Menu plan week of February 8th

Okay, so I’m totally out of my lovely cooking swap group meals.  We’ll be meeting to plan our next swap soon, but it looks like I’m on my own for the next couple of weeks.  Sigh. 

So, here I go. . .

Typical Breakfasts:

• Gluten-Free Pancakes or store-bought waffles (they’ve been easier these days. . .) with maple syrup (it’ll go back to Blueberry Sauce one summer brings back our blueberries)
• Oatmeal
• Scrambled Eggs
• Sprouted Toast with Coconut Oil
• Fresh Fruit
• Hashbrowns

Typical Lunches:

• Loaded Salad
• Turkey Sandwiches, Carrot and Celery Sticks
• Leftovers
• Chicken Tortilla Soup (canned, but organic. . .) with chips and avocado

Typical Snacks (Definitely important with this never-ending appetite of mine):

• Hard-boiled eggs
• Smoothies
• Baked potatoes
• Black-bean hummus (a new favorite from Earth Fare.  YUM!)

And here is the dinner plan:

Monday

Rotisserie chicken and a couple of sides from Earth Fare

Tuesday (Dinner out with Duttons)

Wednesday

Beef Burgundy Stew

Thursday

Turkey-Stuffed Peppers

Friday

Asian-Style Salmon with Brown Rice, Sauteed Spinach, Diced Red Peppers

Anson’s Birth

Up until I was  8 1/2 months pregnant with Anson, the whole pregnancy seemed nearly identical to Madeline’s. But at that point, it took a course of its own.

Towards the middle of June 2007, somewhere around 34 weeks, I began noticing that my practice contractions were getting to be pretty decent in strength. One Saturday at the end of  June, I had 6 good contractions in on half hour.  And one night, I had a couple of contractions that were so strong that I couldn’t talk to Erich through them.

When we went in for our 36 week appointment I asked the midwife I was seeing, Susan, to check my progress and sure enough she found that I was already 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced!  I got pretty nervous about the possibility of Anson coming so soon. . . I didn’t feel ready just yet.  But the news motivated us to get the last of the preparations made for his arrival.  Two days after that appointment, I began losing a lot of mucus, a sign of further preparation for labor.

Thinking that his arrival was really close, my mom changed her 4th of July vacation plans to visit my grandmother in Florida so that she could be here for his birth.  Everyday we thought, “Today will probably be the big day!” But everyday, he refused to arrive.

We thought he’d come for the full moon at the end of June. But he didn’t.

Then we thought maybe he was waiting to be born on the 4th of July. But he wasn’t.

Then we thought, maybe 7-7-07 would be his birthday. It wasn’t.

Then we thought maybe he’d arrive on my mom’s birthday, July 9th.  He didn’t.

Then we thought maybe he’d come exactly 2 weeks early, since Madeline was exactly 1 week early.  Again, that wasn’t his plan.

By week 38, we were still waiting. I was still 4 cm dilated at that point, but had progressed to 90% effaced.  Susan said we were very favorable, meaning something like when he decided to come, he was going to come FAST! She also said that she wouldn’t be surprised if he came in the next few days, though she couldn’t make any guarantees.  So, my mom left work for another long weekend to be with us, hoping to be here for his arrival.  But again, he was determined to stick to his own timetable!

I had to keep reminding myself that for everyday he didn’t arrive, the chances went up for him to arrive on the following day. But my excitement for his arrival was also mixed with my apprehension for how quickly this labor would go.  My labor with Madeline was fast.  With my body already being so primed and ready and with this being my second baby, it would undoubtedly be faster.  Could I really handle a faster labor?  Would the sensations overwhelm me this time?

Then, on Saturday, July 21st around 5pm, we finally went into labor.  All my questions were about to be answered. I called Erich after the first kickin’ contraction.  But after the last couple of false alarms I waited until a couple more came and went before calling the birthing center.  After the 3rd or 4th, however, I was sure this was it.  I called the midwife on duty, Linda, who told us to come right in.

My mom, Madeline and I loaded right into the van.  Fortunately, our bags were already packed.  We had been ready for this exact moment for weeks!  Just like my trip down Cherokee Bluff’s winding hill the last time I was in labor, my eyes filled with tears.  I was so excited that my labor had begun!  And so glad that Anson decided to come when my mom was with us!

