Laura, the Pastor's Wife.

Coming to a church near you in mid-January, 2017.

What's the point of blogging if no one reads it?

I used to have people read my blog.

It wasn't many, really, but it was some.  You may see somewhere on this page how many people "follow" me, but I don't think any of them read here anymore.

Really, it doesn't help that I don't write as much as I used to.  Few people ever commented back in the day when I'd put something out weekly, but that didn't bother me as much as the things in the world around me and not around me that made me kind of become quiet.

I tried to do theme posts, tried to do a series, and tried to just write consistently.  I failed at the lot of that, but it didn't matter.

Sometimes it's better just to write whenever you feel like it and whenever the words come to your mind and your heart and your fingertips.

It's better to get words out of your head than keep them swirling within.  So here we go, friends (if you read or if you don't). 

I'm back to blogging - you know, for the 15th time? - and likely it will be at another blogging place with another address and another web platform altogether.  But for now, here I am, still at blogger and still at this, my 4th address, and still keeping my dignity (what's left) in check.

To the lonely websurfer out there who happens upon my blog by some random reason, I just wanted to quickly say hello!  And if you're a long-time reader and still keep up whenever I get to writing, thank you!

That's all for now.  More coherence later.  👍

Zeke's Birth Story - 4 hours of "sigh," "hmm, that hurts," and "AAAAAHHHH!!!!!"

...or "It's pretty clear you're not a fan of being in labor," and other things that happened or were said on and around December 5, 2015.

Let's start from the very beginning -

a very good place

to start.

- Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp, The Sound of Music

I have started the body of this story for the third 10th time, trying to sort out what is and isn't important to remember, or, as my mind actually works these days, how much energy I want to put into the documenting of stuff that wasn't actually happening on the day of Zeke's entry into our lives. 

Update: see one of my more recent posts, where I started my postpartum anxiety recovery journey, and you'll see one reason among many reasons and excuses why I haven't finished this yet!

And also, I wrote my last birth story for a variety of reasons but in particular because I wanted the world to know that good births happen.  I am writing this birth story for many reasons but also so that the world can know that very rough and awful births do happen, and incredibly beautiful things come from that, too.

So, with that said, here we go:

We moved from Iowa to Pennsylvania when I was about 24 weeks pregnant. I needed a place to do check-ups and deliver this boy, and I needed it fast.

What I realized upon searching for and securing a place is that things work a little differently here - a bit slower, a bit more casual, and a bit...different. I needed a place where I could get in at such a late point in my pregnancy. The place I chose had midwives, which I wanted to have for my pregnancy so I could hopefully achieve an easier and potentially more natural birth.  At this hospital, midwives would definitely deliver my baby as long as I was healthy, but first they'd have me seen by a nurse practitioner until I reached the third trimester, then I'd be seen by OB/GYNs who very likely wouldn't deliver my baby, and then I'd be seen by midwives who would deliver my baby but only could consult with me (or any other pregnant woman) if they were available, which wasn't very regularly. 

At this hospital, midwives delivered the babies in all non-high risk pregnancies. I liked the midwives I got to see, and I appreciated their willingness to spend more time with me than what the OBs had available. That said, I naturally enjoyed some personalities more than others, which went for both the OBs and the midwives alike, and there was a very good chance I wouldn't know the person delivering my baby on the day he would come since my time there was so short.  Perhaps if I had been at this hospital the entire time, I'd have known the midwives a bit more, but that wasn't exactly likely.  

Along with all of this, we have no family out here and only a few friends, so it was my hope that this guy would come right around when John's mom would arrive, which was just after his due date, December 1.  As I went through my appointments and met up with the third trimester at 28 weeks, things seemed alright physically.  Unfortunately, emotionally, I hit depression very hard with this pregnancy, similar to my last one, and I was able to get through that in time.  I didn't go on medication because I was concerned about the potential side effects (which my OB at the time didn't go over...a whole other story for a whole other day), but with better sleep and better eating and some essential oils to help (Joy and peppermint from Young Living), I got through and felt a ton better at about the 34th, 35th week.  Overall, things were ok and we were getting ready for this baby boy to make his entrance!  

If you remember from Suzy's birth story, she was 10 days late. When I got checked up by the OB at week 38 and 39 with Zeke, I was 4+ cm dilated, so I thought I surely wouldn't be as late with him as I was with her. In fact, I thought this kid was going to be here on Thanksgiving!!!  

With that surety and the preceding time that elapsed since learning such a thing, I discovered this:

1. The hormones that make a woman dilate prior to contractions is completely different than that which makes the contractions happen, so one could get to 3 or 4 centimeters without a contraction.
2. Stripping the membranes as a way to get labor going is not guaranteed to work, and you could feel totally normal afterward, which is a great way to deflate any hope of labor happening!
3. Breaking the bag of waters may or may not cause contractions to start.
4. One can possibly not feel contractions in the early stages of labor.
5. If one doesn't see the same doctor throughout one's pregnancy, an accurate prediction of baby's size is difficult for any attending midwife or physician.
6. Getting drugged up the same way for two different pregnancies does not mean said drugs will work the same way on the person being drugged.

