Vacation photos!

Adjusting expectations

David learned yesterday that we may not actually hear about his various job offers on Aug 15th. His company will have some information on that date, but HR and his program will have some adjustments to do before they can present the offers to David, so it will likely take a bit longer for us to actually hear anything. How much longer? We don't know! I would think a few days or a week should be enough time, but we really don't know. So, we will continue to be as patient as we can, and we will update everyone when we know something, but it may be a little while yet.

In other news, I had an appointment yesterday that went a little sideways. The baby is doing great and and so am I, thankfully, but the dr and I had an interesting discussion about the delivery.

I've been expecting that I'll be able to try for a VBAC for this delivery, since my OBs have really encouraged it from the beginning, and everything went so well with Peter's, but yesterday my dr laid out the set of conditions that I have to meet in order to even be allowed to attempt a VBAC. Honestly, I'm really not sure I'll meet their criteria. The baby has to be estimated at under 8 lbs, and I have to go into labor on my own by my due date (they might let me go a couple of days overdue, but really would prefer not to). Peter was well over 8 lb and I think 9 days late, and I just don't think my body is designed to make small babies that arrive early!

They're having me get an ultrasound in about 5 weeks to estimate the baby's weight(even though these estimates are notoriously error-prone, even up to a pound or more), and the dr already commented yesterday that I seem to be measuring big. Ay! Her best advice was for me to follow the gestational diabetes diet (no refined sugars, super limited white starches like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes) to help ensure that the baby doesn't get too large. I think this is probably not a bad pregnancy diet anyway, so I'll follow it and add in some extra exercise also, but I really wouldn't be surprised if despite my best efforts, I fail one or more of their required conditions and am scheduled for a c-section. It was a little disappointing to hear all this now, when I'm nearly 8 months pregnant.

The most important thing, of course, is that we do whatever is safest for baby David and for me. This particular OB practice has such strict standards so they can err on the side of safety all around, and I can understand and respect that. Still, our month of October is going to be busy enough as it is and I would love to not have to add recovery from abdominal surgery to it all.

My other choice is to switch to a different doctor now who would not be quite so strict with the conditions (and there is such a dr out here who has great reviews) but his office and hospital are an hour away, on major highways when there is no traffic, and maybe 3 hours away in bad traffic (and let's face it, bad traffic is pretty much a given here). Compare that to my current doctors and hospital, which are 10-15 min away on surface streets, and I'm not sure how comfortable David or I would be with that switch.

Anyway, yesterday was definitely a day of our expectations being "adjusted", and I'm doing my best to hang on for the ride and try and see God's hand in it all. As always, we appreciate your prayers and we will keep you updated!

Baby steps to August 15th

We're closing in on 2 weeks until we have more information about the places where David will be offered work.  Two years of enjoying (and sometimes just plain enduring) this rotational program is coming to an end, and now we have big decisions and planning imminently ahead of us.  These past few weeks (and and the two still to come) are probably one of the most difficult and unsettling waiting periods I've ever experienced.  We've been fortunate so far to have good health in our family, so we've never had to wait for the results of serious medical tests, which I can only imagine is 1,000 times more nerve-wracking than waiting to hear about a job.  Still, this is the most stress we've really ever experienced.  We don't know what part of the country we'll be in, what size house or apartment we'll be able to afford if we don't return to CA, when we're moving out, etc. etc. 

I know that whatever happens and wherever we end up, our little family will be together and we'll be fine.  We'll get settled, find a local Catholic church, make friends, and make a happy home wherever we are.  But we still have a maze of factors to negotiate -- geography, salary, job position, cost of living, our house in CA, etc.  David has worked so hard in this program and he really has done well, and I know his job offers will reflect that, but we ask for your continued prayers as we try to discern the best path for our family! 

In the mean time, we've been keeping busy and have been enjoying our summer.  I've been finding it helpful just to focus on what chores and adventures we have lined up for each day, and to not even think about the "what ifs" and possible planning we have ahead of us.  We had such a wonderful vacation at the beach last month.  It was so great to spend time with Mom and Dad -- I only wish we could have teleported more of our family to come out and be there with us.  We got to go on a boat ride in Maryland this past weekend, courtesy of one of David's co-workers, and that was a blast.  The boys had the wind and sun in their faces and they loved speeding along the river.  Today, I took the boys to an indoor bounce house.  It was very hot and humid again today, and I felt like a change of pace from hanging around the house or visiting the pool.  The boys had a blast!  Jack said "Now we don't have to jump on the beds!".  I do think they got all of the bounces out of their systems pretty well, and it was nicely air-conditioned, which was a bonus!

