOVES peeing.

cookies for Nate

2011-09-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

I think I may have mentioned that Nate tends to be constipated. It doesn't help that he looooooves food that stops him up even more. In an attempt to remedy his last bout of constipation, I looked up some constipation cookie recipes. One recipe was really yummy, but he wouldn't eat them. He at least tasted them. I tried bran muffins, but he wouldn't even touch them. So I took a recipe he loves already and made some adjustments. This is based on Quaker's Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe.

1 stick of margarine, softened
1/2 cup pureed prunes (this is about 2 plastic tubs of Gerber 1st Foods prunes)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup black strap molasses
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups oats
1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350
Beat together margarine, prunes, sugars, and molasses until creamy
Add eggs and vanilla; beat well
Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well
Stir in oats and raisins; mix well
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown
Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet; remove to wire rack

He loves them. And they help him stay semi-regular. Sometimes I let him have one for breakfast. I haven't calculated the nutritional value, but I figure they're better for him than cereal... The other recipe I tried subbed the sugar 100% with molasses and honey and the butter 50% with pureed prunes and 50% with peanut butter. They would be more healthy, but what's the point if he doesn't eat them? Rodgers and I liked them, but the texture was a little off.

My little secret: I divide the dough in half before adding the raisins, then add raisins to half of it for Nate and chocolate chips to the other half for me. :)

QOTW: Me not *take* cookies, me *eat* the cookies.

projects

2011-08-27T21:00:00.001-05:00

Now that I'm not working, I have projects, as if having a toddler, managing our household, and being pregnant weren't enough.

One project is looking for a new job. I know no one will hire someone who is 18 days away from delivering a baby, but I'm still looking. I have 2 other big projects, both of which involve the boys, as the two of them consume my life these days.

Baby carrier (project accomplished)
We have a Baby Bjorn and a sling from when Nate was a baby.

I liked the Baby Bjorn once Nate was big enough to not need the head support. He didn't like the head support part; he wanted to be able to see around. But once he could ride in it facing forward, he was content in it. I would not have survived our trip to England/Kenya last summer without it! Also, I lost an inch off my waist and hips during that trip, which I attribute to carrying Nate in the Baby Bjorn for all those endless hours in the airports.

The sling is the type that was pulled off the shelves last year because if a baby is cradled in it, they have no head/neck support and can't breathe. Some babies died. When I put Nate in it as the instructions showed, I could tell he was having trouble breathing, so I didn't use it that way. Once he was too big to be comfortable (for me) in the Baby Bjorn, I used the sling as a hip carrier. He loved it like that, even more than the Baby Bjorn. You know how a dog goes crazy if you touch their leash because they think they're going out for a walk? That's how Nate reacted if I went near the sling. So if I didn't put it away as soon as I was done using it, I had to wait until he was not in the room.

All that to say: we don't really have a baby carrier that's good for a newborn. If I go out alone with both of them, I will need Nate in the stroller (he loves to walk but can't be trusted, especially if I have my hands full of BB), and BB would be best in a carrier. We are hoping to get a double stroller, but BB won't be big enough for it for a few months. I decided I wanted a wrap. Then I decided not to pay all that money and to just buy some knit fabric to use as a wrap. Hobby Lobby had some very turquoise jersey with brown polka dots on sale. I got 4 5/8 yards (recommended was 5 yards, but there was a hole in the fabric, so that's the longest piece I could get, unless I would choose plain brown fabric), and cut a 20" strip off the side. I learned the classic front cross carry last night. Even with my big belly, the fabric is long enough to wrap and tie, and I can fit a teddy bear in it.

Diapers (project in research phase)
I actually really like using disposables. However, it makes more sense to use cloth in Kenya. They have disposables you can buy, but we're beginning to think we don't want to create that much trash in Kenya. If you've been to Mombasa, you have seen what becomes of trash there. So I've been reading a lot on the internet, learning all kinds of things about cloth diapers. It was overwhelming at first, but I think I'm sort of catching on. I am enjoying the learning aspect so far.

We will stick with disposables for the immediate future. I'm not prepared to buy a bunch of cloth before BB is born. I think we'll start making the transition for him once he's out of the newborn stage.

Nate has no patience for having diapers put on him anymore. He is demonstrating more and more aspects of potty training readiness, except that he doesn't have regular BMs, he doesn't care if his diaper is wet (if I ask him if he needs a dry diaper and he isn't too busy playing, he will say "n'do" and run to the changing table), and he doesn't have words for anything related to the bathroom, just "die-die" for diaper. He loves sitting on his potty, though, and is amazed by watching himself pee. Anyway, my point is, I don't think we'll buy a full supply of cloth diapers for Nate. He may still need overnights when we get to Kenya, but I expect him to be fully in training pants or undies (a lofty goal) during the day. And since he has more tolerance of standing still for me to pull up his shorts than laying still for me to put a diaper on him, I am definitely ready for him to be in training pants. I don't have much energy for wrestling him these days.

QOTW: If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you're in there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and take it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you.

getting closer!!

2011-08-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

Apologies if you receive this in your reader twice. I tried to schedule the post last night so that I could just add my picture and updates today after my Dr appt, but Blogger decided to disregard the date and time I'd chosen for posting and posted it immediately. Ach!

How Far Along 35 weeks 6 days
How Big is Baby He could be 6 lbs and 18-20 in long. He should be pretty close to his birth length/height now, but will be packing on some baby fat in the coming weeks. This is why I feel like his legs are too long to possibly grow anymore.
Total Weight Gain 27 lbs
Sleep For the past few weeks, I feel like I'm carrying BB lower. The implication of that is twofold: I have an easier time breathing than I did with Nate because he's not under my ribs so much, and my bladder is more squished. I've been getting up two times a night to pee more and more often. Usually I fall asleep again fairly quickly, since I drug myself up with Benadryl at bedtime.
Best Moment this Week Nate and I sorted through BB's clothes (again), adding some new ones and making sure the NBs were separated from the 0-3s. I need him to start wearing these clothes. Once some are dirty, we have room for all of them. Nate "helped."
Movement He's a mover, but more laid back than Nate was. He does move often, and he is strong. People can see him moving through my clothes, from across the room, so that's kind of fun. He has been a frequent hiccupper, which indicates practice breathing, but last night I was able to feel a rhythmic rise and fall of practice breaths, with my hand resting on his little booty.
Belly Button Pretty much an outtie, and it has migrated to the underside of my belly. I have to crane my neck or look in the mirror to see it.
What I Miss Has it ever been springtime? It's been swelteringly hot for as long as I can remember. I think there was such a thing as cooler weather, and if that is true, that's what I miss. :P
Weekly Wisdom Letting your mom come stay with you to take care of your toddler and clean your house is a good idea!
Milestones The c-section is on the calendar: Sept 15. I will be 39 weeks 1 day. This is exactly 2 weeks earlier than Nate was born (41 weeks 1 day), and it's his 20 month birthday. Both my boys will have birthdays on the 15th of the month.

Having the c-section scheduled has a lot of people asking if Nate was born by c-section. With certain people I just say, "No, but it would have been better for us if he had been." I go more into details for other people. It brings a lot of pity that I had such a hard recovery after his delivery. It was miserably painful and would have been nice if I didn't have to experience that, but I know that the damage done to my body was a direct result of saving Nate's life. What happened was entirely unpredictable, as everything related to birth is. No one could have known that Nate would have so much trouble with my labor or that he would be strangled by the umbilical cord. Even if we had known what the fast delivery would do to me, we had to assume that an emergency c-section would take longer, putting Nate more at risk for brain damage and death from not getting enough oxygen. We still would have made the decision to pull him out with forceps in a hurry in order to save him.

That said, we're planning a c-section this time to prevent any additional damage to my pelvic floor. Knowing that anything's possible in giving birth to a child, that our bodies and our babies don't always follow our plans, we recognize that I could go into labor before the c-section. If I am progressed too far by the time we get to the hospital, we may not have time for a c-section. It's not ideal, but it could happen. Scheduling it 6 days before my due date gives him enough time to fully develop while also being early enough that I'm less likely to go into labor beforehand.

he knows

2011-08-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

I think all kids reach a point where they categorize people based on certain features. I am told that I ran up to a red-haired man in my grandparents' church when my dad (a redhead) wasn't there. Nate has been calling all black men "Baba" (what he calls Rodgers) for several weeks, especially if they have shaved heads, but he's not really that picky. He also will point to pictures of our friends and call the women Mama and the men Baba.

[from Amazon]

One of Nate's favorite bedtime books is Baby's Goodnight Blessings. It's one of our favorites, too, because it's a good bedtime prayer. The baby thanks God for Mama, Daddy, brother, sister, grandparents, dog, toys, trees, and more. On the Mama and Daddy page, the dad has red hair. Nate called him Gaga (what he calls his grandparents) at first, but after I told him that he was the baby's daddy, Nate now calls him Baba. He now calls the people on the grandparents page Gaga, even though they look nothing like his grandparents (they both have white hair). So I thought that we're making progress that he can understand some gagas don't have red hair and some babas do.

[from Amazon]

Nate always gets a new book at his checkups. One such book is Joshua's Night Whispers. Joshua is black, and his Daddy (the only other character in the book) is lighter, but maybe not white. He's more like Nate's skin color. To me, the text in this book is odd, but Nate loves it, so we read it 4 or 5 times before bed. Joshua gets scared at night, so he goes to get in bed with his daddy. No matter how many times I tell Nate, "This is Joshua, and this is Joshua's baba," he always points to Joshua and says, "Baba," then points to the dad and says, "Mama."

Nate knows that his dad has dark skin and his mom has light skin. He knows that his grandpa has red hair. He also knows that some dads can have red hair and not all grandpas do. He can tell the difference between a man and a woman. But, if a dark skinned and light skinned person are together, he still thinks the dark one is the dad and the light one is the mom, even if none of them are women and one of them is a child.

And people think that not talking to kids about race will keep them from making generalizations...
An interesting paper on this subject (this is a pdf): Children Are Not Colorblind: How Young Children Learn Race

cross cultural marriage: naming babies

2011-08-16T21:57:00.003-05:00

I haven't done a culture post in a long, long time. I've been busy being Mom, I suppose. Rodgers and I had this discussion again recently, so here it is for your enlightenment.

Naming conventions in Rodgers' tribe are extremely complex. Our generation has started to simplify things a bit, but still tradition is hard for me to grasp. He has explained their baby name system to me a gazillion times, and each time, I retain a tiny bit more. This is what I've got so far:

Everyone has a given name.
They do not have surnames as we do.
If someone's given name is a Gyriama or Swahili name, they may take an "English" name if they convert to Christianity. At that point, they may go by their English name followed by their given name, such as Rachel Furaha. Or they may go by their English name followed by their clan name (see #4); I haven't learned which is common.
Everyone is given a clan name, which is passed down from 2 generations ago and based on birth order. For example, Rodgers and his brothers are named for their father's paternal uncles (and father). Vita was the second born boy in that family, so all of the second born boys in Rodgers' generation have Vita as their clan name. Wishing to distinguish himself from his cousins, Rodgers spells his Vitah. Most people will use their clan name as their second name, since they do not use a surname. Girls would get their clan names from their father's maternal aunts (and mother), in birth order.
Our generation doesn't always follow the birth order in giving their children clan names. Also, they take the liberty of naming their children for the mother's side of the family if they choose. Progressive!
My father-in-law liked English names and many of his children (Rodgers included) have English names for given names. For a long time, I thought Vitah was Rodgers' given name, and he took the name Rodgers when he converted to Christianity. Not so. He never chose an English name because he already had one. My father-in-law had only a Gyriama name and never took an English name. He loved the name Joseph, though, and we suspect that if he had taken an English name, that would have been it. This is why Nate's middle name is Joseph.
By tradition, Nate's clan name should be the name of my father-in-law's oldest brother, and Baby Brother should be named for the second born. If Baby Brother were a girl, her clan name should be my mother-in-law's oldest sister. However, we aren't following tradition (see #5).
When Rodgers had his birth certificate and passport made, he used his father's given name as his surname, listing his clan name as his middle name. This is why Nate and I do not use the name Vitah. We use my father-in-law's given name as our surname. None of my brothers- or sisters-in-law do. By Kenyan tradition, it doesn't make sense for us to go by his name. The kids should go by Rodgers. I wouldn't legally change my name if I were Kenyan. I would be known as Rachel Rodgers or Mama Rodgers until our first child was born, at which point I'd become Mama Nathanael. But, Rodgers and I came to the conclusion that we should all have the same legal surname, just to simplify life. However, Kenyans don't know Rodgers by that name. He is still Rodgers Vitah to them.

more comparisons

2011-08-14T21:49:00.002-05:00

Being pregnant twice so close together makes it easy to compare things. It's all still fairly fresh in my mind. Plus, if I don't remember something, I can go back and look at my past blogs because I posted a lot about pregnant stuff last time, too. What's most noticeable is that, in general, I feel so much better this time around than with Nate. So I was perusing my past posts for more detailed comparison and found the symptoms list I'd posted last time with my comments...

_x_ moodiness I have more trouble being patient with Nate and Rodgers, and today I cried for most of an hour just because I was mildly upset, and then couldn't stop crying.
_x_ swollen feet/cankles I've been instructed to not tell people my feet/ankles are swollen. I typically have extremely bony feet and ankles, but right now they are more normal looking. Quite swollen for me.
_x_ outgrowing wedding rings Much earlier this time than last time, but when I increased my water intake, my finger swelling went down a lot. I still can't wear my wedding rings on my ring finger, though.
_x_ outgrowing maternity clothes I've only outgrown a few, not as drastic as last time, but I never even fit into my early maternity clothes from last time this time.
_x_ crazy weight gain I've gained way less than last time (so much less that I weigh less this week than the first time I was 34 weeks pregnant), but I'm still above average on the weight gain curve. I'm an overachiever, what can I say?
_x_ morning sickness It lasted until the day Nate was born last time, but only through 24 weeks of pregnancy this time. Wahoo!!
___ melasma
___ acne My complexion is awesome this time, not so much with Nate.
_x_ heartburn/indigestion/acid reflux More and more
_x_ Hemmorhoids Did not have them until after delivery with Nate, but I didn't luck out this time.
_x_ gas that could clear a room
_x_ going to the bathroom every 10 minutes I think I pee more often this pregnancy, but I'm also carrying this baby lower than Nate.
_x_ peeing yourself So much more than last time.
_x_ fatigue
_x_ insomnia Not as drastic as last time. I am still sleeping pretty well just taking 1 Benadryl at bedtime.
_x_ shortness of breath
_x_ general aches and pains (ribs, back, etc)
_x_ waddling I'm more of a waddler this time, but I attribute that to carrying lower.
_x_ restless leg syndrome
_x_ sciatica I did not experience this last time.
_x_ Braxton Hicks This started much earlier. I had my first timeable contractions at 38 weeks with Nate, 34 weeks with Baby Brother.
_x_ itchy skin
_x_ stretch marks I think they're the same ones Nate gave me, though.
___ varicose veins
___ gestational diabetes
___ high blood pressure
___ Preeclampsia
___ PUPP Thankfully I haven't had any of these last few issues with either pregnancy!

left: 34 weeks with Nate (this was from our official maternity photo shoot which we used on our Christmas card)
right: 34 weeks with BB (I love how the doorknob lines up with my belly button so that it looks like I have an extreme outtie.) And my hair is darker now, except for the hairs that have turned gray.

