When God closes a door, He opens another

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Gabriel, namesake of our second child which is funny because yesterday was our little Gabriel's due date.  Having miscarried again a few months after miscarrying Gabriel, the past 6 months have been filled with lots of ups and downs.  Our 3rd child, though we never got the chance to hold the baby, we named Raphael since Gabriel and Raphael are both Archangels.  That one was hard in many different ways having only had 2 weeks to know I was carrying a baby and then never having any closure or anything tangible to hold on to.  However, a child is a human no matter how small or early in development, so we knew our baby needed a name.  It's been a rough road, but when God closes one door, He always opens another, and in this case that new door contains a new life.

After everything that's happened, we wouldn't normally be announcing this so soon, but I've had an ultrasound (on the Feast of St. Joseph!) which showed a good heartbeat and that everything looked ok.  I wasn't able to get on progesterone as soon as I should have, so there is some concern that it may have done irreversible damage already and I may still miscarry, but I'm supplementing now and chances are a lot better now that the ultrasound has shown us that everything looks fine.  This is a good opportunity to ask all of you for prayers, that all continues to go well and by the second trimester, I should be out of the woods.

Baby Bean, 7 weeks along

I have been going through much more morning sickness than with William and Gabriel, which is really good news since the more pregnancy symptoms, the better!  Restless legs at night, many many trips to the bathroom, nausea yet always hungry, fatigue, dizziness, feeling faint, heart racing, headaches, heartburn, you name it, I've got it. ;)  I never thought I would ever be so grateful to feel so crummy!  It's a comfort to me feeling this way, because I know my body is still responding to a pregnancy and it's also a way of offering something up for the well-being of this baby.  Lent is also a perfect time to be feeling this way!

It's funny, my sister had written a blog post about half way through Lent about having had all these plans for Lent and how she was going to make so much progress until many of her plans went out the window due to her husband unexpectedly having to travel for work, and life taking some abrupt turns.  She went on to say that she was learning that though she was unable to accomplish all that she had set out to do this Lent, God was giving her what He wanted her to do.  I feel very much the same way now since all my Lenten resolutions have pretty much disappeared with me being unable to do much, and being so limited on what my stomach will allow me to even think about, I eat whatever I can (which has basically been ginger beer and rice cakes since I'm still gluten intolerant).  

I have little energy to stick to a schedule and do basic household chores, and between the headaches and constant queasy feeling, I have trouble reading anything.  But it's made me come to the same conclusion as my sister.  Though I thought everything I had laid out for my plan for Lent this year was what I needed, God is now telling me what He needs from me.  I am learning to accept and surrender, as well as direct every queasy, dizzy, sometimes painful thought to God and remember how I can use all of this not only to help me progress on the path to Heaven, but also my husband and my children through offering it up for them.  

That is my new Lenten resolution; to accept whatever sufferings come my way with resignation, to surrender to the Will of God joyfully and with trust that this is what He wants from me, and to offer everything to Him to use as He will.

So, that the reason I haven't really been updating this blog.  Not much has been going on as I can't really get out to do anything.  But here are some videos of Little Mister for you all. :)

Daddy having more fun playing than William!

Daddy being very funny

Entertaining himself in the morning

Hope you all are off to a good start this Monday.  Another big Feast coming up on Wednesday, the Feast of the Annunciation (which is also my mother-in-law's birthday, so Happy [early] Birthday Angela! <3 ), so one more break to celebrate the feast before we go into Holy Week.  I hope everyone's Lent has been going well and you've been able to prepare well for Holy Week leading into Easter.

~Lindsay

Doctors and X-Rays

On Wednesday, since William was still limping and favoring his right leg, I decided to give the nurse a call and see if she could offer any advice.  When I explained the situation, she recommended that I bring him in to get checked out since babies don't usually limp for no reason.  William decided this would be a great day for Mommy Separation Anxiety and Stranger Anxiety and wouldn't let anyone touch him or be put down without screaming.  At least now I know this kid has an excellent pair of lungs.  The Dr. wasn't able to get a good look at the leg because of William's squirming and screaming so she sent us down to get an x-ray.

20 minutes later, I was leaving my screaming son, who I literally had to tear away from me, with the x-ray technician because they won't allow anyone else to be in the room.  For 5 minutes I listened to the heart wrenching cries until they let me back in and we headed back upstairs to see the doctor again.  No sooner did we get roomed when the doctor got a call that they wanted another shot of the bone, so we were headed back down to x-ray.  Thankfully we didn't have to wait this time and got right in for another traumatic experience for poor William (and possibly Mommy).  Back upstairs with the doctor, we were told there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the bone and something must have happened to the muscle or ligament, which should clear up in another week or so. 