On August 16th (I'm giving the boys the Feast of the Assumption off!), we'll start in on our next school year.  Thomas is so excited about starting his Kindergarten work!  Jack is also excited about 2nd grade, and Peter says he's ready for pre-school :).  It feels like our summer break was short (and it was, intentionally, so that we can take off some time when the baby is born in a couple of months), but I think it was just about right.  It will be nice to get back into a more regular routine.

Other than that, we're all doing well.  My pregnancy continues to go smoothly.  Baby David is moving a lot, hiccuping a lot, and doing everything he's supposed to be doing.  I'm a little over 31 weeks now!!  It does seem like the weeks are going by more quickly now.  I'm dealing with the heat and humidity OK (mostly just hiding from it inside or going to the pool), so if I can get through August and the first part of September, I think I'll have gotten through the worst of it. 

We won't have any job updates until after the 15th, but I'll see if I can post some of our vacation pictures later this week!

Fireworks

We had a really fun Fourth of July celebration here.  We started the day with swimming and a lunch picnic at a nearby pool, then we came home and relaxed for a while.  David BBQ'd some excellent steak for dinner, the boys chased fireflies, and then we had our own front-yard fireworks show with fireworks that David bought at a stand near his work.  They had a BOGO special at the fireworks stand, and David came home with some excellent selections.  It was especially exciting because it has been many years since we lived in a place where buying and setting off your own fireworks was legal.  David bought poppers, sparklers, glow snakes, spinners, and lots of fountain and whistle type of fireworks, including a behemoth one that was called "Devil's Delight".  The boys spent most of the time watching fireworks like this:

because they were afraid they were going to be too loud (and some of them were!) but they had a blast.  Their favorites were probably the sparklers, a firework called Purple Rain, and the poppers.

In other news, I had my 7-month checkup today and everything continues to go well with this pregnancy.  It's hard to believe that I come back in 4 weeks for my next checkup and I'll be nearly 32 weeks!  I have no idea where the time is going!  We've decided to name the baby David Jr., and the boys have decided that "Baby Davy" is a hilarious nickname :).  This kid is going to get equal amounts of love and teasing from his brothers, I think. 

We're enjoying our summer, but the heat, humidity and swarms of biting bugs take some getting used to.  Next week we head to the beach for a week-long vacation and we're all looking forward to a break from the usual routine.  After we return, things with David's job search will kick into even higher gear, with more interviews and finalizing of the offers that he'll get from various sites.  It's exciting and a little nerve-wracking!  Here are some more pictures from our Fourth of July fun:

Glasses and doughnuts

So far, summer has been busy but good at our house.  Jack got glasses and is able to see much better.  He wears them all the time and has been really good about taking care of them.  He looks like a little man when he wears them!

We've been spending a fair amount of time in the pool.  Jack has swim lessons this week and next week in the morning, and then some days we also go in the afternoon so Thomas and Peter can play and practice swimming.  It can be tough sometimes to wrangle all 3 of them in the water (Jack does fine in the shallow end, but Thomas can't touch bottom and isn't swimming yet, and Peter is a wildcard).  But, the boys enjoy it so much and it's a great way to escape the heat and humidity.  It's also great to not feel the full force of gravity on my pregnant tummy :).

Today is Peter's feast day so I wanted to do something a little special for him.  I decided to make Pioneer Woman's doughnuts, and they were fantastic!!  The boys are serious doughnut enthusiasts, but they're a rare treat for us.  Anyway, these doughnuts are by far the best I've ever made from scratch -- very light and fluffy -- and they were pretty easy to make.  We didn't do the glaze recipe, but I'll try that next time I make these, because I think it would be awesome.  We tried powdered sugar, powdered sugar+cinnamon and regular sugar+cinnamon.  I think the favorite here was the plain powdered sugar.  The recipe did make a heap-o-doughnuts, though, so hopefully we can be disciplined enough to save them for breakfast tomorrow :). 

And, I'm just throwing in one more picture of the boys enjoying a make-shift sandbox that I set up in the garage.  It's hard to believe that when we left CA, the boys were 5, 3, and 1.  Nearly 2 years have passed -- they're getting so big!  We're so ready to be settled down somewhere -- not too much longer!