QOTW: Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

the neverending story

2011-08-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

alternate title: teething again.

I've suspected Nate of working on his 2 year molars for over a month now. He gets fussy, he gnaws on things, he hits himself in the head and says "Ow" (pedi said it was a classic sign of teething at this age).

This week has been especially bad. Thankfully, Gigi (that's my mom) was here to help this week. We don't have a guest room, so she bunked with Nate and got to do all the nighttime soothing when he woke up with his teeth hurting. We finally got Nate to let us check his mouth yesterday, and confirmed that the bottom molars have cut through! We're just waiting on the top ones now.

This morning, Nate was getting restless. He is almost out of diapers, so we loaded up and went to Target. When we got home, I fixed Nate his lunch - rice and beans. He ate a few bites, then started crying. This has happened during several mealtimes lately. I think he's hungry but his teeth are hurting so he doesn't want to eat. Usually the best solution is milk in a cup with a soft spout. He takes a few sips, then chews on the top, and repeat. It's soothing and fills his tummy.

So I filled his favorite soft spout cup with milk. His gallon of milk should have lasted a few more days, but he's been drinking more this week, and that was the last of his milk. I had a couple of Combo Loco online coupons for HEB that I'd forgotten to take with me grocery shopping this week, so I ran out to get milk and use my coupons. I came home to this:

He took some ibuprofen, finished his milk, and passed out. Poor sweet kid. The good news is that we've gotten him through 18 teeth of teething and have only 2 to go!

32 weeks

2011-07-29T22:31:00.001-05:00

Kind of sloppy this Friday night.

How Far Along 32 weeks 3 days
How Big is Baby over 3.5 lbs and about 16" long
Total Weight Gain 23 lbs.
Sleep Sleep has been better since I started taking Benadryl at bedtime. I have been waking up uncomfortable more often this week, but I'm sleeping very well in between those wake ups. Also, I'm having tons of odd dreams.
Best Moment this Week I thought Rodgers would make me wait until delivery to decide Baby Brother's name, but we had the talk this week, and we have a name! It's still a secret, but at least I know who this is now that's poking me with his tiny pointy elbows and knees.
Movement His movements are as frequent as always, but slower now. He can't stretch out all the way anymore. He has had his head in the lower left part of my belly. Then one day it was lower right. The next day it was upper right. Then, all in a matter of minutes I felt him flip and squirm and wiggle back to having his head on the lower left. He's filling up his space, but apparently still has room to explore.
Food Cravings I haven't had any really strong cravings lately.
Belly Button More out than in, but not quite an outtie
What I Miss Climbing the stairs without being out of breath
Weekly Wisdom If it's over 100 outside, it will not be under 80 in our apartment, even with the a/c running constantly. So drink more water!
Milestones I'm starting the 8th month, that's pretty significant! This month, the c-section will be put on the calendar. I'm about 7 weeks away from having 2 under 2.

Bonus pic of my #1 son:

18 months!!

2011-07-22T22:49:00.001-05:00

Nate has now been out in the world twice as long as he was in my belly. He is so old!! His 18 month appointment was this week, and here's what he's up to:

He is getting the hang of simple puzzles and the shape sorter. Last week, he could only put the circle in the shape sorter without help; the other shapes, he needed someone to show him which spot to put them in. This week, he's doing it all on his own. He has finally realized that the pictures in the puzzles match the pictures on the pieces, so he can tell where each piece should go. The hardest part is getting them turned straight. After each piece he gets in (even with some help turning), he claps and yells "YAY!!!!"

He has found a love for tickling his Mama and Baby Brother (and sometimes Baba). He gives his Baby Brother lots of hugs and kisses, but only after tickling him. We have been working on "gentle," and he seems to understand what it means.

Nate's really interested in body parts these days. He can point to seven, and he asks about all the rest. He points to something and asks, "What's that?" Then I name the body part. We play this game a lot. His favorite body parts to ask about are Rodgers' nipples, my belly button, and his own penis.

We have been planning to get rid of the paci soon. Then, his daycare teacher told me today she hasn't given him his paci for naps this week, and he's still napping great! These days he's chewing on it more than sucking anyway. His Dr confirmed that he is working on his next set of molars. To which I say: bring them on! Let's get those last teeth in before Baby Brother is born!

Nate's Dr is very satisfied with the way he's meeting milestones. She is impressed that she has only ever seen him for well-child visits. He's had lots of sniffles and a couple of low-grade fevers since going back to daycare, but his little immune system fights those germs very well! He always gets better before we feel like he needs to see his Dr. He only had one shot this time - Hep A - and he's basically done with the shots on the US schedule. At 24 months, he will probably be getting typhoid and yellow fever in preparation for moving to Kenya.

His size stayed in the same percentiles between his last appointment and this one. Basically, he's average height (32.5"), a little bit skinny (23 lbs 15 oz), with a big head (19.75"). He's wearing mostly 18 month clothes. He has a few longer, button up 12 month shirts he can still wear (most of the 12 month shirts wouldn't go over his head anymore before they got too short). He is in size 6 shoes and size 4 diapers.

a week in the lives of the Ken-Tex family

2011-07-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

No two weeks are the same for us. And this week, it seems no two days have the same schedule. This is why my Saturday weekly planning time is so important! With pregnant brain + mama brain I can't remember anything at all. I may have mentioned this before...

Sunday
We'll eat leftover sausage, biscuits, and gravy for breakfast, with coffee of course. Then, we have Bible study at 9:30 and worship service at church at 10:45. We will come home for lunch and reheat whatever I decide to cook tonight (options include lasagna, something with chicken, and something Tex-Mex; or we can have leftover beef ribs that we ate today). Then, it's Nate's naptime. Rodgers would normally leave for work at 2:30, however, tomorrow is different, so we'll actually have some afternoon family time! Late afternoon, Rodgers will drive down to the airport to pick up Mwangome, one of our dear friends from Kenya. He works for an international aid/relief organization and has been in Haiti for the past few months. He's on his way back to Kenya for some time off, and is stopping by to see us for a very short visit. I will probably cook something new for dinner so that Rodgers and Mwangome can eat when they get here. Then, the two of them will do whatever they want and probably stay up really late, but it's normal bedtimes for Nate and me.

Monday
Rodgers will take Mwangome back to the airport right after an early breakfast. I will be taking Nate to the Dr for his 18 month checkup! We have a 9 am report time, but they usually take a very long time in this clinic, so probably we won't leave there until after 10. Nate will be dropped at daycare just in time for lunch, and I will go to work until 5. Rodgers works 3-11. So I'll pick up Nate, we'll come home, eat supper (heating up something I cooked this weekend), play for an hour or so, then he goes to bed, and I put my feet up for a few minutes before doing some chores (clean up the kitchen from our supper and tidy/dust the living areas). Finally it will be my own bedtime.

Tuesday
Rodgers has a Dr appt in the morning, so I will probably drop Nate off at daycare on my way to work. I work 8:30-5, my usual hours. Rodgers works 3-11, his usual hours. He could get Nate after his appt, but this would interrupt both lunchtime and naptime, which tends to be more trouble than it's worth. I will pick Nate up after work, and we will have a usual evening. Chore for Tuesday is vacuuming and Swiffering. Rodgers will get home after everyone goes to bed.

Wednesday
Rodgers would normally be off, but he is working all day long. I think he will probably be at work by 7 or 8. And I don't know when he'll be home. That means another full day at daycare for Nate. I will pick him up after work, and we'll go to church for supper and to hang out with our friends for a while. Then, home, bed, etc. No chores today.

Thursday
Normal work day for me. Rodgers will be off. Nate will probably be at daycare for lunch through naptime, which gives Rodgers time to work on orphanage planning stuff. Maybe Rodgers will cook some new food for us for supper. He will probably get the laundry done, too. This is our one night for the week to be home together as a family. We'll eat supper together, play, read books, give Nate a bubble bath. Nate goes to bed, and Rodgers and I have our first chance since Sunday to actually talk to each other.

Friday
Should be a normal day, with Rodgers and me both working our usual hours. Nate hangs out at home with Rodgers in the morning and with me in the evening, he'll be at daycare for the afternoon. We'll eat leftovers from Friday for supper. I will look at HEB's sale paper and start menu planning and grocery list for the following week. Friday's chore will be washing sheets and towels.

Saturday
I try to cook breakfast on Saturdays because it's my only leisurely morning. After breakfast is grocery shopping. Then lunch, Nate's naptime, Mama's rest time, Rodgers leaves for work. When Nate gets up we may go play in the mall (indoor, air conditioned playground) or run errands if we need to. In the evening I'll cook a couple of meals for the next week. I'll make sure that our weekly marker-board schedule is up-to-date. Nate and I will eat dinner together and have a normal evening. Rodgers again will be home after we've gone to bed.

And hopefully by this time next week, I'll know what the following week will entail!

working mommy wednesday

2011-07-13T20:59:00.001-05:00

How important to you, as a working mom, is a schedule/routine for your kids?

This prompt is from last week. I really wanted to write about it, but ran out of time for blogging! So, I'm doing this one instead of the prompts for this week. :)

A schedule or routine isn't just important for Nate but also for ME!

If Nate gets off his schedule, he is grumpy because it usually means he's missing a nap or getting a nap at the wrong time causing all sorts of other issues. This would be the case even if I weren't working. He's 18 months old; he needs to stick to his routine. We've been having some issues with this lately because of switching back to daycare. The class he's in right now at daycare takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap. Except on rare occasions, Nate's a 1 nap kind of guy. He goes down for nap right after lunch. With Rodgers' work schedule, Nate usually gets to daycare as the kids are getting up from morning nap, but when Rodgers works in the morning, as he did yesterday (gotta give the guy props - he worked a double shift) Nate has to take morning nap with the other kids. Then, he sleeps for 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon, and he never really gets the good naptime rest he needs during the day. Even when he doesn't have morning nap it is hard on him because afternoon nap is a couple of hours after lunch. Even though he's been doing this for 6 weeks, he can't really adjust to the schedule 100% because of weekends and those few days when Rodgers has to take him early. It's tough for the poor little guy.

As for me, if I get off my schedule, things don't get done.

Saturday, Nate and I got to go out of town and see some of my family. It was a great day, but it meant that I didn't do my usual Saturday cooking. Usually, I meal plan on Saturdays, too. We'll have 3 meals cooked, usually 2 on Saturday and 1 on Thursday when Rodgers is off, and eat leftovers the rest of the week. Rodgers eats his meals at lunch because he works 2nd shift, and Nate and I eat at supper.

I realized late Sunday night that we didn't have any food cooked for this week. Nate and I eat supper as soon as we get home from work. It's not like I could just cook on Monday after work, we needed to eat before that would happen. Besides that, Rodgers needed lunch for Monday (yes, he does cook, but I like to have his lunch ready for him to heat up). So I ended up staying up late Sunday cooking 1 meal for this week. I made enough to last through Tuesday. We eat supper at church Wednesdays so at least we had something different to eat today. Rodgers will cook something new tomorrow. :) We are, at this very moment, discussing what that will be.

Remember when I used to clean house on a schedule? That went out the window when I started working again. I kept up with it last year while I was working, but then, I wasn't pregnant last year. I kept up with it when I was pregnant and not working. I still have the chores in our online calendar, and this week, I've started trying to get back into the habit. (Today is laundry day, BTW, and Rodgers already did it! He makes my life so much easier.) Our house hasn't been going uncleaned, it's just been a bit more ad hoc lately, rather than staying clean like it used to.

So the moral of the story is: if Nate gets off his schedule, naps are messed up, and he is a fussy grumpy kid who throws a tantrum every 90 seconds. If Mama gets off her schedule, we have to figure out what we're going to eat on the fly and clean house only when it becomes too awful to live in, and Rodgers has to do a lot more of these tasks, even though he worked 16 hours in a row yesterday. He never complains and really doesn't seem to care. But, schedules greatly reduce my stress.

Nate's chores

2011-07-03T10:10:00.000-05:00

Nate has discovered the joy of helping. He has a few "chores."

He loves putting things in the trash can. If I have something that's not too messy (like paper), I give it to him and tell him to put it in the trash. He runs to the trash can, puts it in, then says, "OH! WOW!" and claps for himself. If we're not careful, he looks for more things to put in the trash.

His second favorite is putting things in the sink. After Nate eats, I let him put his plate, fork, and spoon in the sink. He can just barely reach. Once his dirty dishes are in, if I have more dirty dishes that aren't breakable, he can put those in, too. Otherwise, he starts pulling magnets off the fridge and putting them in sink. Afterwards, he celebrates.

Nate has always been fascinated by the dishwasher. He has often tried to climb into it, and he's always taking things out or putting things in it. When I'm unloading, he gets to put the clean silverwear in the drawer. (We wash our knives by hand, but I still make sure there's nothing in there that will cut him before I let him go.) When I'm loading, I give him the plastic cups to put in. He often gets distracted, though. Nate will grab anything from the dishwasher and take off running! But he's so proud of himself when I tell him did a good job helping.

pregnancy update

2011-07-02T21:25:00.000-05:00

How Far Along 28 weeks 3 days
How Big is Baby over 2 lbs and almost 15 inches long
Total Weight Gain 18 lbs
Sleep I have had some trouble sleeping - waking up in the middle of the night super hungry, waking up just to be alert, getting charlie horses in my legs. It doesn't happen every night, but enough. Dr said I should start taking Benadryl.
Best Moment this Week Sorted through and washed NB and 0-3 clothes. I chose outfits to take to the hospital with us. The 0-3 outfit is the one Nate wore in his announcement pictures, but since he was born in January, that's really the only time it was worn. The NB is a new onesie we bought that has Sesame Street characters on it. We thought Nate would love to see Baby Brother in an Elmo shirt.

Movement This kid is active. It's starting to hurt now. He also gets the hiccups several times a day.
Food Cravings I craved sweets this week, then had my glucose test on Thursday and failed. Ooops. I have the 3 hour glucose test on Tuesday, and I'm trying to be good this weekend.
Belly Button It's huge and fairly flat
Labor Signs I have about 5 contractions per day, not painful, and not in sequence. Dr says that actually even though I drink water all day long, I'm probably dehydrated because it's been so freaking hot.
What I Miss I am preemptively missing having a carefree diet, bracing myself for being put on a gestational diabetes diet.
What I'm Looking Forward To Seeing Nate with Baby Brother
Weekly Wisdom I should always tell Rodgers when I'm feeling irrationally emotional. He's very good at making me feel better. He has the gift of encouragement, you know.
Milestones I am now in the third trimester. Wahoo! Now I have Dr appts every 2 weeks instead of every 4. Plus the extra glucose test, plus Nate's 18 month checkup = I actually have appts every week in July.

going to the bathroom alone is overrated

2011-06-20T21:11:00.001-05:00

Alternate title: why I like peeing with the door open
Disclaimer: with a title like that, I think you know what this post is about...

