Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Sunday Before the Week Before the Sunday Our Guy Goes to Cali

Today I slept in a bit because I didn't sleep much last night. Back pain. I tried taking an actual walk yesterday (instead of doing my walk-in-your-living-room workout), and it tore me up. Why? Drue woke me up by opening the door to our room and walking up to the side of the bed, as she usually does, and saying something while patting the bed. I wonder what it's like to see Mommy (or Momma, as she's been calling me the last week) appear out of the mound of covers on the bed. I think it's somewhat scary, because she always stands back a little bit, and toward the end of the bed, like she's ready to bolt if whatever comes out of the mound is NOT her Momma.

We got ready for church and headed out in just enough time to arrive at 10. Drue loooooves going to church. She gabbed the whole way (she usually whines in the car). She loves seeing all of her friends and tromping around. She walks with much purpose. She talks to herself and others and looks for "Becca" and "Bobby" and "Ashey," etc., and then remembers there are "cookies" and asks for one.

Today she sat with the Shipmas during church, which was cute, but I must admit I missed her. Strange? She was right across the aisle. I stuck half a piece of gum in her mouth at the beginning of the service, hoping it would keep her quieter than usual. (Bad mom?) She did great, or the Shipmas did. One of the songs we sang as a congregation was actually "Jesus Loves Me," so Collin and I had fun watching D's look of surprise when the entire room burst into the song she hears every night before bed. At a few points I even saw her try to mouth the words and attempt to sing, but I think she was too overcome with surprise to think much about singing.

I was a little upset at church. Understatement. I was grumpy and brought to tears when a teenager ran into me and almost knocked me over. (He's a sweetheart and was playing with the kids and accidentally knocked into me...but he's a crazily muscley football dude). It jarred my already hurting back something fierce, and I felt the baby, and my uterus, shimmy-shake, and so I was standing there talking to my friend Tim about C's upcoming job interviews, and I was suddenly was overcome with emotion when this kis ran into me. He didn't see me start to cry (thank goodness...he already felt terrible...truly the sweetest kid I've ever known). I don't know what it was. I just got upset. I apologized to Tim and all but sprinted off and slipped into the cry room to cry/try to stop crying. (The baby cry room, ha.) OK. I was OK. Mostly hormones and upset about my back hurting. But I could deal.

Then church starts, and Mike is praying, and all I can think is, I'm getting ready to start bawling. I feel like crap. What is going on? I tell Collin, and he suggests I "go have a good cry." It was the same advice he'd given me the night before when I laughed at a Facebook comment until I started crying. He'd said, "Why don't you just go to the bedroom and have a good cry?" (instead of trying to pull it together). NO. I had to pull it together. I was being crazy.

Today I took his advice. I left and went into the bathroom to cry it out, as it were, and it worked. All my body wanted to do was cry, so once I let it, it was done. I was no longer upset about much of anything. Hmm...as I'm writing this I'm thinking about babies and the "crying it out method." Hmm...

Anyway, things were normal again. We sang "Jesus Loves Me," and C took Drue to the nursery for the sermon. I sang for communion and all was normal. And remained normal. I guess there's no big ending to the story.

We came home and put Drue down and SLEPT. Collin on the floor and me on the couch. We slept the entire length of her nap. In silence (meaning no fan). I have come to appreciate silence so much these days. It was more than nice, until I felt like crap when we got up. But nonetheless, there were things to do...like make German chocolate cupcakes for small group, since the food theme tonight was German. Delicious and a great time with friends. A sad time too. A time of a lot of prayer. Somebody's dad died tonight. I don't know the family, but the news made me feel woozy like when you drive over an unexpected lift in the road. Still, there is something about sitting around with friends and reading Psalms.

Came home and put babe to bed. C watched an episode of Frasier and I read blogs. And now I am writing one. And now I am going to bed.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Remarks from the Blue Chair

We no longer have the green couch. That's a lie. We do. It's in "the garage room," which we don't use because we might be moving, and that's where we keep all the boxes I still haven't unpacked since we moved into this house.

