World Record Holders

You know I love cloth diapers.  I swear by them.  They are better for the environment.  They are better for your baby (NO CHEMICALS!).  They are better for your budget.  And they are just so darn cute!

Today David and I got to participate in a cloth diapering event.  It is called the Great Cloth Diaper Change.  There were over 300 locations around the world that participated.  They set up stations for everyone to change their baby's cloth diaper.  The results would be a World Record of the most cloth diapers changed at one time. 

So at 12:00 today David and I headed down to our local baby boutique and joined 34 other families and changed a cloth diaper. 

It was so fun to be with like minded people.  Enjoying our babies.  And making history.

Bonus...I won the grand prize door prize - a new cloth diaper!  And if you know anything about cloth diapering, you know these things are expensive.  I was psyched to get a free one from my favorite brand - Rump-A-Rooz (RAR)!

And yes, I know I'm a hippy.

Brain Tumors and Whooping Cough

I am about to sound completely irrational.  I am aware.  But stick with me.

When I first had Ainsley, I didn't really worry about sickness or disease or bad things happening.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it was youth and I was still in that "Nothing Bad can Happen to me" phase of life.

And now bad things have happened to me.  And good things too. And for the first time in quite sometime, I am really happy with where I am in life and the directions that God is leading me.  There are exciting things in my future.  There are these 2 beautiful children.  There is this great husband.  Things right now are really good.

So I am waiting for the other shoe to fall.  I think I am looking for things to be wrong.  Looking for signs of bad things to come.

The other day I noticed Ainsley's voice just sounded different.  My brain immediately went to the thought of a brain tumor.  I have heard people say that was the first sign of knowing that something was wrong with their otherwise perfectly healthy child.  So I kept asking Ryan if he heard it.  He didn't. And I have asked Ainsley a thousand times over the past week if she feels ok.  I have been convinced that she has a brain tumor and there is no swaying me. Completely irrational.  And today she is congested and sounds like she has a cold.  Problem solved and crisis averted.

My friend Sarah told me the other day that she was worried that her daughter was going to get whooping cough.  There was a sign at her pediatrician and TLC is running some crazy commercial that talks about the dangers of whooping cough.  Every time her daughter coughs, she's convinced it's whooping cough.  And now I'm wondering if this cold that Ainsley is developing will turn into whooping cough.

All that to say, the fear is driving me crazy.  I know that God says that there will be trials and struggles.  I am sitting in this place of happiness just waiting for them.  Watching for them. 

I know that's not right.  I need to stop looking into the future.  Stop obsessing on the what ifs of life.  Stop trying to predict an uncertain future.  I need to live in this moment and enjoy this season of happiness while it is here.  The next trial might be small or it could be big.  But it's out there. It may have a brain tumor or whooping cough in it and we will deal with that if that happens.  But I want to be able to look back at this time and use it to help me get through that trial. 

Seriously.  Look at these kids.  Adorable.  Right?

There will never be another today.  Tomorrow is out there but that's for tomorrow.  I will enjoy my today because it's looking pretty good.

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Matthew 6:34

You Did What to Your Chicken?

As you know, we have chickens.  We had some casualties last year and so we got 3 new chickens in the fall.  We still have one of the originals but all the rest are young.

They just started laying eggs for the first time about a month ago.  It's been great. They are great layers and we are enjoying them.  I did make a cheesecake with them the other day and it was very yellow because the yolks of these eggs are so dark and healthy.  It tasted good but kind of creeped me out in the color.  Oh well.

We noticed at the end of last week that one of this chickens was always in the coup.  She was constantly sitting on the eggs.  Even though we have no rooster, she thought that these eggs were going to be chicks.  She sat and sat and was getting kind of mean.  The technical term is called being "broody".

You can't let her continue to be broody.  She would just get more aggressive and the other chickens would stop laying eggs. We looked around and found a couple solutions.  The first was to just keep her out of the nesting box and put her in a metal cage.  We don't own a metal cage and didn't really want to buy one.