Nate takes Black Monkey to daycare with him. The black one has had the voicebox removed. He leaves Orange Monkey at home. The first thing he does when we get home is look for Orange Monkey. He is inevitably carrying Black Monkey, snuggled on his shoulder, when we walk through the door.

While he looked for Orange Monkey this afternoon (saying, "wheresit?") I went to the bathroom.

I'm pregnant. I pee every 30 minutes.

Nate found Orange Monkey and joined me in the bathroom before I was finished. He crawled up in my lap, holding one Monkey in each hand, and snuggled his face into my chest. I hugged him, and we just sat there cuddling for a few minutes (but not quite long enough for me to need to go again).

Is it weird to cuddle someone while you're peeing? I think probably yes. But, of the squillion times I peed today, that one was the best!

Father's Day

2011-06-19T20:22:00.001-05:00

A few pictures of my favorite dads...

My dad in the bride's getting ready room before Rodgers and I got married. That is a rhino on his tie.

Nate was 8 days old. Rodgers, who had never cared about babies before (and didn't know if his younger siblings [he has 6] were boys or girls until they were no longer babies...) had suddenly become a baby person.

And the baby is a Daddy person as well. :)

QOTW: I'll tell you what I'm doing. I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them. But no one sells eight hot dog buns. They only sell twelve hot dog buns. So I end up paying for four buns I don't need. So I am removing the superfluous buns. Yeah. And you want to know why? Because some big-shot over at the wiener company got together with some big-shot over at the bun company and decided to rip off the American public. Because they think the American public is a bunch of trusting nit-wits who will pay for everything they don't need rather than make a stink. Well they're not ripping of this nitwit anymore because I'm not paying for one more thing I don't need. George Banks is saying NO!

working mommy wednesday

2011-06-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

Prompt #1 - My go-to ______ is ... (pick any 5 things... go-to movie, go-to snack, go-to book, go-to song, go-to vacation spot... ANY 5 things!!)

1. My go-to refreshment when we're out and about running errands (or I just need a treat!) is a large vanilla Coke with easy ice from Sonic.

2. My go-to side item when planning dinners is steamed brown rice. We eat it several times a week. If Nate is refusing to eat veggies, I can mix some chopped up veggies in rice, and he will eat them. I always say that I'll make a big pot every weekend so that we don't always have to wait for it to cook. Never do it, though.

3. My go-to breakfast is Raisin Bran Crunch with 1% milk, followed by coffee with a splash of International Delight Hershey's Chocolate Caramel. If I'm cooking, trade the cereal for eggs. If we're getting donuts, give me chocolate iced with sprinkles.

4. My go-to song to sing Nate when he's upset is "Elmo's Song." He loves it.

5. My go-to nail polish is in the range of dark red/wine/burgundy/raisin.

comparison...

2011-06-14T22:43:00.001-05:00

26 weeks 4 days pregnant with Nate

25 weeks 6 days pregnant with Baby Brother

People keep telling me how small I am, but I was sure that I'm bigger than I was at this point in my first pregnancy. I needed to look at pics to compare. There it is. Not exactly exactly the same point. The closest picture I could find to today is actually 5 days from now. I could wait and take a pic in 5 days - as if I would remember...

purging (our possessions, not my stomach)

2011-06-11T09:44:00.001-05:00

When I was pregnant with Nate, I outgrew my clothes in phases. Around 6 or 7 months in, I decided that there was no way I was ever going to get back into the first phase of clothes that I outgrew. I loved those clothes - not the size, just the clothes themselves. It seemed that it would be better for me emotionally if they weren't even around after Nate was born. That way, I would be buying new clothes instead of being depressed about not being able to fit into my tiny clothes again. So I got rid of them.

After Nate was born, I did have to buy all new clothes. I had gone from a size 2 or 4 to a size 8 (and eventually a 6). When Nate was 10 months old, I started fitting into some of my bigger size 4s again. When Nate was 11 months old, I got pregnant again.

I've been in maternity clothes since about 8 weeks pregnant. A couple of weekends ago, I got really serious about getting my non-maternity clothes out of my way. In the process, I decided to get rid of any clothes that I never got back into between pregnancies. I mean, maybe I'll be a size 4 again, but who knows? That set off a chain reaction, and I eventually cleaned out all four of our closets.

Four kitchen garbage bags of stuff went straight to the dumpster. Why did I keep those things? I think it made sense to keep them at first, but then after a few months, it didn't. But, I was keeping those things, so I just kept keeping them.

I listed a few things for sale on Craigslist: a bench (sold - this wasn't in the closet, by the way), a comforter set (sold), an infant carseat base, and a glass pitcher with 8 matching goblets. I listed them cheap so that they would sell, and we're going to spend what I made so far on our date this evening. Woot!

Then, we loaded up 5 boxes from jumbo packs of diapers, 3 suitcases full of clothes, and a few other odds and ends in the van. Those were donated to a church garage sale that is going on as we speak (if you will). I have been to garage sales that had less stuff for sale than what we took over to the church. Seriously.

I sort through it all and decide what stays and what goes. He hauls it off. We're a good team.

It actually looks like a lot less stuff when it's loaded in the van. Now that this is all out of the apartment, we can actually walk around in our bedroom again. :)

It feels good to purge. Very cleansing. However, our apartment is still full of stuff.

QOTW: If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting.

updates all around

2011-06-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

Nate started daycare this week. It's rough because he doesn't know them, he's not used to their schedule, etc... Tuesday (his first day), they said he cried all day long. Each day got progressively better, though. Today, they told me he was upset at first, but after lunch (he arrives right before lunch) he was happy and played a lot. By the time I got there to pick him up, he was crying, but he usually is grumpy around 5ish even when he's at home - he's getting hungry for supper. The teacher said he had only been crying a few minutes.

Rodgers is consumed with thoughts and plans for Full Life. We officially have the address: facebook.com/abunchofgrapes. We're working on scheduling times to speak in churches, Bible studies, or anywhere, really. I'm doing a horrible job of keeping the blog updated. Just about every day, Rodgers scours the internet, looking at rent houses (we'll be renting when we first get to Kenya next year) and land.

Baby Brother and I are doing better than ever. I haven't puked since Tuesday! It's amazing. I hardly know what to do with myself. I saw the Dr on Wednesday. She said that I am "allowed" to gain 40 lbs, since I started out so light. Well, considering I was 10 lbs heavier at the start of this pregnancy than my first, and my first Dr was always getting on to me about my weight gain, I was quite pleasantly surprised. I am feeling better than I have ever felt while pregnant. With Nate, I remember feeling generally horrible most of the time. Not so much this time. If not for the dance party in my tummy, I would almost feel normal. I have very much been enjoying Alphamom's pregnancy calendar, especially since the author wrote it during her second pregnancy.

The stats, etc:
How Far Along 24 weeks 2 days
How Big is Baby just over 1 lb and about 1 foot long
Total Weight Gain 15 lbs (I'm quite pleased and surprised by this)
Sleep I'm still sleeping well, just having trouble going to bed on time because I get so wired at night.
Best Moment this Week We watched a movie yesterday. Baby Brother was a swirling vortex of activity throughout the entire movie. He's still small enough that it doesn't hurt yet, so it was super fun.
Movement Um...see above. This kid is active, like his big brother.
Food Cravings I'm at that point now, where any food mentioned automatically becomes my craving. I rarely have an original craving.
Belly Button flatter, bigger around. It's now what a call a castle-and-moat belly button.
What I Miss I miss my former agility. Bending over, getting out of chairs, all of these kind of things are getting more difficult. Also, I miss my feet not hurting.
What I'm Looking Forward To Since we live in a 2 bedroom apartment, Baby Brother will stay in our bedroom until he's sleeping well enough to not disturb Nate, then they'll share. This very well could mean that he's staying in our room until sometime after we move to Kenya, depending on what kind of a sleeper he is. Anyway, I got a closet hangy organizer thingy and have started putting our (3) NB outfits and (many) 0-3 outfits in it in our closet. Now I'm really looking forward to dressing this baby.
Weekly Wisdom Watermelon is a diuretic. Summer heat during pregnancy can cause swelling. Watermelon can reduce this. Is it a coincidence that watermelons are abundant in the summer?
Milestones 24 weeks means Baby Brother is now a viable fetus. This is a major developmental milestone. His chances for survival (with extensive medical intervention) outside the womb have more than doubled in the past week. I always feel like I have to put a disclaimer when I say things like this, such as: I'm not trying to have a micro-preemie. I don't want him to be born early. I'm simply acknowledging the milestone. :)

My belly:

cross cultural marriage - how to use the restroom in Kenya

2011-05-27T21:28:00.003-05:00

This topic is really more cross cultural and less about marriage. My post was inspired by Tupp's post about powdering your nose in the Netherlands. Using the facilities in another country involves so much more than just knowing the word in the local language for "restroom" or "toilet." You may be with people who speak English (or it could be an English speaking country) but there are so many more things to be considered than what it's called. Do you flush for everything or "let it mellow"? Do you put toilet paper in the trash or toilet? In public, do you have to pay to use the toilet or for paper? Should you just always bring your own? (The answer to that one is yes - absolutely!) How do you excuse yourself? Where do you wash your hands afterwards? (Also, always carry antibacterial gel!) Then there's the issue of what kind of toilets to expect.

In Swahili "choo iko wapi?" (the choo has a long o; it's not like a choo-choo train) means "where is the toilet?" and is generally an acceptable way to ask your hosts where you may go. However, if you're at my mother-in-law's house, there is no choo. The literal translation of what you should say to ask where to go is "I need to help myself [small or big]." I don't remember the Swahili for that because I just tell Rodgers in English. Being married into the culture can be an advantage and a handicap. My brother-in-law built a small shelter behind his house where you may go #1. It's just 4 short walls made of sticks, with a doorway (no door or roof). There is no hole in the ground. Men have the advantage here because they can just turn towards a corner and go. Women have to figure out how to squat without getting pee mud on their clothes. If you need to go #2, my suggestion is to hold it until you get back to the city. That's what I do. You can't go #2 in that little hut. I am not brave enough to find out where you go #2 out in the country. You'll want to avoid touching your shoes with your hands either way.

So this leads me to places that actually have a choo. It may be at someone's house, a hotel room, or a public restroom. Many may be BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper), like out in the country is. I can think of 3 types. We'll work from the ground up.

First is what I would call a latrine. It's probably similar in structure to the pee hut at my in-laws'. It may or may not have a door. It may or may not have a ceiling. What it doesn't have is a toilet. It is a hole in the ground. There will be a type of platform on each side of the hole. This is where your feet go as you stand or squat over the hole. There are probably lots of bugs in the hole. And it smells. My advice: do your business and get out.

Next is a squatting toilet. It's different from a latrine in that it's an actual porcelain toilet that can be flushed. (Google squatty potty.) It's just in the floor. I found squatting toilets counter-intuitive. The first few times I used them, I had a lot of trouble with...aiming... I didn't dare try anything but #1. Then I realized I was using them backwards. You don't stand over the hole part of the toilet, you face the hole. Usually this means your back is to the door(way). Used correctly, they really aren't so bad. Going #2 in them isn't bad either. The position is actually quite conducive to moving things along, if you know what I mean. Many times, the flush doesn't work. But, there is almost always either a bucket of water or a spigot nearby, and either of those will have a smaller bucket or cup. This cup is to be filled with water, which you use to flush the toilet when you're done.

Some homes and public facilities (though in many of the public facilities, squatting seems more sanitary) have sitting toilets. The Kenyans call them English toilets. They are quite the luxury. We will have English toilets in our home. I can pee anywhere, but when I get home, I want the comfort of a sitting toilet. Rodgers agrees. And, we'll always have toilet paper readily available, so don't worry about BYOTP at our house.

working mommy wednesday

2011-05-18T21:17:00.053-05:00

Prompt #1- Are you an early bird or night owl? When are you most productive?

Both? Neither? I guess it depends on what kind of productivity we're talking about. My body and mind are not in sync right now.

I am absolutely not an early bird. Baby Brother has me waking up early on my days off because I have to puke, and then eat breakfast, before 8. If I have chores to do on Saturdays, I usually do them in mornings, as long as they don't require thought. The brain doesn't function in the a.m., but my body is ready to work. I can be productive with physical things like running errands and cleaning.

I'm not really a night owl, either. These days, my body is tired of moving by about 8, and I can't seem to do any housework after that, nor can I muster the energy to actually leave home and go somewhere. Nate goes to bed at 7:30, and that's a good excuse to make sure we're home by 7, which is my current preferred curfew. Usually, I spend my evenings on the loveseat. If I have things to do that require thought, such as blogging, designing materials for Full Life, or reading something I need to think about and want to remember, I get started on it around 9. My body is tired but my mind is active. I am most productive with creative things at night.

20 weeks - "halfway"

2011-05-05T20:16:00.001-05:00

I had my 20 week Dr appt this morning. Baby Brother was awake and swimming around while the nurse practitioner attempted to find his heartrate. He tried to get away, but she got it in the end: 164 bpm. I have gained 6 lbs since 16 weeks, and she approved of that. :) We aren't measuring me yet or doing anything else exciting. Anyway, everything is going just as it should. She feels sorry for me that I still have morning sickness, but since I'm gaining weight, there are no worries about that.

This outfit really emphasizes the bump. Plus, I grew a lot this last week. Probably half of my weight gain from this month was in the past 7 days...

The stats, etc:
How Far Along 20 weeks 1 day
How Big is Baby 10" head to heel; 10.5 oz
Total Weight Gain 11 lbs
Stretch Marks No new ones, that I can tell, but who can really tell amid the roadmap of stretchmarks Nate left me with?
Sleep I'm sleeping well, which is excellent because I am super tired!
Best Moment this Week Not pregnancy related - the best moment is that we're celebrating Rodgers' 35th birthday today! Pregnancy related - Baby Brother now kicks hard enough to see from the outside.
Movement Feeling actual kicks and rolls now.
Food Cravings I have been seeing the purple bag of Wild Berry Skittles in the snack machine at work for weeks now. I've never had that variety of Skittles, but I've been craving them. Finally gave in this week. It was worth it. They are awesome.
Belly Button It is really flattening out, but still an innie.
What I Miss Not having to schedule puke time into my morning routine. I am glad that the morning sickness is now strictly morning sickness, as opposed to the all day misery of the 1st trimester, so I'm not really complaining about my daily morning puke. But, still, it's inconvenient. I also miss being able to remember things.
What I'm Looking Forward To Will I have a memory again one day?
Weekly Wisdom Buying Poise instead of Carefree liners seems intimidating and embarrassing, but it's really not so bad, and they really do help so much more.
Milestones We are halfway there! And, since my Dr won't make me be past due again, I know for sure that I have no more than 20 weeks to go. YES!

