Do you ever get that creepy feeling, just as you're falling asleep, that bugs are crawling on your bare skin?
Only, it really is bugs crawling on your bare skin?
Yeah. That would be my life.
Four years ago, we moved from San Diego to an unnamed town in Minnesota. (Yes, we are crazy.) More important than the climate change was the change to every other aspect of my life. Previous to this move, I had spent my entire life in suburbia, and I had grown quite accustomed to that form of existence. Moving to the "country" changed my entire world.
Suddenly, there were no coffee shops open past 5:00 PM.
There was only one grocery store.
There was no place to shop.
And maybe most horrifying to people who'd spent the previous 10 years living in San Diego, there were no Mexican taquerias. (Taco Bell doesn't count.) Nor Italian restaurants. (Pizza Hut doesn't count.) Nor sushi bars. (The bait shop doesn't count.)
I tried to come to grip with the foreign culture we found ourselves immersed in. But I have to confess -- that first year was HARD! Our house needed a ton of work. We had no yard. The lake that we live on turned out to be a cesspool of algae. And -- the bugs. Oh my word, the bugs.
Living in California for 10 years, I had forgotten how bad the bugs can be in the Midwest. And now, I wasn't just living in the Midwest. I was living in The Country, where they don't spray for pesky things like mosquitoes, and on a lake, which practically calls to bugs of all shapes and sizes to come rest upon its mucky shore.
I remember a pleasant June night our first year here. My daughter was in bed, my husband was out of town. I had the windows open so I could enjoy the night air, and the lights on, so I could work on my daughter's scrapbook. And then I happened to glance up at our can lights -- and I saw hundreds, literally HUNDREDS (do you feel my horror?) of bugs flying around our ceiling. I ran around to look for the open door, and finding none, I slowly realized -- these bugs are so tiny, they can just fit in through the screens. There is NO WAY to keep them out of my house.
I quickly shut off all the lights and went to bed, too disgusted to even figure out what to do. I woke up the next morning to find hundreds of tiny bug carcasses covering every surface of the house. On my bed, on the kitchen counters, on the pictures I'd laid out for the scrapbooks. On the floor, on the stove, on the windowsills, on the couch.
I almost moved back to California that day. (Also the day I found out at approximately 15 weeks pregnant that our local hospital -- which is affiliated with Mayo and therefore should know better -- doesn't offer epidurals. But that's another story.)
Since that time, I've actually gotten used to the bugs. I know not to leave my windows open after dark. I know most of the bugs that can fit in through our screens don't bite. I'm accustomed to reading in bed at night only to look up and find about 25 or so tiny bugs flying around the light my bedside lamp casts on the ceiling. I know that I'll find Lady Asian beetles crawling on every window in my house each spring and fall. I'm used to it. (How sick is that?!?)
But my children are not. Just this week, they've started to notice THE BUGS which are swirling on their ceilings as they go to sleep. There has been much SHRIEKING and CRYING and many cries of MOMMY, THERE ARE BUGS IN MY ROOM!
This morning, my son brought me a Kleenex, and said with a sober face, "Mom, there's a jumping spider on the fridge. Will you come and get it?" And of course, by the time we got back to the fridge, the spider was already gone. At which point, my son insisted I stay by his side, with Kleenex in hand, "in case he comes back."
Thankfully, with our bug population, I can just find something else to squish, and I think he'll be satisfied. But boy, am I looking forward to moving back to suburbia this fall. Where bugs are more of an after-thought than a way of life.
The One Where I Learn the Value of Sunscreen
In a weird twist of fate, I now live in the state where I (mostly) grew up. It's not where I thought I'd be raising my family. I mean, I left Minnesota in 1994, nine months after I got married, shaking the snow off my boot and vowing never to return.
Never think God doesn't have a sense of humor, y'all.
So we're back. And I must say, one of the unexpected pleasures of moving "home" with kids in tow is getting to share with them the things you loved doing when you were young. And when I was young, there was no better place to be on a sunny summer day than The Lake.
For those of you not from these here parts, The Lake is ubiquitous in Minnesota. Our license plates say "Land of 10,000 Lakes," but there are really more like 11,842. (Not that anyone's counting. Oh wait! Someone is!) In fact, Minnesota's lakes and rivers provide more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. The sport of waterskiing was invented here, and we have more boats per capita than any other state. (One boat for every six people, in case you're wondering.)