Linda checked me around 6pm and found that I was still 90% effaced and 5 1/2 cm dilated, only 1/2 cm further dilated than at my last appointment.  But things were progressing quickly.  The sensations were all familiar but were so much more condensed than they were with Madeline.

• I felt the same shiveriness
• The same urge to poo (which I knew this time was pressure from Anson’s head descending)
• The same bliss when I entered the warm birthing tub waters
• The same disdain for the chemical smell of the water
• And the same surprise when the midwife told me to follow my body’s urge to push.

It was just minutes after first entering the tub at 6:10pm, when I felt the urge to push.  Linda had just left the room to check on another mother who had been in labor since early that morning.  Erich called her back for me.  It seemed too soon to begin the pushing phase, but Linda assured me that I should follow my body.  And so I pushed.  I felt the same amazing sensation of Anson moving down. And at 6:28pm — less than a half hour after arriving at the birthing center — our baby boy, Anson, came into the world!

We gave thanks to God for another beautiful labor and delivery.

With the exception of his temperature being a bit low for a while, all was miraculous, incredible, perfect!  I was so relieved that the Lord didn’t overwhelm me with the pace.  It was all familiar, just a little bit faster.  Instead of a few hours of early labor on that day, the early labor had been taking place during the weeks before, so I just jumped right into the active part this time around.

We had the same wonderful experience of moving from the tub to the bed, getting acquainted with our new baby, nursing, having the midwife and nurse get all his stats, eating and resting.  Then, a few hours later, we were ready to go home to our own bed.

And now we eagerly anticipate the next birthing story.  Only 6 more months until I get to see how this one unfolds!

Daddy and his brand new baby resting at the birthing center

Madeline’s Birth

It was 4:00 am on Monday, August 29th, 2005 that the contractions woke me up.  It wasn’t unusual for them to wake me up in the night those last couple of weeks, but this morning was a little different.  They weren’t really stronger on that morning, but for some reason, I was more alert. I stayed awake and noticed that they were coming in regular intervals, so I woke Erich at 4:20 am for help discerning if labor had actually begun.  We timed the contractions and, sure enough, they were about 5 minutes apart and growing a bit stronger each time.  We were pretty sure this was it!

Overcome with excitement and anticipation, we energetically finished packing the suitcase that I had been working on for weeks, cared for the dogs, and ate breakfast, all by 5:30am – a time we weren’t sure even existed prior to this morning.

Erich thought it would be wise to try to sleep more after that to conserve energy for the big event.  Though he fell right asleep, I was far too excited to sleep!  Plus, the growing strength of the contractions was prompting me to move into some pretty funny positions to find comfort.  Kneeling on the floor with my head resting on the foot of the bed and my bottom wagging back and forth worked best.  It may have looked a little funny, but the combination of leaning forward plus the rocking motion really eased the pain.

Looking back years later, I am amazed that my body knew what to do.  I have seen several other birthing shows where other women did the same thing.  It’s certainly not something I remember seeing others do prior to my own experience and decided to copy.  I just did it.  Just like they did, I’m sure.  It’s just neat that we don’t have to be trained or directed through every bit of labor.  Much of it just happens if we let it. Now, back to the story! 

Once Erich woke back up we talked about what we should do.  We had an appointment scheduled for 3pm later that day, but I was definitely too eager to wait that long to find out what kind of progress we were making.  Around 7:30 am we had one of the midwives paged.  She called back and said that since my water hadn’t broken and I hadn’t yet lost my mucus plug there probably wasn’t much reason to rush in.  But she said that we were welcome to come in for a labor check once the birthing center opened.  That became our plan.

In the meantime, there were lots of last minute things to do. I had to call my mom to let her know what was going on, we had to pack the car, leave a key so that someone could come care for the dogs, and straighten up the house. (I wanted it in some kind of order before we brought our baby girl home.)