2 1/2 hours later we were home and my little buddy was contentedly snuggling with Mommy.  Now at least I have peace of mind that there's nothing wrong with the bone, which would be problematic since bones are in a crucial growing stage at this age and injury could cause problems down the road.

Proudly showing off his St. Patrick's Day sticker from the doctor.

I also wanted to recommend a post by my sister over at Little Family Blessings for all Mommies out there.  She did a review of an online conference given by Catholic moms for other mothers.  It sounded like an excellent talk and I wish I had listened to it.  Here's the blog post for an overview.

Just a video from yesterday morning.  He was being rather loopy and cute.

Thought you might also like to see what my honey brought home for me today. :)

 My favorite colored roses.

Happy Friday everyone!  Enjoy your weekends. :)

~Lindsay

Watching Lil' Buddy Grow!

It amazes me how fast time has gone by!  Only yesterday, I was holding this little munchkin in my arms, welcoming him to the world.  Today he grows in leaps and bounds and will be a teenager before I blink.

At 13 months William doesn't walk on his own yet.  He seemed like he was really getting there and then had a bit of a set back on Tuesday.  He was standing next to me one minute, and next thing I know he had fallen over and was screaming.  I thought he had hit his head so I picked him up and tried to soothe him, which took awhile.  He's a pretty tough kid and doesn't usually cry over nothing so I knew he was in a decent amount of pain by the way he was acting.  After rocking him and getting him to calm down, I put him down for his nap and he went right to sleep.  After he woke up, I fed him lunch and then stood him up on the ground to play.  He immediately started crying and I knew something wasn't right with him.  After trying to get him to crawl (with difficulty) and testing out each part of his legs, I narrowed it down to his right ankle giving him trouble.  I don't know if he twisted it when he fell or sprained it, but he couldn't stand or put any weight on it.  He's gradually been able to get back on it and he's now back to cruising all over, he's just a bit slower now and limps a bit.  I'm sure it won't be too long before it's completely healed as kids heal pretty fast.

But his preferred method of moving is definitely to pull himself up on anything and walk around holding onto things.  He loves to get into EVERYTHING but he's doing well with learning boundaries.  He has his own set of books which he loves, but he also loves getting into Mommy's books on the bottom shelf.  He knows he's not supposed to get into them, and usually won't touch them.

Oh course everything is much more fun with you have your toothbrush with you

He loves finding his reflection in the oven door

"Who's that cute kid??"

"There are my toys!"

He knows where his head and his nose are and will point to them when asked.  He also knows what the cow says and will say "mmm" (moo).  He can say "Ma-ma," "Da-da," "Ah-sat?" (what's that?), "I-see-ah?" (either You want to see it? or Can I see it? which means he either wants to show you something or he wants something you have), "mo" (more), "ah da" (all done), and "Hi."  He signs All Done, More, and Milk (which is usually his sign for food in general).  He understands a lot of what you say and when I ask him where his "Bankie" or his toys are, he'll crawl around and go get them.  If you ask him for kisses and put your cheek out to him, he'll lean in and just put his face against your cheek and then smile at you like he knows he made your day.

This Lent I've been working on staying more organized and structuring my day more.  It's helped me immensely!  I don't feel as stressed because everything has a time when it gets done so I don't have to worry about it until then.  I work as I go, cleaning each room as I go into them in the morning.  By the time William goes down for his nap, I find most of the tidying and general cleaning is done and I have time to sit down with my Lenten books and do some reading and prayers.  

That of course is the biggest factor in how my day goes.  If I find myself too busy or distracted to sit down at least for a little while to spend time with God, I am more stressed, my mind is all over the place, and by the end of the day, my mood has declined.  There hasn't been a single day that after at the very least 10 minutes of reading or praying, I've felt worse than I did before.  I always feel better as well as more focused.  It's the one point in my day that I try to schedule everything around, rather than try to fit it into everything else.  I doesn't always happen at the same time because as all mothers know, it's ridiculous to try to predict how are day will go and stick to strict timelines, but it's still good to aim for a certain amount of structure.  Setting times to accomplish things by will just give you a goal you can work toward, and it may be an hour later that you actually reach it, but it's just something you can look ahead to and keep you motivated.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

~Lindsay