Long and short, week 38, 39, and 40 went by without a single seismic shift to speak of. Because of that, I had my membranes stripped on December 2 with the hopes that my labor would start right around John's mom's arrival on the same day. I went home with all sorts of discomfort similar to but far achier than any kind of stomach cramps I had had before in my life.

That next day I was mystified: I felt completely normal. Where was this labor that was supposed to start? The day after that was the 4th, and I again felt nothing abnormal happening at all, let alone a contraction. I called the doctor's office, and the OB who had both stripped my membranes and had seen me for the last few weeks said that if noting had gotten started, I likely would need to be induced to get things going. We scheduled an induction for the next morning, December 5th, and went to bed with the plan to head to the hospital in the morning.

I was bummed; I was hoping that things would get started on their own this time instead of having to go on pitocin again. For anyone who doesn't know: pitocin is, in my book, the definition of the phrase "necessary evil." I also wanted to see if I could handle contractions without an epidural, but I knew that pitocin would make things so horrible that I probably would need the meds.

So on Thursday and Friday night I did every conceivable-thing-to-Google-and-Pintrest I could do to get things going, and it all made me realize that my body wasn't going to make enough oxytocin to get this train a movin'.

Saturday morning came like just about any other day. We loaded our goods in the car, gave one last super-big hug to Suzy while she was still our baby and our only child, thanked John's mom again for being here, and headed through the Lancaster County hills to have this child. Morning was cool and not in anyways snowy, so the green fields and barren forests were covered with a light layer of frost. The sun shown upon this landscape, and it was a much calmer and more pleasant ride to the hospital than when my water broke in the middle of the night with Suzy.

We arrived at the hospital and were given our room in a delivery center that had literally only one other pregnant woman there. My room had a lot of great natural light, and it was big and simply decorated and furnished.

The midwife on duty was one I had before, and our communication styles didn't mesh well. She tried empathizing (in a whiny tone) instead of sympathizing (i.e. being comforting yet professional), and that lead me to feel compelled to reassure her and (constantly) readjust what I was saying. That said, initially anyway, our interaction was amicable, and I was able to relax and EAT (!!!!) due to my very inactive labor and likely course of action for induction.

So my the midwife broke my water and I tried to walk around. Nothing was happening as far as I could tell, you know, aside from the general effects of one's water being broken. We did what we could to make things go naturally - walking, sitting on a ball, other stuff that the midwives and nurses knew to do (they had about every trick there). We had the option to wait around for a while, but with John's help, I came to the conclusion that I'd just go for the pitocin after lunch and wait it out. It took a whole 9 hours from pitocin to delivery last time, and I figured I might as well get this train rolling. Besides, it'd be great to have both kids on the 5th of the month, so we might as well move things along. 

And move along they did. Lunch was average...maybe below average for a hospital, but whatever - I was eating! This never happens in a regular place, as far as I knew. I finished up the food and the midwife and nurse came in to get the drugs in me. Amazingly, I was having contractions but I couldn't even feel them. That was enough for us to move forward with the IV drip and wait for the earth to start shaking within me. 

I started with a low dose, and that was manageable. The contractions started light and I was able to breath through them really well and keep my brain in check with what was going on - physically and emotionally. We watched some NCAA football on the TV in the room, which was my jam, and John and I kind of hung out while my body hummed along. Sounds peachy, huh? 

Well, my nurse and midwife decided to up my pitocin levels a bit to keep the contractions coming. I realized, in retrospect, that this is what happened last time. Please refer to last time to see how I described it. Note that I was able to get an epidural right when I requested it. Have that in the back of your mind as I go on to what's next. 

So my contractions did, indeed, keep coming. I kept feeling a pressure to go to the bathroom (#2), but nothing came of that, and while I kept trying to go to the bathroom and having John help me from my bed across the room and back when I needed to, I would experience no less than 3 contractions in that time. Most of them were breathable for the first hour or so, so much so that my midwife decided to pop in to chat because I think she was bored!!! She talked with us about all sorts of things, most memorably our shared affection for Garrison Keillor and how she does not like football, (to which she said "Wow, we really don't have much in common!" How...odd of you to say, midwife of mine!). Toward the end of our social pow-wow, I couldn't talk through my contractions anymore, my dilation was a little over 6 centimeters apart, and let me tell you, that was the end of the end. 

Trips to the bathroom became incredibly compulsory yet physically impossible, sitting on the ball was trecherous, sitting up at all was torture, and with all that I had to wait an HOUR to get my epidural. 