By now, the contractions were becoming intense and demanding.  When I felt one revving up, I had to stop whatever I was doing, lean on something and breathe loudly in and out of my mouth until it passed.  Then, I’d excitedly resume with the task at hand.  Though the pain of the contractions was sharply increasing, they were never unbearable.  God generously provided periods of rest between them (which is further testament to His incredible grace – to give rest even in the midst of the curse of labor pain that resulted from Eve’s disobedience in the garden).

As odd as this sounds, I actually found the contractions to be kind of fun.  We had just spent the last six weeks learning about the incredible capacities of a mother’s body and the miraculous process mothers and their babies go through leading up to a birth.  I knew that my body was working in conjunction with Madeline’s tiny body to bring her into the world. Every pain was the productive by-product of that work. And with every pain, my birthing experience was unfolding. I was finally getting to experience this tremendous and unique even for which we had been preparing for months!

My eyes filled up with tears as we made our way down Cherokee Bluff’s winding hill.  This was IT! We were in labor! Today we would get to meet the baby that God had been knitting together in my womb for the last 9 months!  What a joyous occasion!

We got in to see Susan Sims around 10am. Between contractions I was brimming with excitement.  She smiled through all of my enthusiastic chatter, seeing it as a sure sign that we were only in the beginning stages of labor.  Her exam of me confirmed it.  Though we were almost fully effaced, we were only 3 cm dilated.  In her estimation, we still had a long way to go.  But she offered to prepare a room for us if we wanted to stay anyway.  There was no trace of my usual indecisiveness.  I definitely wanted to stay!

It’s a good thing we did.  Towards the end of our exam, things started to happen fast. Every contraction became more serious than the last.  And with every contraction I became more inwardly-focused. The task of delivering the baby consumed my attention and the world around me faded.

Though my memories are a bit spotty from this point on, I remember a few things clearly:

• Being cold in our room.
• Bouncing on a birthing ball on our small, private patio under the overcast August sky.
• Wrapping my arms around Erich’s neck and hanging onto him once the ball stopped easing the contraction pains.
• Shivering uncontrollably.
• Feeling the urge to poo and not being able to (repeatedly!)
• Hearing Susan tell me the birthing tub was just about ready though it might still be too hot.
• Smiling with bliss and voicing my delight as I entered the soothing hot water. (There’s a reason midwives call a birthing tub their version of an epidural.  What a beautiful thing that tub was!)
• Trying to avoid the intense chemical smell of the water. (That was the ONLY thing I would have changed)
• Asking Erich to brush his teeth after he devoured a turkey sandwich. (Having no idea how long I’d be in labor, we packed a bag of food.  Unlike a hospital, the birthing center allows a laboring mom to eat or drink if she’d like.  I, however, had no time to eat. )
• Thinking I had finally poo’d in the tub and pleading with Erich not to look.
• Finding out the pooing sensation wasn’t poo at all, but pressure from Madeline’s head descending.
• Being surprised when Susan told me to follow my body’s urge to push.  It seemed so soon!
• Repeating the word, “okay.” It functioned dually to notify Erich and Susan of the coming contraction and to assure myself that I was alright.
• Holding onto Erich and not wanting to let him go. (He sat on a birthing ball outside the tub with his arms under mine, holding me up in the water.  I had my arms up around his neck.  You can kind of see what I mean by looking at the picture below.)
• Telling him that I could actually feel Madeline coming – what a NEAT sensation!
• Moving so that Susan could check Madeline’s heart rate between contractions.
• Worrying that I was making too much noise and was scaring the moms-to-be in the waiting room. (Later, Erich, my mom, Alyson, and a video all confirmed that the noises that seemed so loud to me were all just calm, quiet moaning/breathing noises. )
• Assuring my mom and Alyson as they entered the room that they pain wasn’t too much.
• Seeing my legs float up in the water as I pushed.
• Hearing Susan say that Madeline’s head was crowning.
• Asking if Madeline was okay.
• Feeling her little body slip out as I pushed for the last time.

She had arrived!

This was taken right after my last push. Madeline is lying on my chest.

Erich, mom and Alyson cried with joy, but I was too busy recovering from the whirlwind of physical sensations to cry. Active labor had zoomed by in only 1 hour and 58 minutes – an enviable but demanding speed! If it had happened any faster, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to keep up. (My fear would be tested 2 years later with Anson’s birth.)

