We have a lot of LEGOs around this house lately. They’re not really ‘girlie’ toys, Transformers and all.
But no worries. Sweet N made a baby out of one.
Yup. My girlie is a gonna be a great lil’ Mama in a couple months! When she was really small she used to make a ‘baby’ out of a piece of soap wrapped in a tissue. Ha!
Yesterday I had a check-up with my midwife. She spent over an hour with me, yikes!
Things with the babe are looking good. My blood sugar is great. My blood pressure is great. The baby’s head is down. I got my Anti-D shot because I have a negative blood type (Which I had to track down at a pharmacy, purchase and bring myself to be administered, cause things work a little bit differently around here). Placenta is healthy and in a good place. Sorry people, if that’s TMI for you! I am hyper-aware during this pregnancy of my and this baby’s health and even placentas can cause problems… so I rejoiced with each bit of good news.
I also rejoiced at the cost. This city isn’t exactly a cheap place to live, but health care is one area that we save in. The appointment? $10. The ultrasound? $10. Nice!! It’s a very simple clinic that I go to, but still… I’m thrilled not to be dealing with outrageous U.S. healthcare prices and insurance policies.
Aaaaaanyway…. little one probably weights around 3 pounds by now, although I always maintain that their estimation with an ultrasound is not that reliable. The body (Midwife looks at the stomach and the upper leg) measured right on target with the due date and the head measured a couple weeks bigger. This is normal for all my babies… thanks a lot Mikey, I really appreciate this contribution you make to our babies genetic makeup. Ha!
Baby is too big to get a good picture anymore, but these were taken when baby was only 12 weeks olde ago and I never posted them.
Sweet tiny body.
Precious hand.
Face!
Yesterday she printed a picture of the top of lil’ one’s head.
Funny how a circle with two blurry spots on each side can melt my heart. Baby had his/her little fists right up by his/her head. The same way so many newborns still sleep when they are tiny.
Like this, taken of my boy when he was only a month old. So sweet.
OH MY GOODNESS?! I get another one of these in about 10 weeks?! (Yes… we’re nearly in the single digits of week-waiting folks!!) I can hardly believe it!
Did you read my "Unreal” post the other day?
Well.
We had a guy come today to do some repairs in our house. Some fans, a light in our kitchen, some furniture, etc.
He left and we sat down to dinner.
And then my husband’s meal prayer included this line “Thank you God for Usama and the work he did for us today. Please help the things he repaired stay fixed for a little while.”
Can you see how low our expectations are? It’s kind of sad.
Oh my word.
And I tell you, not 30 seconds later the light in the kitchen went out.
The end.
We’ve been meaning to start H on an allowance for awhile now. Yesterday I finally sat him down we talked all about it!
We also listened to a couple of these free podcasts about spending, saving and sharing money. I think it helps to have H not just hear from me, but hear someone else (even if it is just Elmo) talk about it too.
He was pretty excited.
We decided to start him off at 5 pounds a week. (About the equivalent of a dollar). I have no idea what protocol is here, but this is what we decided. 5 pounds is easy to divide up and is a small starting point, which is good I think.
Then he emptied his old Hippo bank and we divided up that money too.
And here we go on a long journey of teaching our kids how to manage their money. Yikes!
South Africa is known for it’s vineyards and so we thought we’d check one out. There were lots of vineyards in the area of the beach house we stayed at near Hermanas on the southern coast.
So we took a drive north into the hills one afternoon.
So we asked around and did some research to try to find a vineyard that had a reputation of being “child friendly”. You know, since we have a couple of those. Creation was the one we chose.
We turned onto the property and drove through row upon row of grape vines.
And what is that?! A baboon? Indeed! I guess we are in Africa after all!
We pulled up to this lovely place. The inside of the restaurant was far to peaceful and tranquil to put two little kids in and the tables outside were occupied, so I asked if they would set us up an extra table outside.
And did they ever!!! They scurried around to set up our very own table on this gorgeous piece of lawn at the top of a hill in the middle of the vineyard.
It was unbelievably perfect.
The menu was a bit over our heads, but we made a selection and then sat back to wait.
Well. Some of us sat.
And some of us did not.
Some of us ran.
And tackled.