QOTW: If I had known I was gonna meet the president I would've worn a tie. Look at me, I look like a schliemiel.

a little late with this one...

2011-04-29T20:27:00.000-05:00

To my faithful blog followers who don't know me IRL (in real life) or through Facebook, this is for you.

Nate will be having a baby brother!

We had a lovely ultrasound, watching the little guy swim around. He's a healthy baby! He has all of his organs, fingers, and toes. This ultrasound was done by a tech (Nate's was done by a Dr). The Dr only popped into the room after reviewing the pics to say that everything is great!

He's a bit big, like Nate was at the ultrasound, but still within the realm of normal, so they are keeping my due date at Sept 21. If I've told you the due date is Sept 22, I don't know why I keep doing that. It's the 21st. For sure. If you go by averages, he was measuring 19 weeks and 2-4 days, and I was 18 weeks pregnant. His head circumference, though, was 20 weeks even. I think Rodgers must come from a people of large skulls.

We haven't settled on a name yet, and when we do, I won't be telling. With Nate, we told the name as soon as we left the ultrasound (my choice). We changed the middle name right before he was born, and kept that secret. Rodgers likes keeping things secret, so we're keeping the name to ourselves this time. I will say that it will be a boy name and will not be yooneek. :)

For now, he's going by "Baby Brother." I ask Nate, "Where's your baby brother?" And he points to my tummy, sometimes going so far as to lift up my shirt and reveal my belly, which he finds endlessly amusing.

working mommy wednesday

2011-04-20T21:11:00.000-05:00

Prompt #2 - 5 things perpetually on your to-do list.

During this pregnancy, and especially since I started working again, I've had no memory at all. Rodgers has always relied on me to remember things for him. Actually, he sometimes calls me his brain. This makes my forgetfulness even more of a problem. Last week, I created not a to-do list, but a to-do notebook.

It's full of lists - what we need to do each week, what goes into Nate's diaper bag for various length trips, what groceries we currently need, what groceries we usually keep on hand, and whatever else I think of that we need to remember.

There are some things that never get crossed off either because they never get done or because as soon as I've accomplished that thing, it needs to be done again.

1. You may remember that we have a cleaning schedule that rotates every two weeks. That's kind of like a continuous to-do list. Since I went back to work, I have not been keeping up with the cleaning. Our home looks about as bad as it did when I originally got fed up with it and initiated the cleaning schedule. But, pregnant + toddler + work = I don't care right now. We (and by we, I mean Rodgers) keep up with the laundry and keep the kitchen clean, and that's good enough.

2. Food is always on my to-do list. What groceries to buy, what meals to cook, what am I going to eat right now?

3. Trimming Nate's fingernails. When he was very small I just kept mittens on him because it seemed as soon as I'd trimmed and filed his nails, he was scratching both of us again. Now, he pretty much just scratches me, not himself.

4. Make Nate a photo album of family and events in Texas. I was given a super cute scrapbook for Nate before he was born and have never done anything with it. I finally decided to make it a photo album for him to take with us when we move to Kenya so that I can remind him of all these people and things that he won't remember because he's too young. Of course, the pics are online and on my computer, too, but I think he'd really like flipping through a hard copy. I made the title page a couple of months ago. Making more progress, I had some pics printed this week to put in it, but the photo album is yet to be made.

5. Write a blog post. I am always getting ideas for posts which never make it to a physical (or virtual) to-do list, but stay on my mental one, which, as we've already established, is basically worthless at this point. So my blog post ideas never get written and are never crossed off the list because I can't remember what the list was in the first place.

QOTW:
> Oh? And just how do you think he will survive?
>> "How do you think he will..." What do you mean "how do you think he..." He's with me, ain't he? And I'll learn him all I know.
> Oh? That shouldn't take too long.

15 months

2011-04-19T20:53:00.001-05:00

Nate had his 15 month check up this morning. Rodgers took him since he doesn't typically work in the mornings and I do. The doctor was impressed by Nate, which always makes me proud. She didn't have any instructions for us because he's doing so well.

He's skinny, 25th percentile for weight now according to the CDC charts. But, the doctor wasn't concerned about it this time (she was at 9 and 12 months). He was 22 lbs even at 12 months, now 22 lbs 13 oz.

Rodgers told me that Nate's height is either 31" or 33". Pretty big difference there... He was 30" at 12 months, so I'm guessing he's 31" now. That's right on the 50th percentile. 33" is between 95th and 100th percentile. He does seem tall, but I don't think he's had that much of a growth spurt. Plus, his hair is long now, and adds more than half an inch to his apparent height.

Nate has 15 teeth now. Only one eye tooth remains, then we wait for the 2nd year molars.

Something I read online says that 15 month olds should be able to say at least 3 words in addition to Mama and Dada. Nate has 10 or 11 words in addition to Mama and Dada. Nate came home from the appointment with a hacky sack because he kept asking Rodgers for a ball. :)

15 month olds should also be able to follow simple instructions. At one point during the appointment, Rodgers put Nate on the floor and told him to go get his shoes. He walked across the exam room, picked up his shoes, and brought them back. Dr was impressed.

He got a couple of shots, for a lot (I think they contain 6 altogether) of vaccine boosters (Dtap/Hib/IPV 5-in-1 and pneumococcal). One leg was very sore this afternoon, poor kid. He was back to normal after the ibuprofen started working. He also soaked in the tub for a while, and I think that helped, too.

Dr said that we should be bracing ourselves for the terrible twos to start soon. Yay.

QOTW: You need to find yourself a girl, mate. Or perhaps the reason you practice three hours a day is that you already found one, and are otherwise incapable of wooing said strumpet. You're not a eunuch are you?

gender prediction :)

2011-04-08T20:59:00.001-05:00

In less than 2 weeks, we will be looking at this baby bean via ultrasound. As long as s/he cooperates, we will know if s/he is a he or a she!

For the record, here is what the old wives say:

Carrying high and wide, girl; low and all out front, boy :: I'm not sure whether I'm low or high, but definitely out front and not at all wide yet. This one leans toward BOY

Wedding ring on a string moves in a circle, girl; side to side, boy :: I just did this test - it was side to side. BOY

Heartrate faster than 140, girl; lower than 140, boy :: The first time, it was 170. This week it was in the 160s. GIRL

Bad morning sickness, girl; minimal morning sickness, boy :: If that's the case, this is the kind of girl that you'll see on Toddlers and Tiaras one day. GIRL

Looks: round face, bad acne, significant boob growth, girl; hair growing faster on legs, wider nose, cold feet, minimal boob growth, boy :: I've got a little bit of acne, but not very bad; I'm still wearing the same bra size; and my feet are cold. I think we're leaning towards boy on this one. BOY

Cravings: sweets, fruit, OJ, girl; salty foods and protein, boy :: Before reading this, I just had to have a leftover piece of pizza with an OJ and Sprite cocktail. That's a little of both...um...one-of-each-TWINS?

Previous kids' first words: if Nate said Mama first, girl; Daddy first, boy :: We know he's a Daddy's boy! BOY

If a toddler boy expresses interest in a pregnant woman, it's a girl; if he ignores her, it's a boy :: We have a few friends with toddler boys. They seem to like me. GIRL

If a woman prefers to lay on her right side, girl; left side, boy :: GIRL

Tally that up. I think it's a tie.

Then there's the Chinese gender chart, which is complicated because you have to figure out your lunar age and the lunar month of conception. Lucky for you, I did the math. It says: GIRL.

QOTW: You're a frog! You're supposed to have cold feet!

nate update

2011-04-02T21:13:00.004-05:00

Nate is 14.5 months old. He has his 15 month appt just 2 days before baby #2's anatomy scan (and we'll find out if it's a brother or a sister!).

He has 11 teeth. Three of them are molars. His fourth is there, under a gum hematoma. He won't take cold teethers or anything to soothe it. It seems like it doesn't bother him very often, but it looks painful.

At 12 months, he was 30 inches tall. He seems much taller now, but that could just be because he's started walking more. By my measurement, he's grown half an inch. He's wearing shoes willingly now! I'm no longer afraid to put his sandals on him without socks. I think he figured out that if he puts shoes on, we go outside, so he's happy about shoes.

His clothing size is part 12 months and part 18 months. His torso is too long for 12 month overalls. His head is too big for 12 month t-shirts without buttons on the collar. But, he's too skinny for 18 month waistbands. Actually, his 12 month shorts and pants are still too big in the waist for him.

He's talking more, too! He learned 2 new animal sounds this week. Monday or Tuesday he started saying "baa baa" for sheep. This afternoon (after his Gigi and Grandpa went home from visiting us) he started saying "neigh" for horse. He still does snake, monkey, baby (says Mama), and Daddy (blows a raspberry). He also has been saying things (in appropriate context) that sound like up, out, yes, no, done, and gone, in addition to his previous words Mama and Daddy (no Elmo recently). He says muh for kiss and mmm for hug because I say mwah when I kiss him and mmm when we cuddle. His signs are milk, more, eat, up, and bath. We're working on diaper. He tries to do it sometimes.

He still takes a bottle of milk twice a day. He won't take milk from a sippy cup, only juice and water. Though I want him to drink just from a cup, I'm honestly too exhausted to force the issue right now, so he keeps getting a bottle when he wakes up and between dinner and bedtime.

He's down to one nap per day, and his separation anxiety isn't nearly as bad as it was 2 months ago. It's a good month for Nate.

QOTW: Oh, they call me Little John. But don't let my name fool you. In real life, I'm very big.

captcha

2011-03-24T19:49:00.000-05:00

Any guesses on what the second word was?

QOTW:
Man A: In the eyes of the law, you are the more guilty of the two, for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.
Man B: If that's what the law supposes, sir, then the law is a ass! If that be the eyes of the law, sir, then the law is a bachelor!

working mommy wednesday!

2011-03-23T21:22:00.002-05:00

I stopped doing WMW for a few weeks (or a month or so) because I had started thinking I may never get a job again. But, I have one now! It's a temp job in customer service at a computer (hardware) company. Just two months for now. We'll see if it turns into something longer term.

Prompt #2- Make us laugh- one of your funniest memories to date.

This isn't one of my funniest memories, actually. So maybe I'm not following the prompt right. It's just that most of my funniest memories are dumb when they're typed out. But this is something that made me laugh recently.

Rodgers and I both have our own laptops. He sits in the big chair with his, and I lounge on the loveseat with mine. Sometimes we sit together, but we don't have a full sized sofa, so there's not really enough elbow room for us to both type if we're sitting next to each other.

The other day, Rodgers suddenly looked up from his laptop and asked me, "When are you due? Septemberish?"

I pretended to cry, "You don't know when I'm due! It's like you don't even know me!"

He said, "Hey. I'm not the one who's pregnant! I make people pregnant!"

I was laughing too hard to ask him who these people are.

[I was pleased, though, to hear that he finally agrees with me that I'm the one who's pregnant, not both of us. I think what made him change his mind was witnessing Nate's delivery.]

QOTW: I really can't think of anything tonight besides: I make people pregnant! It might be my new catch phrase.

newborn amnesia

2011-03-19T21:21:00.000-05:00

In the moments, I was sure that I would never forget Nate's early months. People always told me that I would, though. Of course, I wrote down his milestones and important things like that on his first year calendar and in his baby book.

The other day, Rodgers and I were talking about taking Nate to the zoo. Down here, we're having lots of warm weather and lots of fun afternoons in the park. He loves watching cats, dogs, and squirrels, so we think he'd enjoy the zoo now.

But then, I had a sudden brief memory of sitting at the zoo, eating lunch, with Nate in stroller. I had another flash of carrying him around the primate area, trying to get him to look at the monkeys because, as we know, he loves monkeys. But that was it.

When was this? Was he in the infant carrier in the stroller or just in the stroller itself? Why don't I take pictures of these things? (Well, I know the answer to that one. Either I forget my camera or I get too caught up in the moment to bring it out and take pictures.) Did I eat a corndog or a chicken sandwich? Was it a dream? Or did we really take Nate to the zoo as an infant?

I asked Rodgers. His response: I dunno. Maybe.

What else have I forgotten? Or, what else have I made up in my mind that didn't really happen?

QOTW: This is the famous Dead Sea Tupperware. Listen. [pfft!] Ah, still good!

my not-so-stylish son

2011-03-15T13:37:00.002-05:00

Nate doesn't like to wear shoes, which I think is completely normal for babies and toddlers who haven't yet worn them. He has 2 pairs of house-shoe style slippers (one pair with monkey heads on them, the others are what I call "old man slippers"). They are soft and warm, and he doesn't mind them, but he does like taking them off. I put them on him when we go out on cold days.

Then we started going to the park on warm days. He loves being outside, but we live in an apartment, and there's really nowhere for him to play outside here. There's a tiny patch of dirt at the foot of our stairs where he plays, but that's it. On nice days, we will take him out to one of two places: a park with a nice long walking trail where we can push him in his stroller or a park with swing sets for kids in the shade. He loves climbing on things, but just isn't steady enough to do it on his own. His favorite activities are the swing and the slide, especially if it's a slide for smaller children because he can go down it on his own and not fall over.

His second favorite activity is playing in the mulch under the swing set. The first day, we just didn't let him get down on the ground. He was in socks only that day. The next time, I put the old man slippers on him. They were better than nothing, but kind of ridiculous for playing outside. Plus, being fuzzy, I think they still have tiny pieces of mulch stuck to them.

Nate has a really cute pair of Converse All-Star style shoes, which would be more appropriate, but he doesn't like them yet. They are kind of stiff on the bottom, and he isn't used to wearing shoes yet. They're still a bit big, so I figure I have time to get him used to wearing shoes before he outgrows them.

Every time we go to the mall, we cruise the shoe stores. I try shoes on him, he screams, I take them off, and we go home. I started thinking he may only tolerate crib shoes (the ones with very soft flexible soles), which rarely come in a size 5, but then one day, we found sandals.

He didn't make a fuss at all when I put them on his feet. He even walked around the store in them for a while. He seemed to not mind them at all. They were on sale for $10, so we absolutely bought them! They are now his "playing outside shoes."

I'm afraid to try them on him without socks. At the store, he was wearing socks. In my mind, if I put them on him without socks, the straps will bother his feet, and he will suddenly begin hating them. He is stubborn enough to remember how he hates them even if I try to put them on him with socks the next time. Then, we will be right back where we started, playing in the park in socks or old man slippers, and I will never again get shoes on those feet. Maybe that's a little irrational, but I'm still not ready to break the magic of the socks with sandals.

Let's go play outside!

QOTW: You know what? When the doors close, just say "go." Better.

12 weeks

2011-03-09T10:59:00.002-06:00

I had my 12 week prenatal appointment this morning. I met my new OB for the first time. My former OB moved to the Middle East. I was sad, but the new one seems like a good fit for me, too.

She could not find the baby's heartbeat with the doppler, which was scary, but she brought in the ultrasound, and everything is fine. The baby was sort of squished over to one side and doing acrobatics. Even with the ultrasound, she couldn't get a good "lock" on the heartbeat because the kid would not be still. Finally, s/he settled down, and the heart rate was 170. That's in the "girl" range according to old wives' tales, but then, even a boy would have a higher heart rate after that kind of work out.

