This Month At Our House...

Onyx is growing insanely fast. I am soaking up every moment. He is just lovely.

 

A mushroom Jared carved, now sitting on our entertainment center.

Talent man. Talent.

Below are some shells and what nots from our window sill that I picked up during our summer walks,
along with some paper owls I made for Halloween and two tickets to the fair from right before 

Jared and I finally started courting. Haha courting, who says that anyway?

 

I love looking down at that fluffy little white haired kid.
Being a family is amazing.

Dear Onyx,

I must have forgotten to post this!

Better late than never right? :O!!?

Your Grandma did an amazing 37 week pregnancy photo shoot for us. Up there, in that photo, is you! All snuggled up! It's pretty hard to believe. 

It's been so long since I wrote you last! I have changed my mind on so many ideas I had on how I want to be your parent! All for the good, I promise! Your dad and I have learned SO MUCH! We took 12 pregnancy classes and met some nice friends there. We changed midwifes, but I bet you already knew that because when she checks your position, feeling around on my tummy (she is the one with icy cold fingers) you always kick/punch her away. Haha

Here are some things we have learned about you:

I have learned you are an intense meat lover and I have no idea where that came from. I only started regularly eating meat again since I became pregnant. You dance and dance when I eat it. That's well, kinda gross little dude, but I love you anyway.

You don't like being touched, at first it kinda hurt my feelings. I am not gonna lie. I realized though, that doesn't mean you don't like me, (which I did have a total crying breakdown over, but your dad calmed me down) that probably just means you will be independent! Good for you! Just no running away from me into the road or something like that. I'd probably have a heart attack! I promise to give you space and freedom as best I can though.

Along with not liking being touched you tend to smack away or hide from any hand that touches my belly. This leads me to believe you might have adopted your father's childhood pickiness. Well who better to have a fussy son than a fussy father? Karma sucks! Heehee. Did you know your dad used to freak out and cry every time he put socks on as a kid because he could feel the "linty balls" poking him? To this day he still wears his socks inside out because if it. I wont knock it though. I tried it a few weeks ago and, yeah, it feels preeeetty good!

Your bedroom is all set up and waiting for you. Even if you're not going to be sleeping in there at first, it was really important to me to have a room waiting for you. I am 5 days passed my "guess date" for you being born and still waiting little guy! Everybody is! I keep getting texts, messages and calls all the time asking if it was your big day! Nope. Still waiting on you love. You can come anytime now. Even tonight! Tomorrow morning! Lunch time! Dinner! As soon as possible? Please? Please? Pretty please?
Oh fine. No pressure... I guess.

We just really want to meet you and kiss your little face.
See you SOON????? You are 39 weeks old after all! :)

Love, your Mum.

It's Good To Be Back

Back to normal that is! 

For the last 9 months I went from too nauseous to write posts, so I posted pictures. (Tri 1)

Too tired to go many places or make many new things, so I took pictures of the life around me. (Tri 2)

Then finally, to so uncomfortably immobile that my blog took the back seat. (Tri 3)

It's amazing the weight a pregnancy veil puts over you. Your eye lids are heavy, even though all you do is sleep. 

Your mind feels like lead, and we all know lead can't think. Your body may only gain 35 pounds, but it might as well be 350 because doing anything is difficult physically not to mention emotionally and mentally.
...and just when you start getting used to it...

Suddenly labor pulls you in like a fishing lure you can not pull away from. 

Then a thousand of the most intense years of your life go by, 

(or what seems like 1000 years but is really only a few hours of hard labor) and suddenly you're light again. 

You feel like, like you! Like a you that you forgot existed!

 And look! This beautiful, wonderful, tiny person is here now and you are their world. 

Birth?

THAT WAS A TRIP.

Mushroom Hunting During a Downpour

This tree has been standing there, forever, watching over the forest. 

 

 

 Spine Mushroom. Pretty cool eh?

 

 I apologize for not being a woman of many words these last few posts. I have been avoiding a lot of battles and hiding myself, trying to build up strength and learning to trust my gut a lot more. In general I have just been talking less, observing more and waiting. I don't know what for... maybe a sword and shield, maybe an open door, maybe a boat going to an island so I can have some time to myself or maybe just pure bravery. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Pt.1 With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility - Uncle Ben

Back to even more positive stuff.

(It's good stuff, you know!?)

We have learned SO MUCH during this pregnancy. 