Best of all, most of our lakes are clean! Which makes for fun summer days.
(I feel compelled to add here that the one exception to the clean lake rule seems to be the lake we live on, which is pictured above. Despite it's beauty, it's notoriously shallow; if you can stand the muck, you could almost walk across it, even though it's about 26 miles around. And the algae blooms in the summer are quite ... spectacular.)
Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. Because most of the lakes in the Twin Cities are clean, and that's where my husband works and where we'll be moving sometime before September, the kids and I found ourselves at a beautiful lake on a 90-degree day earlier this week, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and the water. Oh. And the chocolate chip cookies.
I really couldn't think of a better way to spend the day. I was so happy and so giddy about the perfect water temps and the perfect sunny day and the perfect way the kids were behaving, I didn't even feel sick.
Although I did learn this lesson: Sunscreen is pretty crucial when you are at the lake for four hours on a cloudless day. My kids don't burn -- those lucky Asian genes -- but maybe I should have packed some sunscreen for Mom.
I stayed inside yesterday, like a good girl, to give my skin some time to heal. But today? It's still sunny and 90. We're headed to the pool! With sunscreen in tow.
Never think God doesn't have a sense of humor, y'all.
So we're back. And I must say, one of the unexpected pleasures of moving "home" with kids in tow is getting to share with them the things you loved doing when you were young. And when I was young, there was no better place to be on a sunny summer day than The Lake.
For those of you not from these here parts, The Lake is ubiquitous in Minnesota. Our license plates say "Land of 10,000 Lakes," but there are really more like 11,842. (Not that anyone's counting. Oh wait! Someone is!) In fact, Minnesota's lakes and rivers provide more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. The sport of waterskiing was invented here, and we have more boats per capita than any other state. (One boat for every six people, in case you're wondering.)
Best of all, most of our lakes are clean! Which makes for fun summer days.
(I feel compelled to add here that the one exception to the clean lake rule seems to be the lake we live on, which is pictured above. Despite it's beauty, it's notoriously shallow; if you can stand the muck, you could almost walk across it, even though it's about 26 miles around. And the algae blooms in the summer are quite ... spectacular.)Anyway. Where was I? Oh yes. Because most of the lakes in the Twin Cities are clean, and that's where my husband works and where we'll be moving sometime before September, the kids and I found ourselves at a beautiful lake on a 90-degree day earlier this week, thoroughly enjoying the sunshine and the water. Oh. And the chocolate chip cookies.
I really couldn't think of a better way to spend the day. I was so happy and so giddy about the perfect water temps and the perfect sunny day and the perfect way the kids were behaving, I didn't even feel sick.
Although I did learn this lesson: Sunscreen is pretty crucial when you are at the lake for four hours on a cloudless day. My kids don't burn -- those lucky Asian genes -- but maybe I should have packed some sunscreen for Mom.
I stayed inside yesterday, like a good girl, to give my skin some time to heal. But today? It's still sunny and 90. We're headed to the pool! With sunscreen in tow.
Conviction
I found this excerpt from a Charles Spurgeon sermon to be both spot-on and quietly unsettling. I know I certainly find myself reading books about the Bible more often than the Bible itself.
As for you, my brothers and sisters, who have not to preach, the best food for you is the Word of God itself. Sermons and books are well enough, but streams that run for a long distance above ground gradually gather for themselves somewhat of the soil through which they flow, and they lose the cool freshness with which they started from the spring head. Truth is sweetest where it breaks from the smitten Rock, for at its first gush it has lost none of its heavenliness and vitality. It is always best to drink at the well and not from the tank. You shall find that reading the Word of God for yourselves, reading it rather than notes upon it, is the surest way of growing in grace. Drink of the unadulterated milk of the Word of God, and not of the skim milk, or the milk and water of man's word.Lord, stir my hunger for You, as You alone are the source of truth and life.
I'm Here to Serve
"Mom, you've got another customer!" said my three-year-old son as he slid across the kitchen counter this morning to where I was cutting a slice of melon for his sister.Why, yes I do. Glad I could be of service.
About As Much As I Enjoy Tax Day
Sara from Miller Moments and I have had an interesting and fun e-mail exchange the last few days that got me thinking.
