"We are enlarged in the waiting."

It's so BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL here today, I almost forgot about my laptop.

Which is pretty much like a nursing mother forgetting her young or a pregnant woman forgetting the Peeps in her pantry -- both of which are mentioned in Proverbs, I believe.

(There's my Bible degree, coming in handy again.)

But last night, when the sun wasn't shining and the temperatures weren't beckoning with 75-degree warmth and the birds weren't singing and the grass wasn't greening before my very eyes, I posted a little something over at 5 Minutes for Parenting. It was inspired by these verses in Romans, which I can't stop pondering lately.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
- Romans 8:22-25

Spring and this baby are inextricably bound together in my psyche. And with spring coming so early to the Frozen Tundra this year, I can't help but feel a sense of wonder at what God is doing -- both around me and in me.

Here's to growing LARGE with joyful expectancy at the handiwork of God.

The Reason We're Having #4

Have I ever told you why we are having a fourth baby?

It's mostly because I felt bad for Teyla. She's four years younger than Connor, and six years younger than Natalie. I didn't want her to be the dangling modifier of our family sentence, the leftover child who didn't have a built-in friend.

I felt bad that she wouldn't have a sibling close in age. I felt bad that she wouldn't be able to play games with the older kids or keep up with their antics or be invested in their day-to-day lives.

Turns out, I needn't have worried.

Maybe it's because she's Teyla, able to leap 20 developmental milestones in a single bound, but this two-year-old fully believes she's five. She not only keeps up with her older siblings, she often leads the pack.

She adores attention from Natalie, especially when Natalie reads to her. And she and Connor are identical twins separated by four years. They run around like wild banshees and go on safaris and shoot the bad guys and jump off the couch and irritate the heck out of each other.

(Often, when Teyla falls down, she'll shriek out, "No! No-no Connor!" Even though Connor is at school. Because clearly, he was involved if she's upset or in pain.)

Watching my kids learn to be sibling-friends makes those hard moments of parenting so worth it.







Oh so worth it.

(And for the record, I'm OK with being wrong about Teyla "needing" a sibling close in age. Because adding one more child to the mix only grows the friendship potential exponentially.)

32 Weeks

Today, I am 32 weeks pregnant.

And while I won't know for sure until my doctor's appointment this afternoon, I'm fairly certain I weigh what I did just before I gave birth to my other kids.

That means I'm on track to set an all-time new high-weight record for me.

(Do you like my new camera? It's just a different version of the Canon Powershot I've had the last two years. But this one actually FOCUSES. And it has a ton of other cool upgrades. I thought about splurging and buying a D-SLR, but in the end, I decided I needed something smaller that I can easily carry in my purse and that I needed my camera to shoot video. A few D-SLRs can do that now, but they are uber-expensive.)

(Sorry for the sidebar. But I love having a camera that works. Happy happy.)

I might not look it to you, but I feel HUGE.

I'm not a person to obsess over weight, but the fact that I've added pounds so quickly this time concerns me. It certainly explains why I feel full-term exhausted and immobile. I wrote more about it at 5 Minutes for Parenting today.

Is it just the fact that I'm older? That this is my fourth baby? That my winter diet is much richer and treat-laden than normal? Am I gestating a 12-pound baby?

(Oh look! Feet!)

Can't say for sure. What's your experience? Did you tend to gain more weight with subsequent pregnancies? Or did it just depend?

The Day I Discovered my Spidey-Sense

Yesterday, I discovered my Spidey sense.

Connor and Teyla were playing happily in the living room. Suddenly there was a thud. Then a wail. 

The thud wasn't particularly interesting. But that wail. I just knew it was different than a normal "I'm so angry my brother pushed me" cry. Teyla was cradling her wrist and saying, "Owie! Owie! Owie!"

I administered the standard set of at-home remedies -- an ice pack, snuggles and lots of kisses. But I had a niggling feeling in the back of my brain that this injury wasn't normal. Teyla is a pretty tough little girl. She normally bounces back within seconds, if not minutes. So when a half-hour of "Team Umizoomi" did nothing to quell her whimpering, I called our pediatrician.

One of the triage nurses agreed I should bring her in. We were on the road within five minutes. Just moving Teyla to the car triggered a fresh wave of wails. Her wrist (her thumb? her arm?) was obviously hurting. I drove the 15 minutes to the doctor's office with one of my arms twisted behind me so I could hold her hand.

Our wonderful pediatrician's office got us in quickly. Teyla lay snuggled close, tear-free only when the ice pack that kept her wrist immobile wasn't disturbed. A couple of x-rays later, and we knew we weren't dealing with broken bones. But she was still in obvious distress. She wouldn't reach for anything with her injured right arm, and she wouldn't engage with her funny brother or the fish tank in the lobby that normally prompts giggles and declarations of "si-wee pish."

