36 (& 1/2) weeks!

zu was having some sink playtime (a much more fun way to get peanut butter off your hands!), so i thought i'd snap a belly-picture of baby sister june!

36 weeks, with baby june!

 Baby size: honeydew! and my doctor said i'm measuring average-sized.

Stretch marks: sigh. yes. last week they started coming back.

Sleep: not great the past few nights. my sister and i walked a lot the past few days, so my hips have been aching. i'm planning on taking it easy today to see if that helps a bit.

Foods I am loving: salad, pears, avocado, chocolate milk

Foods I am hating: pasta, most pork, most beef

Best moment this week: my sweet sister came to visit! the last month of pregnancy is so tough, and i've been having a hard time keeping up with zu, so karen offered to come help me out this week. we went thrifting and finished decorating junie's nursery, and spent much of the time playing with little zu. she adores her aunt kakki--every morning she woke up calling for Kakki Kakki Kakki!

getting treats at honeymoon bakery--zu liked aunt kakki's icecream the best

Movement: oh yes, she kicks and rolls around all the time!

Symptoms: some braxton hicks, short on breath (baby on the diaphragm), tired, BUT less nausea! i haven't thrown up in at least a week!

What I'm looking forward to:  meeting this babygirl in person! the doctor said that there's no progress yet though, so i likely have a few weeks.

On Avoiding being a Smug-Mama: i read .this great article. today that really resonated with me. praise God that things don't always go as we plan them!

On Tests: i don't have GBS this time!

On Childbirth: my doctors are strongly encouraging me to go natural. i had a bad reaction to the epidural last time (my blood pressure plummeted, causing stress to zu's heartrate and for me to be on oxygen/bedrest the entire labor), and they said that i likely will have that same reaction if i have a full epidural again. right now it looks like my options are to have a "test dose" of epidural only, to have systemic pain medicine, or to go natural. there's drawbacks to each, but right now i'm leaning towards going natural if i possibly can, then getting the "test dose" if i can't take the pain anymore, which is what my doctors have recommended as well.

so i guess i'm going to start youtubing breathing techniques this week...oh my

Emotions: calm. i was starting to get anxious about her coming, but i got so much preparation done this week, i feel like i can just sit back and enjoy these last few weeks of being a family of three.

{ zu at 37 weeks }

making manifest: a review

Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity and the Kingdom at Hand
by Dave Harrity
Seedbed Publishing

i've already shared  [ a quote ] and [ some thoughts ] on this workbook, so i thought i would do a full-review now that i've completed it.

Making Manifest is a creative writing workbook. you are to read a different reflection each day and complete the writing exercise that goes along with it. the thought behind it is that writing can be a spiritual discipline--and, where i have found the book unique, it blends spiritual exercise with writing.

the exercises are appropriate for beginners  and not-so-beginners, and did help me to become more focused on writing as a spiritual activity. i have been slow working through this book--it has taken me about two months to complete--but i have truly enjoyed coming to it each evening, sitting down in an attitude of worship in my writing.

each week begins with an accessible free-verse poem (by harrity--and the poems are good, but i did find myself wondering why the book did not also include poetry by other christians) and each day begins with an excerpt from scripture followed by a reflection. i would be interested in doing this workbook again in a group or with a few friends, since the back of the book offers extra writing prompts and discussion questions for if the book is being done in a group environment.

the reflections only lightly touch on the scripture that is referenced--i often found myself hungry for more on the theological side, so i would not recommend this as your only scripture reading or devotional practice while you are working through the book. accordingly, harrity does not claim this is a devotional book--in the introduction, he defines the book as "a series of daily engagements oriented toward quiet action." he urges the reader to make space in their life for writing that they'll be doing everyday.

the poetic language of the devotionals was something i loved and hated--at times it helped me to connect with the devotionals on a deeper level than your typical theology book but at times it was vague and left things up for interpretation that would make me hesitate to recommend the book to someone who didn't have someone to guide them through it or who wasn't grounded in their faith. 

i think the book could work well for a church group, especially if it was read in conjunction with a more solid theological text like Francis Schaeffer's Art and the Bible, and i'm still considering it for my introductory creative writing class, since we could always bring up some of the more vague passages in class discussion.