An hour! Why was that? Because I didn't have the bag of saline fluid in my system yet! It's needed to keep blood pressure at a healthy level with the epidural knocking your lower half out. This was given to me early on at my last hospital because I expected to get the epidural. Also, with my last labor and delivery, it took at least 3 hours for the pitocin to really get going. Here?! I was 3 hours in and BEGGING FOR MERCY. 

Actually, I was groaning, wailing, and gnashing my teeth for mercy. The only thing I could do is sob and sob heavily when each contraction came. The problem with pitocin is that the contractions do NOT take a break. You get done with one 60-second contraction and the next one comes in right on top of it. Sometimes the contractions were 90-seconds. One time I sobbed to John, telling him he had to count the seconds because I couldn't rationalize that they weren't going to last forever (note that I'm explaining that now but encompassed all of that into about 4 words of "WHY'D YOU STOP COUNTING?!"). All of this happened so suddenly - a 5/6 pain-scale contraction turned into a 9/10 pain within about 20 minutes. I begged again and again for the epidural, and finally they got the thing going. 

Per last time, they took me off pitocin completely to let my body stop contracting and help the anesthesiologist get the epidural in me via the most safe way. Completely unlike last time, the contractions did not stop in any way, shape, or form. They kept ragin' on and on and had me in fits of despair mixed with disbelief! "They're not stopping," I cried to my husband and anyone else who'd listen! Heck, I'd quit listening to my wailing if I could! But here I was, the most still-pregnant mess ever. 

Thank God for two people in particular: my nurse, whose name I can't remember, and Dr. Kim, who was the anesthesiologist. The nurse had three kids, and she needed pitocin with her last one. She told me the pitocin contractions are significantly worse than the natural ones, and with that she gave me great comfort simply because I felt like way less of a wimp for suffering so bad. 

The contractions kept coming and coming, so I couldn't get the full epidural yet because I was so unstable.  Dr. Kim heard me sing his praises the minute that spinal block started working. It gave nearly instant relief and let me BREATHE again. I was so elated with the relief and so vocal about my thankfulness that it made my husband nervous! ;-) I looked to John with a sleepy, delerious smile on my face and told him that he was my favorite person ever. He told me he was concerned that Dr. Kim was! I held his hand and said, "Ah, no way!" 

Then I got checked out again. Oh my lanta, I had gone from 6 to 10 centimeters in an HOUR! My entire body felt like seismic shifts in the earth's techtonic plates, and seismic shifting is what apparently happened! 

So, per my last pregnancy and per generally recommended health practices (!!!), I was supposed to relax for a while, maybe even an hour or two, to let my baby get his head in the right place and make pushing easier and faster. A lot of women in the past have been told to push right when they get to 10 cm, but that can result in hours of pushing if the baby isn't ready. Unfortunately, I heard a similar lack of beeping like last time, and the midwife told us that "Baby is telling her something. It's time to get him out of here." 

Baby's telling us what, you may ask? Heck if I knew!!! But after a few deft moves that I will be vague about here, my midwife both got the baby into the canal and got his umbilical chord unwrapped from around his neck. I eventually figured out that the contractions were contracting the chord around his neck, which were making his heart slow in beating until the contraction was over, so we needed to get him out because of that. 

Now, on to the pushing. Many, many women told me during my first pregnancy that pushing was the easy part - it's just pressure. Since I got the epidural earlier with Suzy and didn't feel a thing when I pushed with her, I figured that - hey, I've got this.  So, as I started pushing, I realized that all those people were crazy.  Pushing was NOT just pressure, but pressure and paaaaaain!!! 

You may ask right here, "Laura, I thought you had an epidural?" I thought I did, too! But no, I had only a spinal block, and that did not knock out anything south of my lower back. I felt every single thing happen down there, and I was determined to get this flipping show over with and get my baby out of there! 

My midwife was determined to let this ordeal take it's course now that baby's chord wasn't causing a vice grip, and she was cracking jokes with the nurses! I literally yelled, "you need to stop laughing! This is not ok! I feel everything!!!!" I think they quieted down a big and helped me push forward and onward and upward and whatnot. 

John was there with me the whole time and helped coach me along (Nurse Mednic from Suzy's birth class would have been so proud!). Pushing was going pretty well, actually - it didn't feel so awful at first and I so glad to have John there to be my sanity.  Eventually he pulled over a chair to watch the entire thing finish up - yep, he gets a birth memory all to his own, because frankly, I didn't care for a visual. The midwife actually told him, "you don't have to watch if you think you can't handle it." It was good advice for someone who is squeamish, but John said "I'm ok," and was ready to see his son burst forth into glorious day. 

I was suddenly not ready for my son to burst forth at all because I felt a searingly painful rip and immediately stopped pushing. "NO NO, IT HURTS, I CAN'T DO IT!! PULL HIM OUT OF ME!! YOU JUST DO IT!!" Seriously, I thought that maybe they should do a c-section so I wouldn't be torn apart.