The sympathetic doctor said there wasn't much more they could do. She gave Teyla a hefty dose of ibuprofen and sent us home with instructions to bring her back that evening if she didn't start to show improvement. It's possible for wrist fractures to not show up on x-ray until they start to heal, she explained. But since it didn't show up on the x-ray then, modern medicine had reached its limits.

To no one's surprise, Teyla fell asleep on the way home. She napped most of the afternoon. But when she woke up, she didn't seem improved. She continued to cradle her wrist and say "Owie." She still wouldn't use her arm, preferring the awkwardness of her left hand to the pain in her right.

I started to make plans in my head for a second trip to the hospital that evening.

But then, gradually, she started to return to normal. She requested a cookie to eat. She showed some interest in her toys. She giggled at "Mami" the dog and started to boss the older kids around. "No Con-yer! My car!" 

Gingerly, she started to use her right arm. And within 60 seconds, she was full strength, back to normal, as if nothing had happened that morning.

I watched her carefully over the next hour, grateful for a sudden healing but cautious that she would do something to to re-injure her wrist. Nothing happened. She ran around like a banshee after dinner, screaming warrior cries and chasing Connor with a light saber. 

Today, there's nothing left of yesterday's drama but a bluish tinge on her wrist and thumb, and a Mom who's reassured that her Spidey-sense will overrule the Vulcan logic when necessary.

Maybe I won't be the Mom to ignore her kid's broken bones after all.

It all started with "The Going to Bed" Book...

It seemingly happens overnight.

You wake up one day, and your child has a few toys, a few books, a few blankets, a few stuffed animals.

The next day - THE VERY NEXT DAY - you wake up and your multiple children have mounds of toys and thousands of books and blankets enough to soothe an small country and stuffed animals multiplying in the dark corners of the closet.

Sometimes, this realization induces shock. When we were preparing to move from Our Big Lake House to Our Tiny Townhouse a few years back, I walked into the kids' playroom and gaped at the amount of toys we had accumulated in four years. (It also triggered a major purging project. But that's a story for another day.)

Sometimes, it prompts new rules. After our last move, I firmly told all extended family members, "No more stuffed animals. We have too many, and they are rarely played with. If you persist in giving me or one of my children a soft furry creature, I will donate it to Goodwill or eat it for dinner."

But sometimes, it reveals an addiction too delightful to battle. Such is the case with children's books and me.

When Natalie was a toddler, her board books fit on a small shelf on top of her dresser. We added to the collection when Connor was a baby, but even then, the books could fit into a basket that rested next to the rocking chair.

Then we started our weekly outings to the library, where I found myself falling in love with books like "The Pumpkin Fair" and "Slugs in Love" and "The Gardener." We didn't have a decent bookstore in Tiny Town, but Amazon and its lure of free shipping substituted nicely.

Then Natalie started school, and the Scholastic catalog became a monthly staple. I was almost helpless before the $1 deal of the month, the whimsical titles, the seasonal offerings.

These days, we have a rather large bookshelf devoted to children's books ranging from board books to chapter books, and it is packed with awesomeness. So asking me to choose one or two children's books to recommend is like asking the Pioneer Woman to choose her favorite recipe.

Since I'm linking this post to O My Book week at O My Family (run by my real-life friend Allison), I'm going to think about what books I'd most like to read her sweet son. And when thus confined, my selection is simple: I'd choose anything by the delightful Sandra Boynton.

I believe it was "The Going to Bed Book" which first captivated me. It follows the antics of an ark of animals as they go through their bedtime rituals. (My favorite? "When the moon is on the rise, they all go up to EXERCISE.") Her whimsical illustrations are simple enough to hold a toddler's attention without overwhelming them, and her lyrical verses are sweet and funny enough to entertain Moms and Dads forced to read the book every night for two years straight.

I was so hooked by "The Going to Bed Book," I bought two boxed sets of Boynton books for Natalie's second birthday.

"Boynton's Greatest Hits, Volume 1" includes classics like "Moo, Baa, La, La, La" and "Blue Hat, Green Hat" and "A to Z" and "Doggies." (When Connor was two, he had memorized "Doggies" so well, he could read it to himself, complete with individual doggie sound effects. "Ruff! Grrr. Howl!")

"Boynton's Greatest Hits, Volume 2" includes the before-mentioned "Going to Bed Book," as well as "Horns to Toes" and "Opposites" and "But Not the Hippopotamus."

We also have many other Boynton hits like "Snuggle Puppy," which became something of a theme book for Connor and me, and "Pajama Time," which doubles as a jazzy bedtime dance tune, and "What's Wrong Little Pookie?" in which a concerned mother hippo tries to figure out what's bothering her Little Pookie. (Punchline? "Ummm. I forget.")