overall, i think that this was a book that needed to be written, and i hope to see more like it in the future. i love that it emphasizes writing (and creativity) as worship and spiritual practice--so often i think that christians have a negative attitude toward the arts, that the arts are inherently of the world and indulgent and devoid of theology. books like this are needed in the christian community--that remind us that we are first introduced to God, in the bible, as the Creator, and in being creative we can imitate, commune with, and worship Him.

dedication

posing

little zu was dedicated at church this past weekend, on mother's day. bryan's family and my family came in town to visit--the first time we'd had everyone to the house since zu's first birthday! between both sets of grandparents, two aunts, a great-grandma and an uncle, she had quite the audience, and took advantage of that, performing her favorite song (the meow-meow song) and dancing at dinner.

i loved getting to spend my second mother's day with my mother. And it is weird to think that next mother's day i will have two little girls of my own running around!

~

zu and aunt kakki, making faces at her iphone

the past week or two i can tell a definite change in my hormones and body; i can't breathe (baby on the diaphragm?), i'm always tired, and i'm frequently emotional and nauseous (usually at the same time). typical pregnancy stuff i guess, it just has hit me hard the past few days especially.

bryan's librarian work schedule has him gone in the late afternoons and evenings every day, plus all day friday and sunday (after church), but it is his second job--the auction side-business--that has made things tough. it was really too much for one person to take on in the first place, so at this point, when he is home, he has to spend most of his time working on it.

usually that is fine, it's just lately that i've had a hard time keeping up with zu on my own. so my sister (aunt kakki, according to zu), has so sweetly offered to come up for a few days early next week to help me out! i'm excited to get to spend this time with my sister and also oh-so-grateful for the help!

diffused beams

"For as God is infinitely the greatest Being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent: and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation, is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being who hath an infinite fulness of brightness and glory; God . . . is the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty."
- Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue

i woke up feeling off today. maybe a little bit lack of restful sleep, abundance of pregnancy hormones, long list of things undone, but mostly i think it was because i hadn't written in a week or two and i felt heavy, heavy with what i needed to write.

we've had a week of rain and its left our front porch--newly adorned with two matching thriftstore bought-on-the-cheap gray wicker chairs--sopping wet, so i found a corner of our sunroom to curl up, as much as i can curl, to look at the new-growth buds on our hemlock, the magnolia leaves shining in the sunlight, the creek muddy and swollen from the torrent of rain.

i wrote a poem, and already my heart feels lighter. poetry writing has a way of doing that, if you've never tried it. i've been reading through the liberated imagination by leland ryken, a book on the importance of the arts in a christian's life. i love the edwards quote that ryken included in his book; our creativity i think is also the reflection of the diffused beams of God's perfect beauty.

moreso than needing to write to meet a yearly goal or fulfill an artistic regiment, i need to write as worship, to write to commune with God in a unique way. i think of the verse on groanings that cannot be uttered (romans 8:26)--and writing it in poetry is not exactly like uttering it. it seems more roundabout and feels more direct.

maybe that is confusing; i'm not sure if i explain it well. if you haven't written a poem in a while, i hope you will go outside and sit and watch and write today, and maybe you will feel this too.

34 weeks!

i can't believe baby june will be here in just 6 short weeks! my next doctor's appointment is wednesday, and i'm looking forward to hearing her heartbeat again.

i've definitely been feeling more "pregnant" the past week or so--constantly hungry, sometimes short on breath (the way the baby can lay so that it compresses the diaphram--i'm carrying her high up, like i did with zu), and the same ole nausea, hip-ache, and such. i've also been a little bit swollen up the past day or two--i couldn't get my wedding ring on this morning. its strange not wearing it, my hands feel so bare.

bryan, zu and i have enjoyed his four days off--some quiet family time was much-needed--and we had a fun outing to target on saturday (for my early mother's day present--we don't have a target in town so its a bit of a drive), then a double-date with friends to a movie on sunday. today is another rainy day--we've had rain all weekend--so we plan on keeping things pretty low-key.

we have both sides of the family coming in town this weekend for zu's dedication at church, so the latter part of this week will be spent preparing for guests. i'm particularly excited to get to spend a little bit of time with my sisters--we haven't all three been together in a while.

i'm also looking forward to finishing the nursery in the next couple weeks; though i won't really need it finished right away, having a completed nursery is a big part of nesting for me, and i know i won't feel fully ready until i've gotten everything organized.

{ zu at 34 weeks }