Day: March 16, 2017

Thursday was a doozy. Well, it started out fine. The cleaning crew came and so I tried to get out of their hair by packing the kids up early in the morning and going on an outing. We went to the mall parking lot where I read them The Twins and the Bird of Darkness: A Hero Tale from the Caribbean. It is their new favorite book.

Then we headed inside to find some shoes for Ammon and some maternity clothes for me. I have been trying to soldier through with no clothes for a while now, and finally yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and just get some. I feel so much better having clothes that fit!

Also, Ammon’s feet are incredibly fat. According to the foot scale, he should be a size five. But his feet are so fat that he needs a size six. I think this is beyond adorable.

After the mall we dropped Lydia off at school and came home. Mary and I read books made yogurt bark together after I put Ammon down for his nap.

After Ammon’s nap we picked up Lydia and got Ammon a haircut. I put Lydia in charge of photography because I knew I would need to be trying to calm the poor baby down. She took lots of pictures.

What threw a wrench in the day is that my girls keep having these crazy meltdowns. Mary throws tantrums all the time about the craziest things. Lydia throws tantrums about crazy things. By the time it was time to go to ice skating, we had just done harp and piano practice, and the subsequent additional behavioral challenges had driven me pretty much out of my mind. I drove the girls to ice skating wondering what I am doing wrong. Is it that I don’t have a commanding enough presence? Is it because I am not always consistent? Is it because I am too hard on them? Spoil them too much? Is it (I hope and pray) a phase????

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening under my own little thundercloud. Abe was really sweet and put the kids down and gave me a back massage. That helped me fall asleep, but he had to stay up until past midnight working. His job is really crazy right now. It was so sweet of him to spend time with me when it meant he slept less and had to work even later. I love him.

Girl!!! …Or, at least, that’s the nurse practitioner’s 70% guess. After visiting teaching, I headed straight to my OBYGYN appt, and the nurse could not find the heartbeat for the baby. I had five minutes of pure repentance while she went to get a handheld ultrasound to see if she could see the baby’s heartbeat.

Before she came back, I prayed so much and told God I was sorry that I have not been more enthusiastic about this pregnancy. While wondering whether there would be a heartbeat I discovered very quickly that I WANT this baby!!! And I am grateful for the privilege of being able to conceive and bear life!!!! I have taken that for granted I think and focused way too much on selfish things. But wow, I have had a change of heart and can not wait to meet this next member of our family.

Anyway, the nurse came back with the ultrasound and found the baby’s heartbeat. She also discovered that the baby is a girl. She showed me the ultrasound, which we studied together. The baby really does look like a girl!! We spiritually felt that we would have a girl next, so this was confirmation of those impressions.

After the ultrasound, I went to pick up Lydia and then we met up with Jessi and Henry in a mountain park. I actually told them the wrong park, and so the kids and I set up a picnic and ate most of it before discovering my mistake. Whoopsy! Thankfully, Jessi and Henry were in a neighboring park, and we fixed our mistake. We didn’t have  a long time to visit, but it was nice to see them.

Then the girls came home and played for hours with the neighbor kids. We brought them their dinners outside so Ammon and the adults could have a peaceful dinner inside. Bless this warmer weather.