Evidently, Madeline felt the same way because she didn’t cry at first.  She just laid peacefully on my chest in the water as things finally began to slow down.

After a few minutes, we moved over to the bed in the room where we stayed for the next few hours until we were ready to go home.  The midwife and nurse measured and weighed Madeline a little while after she arrived, but they never took her out of the room.  We got to begin nursing almost right away.

I loved the whole experience.  Though I told Erich immediately afterward that I was not going to be ready to do it again anytime soon, the memory of the pain faded within hours.  I can still remember that there WAS pain, but once it was over, the joy decisively eclipsed the pain.  God is an incredible creator.  The way He designed the hormones and endorphins and body to all work together is absolutely amazing.  I was thrilled that I was able to experience every bit of it!

Just minutes after Madeline's birth. Our midwife, Susan, is in the background.

Thinking about birth

I know I am about 6 months off from giving birth again, but ever since we found out we were pregnant again, I’ve been eagerly anticipating it.  And having a couple of friends either experiencing their first pregnancy or anticipating getting pregnant soon has led me to think about it even more.

I was going wait to post about my last two birthing experiences until this birth was a little more imminent, but I just can’t wait any longer!  So, here they come. . .

Menu plan week of February 1st

Typical Breakfasts:

• Gluten-Free Pancakes or store-bought waffles (they’ve been easier these days. . .) with maple syrup (it’ll go back to Blueberry Sauce one summer brings back our blueberries)
• Oatmeal
• Scrambled Eggs
• Sprouted Toast with Coconut Oil
• Fresh Fruit
• Hashbrowns

Typical Lunches:

• Loaded Salad
• Turkey Sandwiches, Carrot and Celery Sticks
• Leftovers
• Chicken Tortilla Soup (canned, but organic. . .) with chips and avocado

Typical Snacks (Definitely important with this never-ending appetite of mine):

• Hard-boiled eggs
• Smoothies
• Baked potatoes
• Black-bean hummus (a new favorite from Earth Fare.  YUM!)

And here is the dinner plan:

Monday

Black Bean Burgers, Macaroni and Cheese, Steamed Broccoli and Home-made Fries

Tuesday

Dijon Chicken with Cheese and Broccoli Stuffed Potatoes

Wednesday (Care Group)

Frozen Pizza, Green Beans, and Salad

Thursday

Quiche with Hashbrowns

Friday

Cheese Ravioli and Salad

Saturday (Choir practice 9am-12pm)

Eat out/breakfast for dinner/leftovers

Sunday

Eat out/breakfast for dinner/leftovers

Menu plan week of January 25th

I’m finally feeling together enough to put a menu plan together for the week! Praise God!

One of the things that has helped me get to this point of on-top-of-it-ness was a great cooking club swap that five wives from church did.  We all made two recipes, but made enough for all five of our families.  Then we got together and swapped all the food.  We ended up with 10 meals each.

I can’t express what a relief it was to put those meals in the freezer, especially in this particularly culinarily-uninspired season I have been in.  Fortunately for me, I have 4 of these meals left to use this week.  Then hopefully the cooking club will re-convene for another swap.

Typical Breakfasts:

• Gluten-Free Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce
• Oatmeal
• Scrambled Eggs
• Sprouted Toast with Coconut Oil
• Fresh Fruit

Typical Lunches:

• Loaded Salad
• Turkey Sandwiches, Carrot and Celery Sticks
• Leftovers

Typical Snacks (Definitely important with this never-ending appetite of mine):

• Hard-boiled eggs
• Smoothies
• Baked potatoes

And here is the dinner plan:

Monday

Chicken and Dumplings

Tuesday (Dinner at the Clayman’s)

I’m bringing a Caesar Salad

Wednesday (Worship Team Practice)

Black Bean Burgers and Fries

Thursday

Chicken Chili

Friday

Quiche

Saturday (Choir practice 9am-noon, Rip’s Birthday)

Dinner out/Leftovers/Breakfast for dinner

Sunday

Dinner out/Leftovers/Breakfast for dinner

Fruit of the Spirit (5 of 9) – Kindness

Okay, well, I’ve gotten a bit off of this Fruits of the Spirit study with holidays and then first trimester stuff. Here is what we did for our fifth week of in-depth study of the fruits of the spirit (right before we took our month-long break).  I hope to pick back up with the last half of this study soon.