Everything from "The Butterfly" exercise, 

what your Kegel muscle is, 

under what circumstances should you give your newborn eye drops, 

how to tailor sit,

why people choose to circumcise,

are vaccines worth it?

And a ton more.

Fortunately and unfortunately with some of this new knowledge comes a lot of

 freedom, 

empowerment 

and hardship.

What it comes down to for us, is what we believe is right and wrong...

Now how do we tell family and friends who are going to disagree with us?

It seems simple.

We are the parents of this child.

Not anyone else.

So why is it so complicated?

So here is the bad-ish stuff.

But it's all about good stuff! 

Let me explain?

The Circumcision Decision.
Ooooh. Touchy subject! I know! Because I have been on both sides of the fence. Our entire pregnancy we felt that it would be best to circumcise our son. We based this primarily on what we thought the Bible said. However after digging deeper into God's words regarding circumcision, we found that we don't need to anymore! Why? Because after Jesus, the final sacrifice, God's only looking into what's in your heart, not judging you based off your hoo-ha as well! Yay!!! We found so many verses backing this up and you could ask me if you're interested where in the Bible these verses are. Medically we thought circumcising him would be best as well. Doesn't it help prevent STD's or something? Well, that's what I have always thought but I figured I'd check just in case. As it turns out there is no proof circumcising prevents STD's. Okay then, aren't intact penises just bacteria traps? Aren't they dirty? Firstly, little boys are generally dirty little goobers. (Gotta love 'em though!) We are simply going to focus very hard on teaching our son how to keep himself clean. Just as you would teach a circumcised boy to clean himself right? It's not even a very different "how-to". So if he does try to keep it clean, there should be zero problems. The skin itself doesn't even fully retract for a good long while, sometimes not even until the teen years, so no! It's not a dirt trap, it should stay clean given the proper care. However if an infection did arise the likeliness of it being able to be treated with antibiotics is very likely! I am just saying there is only a tiny tiny tiny chance he would ever even need his skin removed, so there isn't really a reason to do it to start with! I had many ear infections as a child and my ears were hurting me SO BADLY. The thing is, even though I was already having problems with them at that point, they never suggested chopping my ears off. You don't *need* ears to survive, they are just really nice to have! So I am glad we are choosing to keep him intact. This would be really great for him as an adult because when he has a wife there would be so many benefits for them both if he was to keep it natural! I don't want to think too deeply about it, but I guess it's pretty great for the married life! *wink*wink* So there is a little insight to our choice. I could go on for hours, but I'd rather not. So how do we tell people that are going to disagree with us? Most of their reasons are really not even valid for wanting to do it, and most of those those ideas are totally based on assumption. I know that's why we wanted to in the beginning. We assumed, but after I looked at the facts we changed our minds. Plus, this is what WE, HIS PARENTS think is right. If we or he decides it would be best to circ. down the road we/he can always make the choice then, but none of us can undo it. So we are just going to leave it natural, as God intended and go from there taking full responsibility for our choice.

P.S. 

Our bags are packed and ready for Onyx's arrival. (Is it real yet?)

Car seat in the car? Check.

And I have almost all the food I want for labor as well!

Ill check back in soon!

My next post will be about our vaccine choices, 

and then I promise it will be the last of the grim info posts for a long while! 

Almost 34 Weeks!

 So happy but starting to feel pretty huge!

Learning.

We are all learning to be a little more patient. 

Even though I am not the best artist in the world, (who is?!) I've learned I should draw more.

I love it.

  

Taking more pictures, but also learning to be in the moment is something I need to practice.

Forget thorns in roses. We've learned there are white spiders waiting to scare you in even the most beautiful roses.

MerDock has not learned how to fight back.
The night after this photo he got his little butt beaten up again resulting in a rather horrible face abscess. Poor guy.

I've learned the butter cups turn into spike balls after they lose their petals.

 

Jared learned how to make a bow out of a tree branch and string. 

I had to learn not to shoot the arrow (our one and only) across the property into the yard waste pile,

because chances are, you'll never see it again.

I've learned that bee-fly hybrids exist? 

 

I've learned some people see Jesus in their toast, but I see ninja turtles in shaving cream.

Also, too much cilantro is too much cilantro

even if you plan on making jars and jars of salsa...

I've learned I need to be outside more.

I've learned most people dismiss miracles for mere coincidences, and that is very hard to take in.

I've learned sometimes Jared has more faith in the little things than I do.

I've learned I make good salsa, but I want to make GREAT salsa, so I need practice.

We learned how to make vegetarian egg rolls!

'Til next time!