Tying up loose ends

We're just a couple of days away from finishing off Jack's school work for 1st grade, and all of us are looking forward to summer break.  It has been a great school year.  There were some bumps along the way (stubborn teacher + stubborn kid don't always mix well) -- but Jack has done really well these past 2 quarters, attitude-wise and he has really learned a lot this year.  I feel like we can continue to homeschool successfully if that ends up being the best decision for our family, depending on where we move after October and what schools are available.  We're going to celebrate the end of the school year with a trip to Chuck E Cheese on Friday!

Today we had a full day of appointments -- a 3-year well check for Peter and an eye doctor appointment for Jack. Peter's appointment went great.  He's right on track for everything.  He proudly told the nurse-practictioner "I'm wearing underwear!", and then he went on to describe the colors of David's and my underwear (I guess he takes notes when looking at the laundry basket)!  The nurse-practitioner thought it was hilarious :).  Man, that kid has a sense of comedic timing.  Peter is usually very reserved with strangers, so for him to decide to be chatty during the appointment at all was a surprise, but then for him to pick the subject of underwear was just too much.  He's a firecracker, that one.

Jack's eye appointment went well, and he definitely needs glasses.  They should arrive in about 10 days, and then he'll be wearing them pretty much all the time.  Thankfully, his eyes are healthy -- he's just very near-sighted.  The doctor told him that he'll be able to see much, much better once his glasses arrive, so I'm eager to see how much of a difference he notices.  He picked out some stylish metallic-blue glasses with a little bit of camoflage detail on the sides.  They look great on him!  Now the trick will be to make sure he takes good care of them and they don't accidentally get broken or misplaced.

Other than that, we're all doing well.  The baby (who still doesn't have a name yet, but we're working on it) is doing very well.  He's active and it's nice to be able to feel kicks every day.  Although, it does sometimes feel like a crazed squirrel is trapped inside me!  I'm eager to meet this little guy, but at the same time I really want to enjoy the next 3 1/2 months and make the most out of them.  The boys are all getting more and more independent (first time with no one in diapers in 7 years!), and I'm able to get enough sleep (not that I always do, but I certainly could get 8 or 9 hours a night if I really wanted to), and I want to savor these things before we have a newborn to care for again.  Hopefully my body will cooperate and I won't get too tired/big/achy to go on some fun adventures with the boys this summer.

We continue to look forward to mid-August, which is when we should have a better idea about where we'll be living next.  David has been working hard on cultivating good leads on potential offers.  I'm oddly calm about the whole thing, which I'm grateful to God for.  October will be one wild month, but there really isn't anything can do about it now except put one foot in front of the other and try to juggle everything as best I can. 

Happy Birthday, Peter!

Peter turns 3 today!  He had a great birthday breakfast with David yesterday at "Bobebbans" (Bob Evans).  He managed to eat 4 chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, sausage, and juice!  Today he enjoyed his birthday cake and ice cream before lunch (because David has to leave for business travel this afternoon).  He requested an airplane cake and cookie dough ice cream, and he was pretty pleased with both.  Then we had a birthday lunch, which was chicken strips, biscuits, fruit salad, and artichokes.  Peter wasn't much help with deciding what I should make for his birthday lunch.  Everytime I asked him what he wanted, he said "cake and ice cream".  I explained that he could have cake and ice cream, but was there a regular lunch or dinner food that he wanted to go *with* his dessert?  And his answer was... cake and ice cream :).  So, I put some things together that I thought he would like.  Not the artichokes -- those happened to be on sale and they looked good, so I figured why not? 

Peter is a feisty, funny kid.  He has a good sense of humor and really enjoys making his brothers and David and I laugh.  He usually knows exactly what he wants and he'll go over (or through) obstacles to get it.  I'm always impressed with how well he stands up to his big brothers and really holds his own.

One example of his stubbornness / self-assurance: We got him a stuffed giraffe recently during a trip to the National Zoo, and it has become one of his most treasured possessions.  He decided to name the giraffe "Phoebe", and yet he insists on calling it a "he".  So we've tried to ask him directly:

"Is Phoebe a girl or a boy?".
Peter's response: "He's a Phoebe giraffe".
"Well, if it's a "he" then it's a boy, right?"
"No, he's a Phoebe giraffe".
So we ask "Then, is it a girl Phoebe giraffe?"
"No."
"Is it a boy Phoebe giraffe?"
"No."
"Well, it has to be one or the other ... is it a boy or a girl?".
"He's a Phoebe".

And Peter will go around and around like this, as sure as anything that he knows exactly what he's talking about. 

Happy 3rd birthday, little man!