Moving Monday: Monterey

In April of 2012 I wrote a farewell to Colorado post. In my memory it was a really funny post, but I just went back and was very disappointed at my humor. So, I'm not going to link to it and I don't recommend you waste your time. Basically, I wrote about the silly things I had learned while living in Colorado and ended with the greatest lesson being that God had amazing plans for unexpected friendships. I ended the blog foreshadowing into my life a bit, wondering if I would one day be writing a similar story of our lives in California and I quoted scripture from Jeremiah when God asks, 'is anything too hard for me?'.

Man. I had noooooo idea.

So, to start, I'll just note some of the fun facts I've learned in my 3 years here which I never would have expected. In no particular order...

All of the songs about California and the images of sunny beaches with bikini bathers are very misleading. The central coast is rarely sunny, definitely not often warm, and you'll find more people in coats than bikinis.

70 degrees is warm, and 55 is cold. 

There really are republicans here. Really! I never would have thought.

But hippies definitely still exist. Like, for real.

I learned more about farming here than in 22 years in Texas. I'm a little ashamed of that actually, but I had no clue I was moving to the agricultural hub that is referred to as the 'salad bowl'.

Along those lines, I will never taste a strawberry as flavorful as at Central Coast farmers' markets.

Traffic in a slow paced smaller town can be just as frustrating as big city traffic. Either that, or I'm in for a ruuuuuuude awakening very soon.

In 3 years, I wished I had an air conditioner about 3 times. Maybe 5. And our heater was turned on even less.

But, despite the social, cultural, and climactic lessons learned here, my bigger shock of all came in the fact that I was completely accurate 3 years ago: California became my home in ways I never thought imaginable and leaving is no easier now than it was last time. 

I have been blessed beyond measure - we have been blessed beyond measure - in our lives here. We've learned about professionalism. I had a great job with some very good mentors and role models, and austin grew even more in his leadership skills as a platoon sergeant to 80 soldiers at a time . We've learned more about parenthood. And not just by having 2 more kids! We've learned more about ourselves, we've learned a ton about marriage and we've grown our family by 2 more babies. Most importantly, we have grown in our faith and love of Christ. It is through Him that the rest has been possible. I came to California thinking I would never have a home here like we did in Colorado, and in a lot of ways we didn't. But in some ways, this is more home than anywhere else has been to date. I realized there is no need to compare or try to morph a new home into the mold of an old home, all I have to do is try my best to keep my heart and mind open to what is next. I'm incredibly sad to walk away and I'm a little afraid of what's ahead. But I can confidently say we are going where God has lead us and He has things in store there which I can't even fathom. It's just not easy to leave all of this.

If ever you find yourself in Monterey, California I have some great recommendations for tourist spots. I know incredible people who can show you around and whom you'd be blessed to know. I have connections at the best accounting firm in the county. And above all else, I can point you in the direction of the most incredible, Spirit filled and life changing church.

It is with sadness, excitement, anxiety and great expectations that I say goodbye. For now. Just until we meet again. Thanks Monterey, we are truly Better Than Blessed.

William Wednesday

Man, my boy is a pretty freaking awesome big brother!

Life is about to change for this guy. A lot. He's graduating from preschool, we are moving, and he'll start kindergarten in the fall. 

He's a full-on reader. He can read anything. He's pretty solid with simple addition and subtraction. His geography knowledge surpasses mine (though that's no feat). He is incredibly smart, which is both a blessing and a curse. We aren't quite sure how we will keep him engaged when he's so ahead in certain areas. 

He may very well be the pickiest eater in the world and he may have a life goal of arguing more than any other kid in the history of ever. But man, I could not be more proud of that kid, he is incredible. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he goes through some exciting but difficult transitions coming up.

Or maybe just keep me in mind. Let's be honest, who is the first day of kindergarten really going to be hard for?

Efficiency

In honor of my due date tomorrow, I thought it was about time I introduce Loretta Loving to the blog! 

My favorite tag line when someone comments on how my body doesn't know how to be pregnant for 40 weeks is, 'I'm just that efficient. What most women take 40 weeks to do, I can do in 37.' In reality, though, my early birthed children have gotten a little more complicated each time and I do wish Loretta had been able to last a little longer inside. Regardless, she's here now and she's just perfect.

We don't really know what happened that day or what caused her to come early. I'm still a little baffled that I've had 3 babies, all 37ish weeks, and all early for very different reasons. I'm sitting in my living room right now (in a lawn chair - more on that another day) eating take out from the best local Chinese restaurant, remembering the last time we ate there: Tuesday May 12 we ended up with an impromptu date night so we decided to go out for a quick dinner. I wasn't completely comfortable the entire time and as we got in the car after dinner I winced in pain and thought, 'I hope the next three weeks aren't like this!' I had no idea what was ahead.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling very off. I was having fairly regular contractions and some pain, so Austin sternly instructed me to go to the hospital. It was somewhat against my will because I thought I knew what would happen - and I was right. I got there, was monitered, was given a shot to stop everything, and told to go home and rest. Waste of time, I thought. Plus, I hate the idea that I may be 'that person' going in for  no reason! So, I went home, slept a few more hours, and spent the day relaxing and doing nothing. 'Surely I can go back to work tomorrow' I thought.

