Lauren's getting married

In my parents' bedroom where we now sleep, my mom has a wedding picture of Kevin and I.  In the past month, Lauren has referenced the picture several times and used the word "married" several times in random talk.  We never really discussed it in depth, though.  So today, Lauren said to her dad that she was going to marry him.  When he said she couldn't marry him, she came out and said she was going to marry Tyler (her 14(?)-yr-old BFF).  Then she said that girls marry boys.  I was pretty impressed with her understanding of the context.  (Must be all those Disney princess movies she got hooked on while I was pregnant and miserable.)

Brendan's debut

Yesterday, my little son turned one month old.  I looked at my blog and realized that I hadn't even posted that he was born.  Anyone who might read this blog probably already knows that he finally made his debut.  But for archival purposes, I'm just going to make a quick entry about his birth.

Brendan Dennis was born Thursday, April 22, 2010 (a birthday shared with his uncle, Christian), at 5:28 p.m.  He didn't seem to want to come out on his own, so he was forced out a week and a day after his due date via induction.  The doctor thought the ultrasound was overestimating when it approximated Brendan at 9 lbs 1 oz three days before birth.  But in fact, the boy came in at a whopping 9 lbs 13 oz and measuring 23".

After less than a day, Brendan was admitted to the NICU for intermittent labored breathing.  (Notice how big he is in the NICU incubator.  Compared to the preemies in there, he was GINORMOUS!  [I love that word! Thank you, Elf!])  He had to stay a minimum of 48 hours.  This was very hard for me to cope with in my postpartum hormotional & sleep-deprived state.  I was discharged a day before he was.  We ended up staying in a hotel by the hospital (for the third time in a week) so that I could be nearby.  Brendan was discharged on Sunday.  The neonatologists and consulting ENT chalked up his symptoms to excess residual mucus in his lungs and a mild case of laryngomalacia (immature cartilage surrounding the vocal cords).

I will write about this first month in a different post.  But I will close with pictures from the hospital.  Some of them are professional, and I'm VERY sad that I wasn't present for the session.  But at least we captured the guest of honor.  (Sorry, I wish I could figure out how to post pictures side-by-side to conserve space.)

This is the closest we could get Lauren to Brendan that first day.  Doesn't she look excited?!

This picture cracks me up.  It was after the ride home from the hospital.  Her neck is kinked one way, and his the opposite.  Let's hope we won't need physical therapy in the future.









Here are the professional pictures:

Just biding my time....

Waiting.  It's what we do.  We sometimes feel we spend half of our life waiting.  Just for kicks, I googled "time spent waiting," and the first result that popped up was that the average person spends 45-62 minutes waiting each day for various things--downloading something from the internet, pumping gas, waiting for an elevator, etc.


I feel I am in perpetual waiting mode, just biding my time for the next few weeks.  Waiting for my parents to leave at the end of this week so we can move into the bedroom we will be sleeping in for the next two years.  Waiting for the closing of our old house to occur in 10 days.  Waiting for the baby to come, whenever that may be.  Waiting to see what gender the child will be.  Waiting to see if my brother will move out and thus provide us with an extra bedroom of space.  Waiting for it to get consistently warm.  One would think all of this waiting would drive me crazy.  I would think all of this waiting would drive me crazy!  But somehow, I am slowly adapting to this waiting game.  I think it's because I have reached my maximal threshold for stress and I just don't have the energy to resist any more (amplified infinitely by being 9-months-pregnant).  Writer beware.  This is when Darth Vadar says, "Give into the dark side," and like a dam breaking, I could say, "Okay."  And yet, there would be no surprise.


And a John Mayer song runs through my head....

Lauren's a mini-me?

You know, when Lauren was born, I didn't think she inherited much from me.  I mean, sure, she has my big melon of a head (thus, the need for an episiotomy), and I figured she got the Schade chin and a singular dimple like me (on the opposite side).  But until recently, I didn't think she got much else from me other than my stubborn temperament.  But check out her likeness to a picture of me that my mom pulled out:

I was amazed at how similar we look.  Kevin now calls Lauren my clone or a mini-me.  And she also is turning into a control freak, though her excuse could just be that she's a toddler and learning to exercise her dominion.  What's my excuse, again?

On a totally different note....The other day, Lauren wanted to do "the animals" on the computer, which involves playing on Fisher-Price's website.  I had showed her before how to do the ABCs game, which is simply pressing the space bar to advance to the next screen.  But she likes the game matching the animal sound to the animal, which requires you to actually move the cursor to the animal, and then click.  Previously, I would always do it for her.  But I was not in the disposition to do it for her this day, and thought, "What the heck?"  So I showed her how to use one finger to work the touch pad on my laptop and then left click.  I didn't actually think she'd be able to do it.  But she was able to do it from the first try. 