I do not enjoy being pregnant. I love the end result, I love being part of a miracle, I love epidurals. But the gestation part? Not so much. I dislike the fact that I'm usually sick and tired for the better part of two months. (TWO MONTHS! That's like having the flu for 60 days in a row.) I hate the fact that I can't be a good mom to my kids during this time because I have no energy or creativity. (And since my husband currently works 100+ miles away from our on-the-market home, I'm doing this alone most nights. Which means they have little sparkle in their day other than copious hours of Noggin and occasional outings to McDonald's for a McChicken to make mom feel better.) I don't like feeling like a physical slug, but since I barely have the energy to take a shower most days, I know better than to attempt something resembling fitness. I don't like the fact that my clothes don't fit already, and I worry that I won't be able to get back into them after this baby arrives since I'll be 36 at that point and who knows what will have happened to my metabolism by then?
But most of all, I hate the fact that I'm usually on a negative tear for the first half (or so) of my pregnancies. Usually, I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl. And if the glass is half full with water, why not add a teabag, some Splenda and a lemon wedge for good measure?
But now? As you might be able to tell from reading this completely uplifting post, I'm not so into seeing the positives of life.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I was teaching at a Christian high school. A fellow teacher (and a young man, barely 21) shared an office with me, and after weeks of me complaining and sighing and laying my head on my desk for 20 minutes at a time in the middle of the day, he got up the nerve to ask me what was wrong.
I got up, marched to our office door, slammed it shut, wheeled around and practically snarled at him, "I'm pregnant!"
You can imagine his reaction. Poor lad, I wonder to this day if he'll ever permit his wife to carry a child.
But. But. I have friends -- many friends, many good friends -- who treasure every moment of pregnancy no matter how they feel. My friend Lisa actually said she would rejoice every time she threw up during her pregnancies because it was somehow an omen that things were progressing well. And my friend Sonjia, who recently gave birth to little Ahnnalie and who gets horrible, painful varicose veins with each pregnancy, actually spent the first few weeks after Ahnnalie's birth weeping over the fact that she'll never be pregnant again. (At least, that's the plan right now.) She was nearly despondent because she simply loves being pregnant that much.
So I'm curious. Where do you fall? Am I alone here in my (half-joking) wish that babies could be extricated from the womb at 2 weeks past ovulation to grow in a tube in a hospital where we could visit them and watch their progress? Or do you, like my friends, wish you could be pregnant forever?
I do not enjoy being pregnant. I love the end result, I love being part of a miracle, I love epidurals. But the gestation part? Not so much. I dislike the fact that I'm usually sick and tired for the better part of two months. (TWO MONTHS! That's like having the flu for 60 days in a row.) I hate the fact that I can't be a good mom to my kids during this time because I have no energy or creativity. (And since my husband currently works 100+ miles away from our on-the-market home, I'm doing this alone most nights. Which means they have little sparkle in their day other than copious hours of Noggin and occasional outings to McDonald's for a McChicken to make mom feel better.) I don't like feeling like a physical slug, but since I barely have the energy to take a shower most days, I know better than to attempt something resembling fitness. I don't like the fact that my clothes don't fit already, and I worry that I won't be able to get back into them after this baby arrives since I'll be 36 at that point and who knows what will have happened to my metabolism by then?
But most of all, I hate the fact that I'm usually on a negative tear for the first half (or so) of my pregnancies. Usually, I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl. And if the glass is half full with water, why not add a teabag, some Splenda and a lemon wedge for good measure?
But now? As you might be able to tell from reading this completely uplifting post, I'm not so into seeing the positives of life.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I was teaching at a Christian high school. A fellow teacher (and a young man, barely 21) shared an office with me, and after weeks of me complaining and sighing and laying my head on my desk for 20 minutes at a time in the middle of the day, he got up the nerve to ask me what was wrong.
I got up, marched to our office door, slammed it shut, wheeled around and practically snarled at him, "I'm pregnant!"
You can imagine his reaction. Poor lad, I wonder to this day if he'll ever permit his wife to carry a child.
But. But. I have friends -- many friends, many good friends -- who treasure every moment of pregnancy no matter how they feel. My friend Lisa actually said she would rejoice every time she threw up during her pregnancies because it was somehow an omen that things were progressing well. And my friend Sonjia, who recently gave birth to little Ahnnalie and who gets horrible, painful varicose veins with each pregnancy, actually spent the first few weeks after Ahnnalie's birth weeping over the fact that she'll never be pregnant again. (At least, that's the plan right now.) She was nearly despondent because she simply loves being pregnant that much.