If you missed the introduction, you can read it here.

Opposite

Unkind, Mean, Cruel

Command

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

Jesus’ Perfect Obedience

He was “kind to the ungrateful and the evil.”  (Luke 6:35)

Jesus was kind every day of his life.  He was always thinking of how he could do good for others.  He was always giving and provide for people’s needs.  Remember how he healed people, and fed people, and taught them with patience and gentleness?

Well, these things were not even his most amazing acts of kindness.  His most amazing display of kindness was on the cross.  He did not pay back wrong for wrong (1 Thes 5:15).  He didn’t say mean things back to his enemies.  He didn’t try to hurt the people who were hurting him.  Instead he prayed that God would forgive them because they didn’t understand what they were doing.  No one was grateful that Jesus was on the cross.  They didn’t understand that he was paying for their sins.   They were doing evil things that displayed the evil in their hearts.  But Jesus stayed on the cross, enduring all of the pain and the shame and the loneliness until he had paid for everything.

Jesus loved his enemies, did good for them, and gave to them without expecting anything in return. His kindness is meant to lead us toward repentance. (Romans 2:4)

Story

The man who didn’t have any friends (none) (in The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Llyod-Jones). This story of Zacchaeus, shows how Jesus was kind even to sinners.  His kindness led Zacchaeus to repentance.

Activity

Show kindness to orphans or the homeless by packing shoe-boxes full of supplies.  In this way, we can think of the good of others, give, and provide for their needs, just as God does for us.  It’s a great way to practice giving without expecting anything in return.  You can read about the specific project we chose here.

Song

You Show Me Kindness (To Be Like Jesus CD – Listen to a sample here)

S0ng Lyrics

You are always loving
You are never mean
You are always thinking of my good
You are always giving
Providing for my needs
Helping me to do the things I should

You show me kindness
In oh-oh-oh so many ways
Kindness
E-e-every single day
Kindness, kindness
Help me to be like You today

You are always caring
You are never cruel
Even when You see me doing wrong
Help me to be sharing
What I receive from You
Help me to be kind to everyone

More “Schoolish” Stuff

(These lessons will need to be customized based on where you are scholastically.  Here are some of the things we did to give you some ideas.)

Color a fruit worksheet labeled with the word “kindness.” Our watermelon coloring page is here.

Pick a letter (or letters) to write.  You can print out great letter worksheets at Starfall, like this one for the letter K (for kindness, of course!)

Practice handwriting by writing a verse.  I customized a worksheet here, with the words “Kindness” and “Unkindness” as well as the verse “Be kind to one another. Ephesians 4:32” Madeline traced the words and was able to practice a little independent writing too.

Talk about the K Rule.

If the /k/ sound comes before the letters e, i, or y, then the letter k is what makes the /k/ sound. Examples: keg, kid, milky, kept, skip, silky

If the /k/ sound comes before any other letter, then the letter c is what makes the /k/ sound. Examples: cat, cot, cut, can, cost, cup, clip, crop

Womanly Dominion Book Giveaway

Hi all,

Lindsay over at PassionateHomemaking.com is giving away 7 copies of Womanly Dominion: More Than a Gentle and Quiet Spirit by Mark Chanski. Lindsay says it was her favorite book from 2009!  I’ve heard several other rave reviews too.  It was on my Christmas wish list this year, but I never got it, so I’m hoping to win one of them.  To enter to win a copy for yourself, visit here.  You can also check out her full review of the book here.

But hurry, the giveaway ends tonight (Thursday, January 21, 2010) at 5:00 pm PST/8pm ET.

Happy reading to you!

Erika

Tim Hawkins Full Range of Motion Comedy DVD Giveaway

Kristen, a wife, homeschool mom of nine, entrepreneur, and Founder and President of Pennywise Learning, Inc, is doing a giveaway of Tim Hawkins Comedy DVD.

Tim is a FUNNY Christian guy!  If you haven’t seen any of his stuff, you should check out a couple of these clips from YouTube:

Things you don’t say to your wife
Delilah
A Homeschool Family
Chick-fil-A

You can enter the giveaway here.