I was half awestruck, and half full of pride that my little girl was growing up.  I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.  She is 3, after all, which is when I started playing the piano.  I guess I just got so used to thinking of her as a "baby", that now when she actually shows signs of growing up into a little girl, it knocks me off balance.  I'm amazed at how quickly these little sponges pick up on concepts, language, conversational skills, hand-eye coordination, etc.!!!

Well, we've gone and moved....

Well, we did it.  With the countdown on to baby Esch coming and my parents leaving on their mission in a month, we went ahead and moved into my parents' house.  This is NOT something I recommend doing while parents are STILL LIVING in the house.  We only moved a third of our stuff down, and there have already been quite a few rough patches, some hurt feelings, and lessons in eggshell walking--not an easy feat.  Of course, it doesn't help that one party is emotionally charged with leaving their home behind and departing the country for two years, and the other party is hormo-tionally charged with pregnancy hormones and anxious about juggling two kids.

 My parents' living room at the moment, which will probably see little change in the next 3-4 weeks until we can clear out room for Esch stuff.

But the good--make that GREAT--news is that the week we planned on moving anyway, we FINALLY, after two long years, were able to put our house under contract!!!!  Not the price we've wanted, but the timing is right to just cut bait and walk away.  And this buyer seems to be quite reasonable, in comparison to the neurotic buyer of '08 and the non-committal buyer of '09.  (Though I'm not a fan of this home inspector, who seems quite reluctant to share info on how to remedy situations.)  But barring unforeseen obstacles, we should have our house sold by the time the baby comes. (Preferably before.) 

I can't help but think of an Elder Oaks article that I came across last month as I was chucking old BYU Magazines.  It was all about timing and surrendering ourselves to God's timing.  He said you can have the best-laid plans for the most righteous reasons, but ultimately, it is not our choice in life how the timing of things works out.  Examples he referred to included finding your spouse and moving from place to place.  Hmm.  Both quite appropo in my life.  When I stumbled upon this article, I thought it was to help me more with the visiting teaching message of last couple of months on being emotionally resilient in learning self-reliance and managing resources.  But now, with the sale of our house happening just as we were planning to move, just before the baby comes, and just before my parents leave, I see that the article was to prepare me to again learn the lesson of Ecclesiates 3:1: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

I suppose I should have closed with just that, but I feel the need to vent a little.  If you want to stop reading, feel free.  But since this is my blog....I have to admit I do have quite a bit of seller's remorse.  I love my house and how we've really made it ours over the last 6 3/4 years.  I love the neighborhood, especially our new neighbors who moved in last year.  I love all the natural light that comes in through the south windows.  I love the new doors we put in.  I love all the snow we get up there (despite only 25 miles farther north).  I love feeling independent and self-sufficient, grown-up and responsible.  I worry that we'll never get that again.  I'm sure it's hard for everyone to leave their first house.  But if I had another house of my own to look forward to, I think I could adjust.  However, it's a bit depressing, as well as I feel like I'm regressing to move into my parents' home, the place I grew up.  Sure, we'll be saving a truckload of money each month.  Sure, we'll eventually have more room.  Sure, we'll be minutes from Kevin's work.  Sure, we'll have more family time.  Sure, we'll save money by not paying Cook County's insane sales tax.  Sure, we'll have access to a pool for two summers.  But with future housing so uncertain, and, as one person put it to Kevin, needing a shoehorn to make two households fit into one, it certainly makes the seller's remorse cut even deeper.

Hi, my name is Andrea, and I'm a control freak....

Hi, my name is Andrea, and I'm a control freak.  Or at least I think I might be.  Ironically, there is nothing in my life right now that I can control.  Which is probably why this thought is at the forefront of my brain.  And which probably explains why I've been going crazy lately.  Okay, so "control freak" might be going a bit overboard, but I think everyone likes to feel a little in control of some aspect of their life.  Just for jollies, I thought I'd make a list of things I CANNOT control right now, but I greatly wish I could.  (Granted there are many other things that I can't control like death and taxes, but I am only focusing on the very pertinent things right now.)