Due date: September 21.

And here's a creepy picture of the baby's face, from my bonus ultrasound this morning:

Face is in the center. The oval to the right is the tummy.

Ack! I forgot QOTW:
I see you're drinking 1%. Is that 'cause you think you're fat? 'Cause you're not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to.

oh, then there's this other thing...

2011-03-06T21:28:00.000-06:00

but with more of a "yahoo" and less of an "aw, crap" [source]

cross-cultural marriage: heart language

2011-03-06T21:11:00.001-06:00

There have been times (especially when we were dating) that Rodgers didn't know how to say something in English, but he did know how to say it in Swahili and Giryama. Unfortunately, the Swahili or Giryama version has been of no use to me. Usually he would show or describe it to me, and I could tell him what it was in English. Now more often, he knows how to say something in English but we have to look up the words in Swahili. (Also, an aside, he speaks much more Texan English, as opposed to Kenyan British English, now than he did when we started dating. Woohoo!)

One particular time Rodgers was trying to tell me that his foot was tingling. He said, "It's like this:" [wiggling fingers, then whispering] "chikachikachikachika." I knew what he was talking about right away.

Usually we get by with explanations like that, but I always feel that it would benefit us if I spoke his language at least a fraction as well as he speaks mine, and for more than just practical reasons.

The first time Rodgers told me he loves me, he said it in Swahili. I knew what "nakupenda" means, but hearing it didn't really affect me. He thought I didn't understand, so he repeated it in English. I stopped breathing. The language of my heart is English. (It also happens to be the only language I speak fluently.)

I can't speak the language of Rodgers' heart. Rodgers would say that what's meaningful is knowing that I love him or that I'm proud of him or that I believe in him, not hearing the words. But I know that words spoken to Rodgers affect him deeply, as one of his main love languages is words of affirmation. I believe it would be meaningful to him if I could speak affirmation to him in his heart language.

QOTW:
"After all, quite a lot of people are going to think we are a shocking pair."

favorite dinner

2011-03-05T20:47:00.001-06:00

Nate's too big to cram into the Bumbo anymore. He hates restaurant high chairs. He's not that fond of his high chair anymore, plus we have a very small apartment and not really much room for a high chair. We should have gone the space saver route, but went the "whatever we can find for $20 on craigslist" route. It's a nice high chair. But, we're over it. He needs a portable booster chair.

Since Nate's going to be staying with his grandparents next weekend, (WAHOO!!) I thought now would be a great time to go ahead and get the booster, and he can take it with him to their house. It came in the mail today. It's not fancy at all, but I chose it for the price and because it folds up so tiny. As I was strapping it into our dining room chair, Nate was very interested. He inspected the straps and giggled in anticipation of whatever this new game was. He was thrilled to sit in a real chair at the table with me while we ate dinner!

We had one of Nate's favorite meals, too: black beans, brown rice, and green peas (which were still on the stove when the picture was taken). And he ate really well, too, which always makes me happy.

The past few days, he has been more interested in sleep than food. Actually yesterday, he fell asleep for his nap before lunch. Rodgers was holding him while he was drinking some milk, and the next thing we knew, he was out. That hasn't happened in...I don't remember the last time he drank himself to sleep. Today, Nate's still sleeping well, but eating better. I'm thinking maybe a little growth spurt? Who knows?

QOTW (quote of the whatever):
explanation: QOTW is a random quote from a movie, TV show, book, song, or sometimes even real life which happens to be in my head at the time I'm blogging. I used to do it on my very first blog, and I've had some votes to bring it back. I want to bring it back, too, so I am! I will not post the source at first so that readers who want to show off their knowledge of quotes can do so by posting the source. Hopefully I'll remember to post the source later, though, so that we're not left wondering where the quote came from. Now that that's settled, here we go!
"You're going the right way for a smacked bottom."

after posting a bajillion times yesterday

2011-02-27T20:09:00.002-06:00

I stayed up way past bedtime reading through my xanga blog. Parts of it really, really made me laugh. Very nostalgic.

Anyway, four things:

1. I miss doing "quote of the whatever" at the bottom of my blog posts. I may reinstate QOTW here.

2. The day I started falling for Rodgers was Saturday, June 11, 2005. I didn't blog that, even though I was totally grungy that day, he told me that I look more beautiful every day (which is what put me over the edge). But, I did blog that I visited Claire at camp that day, and that's when it happened.

3. I've forgotten the source for many of the QOTWs. This is a sad day.

4. I'm finally far enough removed from my horrible first job that I can really laugh about my dumb, douchecanoe former boss.

for my long-time followers

2011-02-26T20:42:00.000-06:00

I know, three posts in one day is ridiculous.

Dad mentioned my old blog the other day, and I just wanted to point out that while the url is no longer active, I did import the blog into this one. Just felt like keeping it all in one place. If you're looking for some of my really old stuff, anything on this blog written before Aug 10, 2008 is from my "justrachet" blog. For about the first year of "rodgersrachel," I kept both blogs going, posting my deepest thoughts on the other one, and updates about the wedding planning, getting married, the green card journey, and pregnancy here. Eventually I just decided to put it all in one place. Then I stopped having deep thoughts.

When I imported, I didn't label all my old blog posts as such, they just mingled in with these. Now, I've tried to go back through and label them for organization's sake, though honestly, I probably didn't get them all labeled correctly. You'll see a huge label in my label gadget in the sidebar that says "justrachet." That's where you'll find all of my posts from my old blog, including anything about my time on Doulos. Warning: many pictures used way back then may no longer exist on the internet, and there are probably lots of broken links.

If you're one of my really old followers, you may remember when I blogged on xanga. That blog is still there. If you fancy taking a glimpse at my beginnings in blogworld, have a go.

2 cute pictures

2011-02-26T20:14:00.000-06:00

Eating some Lil Crunchies, while watching TV. I think he looks more like a kid (rather than baby) in this pose than any other.

We used the rubber tooth and gum massager for a long time. Finally, I bought him a baby toothbrush. He loves it and doesn't try to swallow it. After I brush his teeth, he gets a turn. I think he basically just chews the brush and sucks all of the (safe if swallowed) toothpaste off. He loves brushing his teeth.

see 'n say

2011-02-26T20:03:00.001-06:00

I don't remember if I had my own See 'n Say as a child, but I remember playing with them in church nurseries and possibly my grandmother's house. I remember one that was yellow, with a pull string:

from here [click]

...and a blue one with a lever:

from here [click]

I loved listening to the animal sounds. I can still hear in my memory, "Here is the coyote: ow--ow-ow-owoooooo!"

Nate has a new fangled See 'n Say. He also loves listening to the animal sounds. He hasn't quite figured out the lever himself, but he brings the See 'n Say to me so that I can make it work for him. He has this one:

(sort of, the pictures on his are different)
from here [click]

I like that is has 2 "pages." (The yellow part flips over to the other side, revealing more animals.) Nate likes it, too. He loves turning pages, so flipping back and forth between the 2 sides is one of his favorite parts. I also like the songs - one side plays Old McDonald (with animals and animal sounds from the See 'n Say) and the other plays The Farmer in the Dell. The quiz is fun, too, and when Nate figures out how to work the See 'n Say, I'm sure he'll enjoy that.

Here's my complaint:

Rather than having the same intro to each animal, it switches back and forth between "The [animal] says: [sound]" and "That's the [animal]. [sound]." Then it goes back to "The [animal] says: [sound]." Back and forth. Every other pull of the lever. Fine.

On the side not shown in the picture above, there is a bunny. What sound does a bunny make? I know what sound it makes when a labrador is eating it alive, but that's not really a cute sound for a children's toy. The sound they use is "boing, boing," like a hopping noise. Ok...

Here's the problem: if, for example, the previous animal was "The cat says: meow, meow," and then you play the bunny, it will say, "That's the bunny: boing, boing." But, if you play the bunny after it plays "That's the cat. meow, meow," it will say, "The bunny says: boing, boing."

No, it doesn't, See 'n Say. The bunny does not say, "boing." That is all.

maisha kamili blog

2011-02-24T14:24:00.000-06:00

Maisha Kamili blog is now live at http://maishakamilimombasa.blogspot.com/. If you are one of those in our circle who has received a copy of the proposal, you will recognize that the current posts are copied and pasted from the proposal. More pieces will be published as we make our plans.

Nate videos

2011-02-17T19:46:00.002-06:00

A few of our recent videos of Nate. Enjoy.

penguins

2011-02-16T09:48:00.000-06:00

After seeing Nate's birthday monkey cupcakes, my dad asked me to make him penguin cupcakes for his birthday. When my parents stopped by yesterday, it was the first time we'd seen them since his birthday, so I wanted to make the penguin cupcakes. Unfortunately, I was out of eggs and didn't have time to run to the store, buy eggs, make cupcakes, let them cool, etc. So, I just made the penguins. I think he liked them.

I used mini oreos for the heads and double stuf oreos for the body, with the top cookie cut in half to make the wings. Eyes, beaks, and legs were a gel icing pen.

cooking blog

2011-02-15T17:29:00.001-06:00

When I was in 6th grade, we lived with my grandparents for a few months. My grandmother has a few recipes that she keeps on "repeat" at all times. One thing she cooked frequently was salmon patties. While they were good, I got salmon patty-ed out. In the past 10 years, I've eaten them maybe once.

I follow several cooking blogs. Usually, I star recipes I like in my Google Reader, and maybe will cook them. someday. It surprised me when I saw a recipe for salmon croquettes on Not Your Bubbe's Kitchen, and they actually looked appealing! I decided to give them a second chance. Maybe it was the use of the word "croquettes" rather than "patties" - much more appetizing, right? Or maybe it's just that I know Jackie and trust her to have yummy and healthy recipes.

Whatever it was, I'm so glad I made these for lunch today! They are delicious! They were also very easy and quick to make. I followed her recipe mostly. I only had one egg, not two, but it worked out!

Not Your Bubbe's Kitchen features a lot of other fabulous recipes, too. One that I am eager to try out is The Best Damn Brownies Ever. Check it out!

[P.S. I did not try out the grains recipe today. I was in the mood for mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.]

a lovey-dovey post

2011-02-13T14:14:00.000-06:00

Rodgers and I started dating in March 2006, so we missed Valentine's Day that year. Our first Valentine's Day as a couple was 2007, but I was in the Philippines.

Our second Valentine's Day (first one spent together), 2008:

2009, one month (4 weeks) before the wedding:

2010, with a 30 day old baby:

[didn't manage to get a picture of Rodgers and me because we were too distracted by Nate's grinning face]

I love looking through pictures from the past years and remembering each stage of our relationship, seeing how far we've come in this short time together.

bilingual

2011-02-12T20:03:00.000-06:00

At (nearly) 13 months old, Nate seems to understand most of what I say to him. He doesn't understand most of what is said, but most of the things I tell him (do you want to eat? give me that. don't eat that! take that out of your mouth. are you ready for a bath? bring me a book. it's time for Elmo...). Also, he has a handful of words he can "say."

He says Mama and Daddy regularly. He has said Elmo twice. He signs milk, more, eat, and bath (that one's not real sign language, it's his own sign he made up for bath - pretending to splash the water with his hands).

He can tell you what a snake says (ssss), a monkey says (AAAAAH!), and a baby says (Mama [in a high pitched voice]). I'm trying to teach him Daddy says pffffft! (raspberry sound). Is that rude?

He also has some words of his own invention. Aiyiyiyiyi means he is chewing on something, wants to chew on something, or wants to put something in your mouth for you to chew on. It's the chewing sound. He frequently says yeesh. Sometimes it means he wants a drink. Sometimes he says it when I ask him a question - any question. Like, "Yeesh, Mom, get off my back!"

He does not repeat things that we say to him, or did not until yesterday (unless it's raspberries or sssssss or screaming). In Swahili, haya means ok. I will often sit down on the floor with Nate and say haya, as in, "Ok, what are we going to do now?" Yesterday, when I said, "Haya," Nate looked at me, grinned and said, "Yaya." So I said it again, and he responded with "Haya." We said haya to each other back and forth a few times. This morning, I was telling Rodgers about it, and Nate again said haya with me. I don't know that it has meaning for him, but it's a sound he hears from us, which he figured out how to mimmick.

Regardless, I officially declare Nate bilingual.

schedule changes

2011-02-08T19:09:00.000-06:00

Again, Nate's changing his schedule up. He used to nap after every bottle - 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. He dropped an afternoon nap first. Eventually, the second morning nap was dropped, too. At that point, he went from taking 1 hour or less naps to taking 2 hour naps. They were awesome. He really spoiled me. [What spoils me even more is that he's slept from 7 pm to 6 or 7 am since he was 4 months old. He still does this. :) ]

However, he is transitioning to only 1 nap per day. This is difficult. He's ready to sleep again at 10, especially if he woke up before 7. But then, he doesn't sleep very long because he's hungry for lunch at 11.

Last week, I tried letting him sleep from 9-10 (I had to wake him up), then getting him up for lunch and putting him back down in the afternoon. No go. I tried letting him sleep from 9 until he woke up on his own, but then he was awake from 12-7 pm. He was ready for bed by 6, but he can't go to bed that early unless we want to wake up at 5 am, which, I think it goes without saying, we don't.

Yesterday and today have been better. We kept him up all morning long. Yesterday, we fed him lunch as usual, with his milk afterwards (he's still taking 3 bottles a day), but he was too tired to drink his milk. He slept for an hour and a half, though. Longest afternoon nap in over a week! Today, we let him drink his milk when he was getting fussy for a nap, around 10 am. Then he had his lunch as usual at 11, went down for a nap at noon, and slept until almost 3. Success! I hope we can repeat this.

pizza's good for toddlers, right?

2011-02-04T21:15:00.000-06:00

Nate likes almost every food. He doesn't like most fresh fruit, but that's about it. He goes through phases, though, when he just doesn't want to eat what I cook. I know he likes it because he's eaten it before, but maybe he's just "not in the mood." He also goes through phases that seem like he never stops eating and will eat anything. So I have to assume he has hungrier times and not so hungry times.

Sunday through Wednesday this week, he refused to eat anything besides applesauce, Cheerios, cheese, and dill pickles. I didn't give him full meals of those things. So, by refusing to eat anything else, either he was going hungry, or he didn't have much appetite to begin with.

Thursday, we had pizza. The boy can eat some pizza. I cut some of the Roma tomato and green bell pepper into bite sized pieces for him, and he inhaled it. First veggies he'd eaten since Saturday (unless pickles count?). He got some of the meat, cheese, and crust, too, but when he started eating the veggies, I just kept putting them in front of him until he wouldn't eat them anymore.

Today it seems like he's back to his usual eating habits - eating from all the food groups, like a champ. Seems like having pizza snapped him out of his applesauce-Cheerios-cheese-pickles phase. Maybe he'll go through another phase next week, and we can try having pizza again to snap him out of it. This might not be such a bad thing...We like pizza.