"Laura, you can do this, his head is right here. Laura, you have to do this."
"You've got this babe; he's right there. Just one more push."
"Just one more push!"
"Just one more push!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!"

"He's here! Keep pushing!" 

And there, after just 20 minutes, was my baby boy. The nurses actually confirmed it was a boy by making sure to lift up his legs and check him out. "Oh yeah, that's a boy!" they said. And there he was, all TEN POUNDS, SEVEN OUNCES OF HIM! The midwife guessed he'd probably be right around 8, maybe 8.5 pounds. Nope - he was two pounds more than Suzy plus a few more ounces, and no wonder he pushed me around like the waves of the ocean for the last trimester. 

Frustratingly, my placenta didn't want to budge. I barely got any pain meds for my labor, but I had to get all sorts of drugs in order to move this now incredibly unnecessary (and, very soon, quite harmful) organ out of my body. I'll sum up this entire experience like this: manual removal of the placenta. That's all I'm going to say about that process, and...for some reason, my midwife showed me what I was now missing. There were reasons for that, but I'll leave this part of the story here.

There I was, now officially high on about 6 different medications to get my entire delivery over with, my husband now holding our son because I was too dang drugged up to feel comfortable holding him, and my midwife gave me the line that's at the top of this post plus one more thing:
"It's pretty clear you're not a fan of being in labor, so you should just get an epidural as soon as you get to the hospital if you have another baby."

Why did she say that? Were there other "super moms" who are able to muscle out a new babe without a single drop of any kind of drug? Are there moms out there who can crack jokes while their muscles split and don't blink an eye with any of the pain? Sure. And hey, maybe they love labor and delivery. Maybe they actually hate it and want it just to be done. But maybe, most likely, that statement just should have never been said, especially after all that happened and in a tone that was not at all...helpful. 

But with all her faults, my midwife did deliver that 10 lb, 7 ounce, 21.5 inch lug, she unwrapped the chord from around his neck and prevented me from having a c-section, she sewed me up in a way that helped my cuts heal quickly, and she got that placenta out of me when it simply did not want to do so and, therefore, prevented a surgery for a second time. So for those things, I am truly thankful.

What I was not thankful for was the nausea and vomitting that came from all the drugs I was on. Gratefully I was in my recovery room and had a plastic bag ready to go. Also gratefully, I got some nausea meds that allowed me to eat all that my soon-to-be-lactating body would need. And my son was grateful, too, to be snuggled by mom and dad. He slept amazingly well that first night and not so great the second. Being a huge boy, he needed his foot pricked to check his gluclose every 3 hours. Also, being a huge boy, he got really hungry and wailed his incredibly tough cry until we finally caved and gave him formula on day 3 (in retrospect, an excellent decision and maybe should have made a day earlier). And, being a huge boy, he was blissful when my milk came in on day 4. The  pediatrician said that babies tend to be upset until they get what they've worked for.  For Zeke, it was the truth! 

My last night in the hospital, John and I had a nice meal provided by the kitchen. We sat there, knowing what our son's first name would be, but the middle name was tough. Ultimately, I decided that this may be the only son we have, so I'd let John choose the name. He decided that, since this could possibly be the only son we have, that I should get my choice in the name and have it pay homage to my dad. We both ended up getting what we wanted, and that's how Zeke got his name. 

I'm immeasurably thankful for my son.  He is a true delight and has me wrapped around his finger.  I do hope I never have to go through such an ordeal again, though Zeke is well worth more to me than all the pain of labor and delivery and all I'm dealing with today.

Ezekiel Michael Bazal, you were well worth all the physical, mental, and emotional pain. You were the biggest, cuddliest boy and still are 8 months later. You are a gift to each one of us- a gift in the truest sense of the word. We love you to bits, and we are so glad you are here!

Postpartum-Anxiety and PTSD and Unsuspected Grief, oh My!

How's that for a happy blog title!! 


As a side note from what this blog post will be about,
and this post WILL be short,
I don't only think or talk about as bummer of things as this. 
I also whine all day about how this summer has meant for non-stop sweating and being the preferred target of all mosquitoes within the tri-county area.  
So there's that.

Anyway, after counseling and meds and talking to people and reading all sorts of articles about what often happens to women after labor and delivery (yet, absurdly, nearly no one openly talks about), I figured out I had all of the above - up there in the title line. 

It was rough, starting out with Zeke (birth story almost done!!), and I don't really blame him.  Yes, newborns are difficult to figure out, even if you've had one before, but this was altogether different.

I don't know how I can do it or what I can say to make women everywhere aware of the fact that if something is wrong, it's ok to ask. 

But everyone out there - regardless of your medical condition but especially if it's as nefarious as everything that happens after you birth a human being -
if you are sick
or if you are sad
or if you are hurt
and it JUST isn't gettting any better,
talk to someone.