And rolled. Yeah. I’m glad we didn’t take a table inside!
It was just perfect. The weather was perfect. The table on the lawn was perfect. The view was perfect. The company was perfect. I honestly sat there and thought “If I were in heaven, could anything about this actually change to make it more perfect?!” It was just so…. PERFECT! In case you didn’t missed my previous twelve uses of that word in this paragraph.
And then Mikey and I shared our tray of cheese, bread, meat and pickles.
Simple and elegant and delicious.
A perfect afternoon at the vineyard.
This is the stage we’ve reached with the belly.
Look! No hands.
And here is something else…
My sweet girlie, who made a fabulous companion today when the boys were off playing football (soccer).
She’s just so fun. And I love her. And I love that we will welcome a third blessing next year and we get to start this beautiful journey all over again.
We’ve been experiencing something lately that started out as funny and has kind of passed the ‘funny’ stage to the frustrating stage. Recently… because of the long continuance of this pattern, it’s somehow returned to funny again. I think. Maybe we have no other coping mechanism left?
What’s been happening you’re dying to know?
Things are breaking. Constantly. All the time. Big and small. Lots and LOTS of things.
Please, allow me to show you. These are in no particular order. But these items have all broken in the last few months, which really… is not a very long period of time. It also is sadly, not an extensive list. Many other things have broken that I have not documented…
Cold water jug. Cracked when it hit the floor in our car.
Wall clock. Just quit keeping time.
Iron. Dropped too many times.
Travel iron I’ve had since college. Just quit working. No idea.
Baby monitor hand-imported from the U.K. Blew when the electricity in our house went crazy.
Wireless router. Also a victim of the crazy electric current.
Tortilla maker. One minute it was making tortillas and the next moment it unexplainably refused to produce another tortilla.
Speakers. Crackly, fidgety wires. Finished.
Alternator from our car. Depressing.
A motor from one of our air coolers.
Kids’ chair. Wasn’t strong enough for Mike’s weight when he was trying to fix a broken air cooler. Woops.
Picture frame. Was knocked off the wall when a local electrician was trying to fix our crazy electricity.
String of lights on my mini-tree. One day working. Next day broken.
Glow baby. Fixed her once. Broke again. No songs or light. Sorry Sweet N.
Tile on my countertop broke off when I was trying to jimmy-rig my kitchen cabinet with a nail.
Wireless mouse. It won’t click. It’s the strangest thing.
Stabilizer. Supposed to protect our appliances from the crazy electric current. But these break a lot too.
Visor in the car broke off.
A/C in the car doesn’t work right. Although those funny hanging cords and switch are actually supposed to be there. That is a fix from a previous break…
Serious oil leak. Also steering problems. Also back door problems. Also side mirror problems. Yea… our car is in the shop AGAIN.
Picture frame fell off the wall and broke when the front door was shut.
My new Bible. Elastic strap came off almost immediately.
Two sets of headphones with microphones. Purchased from the market. NEVER worked right. Either one.
Fun little bike for the kiddos that I purchased in South Africa and brought back in our luggage. Must have been a rough ride cause it arrived broken and un-rideable.
Blender. Quit holding tight and sent crepe batter flooding all over my kitchen one too many times.
You could add to this list our washing machine and my 500 gig external hard drive. And my alarm clock, which I just discovered this morning doesn’t alarm anymore? And a bunch of other things too. Oh, like my rocking chair. And the chair my boy H was sitting in at dinner. And my lamp. And another lamp. And my kitchen light. It’s crazy people. Unreal.
Many of these things have been banished to the bottom of the stairs. It know it looks like there is a decade’s worth of dust down there. But it’s just a couple months worth. Welcome to the desert.
The stuff will eventually either need to be thrown in the street (people around here love broken stuff, seriously) or taken to one man we’ve heard of in the market who is supposed to be amazing at fixing random broken stuff. Mike’s gonna show up with a gigantic cardboard box and tell him “Have at it.” The man has probably never seen a baby monitor or tortilla maker in his life but if he can revive some things for a small cost, great. If not… oh well. That’s life. We’re slowly replacing…
And NOW, since I am posting this blog, I am hoping (maybe I should start praying) that now nothing else will break and this crazy breaking-streak will end. Do you think it’ll work?!