Maisha Kamili

2011-01-29T15:17:00.002-06:00

Remember my post about my biggest challenge for 2011? Well, we've been working on it a lot.

We've written mission/vision/values/strategies, a tentative plan and timeline, and our intentions for the future of the ministry. We didn't know what to call it, though.

We got to meet with a couple who are doing a similar thing, also in Kenya, but another part of the country. They rent houses and put 8 orphans and 1 widow in each house. This gives the widow a good, steady job, and also provides a mother figure for the children. It's not the approach we're intending to take, but talking with them was helpful. They recommended we read a book called When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself. Rodgers bought it the next day. He has read it, and I am on chapter 3.

[from Amazon]
You can read the first few pages on Amazon or books.google.com

What I have read so far discusses the fact that people's needs are deeper and more complex than what meets the eye. Also, white Americans tend to have an air of superiority (or maybe a Superman complex) when dealing with those in poverty, though we are messed up people, too. They discuss different kinds of poverty besides not having money. We are all in some kind of poverty. It is important when helping people to 1) consider the fact that you are also in poverty, even though you may own a home and 2 cars and 2) minister to the person's full life, not just the part that you think is causing their poverty. For example, a single mother may not be able to hold a job, not because she's a poor employee, but because she has trouble getting childcare and lacks confidence in herself. Helping her get training or finding someone to hire her won't solve either of those.

Street kids will remain in poverty for many reasons. If we are to truly help them, we must consider their full life. This is what we've been discussing all along, but reading it in this book made me realize that the name of our ministry is Maisha Kamili, which is Full Life in Swahili. (The A's are like the A in father, I's like the I in ski: ma-I-sha ka-MI-li.)

Maisha Kamili will have its own blog one day, but not yet.

I want preseeeeeeeents!

2011-01-27T15:46:00.000-06:00

[Teen Girl Squad quote]

We took Nate to Toys R Us today to get his birthday presents. We had a $5 off coupon from the Birthday Club, plus a TRU gift card, plus some cash he got at his birthday party. So, we ended up spending... $0.

We found this really awesome Elmo spinning chair, but didn't get it. It would have taken more than half of his birthday money, and then we couldn't get him an umbrella stroller. Rodgers thought it wasn't fair to make Nate buy his own stroller with his birthday money, but I don't think it will really make a difference to him one way or the other.

[Toys R Us]

I love our Metrolite stroller, but I've really been wanting something more compact, especially since he's getting too big to be worn in the Baby Bjorn or sling. Rodgers really likes the Jeep umbrella stroller, but we went with the cheaper one instead.

He got two toys, one which he picked out himself. He got a flip phone, which sings "Lalalala Elmo's World," and the buttons make noises too. He knows the song and giggles when he hears it. If you've seen the newest videos on our YouTube channel, you will see that Nate loves opening and closing flip phones.

[Toys R Us]

There is a piano in the church nursery he loves to play. So when he saw a piano at the store, he got very excited. He was too excited to even touch it at first, he just kind of looked at it in awe. But after Rodgers played a few notes, Nate got into it too. Rodgers put it in our basket so we could buy it. Nate threw a fit and tried to get another one off the shelf. He thought we were just taking the toy away from him. We let him hold his piano until we checked out. He was so happy.

[Toys R Us]

So, there you have it. Nate's first birthday is now complete.

cross-cultural marriage: bonus

2011-01-25T19:28:00.002-06:00

After posting, one of my friends shared this on Facebook. Very interesting and a suitable addition to my series!

10 Fascinating Interracial Marriages in History

cross-cultural marriage: misunderstandings

2011-01-25T16:04:00.003-06:00

One common thing in cross-cultural marriages is that you don't always understand what your spouse is saying. Sometimes you understand the words, but they don't make sense to you. Sometimes you don't understand the words, though they are in your language. And sometimes, your spouse is speaking to you in a language you don't know.

This may be more of a personal characteristic than first-language-not-English, but it definitely comes into play in me not understanding what Rodgers is saying. He starts talking before he knows what he's saying. A couple of times a week, he will say a word that may start or end with the same syllable as what he wants to say, but is, in fact, a different word. It would be something like saying "exterminate" instead of "extrapolate," but I don't think that's one that's actually happened. These instances always end up with both of us in fits of laughter. Scary thing is, I usually know which word he's trying to say.

Rodgers' language is one of those in which each vowel only makes one sound. A (as in father), E (as in hey), I (as in ski), O (as in rode), U (as in dude). He has particular trouble with the short vowel sounds of a and u in English. He considers staff and stuff to be homophones, same for us and ass. Not only does he pronounce them the same way, he hears them the same way, too. A typical exchange in our house:

me: I'm talking about us.
him: Whose ass?

him: All the st(a/u)ff was there.
me: All the stuff or all the staff?
him: Those are both the same thing.
me: No, listen: stuuuuuuff, staaaaaaff.
him: ???

When he's spoken to me in Gyriama, he's usually either just woken up or he's talking in his sleep. I first noticed this tendency while we were still dating.

I had driven down to Brenham to visit him for the weekend. By the time I arrived it was after 9. I was tired from driving, he was just tired. We should have gone straight to bed, but we wanted to spend some time together first. (Since we slept in separate rooms, bedtime would not be time together.) About all we had the brain power for was watching TV. We found a movie on, and Rodgers fell asleep. At 11, his watch beeped, waking him up. He opened his eyes and asked me a question about what was going on in the movie. I sat for a minute, replaying the question in my mind over and over. For the life of me, I couldn't make any sense of it. So I asked him the obvious, "Was that English?" It wasn't.

More recently, just last week or so, I woke up in the middle of the night hearing Rodgers' voice. I looked over at him, and he was still sleeping. I didn't understand anything he was saying, so I'm guessing he was speaking Gyriama again. The only English word he said was, "Whatever."

What's the moral of these stories? I don't know. Maybe it's that misunderstandings can be frustrating, or they can amusing. They are what you make of them. Or maybe it's that you should ask for clarification if you don't understand what someone's saying. I mean, maybe you just weren't listening well, but it could be that they were speaking another language.

birthday update

2011-01-18T19:52:00.000-06:00

So...we had a birthday party. Considering the fact that we are planning to move to Kenya possibly soonish (we are so precise in our plannings), we can't be sure when Nate may have another birthday in Texas. I wanted to have a very small party, but we ended up having 18 of our closest friends over for lunch instead.

I made lots of chili. According to the food experts, I should have made much more for the amount of people we had there, but we ate only a little more than half what I made. I made 2 double batches of cornbread - one with sugar and one without - in my iron skillet. My iron skillet is big, and Rodgers always complains that a single batch of cornbread isn't tall enough. We had a tray of cheese, crackers, and summer sausage (don't tell the guests, but this was leftover from the previous weekend...), a tray of veggies with ranch dip, and a tray of apples with caramel dip. The veggie and apple trays I bought pre-made so that I wouldn't have to do more work, but I washed them because I'm not convinced that they're really clean when you buy them. We also had Ranch Style beans, grated cheese, sour cream, and jalapeños.

I made monkey cupcakes. We'd had some the previous weekend when my family was in town, so they could celebrate Nate's birthday, too. I used the leftovers from that (which had been frozen all week) and made another batch. I used part of the batch to make a little cake for Nate.

The party was great. Everyone was impressed that I can cook. Nate loved his birthday lunch so much that he didn't have room for cake. He sucked some of the frosting off his fingers, though, and fed me some, too. (Feed Mama is a favorite game of his.)

Nate was entirely overwhelmed by the amount of people, so he was rather clingy and fussy, but he did have some fun, especially opening presents. Especially when one of his presents happened to contain a can of Gerber Graduates Lil Crunchies, his all-time favorite snack.

Our dear friends helped us clean up, and some even helped bring stuff back to our apartment. (We were in the "club house" by the apartment office because our apartment cannot accommodate 21 people!) Then, Nate took a nap and Rodgers and I crashed for a while. That was nice!

Yesterday, Nate had his 12 month checkup. It included MMR, Hep A, and Varicella vaccines, as well as a blood draw to test for anemia and lead exposure. That was rough. He is big enough now to put up a significant fight. The Dr had been concerned with his growth because his weight had been going down in percentiles - he was still gaining weight, but at a slower rate than "average." His height percentile went up this time, though, so she's not too concerned, but she did warn us that if his weight percentile goes down at 15 months, she will be concerned. He comes from skinny stock, so I totally expect his weight percentile to go down as his head weight : body weight ratio decreases. They didn't measure his head this time, so I will do it with my sewing measuring tape because I am curious to see if his head is still monstrous or if he's starting to grow into it. Anyway, sum up:
weight: 22 lbs (25-50th percentile)
height: 30 in (50-75th percentile)

what a year!

2011-01-15T11:23:00.002-06:00

At the time this is published, it is exactly one year since Nate was born! Life has only gotten better for all of us over the past year.

A year ago, Nate didn't really eat much. He did sleep a lot. Today, Nate eats 4 meals a day of table food (breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner). He drinks 3 bottles of formula every day and is starting to drink whole milk instead. He naps from about 9-11 am and 1-3 pm, and sleeps overnight from 7 pm - 7 am.

A year ago, he loved being cuddled and nothing else. Now, he loves Elmo, his monkey, and his blankie, and he will occasionally tolerate a cuddle. His favorite toys are those which make noise (whether by a mechanism within or simply by banging them on the furniture) and those which can be thrown (most everything is in this category).

A year ago, Nate had a cry that sounded like a sea gull. Now, he screams (for fun), babbles, and cries like a little boy. He also says Mama and Daddy, though sometimes he leaves out the dd, making it Da--y. Or Dada. Or Baba. He calls Rodgers many things, but I'm just Mama.

A year ago, Nate could support his head well for a newborn, and he could grab things. Now, physically, he can do just about anything but walk. He is strong and has good fine motor skills, but he just hasn't quite mastered balancing enough to walk. My theory is that his head is too big and throws him off balance. It was big when he was born, too. Either he has a big brain or a thick skull. ;)

A year ago, Nate liked looking at me, Rodgers, and anything shiny. He still likes shiny things and us, but he also likes looking at pictures and books and watching Elmo on TV. His favorite books are the ones with lift flaps. He loves finding the hidden pictures. He discovered my birthday card that plays music. He opens and closes it over and over again to make the music start and stop. He loves controlling things.

A year ago, Nate had tons of thick, curly, black hair. Now, he has short (because we cut it), thin (because it was falling out around 9 months, but is growing back), brownish hair. He still has his huge dark chocolate eyes, chubby cheeks, and dimples. He was wearing NB and 0-3 clothes; now he's in 12 mos and 18 mos.

He has changed so much in these short 12 months. It's amazing how fast this year went, especially considering that the preceding 9 months were the longest of my life. While it is strange to think of him as a little boy more than a baby now, I'm not sad that he's growing up. Every stage of this past year has been more fun than the last, and we have much more to look forward to.

baby books

2011-01-13T15:06:00.000-06:00

Before Nate was born, I found a baby book (The New Baby's Baby Journal) to record his milestones and little tidbits about him as a baby. I purposely found one that was more fill-in-the-blank style. I have kept up with it, mostly. There is a page for every week of the first year, and some weeks I didn't really have anything to write. Sometimes I skip weeks, and try to remember later what happened. But also, there are pages for major events, some of which don't apply (first pet), and some things I wanted a page for but there wasn't one (dedication at church), but in the end, it's all kind of worked out. I still have to fill in the winter page, but I can't decide if I should do last winter or this one; the artsy outing page; walking/dancing/talking/singing; and the first birthday.

We also have a baby's first year calendar. This has helped with the weekly fill-ins. It's easy to jot things down on the day they happen. Then, I can go back and fill in the journal later.

But also, at one of his showers, we got a little scrapbook. It has cute paper and stickers and things to make it up as you go. Well that's a lot of work. I want to do something with it, but I haven't yet. I have the journal from his first year, so I don't think I need to fill it with baby things.

I am thinking, though, if we move overseas, like we plan to, maybe I can make this scrapbook into some kind of Texas picture book for him. I could put pictures of his Texas relatives, some Texas culture. OR, I could do that for half the book and do the other half with Kenyan family and Kenyan culture. Or maybe I can just make the whole thing family pictures. Or I can drag it out over the next 17 years as a Nate-grows-up book. So many options.

I really think that when he's 2-, 3-, 6-years old, he'd enjoy looking at pictures of his relatives who don't live in the same country as him. That's my favorite option so far. Any other ideas?

working mommy wednesday

2011-01-12T20:54:00.000-06:00

Prompt 2: favorite recipe

You must know, we love to crockpot. Especially when I'm actually working, it's so incredibly efficient and makes such yummy meals. We used to crockpot once a week. Now, not so much. Our favorite is pot roast. I don't exactly have a recipe per se. And definitely no measurements. More like...estimations.

Ingredients:
1 beef roast
Some potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
3 handfuls of frozen whole green beans
2 handfuls of frozen chopped carrots
1 can cream of something soup (I use whatever happens to be in the pantry, usually mushroom)
1 packet dry vegetable soup mix (onion soup mix works great, too)

Directions:
Put roast in the crockpot
Throw veggies on top
Pour soup and soup mix over and stir
Cook on low for 6-8 hours

Doesn't get much easier than that.

We also cook in substitutions. Don't have the "right" veggies? Throw anything in there. Almost everything tastes awesome in that sauce. The only thing I don't recommend is cauliflower. We tried that once, and we both thought that the flavor of it overpowered the other flavors. Sometimes we mash the potatoes instead of serving them cubed. Or, sometimes we don't have potatoes so I make biscuits to go with it instead. The only thing you really have to have is the roast. Without it, this is vegetable soup, which is also good, but not pot roast.

working mommy wednesday

2011-01-05T11:08:00.002-06:00

Prompt #2: Biggest challenge of the new year.

I'm not ready to talk about it in detail on this blog yet, but my biggest challenge for the new year is huge. I mean HUGE. Not wanting to leave you too much in the dark, I give you a brief overview:

Rodgers and I have had a dream to start and run an orphanage in Kenya. They don't have the same kind of system that we do, where the state takes care of children when they lose their parents. It is expected that aunts, uncles, and grandparents will take the children in. However, there are many cases where there are no relatives, or at least there are none who can take care of the children. Maybe they have already adopted so many of their nieces, nephews, and grandchildren that they really can't handle any more. Or maybe all the relatives have died, or they have no contact with them. However it happens, children end up living in the streets. There are an estimated 250,000-300,000 street kids in Kenya. We want to help out a few of them.

We had been thinking that this project is years away, but it's becoming clear that 2011 is the year we get all the logistics worked out. Like I said, it is a huge challenge.

cross-cultural marriage: in-laws

2011-01-03T14:21:00.001-06:00

This is how things go when I visit my mother-in-law:

We greet my mother-in-law with "Shika moo," the appropriate way to greet your elder. She shakes our hands saying, "Marahaba," which is the proper response. They find me a chair and sit me down with one of the men who speaks English - either a cousin or brother. Then, Rodgers goes off somewhere (he doesn't always tell me where). My mother-in-law goes to her kitchen or wherever she is making meal preparations. Even if it's not mealtime, she has to offer me a meal because she regards me as a special guest.