You have my permission,
you have my support,
you have my insistance.

Getting help, for whatever it is, is crucial.  Some say it takes a village to raise a child.  That may be, but I'll tell you what:

It takes a village to truly function as an adult.

I miss my dad...again.

...some hurts die hard.

Two 2 & under - Mama's sick

So I've been dealing with some illnesses lately. The easiest to talk about is the stomach flu. I landed in the -
no, not hospital -
bed a couple of weeks ago after spending some time with the other "John" in this house while my beloved John did what he could to help.

It was only 24 hours. I truly thanked God for that since I had the stomach flu just a year earlier, and that incident lasted for 5 days.

Then there's another kind of illness that I'd rather not have to think about: postpartum anxiety.

To be honest, I would take a week-straight of the stomach flu over this mental monster. 

I won't get into what it all feels like right now, but I have to say this: being new to just about everyone here, it's
frustrating,
stressful,
and
depressing to have this be my first impression that I give to so many of the women I am meeting. 

It's not because they are women and is not because they are mean or cold or anything, but instead it's just another in a series of unforseen social hurdles in this difficult chapter of my life.

Maybe just a little extra joy / It's ok to miss.

It's been over 4.5 years since my dad died.  I feel like I'm through the grieving process in that I don't experience those same symptoms that accompanied me so strongly for the first two years.  But you never replace a lost loved-one with anything or anyone. There should never be an attempt with such a thing. Sure, you can get married again or have another kid, find new friends or take up activity that takes up the time you used to spend with someone else.  None of that is bad, and most of it is good, but none of that can actually fabricate the person that is now gone.

So it's ok to miss, and sometimes those misses are hard ones, but it's ok to do it because you can't get that person back. 

That all said, I do know that I'll see my dad again some day because he put his faith in Christ before he died.  So sometimes, with the heart of the little girl that he pushed on the swing at the local city park, I ask God to tell my dad that I love him. 

I know you can't really communicate with people in heaven, and I know that our relationships will be different with one another when we get there, but I would just like to think, if not pretend, that God would do such a thing. 

Maybe it could just be a little extra joy that day, if extra is possible in that perfect and most excellent place.  Maybe it could be just a little more...joyful, a little more warmth, that would say to him "I'm doing ok, but I'm so excited to see you someday, and in the grand scheme of things, it will be someday soon."

Like an amputee who misses their arm or a blind person who misses their sight, I have both learned to be ok despite this loss, and I have learned that some things, and some people, are just ok to miss no matter how ok you are.

Two, 2 & under - hard and good pt. 1

It's hard because there are two kids who are better at cryong than communicating through words.

It's good because they communicate happiness through cuddles than through flippant "thanks".

Thank you notes - thursday 2.4.16

Thank you, spring, for not waiting as long to happen in sone states as others.

Thank you, rain, for cleaning up the mess that Jonas made.

Thank you, reality, for existing in weather forecasts and showing me that winter isn't gone yet.

Thank you, weeks 6, 7, & 8 of my son's life. Because you came to be, I am quickly forgetting about his intense witching hour and enjoying mesmerizingly sweet smiles and coos.

Thank you, sleep, for beinging what you are. Same goes for you, chocolate, hot showers, and Bad Lip Reading NFL '16.

Thank you, God, for hope, healing, faith, and family.

Musings during midnight feedings

My dreamfeed times all have one definite characteristic: they're long.

Zeke takes the dreamfeed around 10 or 11 at night, and he is usually pretty sleepy but nevertheless still takes a full meal.
 
What does this mean? Slow progress on his part and a lot of free time on mine.

Life is finally starting to get a little bit easier with two kids under 2, but I can't say I'm at point of it being easy. There are days when I'll look at my offspring with adoration, and there are days when I'd rather not look and instead hide my head under every pillow and blanket in the house.

Some exciting things that happened this week:
-my son smiled for the first time on Tuesday!
- my daughters verbal capabilities have taken a huge leap: sentences!

That was supposed to be far more plentiful list, but since it took me a good 30 seconds to come up with the word "plentiful," I'm going to cut it off right here. I was thinking of a way to show how darn tired I've been and how my days are busy, but I think the brevity this post shows the extent to which my brain is fairly dead.

I love my kids, I love my husband, I love God, and I love sleep.

Goodnight!

It's the flu, it's a hangover - no, it's sleep deprivation!

"Maybe the only 21 months of age separation between my kids is really taking a toll, or perhaps the lack of nap opportunities is it, but I feel like I'm going to physically fall apart."

This is how I felt a couple days ago. Slight fever, congested head, achy body, difficulty walking straight.  If I didn't have sleep deprivation to blame, I would have put myself in the doctor's office, no question. 

I totally agree with sleeping when the baby sleeps, but that advice is difficult to when ah toddler is around. 

So, after registering at least a (body temp) degree more than usual, I put a drop off Theives oil blend in my water bottle and felt better right away. 