Our Birth Control History

We are pregnant with our third child.  One of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten so far is:

Was this planned or a surprise?

It’s a fair question.  The last two were complete surprises.  But this time around things were a bit different.

I think birth control is an important topic.  So, I’m going to give you our quick birth control history.

Our Experience on and off the Pill

I was on the pill for many years between college and a few years into marriage.  We stopped the pill because of the side-effects it was having on me.  (Which is a nice way to say that I was quite an unfriendly beast.)

We immediately got pregnant after ditching the pill.  My fertility returned again about 13 months after we had Madeline, right around the time I stopped nursing.  One month later, we conceived Anson.

Finding a Birth Control Method

Though we knew that children were a blessing from the Lord, our blessings were coming a little too fast and furiously for us.  (Both babies were quite furious as tiny ones. We actually referred to Anson as “furious George, the furious little monkey.”)

Our family was growing a little too quickly for us with no method of birth control in place.   But since we didn’t like barrier methods, we had to figure out what other options we had.

We thought briefly about the pill again, but given the way it negatively affected me in the past, combined with the new knowledge of the physical dangers it poses to those who take it, and the possibility of an early abortion if an egg was released and fertilized, we opted to stay far away from it.

We thought seriously about an IUD.  Aside from the cost and the two unattractive choices of either chemical hormones or a copper wire in my uterus, it seemed to be a decent option.  We counseled with a couple of different midwives at the birthing center where I went for all of my care, and were pretty sure it was the only good option we had.  But then we learned that it was possible for an egg to be fertilized and then to be aborted with this method too.  Knowing that our baby-making potential was high, we couldn’t risk aborting a baby.  So, we abandoned that idea.

The Decision: Natural Family Planning

We went back to the drawing board and came back to the one idea we kept pushing away: Natural Family Planning.

I counseled with several women from church who used it and brought the information to Erich.  After praying for months about how we were going to control our family size, Erich and I decided that Natural Family Planning was really the only viable option for us.

So, I bought a book and read up while I was still nursing Anson.  We knew we had at least a few months left to figure this method out until my fertility returned.

It would be unfair to say that we just glided right in with no worries.  We were definitely concerned that we’d mess something up and end up pregnant again before we were ready.  But as I saw the system really work, my confidence in it grew.

We started being able to read my body’s signals well enough to know whether we were in a fertile zone or not. And it got really exciting to be able to accurately predict when I would ovulate, when my period would start, etc. (And that says a lot for a girl whose cycles are all over the map in length!)

It was also the first time in my life when I actually understood why many of the weird things that happen during the course of a cycle happen.  Things started making sense and I felt a great sense of peace using this method.

How Baby #3 Came to Be

We had been using this method for the last year or so since my fertility returned after I finished nursing Anson.  We had perfect success with it until I mistakenly thought I was in an un-fertile zone when I actually wasn’t.

In my head I was thinking I had just finished up my period a few days earlier and that we were still safe.  If either one of us had taken one second to consult my chart, we would have been set straight that my period had ended SEVERAL days earlier, placing me right smack in the fertile zone.   So, we ended up making a baby that day. 

The good news is that we had been talking about another baby with more frequency in the months before.  So, we quickly embraced the idea of another baby.

Things I enjoy about Natural Family Planning

I mentioned earlier some of the things I really enjoy about Natural Family Planning, but here are a few more:

• I have enjoyed learning about the working’s of my body in greater detail.  Like the study of any life science, it allows us to see more of God’s unending wisdom.

• Erich and I can work WITH my body that God has so magnificently designed to plan for our family.

• There are NO side effects.  No man-made, disease-causing, mood-altering chemicals coursing through my blood.

• There is NO risk of aborting a baby.

• It’s FREE!  Aside from the small investment of some kind of book to walk you through how to chart your temperature and mucus patterns and a digital thermometer, there is NO COST!

We used a book titled The Art of Natural Family Planning. It was written by The Couple to Couple League, an organization of the Catholic Church.  While I don’t agree with every theological point in this book, it has been a great tool to teach me how to interpret the signs of fertility God has given us.

I’ll have more information on the pill in the coming days.