All the relatives live nearby, and news that there is a mzungu (white person) around travels fast in the Kenyan countryside. Everyone has to come see me. The women and children greet me when they arrive, then they go off to their respective places. The kids are usually running around; the women help cook. I have tried to help cook before. Rodgers told them that I needed to see the way things are done in Kenya, but they will not let me. So I sit and tell Rodgers' brothers and cousins about what crops we grow in Texas and what our homes look like. They are sorry that Rodgers and I don't have any land where we can plant corn (we live in an apartment).

When men arrive, they greet me. If the know English, they will say, "How are you?" If they don't speak English, they will say, "Habari." Then, they send a child to get them a chair. Once Rodgers' uncles arrive, no one speaks English anymore.

So I sit, greet newcomers who arrive, and keep a ear out for English. Usually, they're talking about me and will ask me about something every now and then. It's quite lonely.

Eventually, Rodgers will return, and then I feel a little more comfortable, but I'm still on display for all of his relatives. He doesn't translate everything for me, but will at least tell me what they're talking about, and ask a niece to bring me chai or something.

I don't have in-laws telling me how to raise Nate or meddling in my marriage. I have in-laws who find me something of a spectacle, fascinating, but can't or won't talk to me. And we barely know each other. I think this will be different if/when we live in Kenya.

end of year slideshow

2010-12-31T23:13:00.000-06:00

Some of these pics are in the Christmas letter post. I was just choosing pictures to print for the frame that Rodgers got me for Christmas. It has 7 frames, front and back, so 14 pictures. I thought that would be perfect for one picture from each month of Nate's first year, plus a family picture from last January, and a family picture from this month. I love this collection of pictures so much, I had to share.

goals for 2011

2010-12-31T20:41:00.003-06:00

I had a couple of goals last year. One was to lose some baby weight; the other was to be more strict with the budget.

Nate was about 10 months old when I hit my goal weight (I lost 27 lbs in the first 2 weeks, then about 1 lb per month after that, for a total of 37 lbs lost) and 11 months old when I hit my goal size (I slimmed down in 2 spurts: 1 in August, 1 in November). I had a whole month to spare. By the way, I am not even trying to get down to pre-pregnancy size and weight. That would be ludicrous.

We did better with our budget the first half of the year, then when we found out I was losing my job, we did a lot better. I didn't feel like we ate out a lot, but when I told Rodgers "no more fast food and one eating out or delivery per month," we suddenly had a lot more money. We've also only been buying new clothes with gift cards/money we receive for birthdays/Christmas (he's as bad as I am about wanting to buy new clothes, though at least now, he gives away the ones he doesn't wear anymore instead of stockpiling them). That's been tough with me changing sizes, but the perfect thing is that I know other people who are changing sizes, too, and sometimes the size they are coming out of is the size I'm going into, and ta-da, new clothes for Rachel!

On to the future.

1. Read through the Bible
In the past, I have read through the Bible in a year a few times. I'd like to do that again this year. We will be doing books 3 and 4 of MasterLife, and I anticipate it will take a lot of time, which makes me kind of reluctant to make this goal. However, I am still going to go for it. I've come up with a reading plan that takes a little less than 11 months. I hate plans that assume you're using them during leap year. It bothers me to have to double up or carry the reading plan over an extra day. Also, I can guarantee that I will miss days occasionally. I needed a plan with a little wiggle room. There is a link to my reading plan in the sidebar on the right.

2. Christmas in Kenya
We will take two weeks off next December to spend Christmas in Kenya. Rodgers has already put in his request for time off. We are making this plan in faith that whatever job I get will allow me to take the time off as well. And we have already started saving for the airfare, as we'll have to buy 3 tickets next year. Technically, Nate will still be young enough to ride in our laps, but seriously? Who wants to share a tiny airplane seat with a 23.5 month old for 18 hours straight? It will be a tough trip as it is, I think we'll need that extra seat.

3. Get a Job
Ok, I know I just said we're doing ok because we're budgeting so much better now than before. But, I only have 3 more months of unemployment left, and after that, we will have to start taking money out of savings. Which means that goal #2 would be less likely to become reality.

4. Read 2 Books per Month
I really love reading. I got a library card last year and checked out books once. Then, some people gave me some books to read, I bought some off a clearance table, Nate was born, I had no time to go to the library anymore... Sometime around August, I started going to the library again. While I'm home I can read about 1 book per week without neglecting my chores. Once I have a job again, I assume I'll be back to lunch break reading only, which means it will take me longer to get through a book. I think 2 per month is a reasonable goal.

Christmas: parts A, B, C, and D

2010-12-28T21:32:00.001-06:00

Our Christmas is quite split up this year, into parts A - E.

Part A, as you saw from the slideshow I previously posted, was last Tuesday at home. We had planned to do it Saturday morning, then we were going to do it Friday morning. Then, I thought we'd do it Wednesday since Rodgers would be home all day (he ended up having to cover for one of his coworkers who called in sick). Thursday was out because we were going out of town. Anyway, Tuesday I asked Rodgers how long we had to wait to exchange gifts with each other. We'd been done shopping for weeks. The anticipation was killing me. He told me that we'd do it whenever I wanted, so I said, "Right now!!"

Part B was Thursday. We went down to Bastrop to visit my paternal grandparents. My aunt and uncle, who are missionaries in Asia, happened to be there, as well as my cousin, their daughter, who lives right down the road from us, but we never manage to see each other up here. We figured it would be the only time Rodgers would see my grandparents since he was working all weekend.

Nate has had bouts of separation anxiety over the past few months, none of them very long or intense. But Thursday started another one. Come the weekend, he was a complete mess. He did let Mimi hold him for a few minutes and was content with that, as long as he had a Cheeto in hand (and mouth).

Part C. Nate and I drove down to my sister's house (she wasn't home, it just happened to be a more central location for those involved in Part C) on Friday afternoon. He screamed about half of the trip down.

A couple hours after we got to my sister's house, my parents and maternal grandma arrived. Nate fought bedtime hard, then was up from 1:30-4 am. So, Nate, Grandpa, Gigi, and I got to sit in the floor in my nephew's room and play, while my grandmother slept soundly on the other side of the house. It was a unique Christmas Eve/early Christmas morning. I slept less than 5 hours, in 3 spurts, that night. Felt like I had a newborn again.

Rodgers came Saturday morning and stayed until he had to leave for work. Nate only let Rodgers or me hold him, and he screamed a lot, and he had a hard time going to bed for naps. We were just there a week earlier, and he went down for a nap in my nephew's room with no fuss at all.

Part D involved my parents, maternal grandma, and all of my dad's siblings and their spouses and kids, with the exception of Rodgers and my siblings & co. Again, Nate didn't let anyone hold him but me. One aunt didn't care, and she took him from me while he screamed, and they chased one of the dogs around the house. Nate didn't mind her holding him as long as he was playing with the dog. Nate got to open some fun Christmas presents, and the grown ups had a Yankee swap kind of exchange, which was also fun! Nate slept the whole way home, which was the most peaceful part of the weekend.

Parts A - D of Christmas were fun, but the weekend was hard for me because Nate was so intensely clingy and fussy and screamy. No one else could hold him. I couldn't walk out of the room without him screaming. I couldn't even walk to the other side of the room if someone else would be standing in between us. I was disappointed that he wasn't his usual charming, people-loving self. He is almost 12 months, which seems to be about time for some hardcore separation anxiety. Maybe next time we see family he'll be back to being a people-person. He is also starting to show signs of teething again, which may be the cause of some of this, or may be amplifying it. The next teeth on his to-do list are 1 year molars.

Part E is coming up in less than 2 weeks when we will see my siblings and their families! This is a lot of Christmas! I put the Christmas decorations up way early. I usually take them down around the first of January. However, we'll be having Part E at our apartment in the second week of January. I think I'll be leaving the decorations up longer this year. Yay!

cross-cultural marriage: mix and match

2010-12-27T19:59:00.003-06:00

One of the things that my reading about cross-cultural relationships taught me is that in order to mesh cultures together, you need to understand your own culture and what's important to you. If you know what you value, then it will be easier for you to communicate that to your spouse. There will be things about your cultures that are in conflict. There will be things that are very important to your spouse culturally which to you seem weird, awkward, or even unacceptable. You will have to give up some things for them and they for you. This is true of any marriage, but perhaps the differences are more obvious in a cross-cultural one. Here are some examples of Rodgers and me each yielding to the other's culture.

Babies
In Kenya, when a woman has a baby, only women are present. Men aren't allowed in the room or even in the house. It's not that the men say, "I'm not going in there!" The women say, "It's time for you to leave." Men don't have anything to do with birthing, neither do they seem to have much to do with taking care of the babies before they are weaned.

In the US, men are increasingly expected to be present for labor and delivery and do their part in childcare from birth. I expected no less from Rodgers. Fortunately, he seemed excited to be the only Kenyan man he knows who has been present for the birth of a baby. I think he would have liked to actually watch the gross part, but there were so many doctors and nurses in the way that he couldn't see. Plus, I needed him to hold my head and shoulders.

I didn't sleep the last few months of pregnancy. Once Nate was out, the insomnia was gone, so Rodgers often got up with Nate during the night. I was taking a lot of Rx pain killers those days, too, so it was difficult for me to wake up. After a couple of weeks, we split the night - he would get up if Nate woke up the first half, I would do the second half. He still enjoys having an equal role in taking care of Nate. This is unusual for a Kenyan.

Family
In the US, we value independence, especially financial independence. You should make enough money to support yourself, but you are not expected to support anyone other than yourself, your spouse (if any), and your children (if any). In Kenya, you are expected to support your parents and even your siblings if you are better off than they.

It seems kind of tacky to talk about the money we send to Kenya. Let's just say that we have sent, do send, and will continue sending money to my mother-in-law and siblings-in-law. They use it for real necessities.

If I wanted to stick to my Americanness, I would tell Rodgers that Nate and I are his family now, and he should let his mom and siblings take care of themselves. However, I know it's important to Rodgers that we do this. Sure, we could use that money ourselves. We could use it for good things, too, things that don't seem frivolous to most of my peers. I think I should feel a conflict of culture about supporting Rodgers' family this way, especially when we have a car that we want to replace, we rent an apartment, and our home is furnished with mis-matched hand-me-downs (well, we did get a few pieces new). But I don't feel any conflict about it. It's the right thing to do.

People have often commented to me that they are impressed by the way Rodgers and I mesh our very different cultures. I tend to think it's easier for us because 1) we are anticipating having differences, 2) our differences tend to be obvious, and 3) we both intentionally take on a culture, if you will, of following Jesus before our national cultures. I think that in same-culture marriages, people expect to have the same values, the same reactions to conflict, the same priorities, etc. But, of course, they are different.

Rodgers and I, forming our "Christian culture," meshing in bits of American and bits of Kenyan, have decided that we are inventing a whole new culture just for our family. It works well for us!

2010 in pictures

2010-12-25T10:14:00.013-06:00

I like writing Christmas letters to put with our Christmas cards to let people know what we're up to. Last year, we sent a letter, but I also did a year-in-pictures review here. What would be in the letter is essentially a summary of our year, which the pictures accomplish as well, in a much more interesting way. So this year, no Christmas letter from us, it's all in here:

January

Halfway through January, Nate was born. What more can I say?

February

In February, there was snow. The first time Rodgers experienced snow, he was newly arrived from Kenya, and it was entirely too cold for him to enjoy. This time, he was used to the cold and played in the snow like a child. Nate, on the other hand, did not enjoy the snow.

March

Our first wedding anniversary was in March. After a weekend on the coast (with my parents babysitting our almost-2-month-old baby overnight), we stopped by Pam's house to introduce her to Nate.

April

We spent Easter at Camp Tejas with my extended family on my dad's side. Here we are with my siblings, sibs-in-law, niece, nephew, and parents.

May

My first Mother's Day as a mother! Rodgers and Nate gave me a super soft, cozy, pink robe, to replace my no longer super one that is very old.

June

In June, we began introducing Nate to various kinds of food. He's eating peas in this picture. I love how he's looking at Rodgers. He loved every food that he tried! Rodgers thought it was easier to feed him while holding him. He wasn't sitting up very well back then and usually ended up sort of lounging in Rodgers' lap.

July

Nate's first 4th of July was on the beach! It was past bedtime, and he was already in his pjs (and sunhat before the sun went down), but he watched fireworks. He wasn't afraid of the big noise. We thought we were watching a real fireworks show, but as the evening went on, we realized that what we were seeing down the beach were many beachgoers setting off their own fireworks.

Nate and I went to England the last week of July for Cat's wedding, before heading down to Kenya to join Rodgers for a quick trip to see his family the first week of August.

August

Nate met Nyanya (that's Esther or Mama Esther to you and me) in August. She can't wait to see him again, but it will probably be about a year before we get to go back.

September

We spent Labor Day Saturday in Bastrop. Nate and James were interacting more than when they were younger. In this picture, they both have lipstick on their cheeks from Gigi's kisses. I always think that Nate's skin is quite pale, until I see him with James.

October

With the cooler weather in October, and my days of free time (since I lost my job Oct 1), we started taking Nate to the park. He loved the swing! Towards the end of the month his cousin Lauren came to visit us (with her parents, of course). It was a really sunny day, so no pictures turned out well, but they had fun swinging together.

There's no pictorial representation of it, but Rodgers started a new job in October, working with troubled teenage girls. It sounds like a nightmare to many people, but it's a great place for him. He's very good at his job, and he enjoys it, too!

November

Thanksgiving!!! It was a short two days that we spent with my family, but it was a good time. I really loved watching the cousins play together (i.e. next to each other).

December

2010 was a very fun, and very fast, year. God has definitely blessed us abundantly.

We are anticipating big things in 2011, including, but not limited to, Nate's first birthday, Nate learning to walk and speak, and me becoming employed again! Click on the Nathanael tab at the top of the page to find out what Nate's been up to lately.

I failed to mention that Rodgers was in Kenya in July with our church on a mission trip. We are looking forward to seeing more missionaries come out of this body of believers. We are also looking forward to starting a shiny, new children's ministry in February. Big, new, amazing, fun things are happening at this church. God's doing some work here, and we are trying to stay right in the middle of it.

advent - day 25

2010-12-25T08:00:00.014-06:00

Merry Christmas!!!

Today, I want for us to focus on our local ministries. Pray for your church, your pastor, the local food bank, homeless shelter, pregnancy help center, and any other local ministries you know of. Pray that they will be united in ministry to meet both physical and spiritual needs of the people in your town or city.

As an example, one of the local ministries I'll be praying for is Helping Hands in Belton.

advent - day 24

2010-12-24T08:00:00.023-06:00

Perhaps best known for Operation Christmas Child, Samaritan's Purse is what we're focusing on today. They have a handful of other ministries and are at work in many countries throughout the world. Their other ministries are Relief and Development, Children's Heart Project, HIV/AIDS Prescription for Hope, and World Medical Missions. If you click on "where we work" on the home page, a map will pop up which will show you where these ministries, as well as where OCC, are active.