Now all I need is an IV drip of espresso, and maybe I'll just have enough energy to keep from crying about fatigue one again.
Side note: my husband is a trooper for being my audience of one during these early weeks.

Two, two and under: the beginning

"Imma gonna cry."

That's how I feel about 59% of the time when both of my kids are awake.  So I thought to myself, why not blog about life and thoughts more often so I can give my husband a break from all the moping and spread the love to you all out there on the interwebs? 

Perhaps you're an in-real-life friend and have been with me on both or infertility journey as well as our journey into parenthood. You may know then that it took us some time to conceive, and you may know that biological clocks area real thing. 

Also, perhaps you are of the opinion that having kids close together is a great, and you were all for us having 2 so close together...but you secretly knew it'd land us in survival mode for LIFE!

Well, welcome (or welcome back) to our world.  I am a wife to a seminary student/military officer/a future "Good Reverend", and I am now a mom to a sweet, precocious 21-month-old girl and a cute 2-week-old boy.

I hope to write about this experience of raising two youngins and attempting to be a realtively good wife. Oh yeah, and being the individual God made me to be within and outside of these titles.

All this said, life is truly good. We are healthy, our kids are healthy, and we have the joy of God in our hearts.  

That said, life is also truly crazy, so if you're willing to get on that train with me, all aboard!

No "ambush prayer" allowed.

It's not something people may think about, especially those who have been in an evangelical and/or non-denominational Christian community for some time.

You're sitting there in church/a meeting/class/a bible study, and all of a sudden the primary speaker closes his or her eyes (doesn't even bow his or her head!) and starts with a "Heavenly Father" or "Dear God" or "Abba, daddy, hey-yo!"

By the time you realize it's a prayer, the leader could already be saying "In Jesus' name" and finishing the prayer you didn't know was happening! 

Listeners of yours may be deep in thought, reflecting on a past experience, wondering how their loved one would receive such teaching, or simply trying to take in what they are thinking and feeling at the moment.  They also may be wondering where you're going with your teaching, since throwing in "ambush prayer" is an easy way to end something without giving a good conclusion. 

Conclusions to teaching are tricky, but what can make them mystifying is if you all of a sudden look like you're easing a tension headache by tightly shutting your eyes and elevating your hands to waste level.

So, folks, if you're ever in charge of teaching people or giving a testimony and you want to end something with a prayer, first of all make sure you are actually ending what you have been saying, and then say "Let's pray."  They're just two simple words that unify the church by getting them all on the same page.

Mooing for honking....mostly

We recently moved (moooooved?) from Iowa to a pretty rural part of PA. Where we lived in Iowa was just 100 yards from the interstate. You would hear engine breaking, semi-truck honking, and the screeching of many a tire.

Here, you hear cows, cows, cows. That's because the town we live in is quite small, and one farm at the edge of our town possesses a vocal herd of cattle.

For days on end we will hear nothing, and if we are lucky, smell nothing, too. But last night and again just this afternoon, cows and cows possibly upon cows are bellowing like its the second coming.

Call me a city girl (I'm really not), but few things are as weird to listen to than collective moo from a bunch of cattle all at once and all day and night. Who knew they were so dang loud?

Well, I did, actually, as I have stayed at my family's farm many times in my life. That said, never have I heard a whole team of cows moo all at once, nor have those moos gone on for two days straight.

What would I rather have? Of course it'd be the occasional cacophony of bellowing than the consistently jarring sound of interstate or big city traffic, but I will say - the moos are no more peaceful than semi-truck noise at 1 in the morning!

One odd thing, though: people around here do lay on thier horns. It's not because someone cut them off, though; it's because they want to say "hello" to someone walking on the street!

Blue - the color.

What is in a color?

A lot of stuff.

I was just commenting on the "Oh Joy" blog about what my least favorite color is, and it's blue.  Brown is a close second, but I really don't dislike any color entirely.

I wear a lot of blue for some reason, and I'm starting to take more to a rich, vibrant navy color (yes, navy can be vibrant and it most definitely can be DRAB). 

In our living room, we have a turquoise and goldenrod blanket from india that some good friends gave us, an ikat-print navy and olive and forest green and cadet blue padded bench, and a sky-blue/yellow/olive green green floral print lamp shade. Blue, blue, blue, and here I am saying I don't like the color.

It's growing on me a little bit, and I feel like blue could be a nice color to welcome people in or make them relax.  But even as I say that, i get that feeling of drabness, sorrow, and melancholy.

So I think you need to enjoy the stuff you're looking at, regardless of how it's designed or what favorite (or non-favorite) color it is.  If you don't really like it and enjoy it, then its not worth having.

And with that, it's time for me to ditch a few things I just don't like!

Rain is a good thing.

I'm not referring to the country song here.  It's a catchy tune, don't get me wrong, but I'm talking about the physical rain. 