So we moved onto the second option which is to lower their temperature enough to snap them out of it.  The way you do this is to dunk the chicken in a bucket of water.  Seeing that I hate holding things that flap, Ryan was responsible for dunking the chicken.

He had to do it 3 or 4 times but it worked.  She is back to normal and all is well in the chicken world of our backyard again.

Here is a video of Ryan "water boarding", as we like to affectionately call it, the chicken.

Pulling the Weeds

Every year about this time the world goes nuts with talk of gardens and flowers.  I am no different.  Well maybe on the flowers part.  I have a strict If it doesn't produce food don't plant it rule.

Spring has definitely sprung and it is indeed time to plant.  We work so hard to get the soil ready and to build rows.  I weed.  I plan the layouts.  I even drew a map.  And then we carefully place these plants and seeds into the ground.

And then we wait.  And wait.  Harvest doesn't come for quite some time.  In the meantime we have to keep up with weeds and watering.  We have to fertilize.  It's hard work and it feels like forever before any fruits of our labor are seen.

Then the fruits begin to show up.  A few at a time at first.  And then it feels like you are overrun with all this food.  I struggle to keep up with the canning and freezing.  But I do it anyway. 

And then there comes a time when I feel like I just can't do it anymore.  The weeds are high.  The pantry is almost full.  The garden doesn't look all nice and neat anymore.  It looks like a mess.  Where there used to be 9 distinct tomato plants is now just a mangled mess of vines and tomato cages.  Some are falling to the ground rotten. 

But we must press on.  There is more food in there.  More vegetables to be harvested.  It was during this time last year that I really wanted to give up.  I was running out of steam.  But I pressed on.  I picked that last batch of tomatoes and ended up with another 12 pints of salsa. 

And I am thankful I pressed on.  That salsa tasted good yesterday on my rice and beans.  My hard work paid off.

There are so many areas of life that this can compare to.  I think about parenting.  I think about my job.  I think about my husband.  I think about my friends.  I think about the call to evangelism.  I think about my own spiritual journey.

There is work to be done. There is watering and weeding.  There is fertilizing.  There is harvesting.  There is preserving.  And there is joy in the fruit.

I have been in the world of newborn baby.  There have been many areas of my life that have been neglected.  The weeds are high in some areas of my life.  I am looking forward to pulling out those weeds and digging into the other areas of my life.  It will take work but I am ready for it. 

My Newest Accessory

There is this blog post that is floating around Facebook.  I even re-posted it.  It's really good.
 
This blog post has me thinking so much about how I spend the time I do have with my kids while I'm not working.  Time seems to be flying by so fast.  It seems like just yesterday it was Ainsley that I was breastfeeding and Ainsley that I was washing diapers for.  And now she's almost 4 and cracking me up with her commentary on life.  When did that happen?

It makes me look at David in a whole different way.  With Ainsley I was just trying to survive these early stages.  Becoming a mother was just such an adjustment.  This time it wasn't so hard so I am really getting to enjoy the little moments with this little guy.  I am begging for time to slow down so that he will be little forever. 

I've been attending a group that promotes baby wearing.  It sounds hippy and it kind of is. (I'm actually learning to embrace my hippy self but that's another post altogether!)  And yet it's one of my favorite things I have done with David.  I go to this group to learn more about how to strengthen the bond between us.  I am learning so much about the benefits of keeping him close to me.  I don't think it's a coincidence that when I put him in his carrier, he almost instantly falls asleep.  He feels secure and safe and loved.  I think my favorite part is when he's in his carrier, his head is so close to me that I just can lean down and kiss him as much as I want.

Yesterday I went shopping with my mom.  Instead of putting David in the stroller, I strapped him on.  He was awake and looking around for a bit but then he fell asleep.  I had so many comments about how sweet a baby he is.  I think you get more comments like that when you wear a baby because they are at eye level. 

But in this case, they were all right.  Sweet baby indeed!