Tomorrow happened to be the day austin was scheduled to fly to Texas with William, so not only was I determined to not have a baby that day, I was determined he was going on that trip. He was concerned Wednesday night (something about my pain being written all over my face every time I moved) so I promised him that if anything worsened I'd go to the hospital but otherwise it's just how the last few weeks would play out.

At 4:00 Thursday morning Austin let me know things had worsened, despite my best poker face, and told me we needed to go. I said I could call a cab (we had 2 sleeping kiddos after all, and who wants to disturb a sleeping friend to watch their kids for another useless trip to the hospital??) but Austin looked at me like a crazy person and said he wasn't sending his pregnant wife in a taxi cab anywhere. I could either call a friend to come sit at the house and let him drive, or I could be extra dramatic and take an ambulance. I took the first option.

When we got to the hospital the nurse didn't tell me much right away, she just kept monitoring me and asking me to reposition periodically. I told her all about Austin's trip and the things we had to do before Loretta could be born, and she listened so sweetly. Looking back I think she knew the likelihood of Loretta being born that day, but she entertained my controlling and stubborn notion that I had any idea what was to happen. Time kept ticking, contractions kept coming, and I kept referring to Austin's flight and what time we needed to be discharged. He left to get the boys ready and take Charles to daycare, and he came back with William around 7:30. At that point the nurse had hinted at the idea that the doctor might be coming by, and he might want me to stay later into the day. She even casually asked if the Texas trip could be rescheduled. I looked over at William's face and my heart just broke. How could I tell him that his long awaited trip with dada was going to be cancelled due to my inability to hold a baby in full term? I couldn't do it. I even told the nurse (Anne is her name) so. She just smiled.

Shortly before the doctor got there Anne let me know that my heart rate had been 'slightly' elevated since I arrived, my blood pressure was high, and Loretta's heart rate was high. Not only was it high, but her patterns didn't look great. I don't know what that means, but I know it 'isn't great'. My doctor showed up around 8:30 and let me know I was definitely in early labor and things definitely didn't look great. Did I mention it wasn't my doctor? It was his new backup who had never delivered in Monterey. I loved him, so no worries, but at the time I kept laughing at the irony that I specifically picked Dr Alexander to have Dr Alexander - but hey, what do I know?

Around this time I conceded on the Texas trip, but was still hopeful that the various ideas to calm the 2 of us down would work. Dr Feges had a few ideas up his sleeve of how to buy ourselves a week or so. I was 36.5 weeks and if we could get to 37.5 things could look a lot better.  But, right before I was going to eat some food and take a pill my heart rate unexplainably jumped up to 160 and Loretta's jumped over 200. Dr Feges came back, took away my food, and told me it was time to get her out. I had developed a fever and signs of infection, our heart rates continued to climb, my blood pressure kept getting worse - no one knew why, but they all agreed it was just time. We rushed a friend over to take a very confused William to preschool and they got me into the OR once Austin was back. Surgery went well and she was out before I even understood the risk at hand.

The rest of our time wasn't exactly smooth sailing. We took up residency in the family birth center, I had a few disappointing interactions and experiences with some nurses, Loretta had some blood sugar, eating, and jaundice issues, and I spent more time alone than I would have liked while Austin took care of the boys, the house and other arrangements. But, I also had lots of amazing friends and family come through with calls, visits, amazingly fragrant flowers, and endless prayers. I had more positive experiences with nurses than negative by far(besides a few bad stories I could share, the nurses at the hospital here are phenomenal), and though we were there 5 nights which felt like an eternity, at the end of it I got to come home with the most precious baby girl I've ever seen.

The last 3 weeks have been insane. Insane! I could write more about it but really it's about 10 posts worth of information so I'll have to leave some for another day. We've been incredibly busy adjusting and learning while also getting things in order for our move - but despite the busy busy time, we have been so blessed with a sense of peace through it all. 

God had a beautiful plan written out for this little life and He intended for it to begin exactly when it did. I can't wait to see what He has in store next!

Goodbye Facebook? Probably not...

So it's been about 2 weeks since I've been on Facebook. I logged into messenger a few times but otherwise I just haven't been on. At first it wasn't an intentional choice - then after I realized it had been 3-4 days I thought, hey why not see how long it can go? Then, when I started getting 'come back we miss you' emails from Facebook it became a stubborn thing. You can't lure me, you temptress!