It's pretty dark outside at 2:21 p.m. I barely needed to draw the room-darkening curtain in my daughter's room at nap time with how thick this cloud cover is. 

Since having my daughter, I no longer am able to tolerate heat like I once did.  Let me tell you, it's way better to be "warm-blooded" than "cold-blooded," as some people like to call themselves.  When warm-blooded, I was able to be comfortable at 80-anything degrees and ~70% humidity.  When it got to 90 degrees, I started to sweat a little.

Now, 80-anything degrees has me on the ground in front of a fan.  It's starting to get better, but only a little.  That's why rain is a good thing, at least today.

Today's rain brought not a sweltering humidity but a glorious cold-front that has us in the comfortable 70's.  Yes, I have very little idea of what to do with my daughter when she wakes up from her nap, though probably a trip to Wally World will suffice (it will get her some crayons and allow me to return an incredibly immodest 2-year-old swimsuit, so it's a win-win for both of us). 

Even so, it's my first day-time thunderstorm of the summer that has kept going and going, and it's not one of those severe ones that you should rightly fear/respect.  It's a steady, understandable rain that has mostly rolling thunder attached to it. 

It's also the first good rain after a dry-spell, and as I think I've written before, when it's too dry, it's not just the land that feels it; I think people feel it, too.

So the rain is a relief, and I'll take it.  We can't go to the pool today, but we can still get some good hydration.

Being smart

I don't particularly care for The Huffington Post, but sometimes they have some great pieces on there from some really smart people. 

This statement from a professor to his future students is a good one, but what I like even more is this response a commenter had to several of the commenters who said a good professor is one who "personalizes" instruction for his or her students:

Rob Engle · Florida A&M University

Wow, you people need to get a clue.
I had a college professor tell me my freshman year, "I'm not your teacher, and I'm not your friend - I'm here to guide you to the knowledge you must teach yourself, because there's not enough classroom time to cover everything you'll be expected to know by this course's completion. So put on your big boy/girl pants and get ready to work."
Best advice I ever got, both inside and outside the classroom.
And they were right, the tidbits I picked up in class were nothing compared to what I taught myself outside the classroom, whether in the library doing research for papers or reading in any one of a number of books I brought home outside of required reading. The professors merely show me the way. It was hard work, but I thrived because I put in the time. I learned, I wasn't spoon-fed. High school, by comparison, was more like kindergarten.
But the kids, and parents, of today seem to insist on the new hands-holding mentality that held them back in high school, and leaves the overwhelming majority needing to take remedial courses in math and English, and will leave them unprepared for the real world. About time they get a wake-up call.

I'm considering homeschooling for a whole variety of reasons, but one is because of the sheep-like learning that can (sometimes/often?) occur in schools.

I wasn't a magical teacher when I did teach, but I did try to make my instruction dynamic and meaningful, and I would hope that I instilled the learning independence that this man received from his professor.

Yet another name - "gone" - ...maybe.

One of the tricky problems of infertility, though it wasn't nearly as important as other concerns, was the problem of "losing" names.

No, I hadn't forgotten them or anything like that, but the names I would like and add to a list eventually were lost to becoming popular.

Now, I don't intend to name my kids anything particularly extraordinary, but having a name that was particularly popular when I was born has lead me to none too few situations where I and another friend/classmate looked at a teacher to see which "Laura" they were talking to.

Additionally, I need to say that I wouldn't choose a name because it's popular, even if it's beautiful and fits so well with our intentions for naming.  This might sound goofy, but we really, really avoided names on the top 10 or 12 list.  Having a John and a Laura in the family didn't help. Having a sister-in-law named Laura, with the same last name, was also an incentive to name Suzy something not particularly typical.

So, as we waited to conceive, I saw names I loved suddenly shoot to the top of lists for most popular names.  Here are some I liked before they got "big":

Sophia
Ella
Adele
Charlotte
Penelope
              among others.  So, for one reason or another, these names dropped from my list, though if something came up that made a top name really, really, really necessary, we'd consider it. 

That said, now comes another name on my list that may be dropped - maybe.

Alice.

When Adele, the singer, got REALLY famous after her "21" album made it, I went searching for names of similar sound or meaning.  Alice became a contender both with the hypothetical and actual considerations. The general order of preference for names, as they were over a year ago:

Elizabeth (as high as #12 at one time last year according to some website somewhere)
Suzanna
Caroline
Alice
Rosalind.

So when Suzy was born, Rosalind and Caroline were dropped pretty quickly for one reason or another. Alice was a #3 consideration for a while, and the debate between Elizabeth and Suzanna waged for 48 hours.  It wasn't that awesome.  After "sleeping on it," we didn't feel settled on Elizabeth, and - with about 30 minutes to spare before leaving the hospital - we decided on Suzanna.