Currently, one of their most urgent needs is for medical personnel who are willing to go to Haiti to fight the cholera outbreak. Let's pray that doctors and nurses will be called to go to Haiti.

Now is the time of year that shoe boxes full of gifts are being delivered to needy children in some 100 countries through Operation Christmas Child. If you packed and sent a box (or more), pray specifically for the child(ren) who will receive the box you packed. If you didn't send a box, choose a country or region and pray for the children there. Pray that they will be encouraged by the gifts. Pray that their lives may be made better through their connection with Samaritan's Purse. Most importantly, pray that they may come to know Christ.

advent - day 23

2010-12-23T08:00:00.011-06:00

I wasn't sure what missions organization to pray for today. I have one for tomorrow and something special for Christmas Day, but I exhausted my knowledge of missions organizations. So I googled "pray for missions." The second hit was for Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

Formerly China Inland Missions, OMF is a missions organization that focuses on reaching people in East Asia. They have over 1600 workers from over 30 countries. Flipping through their website, I noticed that every page has a different prayer point on the banner at the top. This is an organization with a strong emphasis on prayer. I like that! Their December prayer requests are listed here. You'll have to scroll down to the 23rd.

Nate's first Christmas

2010-12-22T21:16:00.001-06:00

Christmas has started for us, but it's not over yet! Nate is not walking yet, not even trying to walk. We got him a ride-on train (with buttons and lights and music, of course) for Christmas. The backrest also works well as a handle for walking behind the train. Nate suddenly likes practice walking. Take a look:

advent - day 22

2010-12-22T08:00:00.048-06:00

ALARM (African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries) was born in the wake of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. This video explains more history. Their ministry has expanded to include seven other eastern African countries.

ALARM’s passion is to help the African church serve as an agent of change, fostering transformation that goes deeper than superficial, nominal Christianity. In addition to regular conferences for pastors, ALARM trains men and women for church leadership in a variety of venues.

As western missionaries are more and more desiring to hand over church leadership to locals, there is a great need for training. ALARM recognizes that need, and they have conferences and training programs for pastors and church leaders. They also recognize that women have especially suffered as a result of the violence that takes place in Africa. Thus, they have special training programs for women. They also (and this is particularly close to my heart) train kids. They have schools as well as vocational training and discipleship. The vocational training is key for these children to have a more prosperous life than that which they were born into. The discipleship ensures that the next generation will have effective church leaders.

Let's pray that ALARM will be well supported financially in the coming year. Pray that many would be willing to go to conferences and go through training in order to become more than nominal Christians. Pray that this ministry would catalyze the change that is needed.

advent - day 21

2010-12-21T08:00:00.010-06:00

TEAM is an organization I learned about while compiling this advent list. They are affiliated with more than one of the other organizations we have prayed for. They have over 600 missionaries serving full-time, who are joined but 150-200 short termers each year. They are working in 39 countries around the world, mostly doing church planting:

Church planting is our focus. We are involved extensively in related ministries that include community development, ESL, counseling, sports, technology, healthcare, business, linguistics, music, and education.

Here is their prayer journal for December. http://www.teamworld.org/pray/187-prayer-journal-december-2010.html Scroll down to the 21st.

advent - day 20

2010-12-20T08:00:00.029-06:00

Rodgers loves jail ministry, so I knew I needed to include Prison Fellowship. You may be familiar with Angel Tree, which is a program to provide gifts for children of prison inmates. It is a program of Prison Fellowship. They do a lot more than Angel Tree, though. Here is their mission statement:

To seek the transformation of prisoners and their reconciliation to God, family, and community through the power and truth of Jesus Christ.

Here is a link to their various programs. Let's pray especially for Angel Tree, and thank God that so many families have been blessed by this ministry. Check out the prayer request list for a brief Bible reading and two prayer requests:

http://www.prisonfellowship.org/get-involved-with-prison-fellowship/prison-fellowship-pray/prayer-requests

advent - day 19

2010-12-19T08:00:00.035-06:00

Rodgers and I had a chance to sit down and talk with the Africa Inland Mission recruiting representative for this region of the US a year or so ago. Since Rodgers had been granted a green card, and could be employed and sent by an American missions organization, this rep was encouraging us to join AIM. He told us that AIM's focus is on working with local churches across Africa. When AIM starts something new, it's because a church in African has asked them to start something. I thought this approach was very unique. Rather than assessing the need from their own western mindset, they work with local churches and let the churches tell them where the major needs are in their areas. We eventually decided that AIM wasn't right for us,* but we still love their work.

There are a couple of resources for praying for AIM. One, they have a ministry called Pray Africa, which has new posts every day. Two, there is a "Fuel for Prayer" (I love that phrase) section on the AIM website, with a short paragraph posted each day.

*No hard feelings. We really want to work in Kenya, but AIM doesn't send Kenyans to be missionaries in Kenya. He would send us anywhere other than the countries we were born in. Also, our desire is to start, run, or otherwise work with an orphanage/home for street kids, but AIM relies on local churches to dictate what ministry opportunities they will pursue, and churches rarely request ministry to street kids.

advent - day 18

2010-12-18T08:00:00.036-06:00

One of the most amazing experiences I've had was the time I spent aboard the MV Doulos, one of the OM Ships, which is part of Operation Mobilization, which we prayed for previously. (Doulos was decommissioned last year and is currently under renovations to be opened as a convention center, but will not sail anymore. If you want to know more about Doulos, check out the Doulos Phos Facebook page. This post is really about OM Ships.) The current OM Ship is called Logos Hope. The motto of OM Ships is "bringing knowledge, help, and hope." The knowledge is in the form of the books they carry and sell. The help is typically relief work. And the hope, of course, is the Gospel.

During my time on board, I taught English classes, represented the United States/Texas/the "Old West"/cowboys, spoke in churches ranging in membership from about 20 to several thousand, preached on street corners, acted in skits for school children, became a clown and a face painter, and had many other adventures in missions. I also worked 5 days a week on the ship. I had one day off each week, during which I explored the world as much as possible. I believe most OM Ships missionaries have similar experiences.

OM Ships' prayer page is here: http://www.omships.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=142&Itemid=335&lang=en

cross-cultural marriage: I can't hear you!

2010-12-17T19:58:00.003-06:00

I've heard people say that kids who grow up out in the countryside in Africa can hear cars coming miles away. There's not a lot of noise out there. They haven't had stereos and TVs and headphones ruining their hearing. So Rodgers almost definitely has better hearing than me.

If you leave America, you will find that we Americans have quite a reputation for being loud and obnoxious in public. We aren't the only nationality that's loud in public, but we are the most stereotyped one. (We're stereotyped for other things, too, by the way.) Kenyans are not loud in public.

If you know Rodgers, you know he can be loud. He has a big voice. When he's talking to me in public, though, he talks very quietly.

I discovered this early in our romantic relationship. When we started "dating" (which wasn't technically dating because we didn't go on dates, but what else do you call it? courting? sounds lame), it started with a phone call. Rodgers had to repeat everything he said to me at least once. Phone calls remained a big part of our relationship until we got engaged because it was a long distance relationship for 2 years and 8 months, then short distance for the 4 months we were engaged. Eventually I got used to him enough that he didn't have to repeat everything, but he still had to repeat himself sometimes.

In the US, until we got married, he was always living with someone else. If this person (or these people) weren't home, I could usually hear everything he said to me. But, if they were home, I would have the volume on my phone turned up to max and be pressing it into my ear as far as I could, holding my breath so I could hear Rodgers the third time he repeated himself. He would say that he didn't want everyone in the house to hear him. I would respond that if the person he's talking to can't hear him, what's the point in saying anything at all? He would say that I just need to listen. THEN, we would finally be together for a day, and he'd get a phone call from someone else. He would talk to whoever it was in a very loud voice. I would tell him, "That's how you need to talk to me on the phone!" But he never did.

It happens in restaurants, too. Sometimes the waiter can't hear him ordering. Usually, he asks me to say both of our orders, and I don't know if this is because he feels like I'm taking care of him if I order for him or if it's because waiters understand me. Whatever it is, I don't mind ordering for him, or even choosing what he's going to eat. (Besides the volume, he doesn't have the accent people expect, so sometimes they hear but can't understand him.)

Even though I know his voice well, I still have a hard time tuning in to it over a noisy restaurant. I have often found myself standing up in my chair, leaning over the table to hear him. We've gotten so that we only go to restaurants we know are quiet because I get so frustrated in noisy ones because he won't speak up! It doesn't seem to bother him very much to have to repeat himself. I guess that's good because he's determined to speak quietly in public.

The one perk that it has is that we look very romantic when we're talking in public because we have to be so close together. Maybe it's not a culture thing at all. Maybe Rodgers just couldn't figure out how to get me to snuggle up with him in the beginning of our relationship so he started talking quietly, and now it's a habit...

advent - day 17

2010-12-17T08:00:00.028-06:00

One of the people I was in Wycliffe training with had gotten started in Bible translation through Lutheran Bible Translators. LBT published one New Testament this year, and they are working on many more.

Almost 80 LBT missionaries are serving in 19 countries on 4 continents. They are involved in 80 Bible translation, Scripture Engagement, Vernacular Media and language projects.

Their Christmas newsletter pdf is available on their website here, but for easy access, I've copied and pasted the prayer and praise section below.

Botswana
Give thanks for Carl and Melody Knight, who are retiring at the end of 2010 after 25 years of Scripture engagement ministry.

Cameroon
Pray that Kory and Cara Fay will be able to begin their first field assignment to the Nizaa people of Cameroon in February.

Ecuador
Praise God that the entire Bible in the Cañar Quichua language will be available sometime next year.

Ghana
Pray for Rev. Nathan and Sarah Esala and family, who have returned to Ghana and resumed their translation ministry to the Komba people.

advent - day 16

2010-12-16T08:00:00.034-06:00

Buckner International is a ministry that seeks to make life better for orphans, vulnerable children and families around the world. They have published a beautiful advent devotional guide. You may download an electronic copy: http://www.buckner.org/downloads/2010advent.pdf.

December 16 is on page 32. It isn't a prayer guide, but this is an important message about love. What strikes me most as I think about orphans, street kids, abused/neglected/abandoned children is that they have no one to love them. Of course they need safe places to live, clean water, good nutrition, clothes, and education, too.

My first prayer for them is always that someone would find them and love them. I was born into a loving family. I grew up always knowing that I was loved. This is definitely something I took for granted because I never knew any different. What would my life have been like without parents who loved and took care of me?

My second prayer is: what do I need to do to show love to these children? What steps of faith should I take?

advent - day 15

2010-12-15T08:00:00.003-06:00

Today I'm praying the daily posting of the Bibleless Peoples Prayer Project. This is an effort of Wycliffe (I know we keep coming back to that one; did I mention they are my favorite?). Prayer partners of BPPP are given a specific Bibleless people group to pray for. They receive prayer requests for that people group as well as an annual update. This not only infuses Bibleless people groups and translation progress with prayer, but also gives partners a stake and a vested interest in Bible translation. It is not unusual for BPPP prayer partners to eventually join Wycliffe. On the BPPP website, they also share a prayer request for a different people group every day. Go here to find out what people group we're praying for today: http://www.wycliffe.org/Pray/BiblelessPeoplesPrayerProject.aspx

*Note: I still have 1 slot left to fill, if you have a group/agency/organization you'd like for us to pray for, let me know!*

play house

2010-12-14T10:12:00.001-06:00

We had this big box that Nate's carseat came in. We kept it for him to play with. He liked trying to knock it over, but wouldn't crawl inside it or anything. I decided to make it a little more appealing. I spent about 20 minutes the other night giving it a little makeover.

First, I turned it inside out and taped it up, so that the outside would be plain brown box instead of carseat pictures. Theoretically, I could cover it with white paper and/or paint. I wanted to make it look like a spaceship. I haven't done anything like that yet. I used a big book, a smaller box, and Nate's Bumbo to draw shapes on the box. I cut them out with a knife (this is really good for your kitchen knives (not really)). I thought about cutting them out completely, but then I remembered that Nate loves LOVES opening and closing things. So I left each one attached on one side.

The biggest one, I cut out as a door. The Bumbo shape opposite the door is low enough to the ground that it can also be a door. The next day, we introduced Nate to the play house/space ship/box with holes cut in it. He was a little less than impressed at first, but I think he likes it. He really likes it when I peek at him through the flaps. He didn't get it the first few times. Rather than looking through the box at me, he would crawl around the box to find me. He caught on eventually. Peek-a-boo remains one of his favorite games.

It would really look cute if I covered it in white butcher paper, then outlined the flaps and holes with colored tape. Then, I could draw stuff on the paper. I don't really think that would make a big difference to the kid, though.

advent - day 14

2010-12-14T08:00:00.022-06:00

Bible Translation and Literacy Kenya combines two of my loves: Bible translation and Kenya! BTL partners with other translation organizations, such as Wycliffe and The Seed Company. Their first goal is Bible translation, but they also publish educational booklets, especially booklets about health. The literacy side is as important as the translation side. What good is it to have the Bible in your own language if you can't read? My own mother-in-law grew up in an era when girls didn't go to school. She is illiterate.

Currently, BTL is working with fourteen language groups: Aweer (Boni), Borana, Daasanach, Digo, Ilchamus, Ilwana (Malakote), Giryama, Marakwet (Endo), Orma, Pokomo, Sabaot, Samburu, Suba and Tharaka.

BTL doesn't have a prayer page on their website, so I suggest we pray for one or more of their projects. I have chosen Giryama, as that is Rodgers' native language. BTL published a Giryama New Testament in 2004. According to the map on their website, they have ongoing work on the Old Testament. They have completed and published the book of Genesis and the stories of Elijah and Elisha. Here is the Giryama page. You'll see the other languages listed to the left.

I pray that Giryama people will have a burning desire for God's Word. I pray that they will be able to get their hands on that which is already translated, and that it will come alive for them. I pray that God will use the portions of scripture in Giryama to draw people to Christ and to call ministers. I also pray that literacy classes will be available for those who can't read, and that they will take advantage of them.

advent - day 13

2010-12-13T08:00:00.019-06:00

When I talk about the year I spent as a missionary on a ship, everyone, and I mean everyone, asks me if it was one of the Mercy Ships. No, it was not. But today, that's who we're praying for.

Mercy Ships is a global charity that has operated hospital ships in developing nations since 1978. Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the forgotten poor by mobilizing people and resources worldwide, and serving all people without regard for race, gender, or religion.

On the Mercy Ships website, there is a prayer page, where you can type in and upload a prayer. I believe the purpose is both to be an encouragement for the Mercy Ships crew, as well as to encourage website visitors to pray for them.

The Ship's Watchmen is a video aimed at Mercy Ships' prayer partners. December's edition is here. It's about five and a half minutes long.

Also, you may want to check out their blog: http://www.mercyships.org/blog.