Do I miss it? Sometimes. Do I miss your life updates? Duh. Do I find myself running late far less? You betcha. And I'm not on my phone as much, which means I'm either doing something productive or paying more attention to my kids - can't go wrong there right?

I really thought April 16 would bring a huge sigh of relief and less stress/responsibility. I was a believer!!! But what I found was that I traded one stress for another. There were so many things at work and at home that I had neglected from about January 10 through April 15, and then there was a sudden realization that I had 6 weeks to prepare for a baby and 8 weeks to prepare for a move. (But really, I better be prepared for that move BEFORE that baby!) so, I found myself no less stressed and no less busy. 

Our moving binder is in tact and it makes my heart happy. I love our moving binder! Hotel reservations, flight reservations, pet arrangements, household good arrangements, Aurora house sale paperwork, Killeen house hunt details -- it's all in one place. The list of contents goes on but I don't want to bore you. Austin made fun of our binder 3 years ago but he was the one who pushed to get it going this time and now he loves it. Dare I say I may have rubbed off on him in some organizational matter??? Nah, I won't jinx it. But it does help keep things together when there are so many moving pieces - and it feels good when we knock something off the to do list (conveniently found in section 8 of the binder).

And even with my recent boycott of Facebook time still seems to just be slipping away no matter what I do.

I thought it was april 16 but I blinked and its may 8. I'm not quite sure how! This weekend is Mother's Day, next weekend austin and william go house hunting, the next weekend we celebrate our crazy baby's birthday, then the next weekend we are preparing to welcome the little surprise bundle of (well, stress to be honest) and joy! Where did all of the time go? Wasn't I supposed to relax a little somewhere in there?

So - yeah, I've kind of been MIA from blogging for waaaay too long and I've recently been MIA from Facebook. But I do hold out hope that one day soon I'll find myself back in the swing of social media. Less than before perhaps, but hopefully not living in a cave. Until then - think of me often :) I'll surely think of you.

Loretta Loving

Ok. It's time. Our mathematical equation to name our child has remained a secret long enough.

When we got pregnant with Charles we instantly started brainstorming names for boys and girls, and at the time the only tiny reason I would have liked a girl was because naming her seemed like an easier task. Naming a boy had some challenges but we seemed to like the same names for girls. But, Charles is Charles and we wouldn't have it any other way. Ironically though, when we found out about our little surprise we couldn't agree on a girls' name to save our lives. So, every bone in my body hoped we'd have a third boy.

Well, surprise again - it's a girl :) I can say that while we are both intimidated and scared and anxious, we are very, very excited. I think austin would even say he wouldn't change it if he could! But, that doesn't mean naming her was easy. We were kind of dead locked and really just lacking much motivation so we had to come up with a system. (Err, I had to come up with a system. Austin was fine waiting)

I would have bet money that no matter what system we came up with, her name would end up Elizabeth Loving. (Bet you can't guess where my vote was!) Elizabeth is the middle name of my cousin who has been one of my closest friends my entire life, it's classic and beautiful, and it just conveniently fell in line with our royal theme. But, we weren't in agreement so we came up with a method.

We each chose 6 girl names and wrote them on a paper. Then we each got to cross off one name from each other's list so we were left with 10 names. We actually only had 9 because Elizabeth was on both of our lists, so again I assumed that was the name we would end up with. Once we had 2 lists of 5 we each ranked both lists 1-5, 1 being our favorite and 5 being our least favorite. This quickly knocked the list down to 5 names because a lot of them were low on both scores. The top names, mathematically, were:

Mary

Elizabeth

Aurora

Samantha

And I can't remember #5. Notice nowhere on the list is Loretta, as neither of us had even uttered the name before. I said we should just sit on it awhile but Austin said 'well Mary wins why not Mary?' (It was conveniently #1 on his own list, mind you) 

We had already agreed the middle name would either be Loving or Aurora, but were both pretty set on Loving, so he kept saying Mary Loving.

Well, Mary Loving was my grandmother which is awesome - but as days went by I felt a little guilty that of the 6 names we would give our kids, 4 would come from one side of my family and 1 would come from his. So while he kept saying Mary I just wasn't sure.

Then it occurred to me - what if we found out what his grabdmother's middle name was? She had just recently passed away and I thought maybe it'd be neat to have both names be a grabdmother's middle name. We asked his mom, because he wasn't sure, and when she told me I just loved it. I asked him what he thought of Loretta Loving and his eyes lit up. And the final judge: william instantly approved.

It's not a very common or traditional name, it's a little old fashioned and a little country (thanks to Loretta Lynn) but we both loved it the moment it came up which is how we knew it was what her name was meant to be.

So while our math didn't quite add up to a winner, it did get us there. No more than 4 weeks from yesterday we will be holding our baby girl, the baby we never knew we wanted but can't imagine not having. Loretta Loving.