I don't think Alice got the full consideration that Elizabeth and Suzanna did, but Suzy is definitely a good fit, and Alice has been on "reserve" for whenever we might have a daughter again.  It's not a definite, but it's a real possibility.

Now the new royal British babe has been born, and all the bookies have 6-4 odds or so than she will be named Alice.  Charlotte is also a consideration, but my money would also be on the girl who went to Wonderland. 

Would I take Alice off the list if the new princess were named as such?  I don't know, but there'd be more than a few comments, I'm sure, regarding the inspiration for the name.

That all said, there are plenty of Williams and Henrys out there,
but hey,
to my buddies, Will and Kate:
could you go ahead and pick some incredibly regal name and let the common folk have Alice for themselves - i.e. me?
Thanks.
Also, Kate - when you're over your clothes, just let me know, and you can ship them to me.
I'll take them off your hands - no problem!

- update: as the world knows, "Alice" will still be a contender for the next baby.

Oh wait, that's normal - seeing Cyclone apparel

Having lived in Chicagoland for 4 years, I got used to getting excited about seeing things connected with "home" that were rare sights in the IL metropolis.

One thing in particular that always got me going was when I saw someone or something that wore or contained Iowa State University insignia.  It was like someone who knew me came to visit, even if I had never seen them in my life.

I had a buddy at work who was a student at the seminary my husband attended.  He worked in our office part-time, but he was a Godsend for how much he made this completely not-me environment feel like home.  I mean, the kid had an Iowa State mug, for crying out loud!  And by kid, he is probably 2 years younger than me, maybe 3, so of course I can call him that. :)

Anyway, now that we're back in Iowa for a while, I see ISU gear all the time.  Cyclone lawn signs, ISU t-shirts, vanity license plates that tells the world the driver is "ExCyted!" - it's everwhere, yet I still look at it and think "Oh hey, an Iowa State Person!"

And then I get some weird, uncomfortable feeling that tells me I ought to know I'm in Cyclone Country (with a healthy dose of Hawkeye influence, let me tell you), and it's not something I should think is exciting or peculiar to see.

What was once an experience like seeing a peacock amongst a sea of Canadian geese is now an experience like seeing a peacock amongst a gaggle of many, many other peacocks; however, something with my brain still doesn't compute this fact, and I keep thinking "huh, Iowa State!" while living only 50 minutes from my alma mater.

A random assortment of words and thoughts.

I use "The Old Reader" for my rss feed.  Google Reader was the easiest rss feed to use back when it was going, and thankfully I found this when GR went kaput.

Anyway, on the right side of The Old Reader, it has a list of "dead feeds," which are blogs that haven't posted in a long time.  I thought about how long it's been since I wrote, and I wouldn't even make that list because I'd be so outdated.  It's only been 6.5 months, but really - there's been plenty to write about.

We now live in Iowa, my daughter is 1 and not wanting to nap this afternoon for some reason, and my husband is still doing army and currently doing hospital chaplaincy.  The weather is better here than in Chicagoland, though I really miss my friends and the various amenities/neighborhoods that came with living along the North Shore. 

I particular, I miss seeing people who aren't like me, or at least don't look like me.  That said, I am still tall, and that makes me different from a lot of people around here.  In general, I have found that women from Minnesota are taller than women from Iowa, but both a much taller than nearly everyone from the Chicago area.  Read "The Tall Book" to get some ideas as to why.

Baby Suzy is not a baby, really, but still can't walk, so the toddler label feels weird to say.  She is also tall, so just by sitting upright, she is able to reach pretty much anything she wants as far as toys go.  Her favorite toy is a book - any book - and she asks for them the second I get her up from her nap.  "Booh?!" she will say, with the sign for it.  If it's not "booh," it's "bah" (ball), "da", or "mamamamama" for when she needs something.  She LOVES kids and squeals or screeches every time she sees someone small.  In a word, she a lot of fun.  In another word, she's incredibly sweet.

Life post-seminary is weird.  We had less time and more space while living in Chicagoland, so now that we're at a much slower pace of life, we are in a smaller apartment where I can't ignore my kitchen and, therefore, it actually gets cleaned almost daily.  And I am cooking a lot, so pictures of what i make may actually pop back up on this blog again.

Post baby - my body is nearly back to what it was.  Yes, weight has shifted to a degree, but I don't think it has as much as it seems to for other women.  Really, I am gaining and losing weight (not too quickly anymore, though) in the exact same areas as I had in the past.  This means that my pre-pregnancy pants almost fit, but not quite all of them, and my outfit for Easter Sunday that I had planned months in advance didn't work out.  I'm probably 2 or 3 pounds away, but naturally Easter is 11 or 12 months away, so those gold brocade pants will be sitting in a closet near me for a while.

Now Suzy is really awake and ready to eat something (a "booh"?), so I better get her.  Thanks for reading, if you do, and here's to more writing and blogging.