1)  Finances.  With a husband that is self-employed, the variability in income is unpredictable and quite stressful, to say the least.
2)  Selling our house.  We've had our house on the market for quite a long time now.  Even when we have showings scheduled, and I've killed myself getting the house ready, there's no guarantee they won't call up 20 minutes beforehand and cancel--like today.  Grrrr.  Or...they only give us 45 minutes notice that they do want to come that day.
3)  Future housing.  With a baby imminent in 6-9 weeks, I have decided to give up on keeping up with item #2 and make a pre-emptive move to Naperville.  We will be moving into my parents' house (just minutes from Kevin's work), as they prepare to embark on their 2-year mission abroad, just days before the baby is due.
3b) Where the heck we are going to put our stuff when we do move.  My parents' home is lined wall-to-wall with furniture and 60+ years of living that has not had to move in 30+ years, and that is not planning on moving for the next 2 years.
4)  The arrival of baby #2.  Enough said.
5)  Who's going to watch Lauren when baby #2 does decide to arrive. The person that was supposed to watch Lauren during the adventure of delivery now is unable to say definitely yes or definitely no, as is the case with my back-up person, as well.
6)  Whether I will have any help after the baby arrives.  With my mom headed off to Brazil 12 days before I'm due, and a sister with 4 kids of her own, it is not looking very optimistic that I will have in-house help as I adjust to having 2 kids.
7)  Weight gain.  Ok, I can look back and say that with Lauren, I definitely took in more calories than I needed.  But with this pregnancy, I can truthfully say I am eating no different than pre-pregnancy, and yet every time I go to the doctor, this mysterious weight gain appears.  People tell me I'm "all baby", and yet this little thing that only weighs 3 pounds right now seems to be __ times that much on the scale.  (I could probably list a lot of things about what this pregnancy is doing to my body, but let's be realistic.  Who can control what hormones do to our bodies?  But I was hoping that I would have at least some control of weight gain this time.)
8)  My 3-year-old.  I think it's safe to say that anyone who has had a 3-year-old could write pages and pages about not feeling in control.
9)  My jewelry business.  Just when I think I have some good business lined up, it falls through.

However, there is one thing that I cannot control, but is putting me in a good mood today:  the weather.  It has been snowing ALL day today.  We're due for 7-12" of fluffy, white stuff.  And every time I look outside, I get giddy.  (If I could control the weather, I would have it snow every day of winter.  OK, maybe not every day, but how about at least once a week?)

Thank goodness for snow in my world of unpredictability.

OK, so the following post was actually written on December 31st, but I didn't publish it immediately because I was hoping to get the 3D ultrasound pictures scanned.  Obviously it didn't happen.  Since then, much has happened, so I will now have to write another post to play catch up.  Maybe tomorrow.... :)

So I've just spent over an hour catching up on various posts of friends and family.  And even though my bum seems to be going numb, I can't help but start at least a draft of a post.  Updating my blog has been on my to do list for at least 3 weeks, but there's something that's pulling me in at this moment.  If I think and try to identify it, I think it's the fact that I'm such a horrible journal-keeper, and this seems to be the only medium I can actually follow through with in recording my thoughts and events of our lives.

First, an update about the baby.  At our 20 week visit at the end of November (see? I'm not very good at keeping up-to-date), we got a sneak peek of the baby, including 3D shots of it.  I think it's already starting to look more like Kevin's side than mine.  We did NOT find out the gender, so don't even think about asking.  There are so few good surprises in life.  Besides, we didn't find out with Lauren, so I'm sure we have enough unisex clothes for at least the first 3 months.  Although, on second thought, this baby will be born during a completely different season, so we just may still end up buying clothes.   I'm now 24 weeks, and the child seems to be doing well in there.  It's kicking harder, seems to be migrating upward, and is finding a new locale on the right side of my ribcage to call home.  Thus, heartburn and reflux are making a return appearance.  Next Dr. visit is the lovely glucose/diabetes test.

I am happy to say that I felt a lot more festive this Christmas season.  However, it seemed to fly by faster than I would have liked.  For an instant, I might understand why people start getting in the spirit of it just after Halloween.  But I still think it should be outlawed for retailers to start doing Christmas music and displays until the week of Thanksgiving.

Perhaps one reason Christmas was more fun this year was because Lauren is finally at the age where she kind of gets the concept of Santa Claus.  She seemed to fall in love with the classic Rudolph movie, although it seemed to prompt her to add clarification that there are no monsters in her bedroom at night.  And she really enjoyed helping make sugar cookies at Grandma's house this year.

On a completely different tangent:  Lauren is doing really well with potty training.  I was a bit worried the first couple of days because she was 0 for 3.  But then the 3rd day it just kind of clicked and she was 6 for 6 in a row over the next couple of days.  She is as stubborn as, if not more than, me, so there are times I really have to work to get her on the potty.  But as long as she doesn't get too excited or distracted, she does well.  Some of you may be better parents than we are, but finding bribes that worked seemed to be the key to her success.  Although, we'll see how it goes once we run out of the bribes.