So I'm curious. Where do you fall? Am I alone here in my (half-joking) wish that babies could be extricated from the womb at 2 weeks past ovulation to grow in a tube in a hospital where we could visit them and watch their progress? Or do you, like my friends, wish you could be pregnant forever?
Sick. And Tired.
I'm in the thick of it now. First trimester, week 7. I'm officially rotting from the inside out. (A quote I must attribute to my sister-in-law, who is pregnant with their first baby. And -- lucky girl -- she's in her second trimester already.)
Yesterday, I slept until 11:30 AM. (No church; I didn't trust myself to be civil. The hormones, they are on a rampage.) I feel reasonably good in the mornings, so I got up, ate a bowl of cereal with bananas. Then some eggs with avocado. Then some coffee with cherry streusel coffee cake. Then I stopped eating. Got the kids dressed. Did a project with said kids. Decided I might function better if I wasn't wearing pajamas. Took a shower. Fell back into my (unmade) bed, which was beckoning. Slept for another 30 minutes. Woke up to fix the kids lunch.
And so on. Most of the day consisted of me sleeping and eating, which I do in a desperate attempt to quell the queasiness in my stomach. And when I wasn't sleeping and eating, I was walking around like a Zombie, trying and often failing to complete simple tasks, like putting in another DVD for the kids.
I hit me last night that part of the reason I am suddenly so insanely tired might just be the fact that I've taken Unisom most nights this past week (along with vitamin B6, a combo my OB recommends to dampen nausea). Unisom -- a powerful sleep aid. And suddenly, I'm so tired even Starbucks can't touch me.
So I didn't take the anti-nausea cocktail last night, and I actually woke up -- on my own, without anyone jumping on me -- around 7:30 this morning. So here's hoping the nausea won't kick my butt back to bed later this afternoon.
(Oh, and could someone please point me in the direction of the person -- most likely a man -- who decided to call it "morning sickness"?!? Because it never stays confined to the morning hours for me.)
Plus, it's Monday. I need to clean my house.
Yesterday, I slept until 11:30 AM. (No church; I didn't trust myself to be civil. The hormones, they are on a rampage.) I feel reasonably good in the mornings, so I got up, ate a bowl of cereal with bananas. Then some eggs with avocado. Then some coffee with cherry streusel coffee cake. Then I stopped eating. Got the kids dressed. Did a project with said kids. Decided I might function better if I wasn't wearing pajamas. Took a shower. Fell back into my (unmade) bed, which was beckoning. Slept for another 30 minutes. Woke up to fix the kids lunch.
And so on. Most of the day consisted of me sleeping and eating, which I do in a desperate attempt to quell the queasiness in my stomach. And when I wasn't sleeping and eating, I was walking around like a Zombie, trying and often failing to complete simple tasks, like putting in another DVD for the kids.
I hit me last night that part of the reason I am suddenly so insanely tired might just be the fact that I've taken Unisom most nights this past week (along with vitamin B6, a combo my OB recommends to dampen nausea). Unisom -- a powerful sleep aid. And suddenly, I'm so tired even Starbucks can't touch me.
So I didn't take the anti-nausea cocktail last night, and I actually woke up -- on my own, without anyone jumping on me -- around 7:30 this morning. So here's hoping the nausea won't kick my butt back to bed later this afternoon.
(Oh, and could someone please point me in the direction of the person -- most likely a man -- who decided to call it "morning sickness"?!? Because it never stays confined to the morning hours for me.)
Plus, it's Monday. I need to clean my house.
We Need a Pet
Currently, there are no pets in the Love Well household. This is a fact that distresses my five-year-old daughter beyond words. Because she really, really wants a pet, and everyone she knows has one already. In fact, Zack has three -- a dog, a cat and a fish. And it's not fair! And she loves animals!
(In our defense, my husband and I also love animals. We have owned a total of six dogs and one very bossy cat who considered me the mistress in the home during our 14 years of marriage. We just don't have any living with us right now, and frankly, it's been bliss not to be dealing with accidents -- other than my son's -- and shedding hair -- other than my own -- while having two young children in the house.)