Moving Monday Part 4 (or 3...)

Oops. April sucks. No explanation.

But - our house is under contract! It was on the market for 48 hours and we had 9 offers. The lowest offer was $500 above our asking price.

If I had more time I'd write about how incredibly overwhelmed, excited, nostalgic, shocked and blessed we feel. For now, the adjectives will have to do.

17 days from now our first home will belong to someone else, and 18 days from now we will not have a penny of debt to our names. It's bittersweet for sure, but definitely more sweet than bitter.

William Wednesday

What??? Yep, I'm here on Wednesday to talk about my sweet baby william.

Who is 5, and huge and not at all a baby. Except when he sleeps. 

I've always known william was a talented sleeper, but I don't think I really valued it until I had my sweet precious sleepless Charles. Before I complain too much, I know Charles has overall been a good sleeper. Once we got past 6-8 weeks he slept pretty much through the night every night. He stirs easily, and any noise can wake him - but for the most part he slept.  Lately though I've decided he hates for me to sleep, so he peacefully sleeps from 7:00 until whenever it is that he hears me winding down. Some nights that's 9:30, others it's midnight. But he just patiently waits until that moment before he decides to wake up in a fuss needing something or another.

Why not let him cry it out? Well, mostly because that doesn't really help my sleep situation any more than coddling him and in my exhausted stuper I just want the fastest path to sleep. But also because charles and william are now sharing a room and we don't want to end up with 2 kids up at midnight!

Oh wait - william Wednesday. That's what we are here for. William. How dare I digress from my first born?

Luckily so far the crying hasn't woken him which is just amazing. Every morning it leaves me more and more thankful for his ability to sleep through a hurricane.

He is as stubborn as ever. His latest gem of a story involves a 45 minute hold out, refusing to politely ask me to give him the pastry in my purse. Wanna hear it? You know you do.

On Saturdays during tax season william likes to come to my work with me. I usually work about 8-5 depending on the weekend, and he comes from about 8-12. He plays legos or cars or watches shows, but I think mostly he just enjoys being with me. At work we have Saturday breakfasts hosted by different people each week, but my little finicky mini-me eater won't eat most of it so I usually either feed him at home or grab him something on the way. Two weekends ago we had to stop at target to get 2 birthday presents (for his jam packed agenda) so I offered to get him a pastry at Starbucks. That was my first mistake and I take full responsibility.

So we are in line and we notice the selection is limited. Then we have this conversation:

Mommy can I have the lemon pound cake?

No william, because you won't eat it. You only want the icing.

No I will eat it.

Every bite?

Yes I like it all.

Ok.

Second mistake. Don't ever trust a manipulative 5 year old trying to get sugar. I bought it and as I was going to hand it to him he said 'mommy, I can share it with you. We can split it'

Well, I'm no fool. I know how he would have wanted to split it. Break it in half so that all of the icing is on one side, which he'd conveniently take. Proud of my ability to con a con artist, I broke the pound cake in half lengthwise, evenly splitting the icing.

You would have thought World War III broke out right there in the target in Marina, CA. He. Was. Mad.

I took the pound cake back and put it in my purse, letting him know when he decided to calm down, figure out what he needed to say to me, and ask politely for his food and milk he could have them but until then I was done talking to him. This ensued the quickest target trip ever, followed by 20 minutes in the car driving to my work listening to 'mommy, you HAVE to feed me. It's the law. I'm HUNGRY. You have to give me my food. You are not listening to me...' And on and on.

I quietly let it go on until about 5 minutes before we got to my office when I let him know, 'William, we are almost at my work. You can not behave this way at my work. If I have to call dada to come pick you up he is going to be very upset and you will not be going to Jordan's pirate birthday party. This is your choice. If you are hungry, you will find a way to politely get your food. Until then, I would recommend you stop your tantrum  unless you want to lose the parties of the day'

'But I don't know HOW to politely ask'

'Well, then I guess you're not that hungry'

He rode silently the rest of the way and when we got into my office we had this exchange:

William, come with me to the room to get my food.

But I don't want anything in there I can stay in here.

Ok. I'm taking my purse and closing my door, don't leave.

Why are you taking your purse?

Because I'm not leaving your food and milk in here to tempt you.

Oh. Ok. I will come with you.

We got my breakfast and then about 3 minutes after we got back to my office I won. My stubborn resolve beat his and did an interla victory dance as he quietly said, "mommy, can I please have my pound cake and my milk?"

Why yes, yes you may.

The rest of the day was enjoyable for everyone and both boys had fun at the pirate birthday party.

So, while William may push my limits during the waking hours, testing my own stubbornness and manipulation, he gives me rest between the hours of 8pm and 7am. For that, I am more thankful each and every day.