The green cover that was on the green couch IS long gone, and now, if ever I write this blog, I write from a blue chair and not a green couch.

The chair is one of two my grandmother gave me. The same grandmother who buys Drue the most precious Baby-Gap-Manequin outfits. My mother bought the pillows for the chairs, and the two of us picked out the lamp that sits on the table between the chairs.

But that's boring.

Our guy got a second job interview in the same state as the first: Califronia. This means that next Sunday and the Sunday after he'll be flying out to Cali to try to secure a tenure-track position at one of two private colleges. I couldn't be more proud or excited...or scared. California? If ever there were a state I'd say I wouldn't mind moving to, California would probably be it, but being faced with the fact that we more than likely will be moving there (at least it feels that way) is...whoa.

One of the two colleges is a very prestigious, small liberal arts college. The other is a fairly (I think?) prestigious Christian college. Very different. This is interesting. When our guy had to write a statement of faith for the latter school (which bothered him), he was not rosey. He wrote a very honest, very beautiful, but very, I'm guessing, not-the-norm statement. I wasn't sure the people at this college would read it and be interested in him. The fact that they are makes me like the school without knowing much of anything else about it. But at this point I'd rather he get the job at the other college, if only because I know he wants that job more and it would allow him to do more research.

Geez...I can't believe Drue is going to (maybe...probably) be a California Girl. Eep!

Speaking of our girl...Drue has new words every day. I had no idea that she finally learned that a duck says quack. She did. She said it while looking through an animal book with her daddy after our Saturday Evening Family Outing.

We took her with us to Applebee's tonight because we had a gift card. She drank very watered down lemonade and tried a few bites of boneless buffalo wings, celery (or should I say bleu cheese dip?), breadstick (which she called "cake" until she tasted it), provolone-stuffed meatball and pasta. She, of course, finished early and proceeded to tell us, "All done! All done!" which meant she wanted DOWN, but we appeased her with my lipstick (into which she stuck her finger), a small jar of hand sanitizer ("hands"), a to-go box, and finally, a half a stick of gum from our waitress. This did the trick.

We then took the family to Barnes & Noble and watched D tromp around the kiddie section and perform on stage and make sure her daddy was watching. She loves his attention more and more. She absolutely loves Saturdays and Sundays because we're BOTH home, and when she wakes up from her nap those days she immediately goes looking for "Dahddy" and climbs into his lap and gives him at least two kisses. It is maybe the cutest thing ever.

I don't mind us all being home either. :) I seem to live for the weekends these days, mostly because C has been working late evenings to prep for the job interviews and presentations he has to give. So we don't see a lot of him weekdays. So it goes. Everything in seasons.

Our other little girl, who will be named Paige, is a mover and a shaker. I have enjoyed feeling more movement this pregnancy. It is something I am always fascinated with. In order not to gain any more "me" weight these last two months--and in order to be able to sleep at night--I've been trying to get at least some kind of low-impact workout each day. It feels good, though I still ONLY want to eat dessert. I refrained tonight from going to Braum's after eating a huge dinner at Applebee's and instead filled a small cup half full of dark chocolate chips. Not too bad, huh?

Anyway, I can't believe she's coming at the end of March. It still feels surreal. I keep envisioning seeing Drue for the first time and thinking, This is really going to happen again? What is that going to be like? Who is she going to look like? Are we going to parent her the same, or will she require a different style? Etc. I'm starting to get "nesty," though it's difficult to get too nesty when we might be moving so soon. Crazy.

As excited as I am, I'm also very nervous: about how Drue is going to do, about sleep, about how I'm going to take care of TWO HUMAN BEINGS. I already struggle with guilt every day, feeling like I don't do enough to educate Drue. Ugh. And we don't even have half the things we had for Drue when she was a babe, because we were borrowing them (exersaucer, playpad, etc.). Ah well...it's going to be fine and great and different.