This sets the stage for a dangerous level of obsession for Natalie. When we enter the home of a person who owns a pet, particularly a dog, my daughter has been known to spend hours sitting next to the animal, talking to it, laughing at it, dressing it (if the owners are generous people), feeding it individual pieces of kibble, and generally drooling over the prospect of having a puppy of her very own.
Which brings us to the park, yesterday. It was a gorgeous day -- bright blue sky, warm-but-not-hot temperatures, a few puffy clouds. We headed for our favorite playground to celebrate Natalie's first day of summer vacation. We had been at the park for about 20 minutes when a sweet woman showed up with her three-year-old son and her two (TWO!) dogs. Both were puppies. One was a yellow lab. The other was a tiny Pomeranian mix, which Natalie promptly greeted and then scooped up. She proceeded to carry this tiny dog around the park (with permission from the owner who was really sweet; did I mention that yet?) for the next 75 minutes, only setting her down for a brief break when I insisted that the dog came to the park to exercise and it needed to run around for a few minutes. She reluctantly set down the puffball, only to follow on its heels as it bounded around the park. She picked it back up -- mid-bound -- about 124 seconds later.
But I knew we were really in trouble when I overhead her telling the little boy who owned the dog that he could hold the dog "for maybe a minute, then I get him again." And she told the sweet owner that she should maybe consider letting the dog go home with us because she didn't think the dog liked their family very much.
Thankfully, we were able to extract the dog without injury when it was time to leave the park without a pet in tow. But her lower lip almost got caught in the mini-van door. And on the way home she crossed her arms and turned her back to me and said, "The only way you're going to get me to uncross is to get me that dog to live at our home."
(To which I responded: "No problem! Stay crossed as long as you like! I'm going inside.")
She's over the injustice of it today, mostly. Although she has dropped a few dramatic, "But I just know that dog wanted to live with us more, Mom" sighs.
We really need to get a pet.
Just as soon as we sell our house and move. And, please Lord, could we wait until after we have the baby?
(In our defense, my husband and I also love animals. We have owned a total of six dogs and one very bossy cat who considered me the mistress in the home during our 14 years of marriage. We just don't have any living with us right now, and frankly, it's been bliss not to be dealing with accidents -- other than my son's -- and shedding hair -- other than my own -- while having two young children in the house.)
This sets the stage for a dangerous level of obsession for Natalie. When we enter the home of a person who owns a pet, particularly a dog, my daughter has been known to spend hours sitting next to the animal, talking to it, laughing at it, dressing it (if the owners are generous people), feeding it individual pieces of kibble, and generally drooling over the prospect of having a puppy of her very own.Which brings us to the park, yesterday. It was a gorgeous day -- bright blue sky, warm-but-not-hot temperatures, a few puffy clouds. We headed for our favorite playground to celebrate Natalie's first day of summer vacation. We had been at the park for about 20 minutes when a sweet woman showed up with her three-year-old son and her two (TWO!) dogs. Both were puppies. One was a yellow lab. The other was a tiny Pomeranian mix, which Natalie promptly greeted and then scooped up. She proceeded to carry this tiny dog around the park (with permission from the owner who was really sweet; did I mention that yet?) for the next 75 minutes, only setting her down for a brief break when I insisted that the dog came to the park to exercise and it needed to run around for a few minutes. She reluctantly set down the puffball, only to follow on its heels as it bounded around the park. She picked it back up -- mid-bound -- about 124 seconds later.
But I knew we were really in trouble when I overhead her telling the little boy who owned the dog that he could hold the dog "for maybe a minute, then I get him again." And she told the sweet owner that she should maybe consider letting the dog go home with us because she didn't think the dog liked their family very much.
Thankfully, we were able to extract the dog without injury when it was time to leave the park without a pet in tow. But her lower lip almost got caught in the mini-van door. And on the way home she crossed her arms and turned her back to me and said, "The only way you're going to get me to uncross is to get me that dog to live at our home."
(To which I responded: "No problem! Stay crossed as long as you like! I'm going inside.")
She's over the injustice of it today, mostly. Although she has dropped a few dramatic, "But I just know that dog wanted to live with us more, Mom" sighs.
We really need to get a pet.
Just as soon as we sell our house and move. And, please Lord, could we wait until after we have the baby?
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