Bonus tip: Be sure to check out Boynton's CDs, which put some of her most beloved rhymes to song. We own "Philadelphia Chickens" - which Boynton describes as an "imaginary musical review" - and it's a classic.

Flashback (Um) Friday: All Grown Up

I love Flashback Fridays at Mylestones. Not only is Jo a fantastic writer, able to paint stories of her life into the brightest of word pictures, but she picks fun topics to get fellow writers sharing memories of their own. Yesterday's suggested theme was "All Grown Up," and while I loved Jo's story, I couldn't think of anything that related to me. Until this morning, when I was eating breakfast in my sunny kitchen. Then this memory came flooding back.Note to my parents: This is all a lie. A LIE! I can neither confirm nor deny its truthfulness.

I was going to be late to work. I could feel it in my bones. A quick glance at the clock confirmed it. I had exactly 15 minutes to get from my current location, the student broadcasting studio, back to the dorms, so I could change into my uniform, to the college’s van shuttle that would take me to the nearby strip mall to the restaurant where I waited tables. Normally, that was a process that would take at 45 minutes, minimum. And the crew I was working with in the broadcast studio wasn’t even done yet.

I squirmed. The production’s producer, an senior who just happened to work at the same restaurant, sensed my discomfort.

“Oh no, do you need to go?” she asked.

“Well, my shift starts in 15 minutes,” I said, “and I need to get back to the dorms so I can catch the shuttle….” My voice faltered. I hated being the bad guy.

Lynn was clearly caught between sympathy for me and the pressure of finishing her show.

“If I let you take my car, would that save you some time?”

An electric current flew down my spine. Take her car? Yes, it would save me time.

Problem is, I didn’t have my driver’s license.

It was a conundrum few would have suspected. I was 18 and a freshmen in college, but I had never bothered to test for my license. I just didn’t feel the need when my friends drove me everywhere. Plus, it wasn’t like I didn’t know how to drive. I had completed a driver’s education course just a few months earlier, to better my future insurance rates. And my friends would occasionally let me get behind the wheel of their cars so I could test my intellectual knowledge.

It was just that I was missing that tiny slip of paper that made it all legal.

But Lynn didn’t know that. And her nonchalant suggestion made it clear: She would never have suspected I wasn’t an adult.

So I agreed to take her up on her offer as casually as I could muster.

Fifteen minutes later, I drove the three miles to work with sweaty palms. I think I looked at the rear view mirror for flashing lights more than I looked at the cars in front of me.

But while my hands couldn't stop shaking, my face couldn’t stop grinning.

By the time I finished my shift that night, I was heady with the power of being a grown-up. I had freedom! I had control! I had a car!

Before I left the mall, I stopped by Claire’s to get my ears double-pierced.

Because now? I was a young adult. And anything was possible.

In Which I Reflect that it's Good to be a Heffalump

Nothing makes me happy like a productive day.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. God made me with a bent toward organization and efficiency. It's fun for me -- a sick fun, maybe -- to see how much I can accomplish in one 24-hour period. I remember a day when I cleaned my whole house, did all of the laundry, made a menu and a grocery list, shopped at the neighborhood Vons and baked some homemade bread -- all before 6:00 PM. (Do I need to clarify this was before I had kids?)

If I were brutally honest, I would admit productivity validates my sense of self-worth. It makes me feel competent and valuable.

It also enables me to make a god out of my To Do list -- maybe even make a god out of my own capabilities.

Donald Miller has a simple but wise profound today. He ruminates on the fact that God is known for frustrating human efficiency, and we are wise to thank Him for it. Even the act of sleep -- which can look like a waste of time to those of us focused on the urgent -- reminds us that God is in charge, not us. That we are the creation, not the Creator. That life is more about our be-ing than our do-ing.

I needed that reminder today, because lately, my productivity has dropped off the charts. My body is swollen with 31 weeks of baby. I cannot move fast. I cannot keep up with my children. My frame is not designed to carry this much weight. The simple act of walking up a flight of stairs takes my breath, and an hour at Target exhausts a full day's allotment of energy. I feel more Heffalump than human.

I. Am. Frustrated. And bored. I'm tired of sitting still.

So I needed the nudge to remember God's priorities. It's more about reading a book to my toddler than cleaning the bathrooms. I might not be able to take my kids to the park, but I can laugh at Connor's Lego stories and listen to Natalie's enthusiasm for the latest Puppy Place book.

I can fix my eyes on Jesus, the author of my faith. I can pray for my husband, for our future. I can treasure each day as a gift, savor each tiny jab in my ribs for the miracle that it is.

I can be still and know that God is God and I am not.

I am only Kelly. And for now, that is enough.