Trapezoids and Crescent Moons

So last night I was putting Hope to bed. She was laying on my tummy as is the usual location for her as she falls asleep. The room was quiet except for the classical music coming from Mark's clock radio. All of a sudden Hope lifts up her head, puts her hands under her chin, looks me in the eyes, smiles and says, "Trapezoid." "Huh?" I asked. She said it again, "Trapezoid." "Hope, did you just say 'trapezoid'?" "Yep." Oh my goodness!! She has this puzzle that she puts together at Grammy and Papa's house and it has some shapes on it: a circle, a square, etc. Apparently it has a trapezoid. Not only can she pronounce it perfectly, she knows what it is!! I have a confession to make: I had to look up the word to see how to spell it. Her other favorite thing right now is saying "crescent moon." Hope will someday, I'm sure, be an astronaut. She is absolutely NUTS about the moon, the stars and all that fun stuff. Every night before bed she and Mark have a sweet tradition of going out onto our front landing and locating the moon. Once they locate it, they lay down on the landing and look up at the moon, the stars and whatever else might be up there. So Hope picks out this book from the library the other day. The book is about why the moon changes shapes. It talks about the moon in its different phases. She has picked out the crescent moon as her favorite, but close behind are the full moon, the half moon and the gibbous moon. Did you even know there was such a thing as a gibbous moon?? For cryin' out loud!! hehehe She's not even in kindergarted yet and I already feel like I need to go back to school to stay a step ahead of her. Oh...and the book about the moon was written by Isaac Asimov. Crazy, huh??

One more thing before I go to make more signs for the garage sale (yes...it's after 1am and I'm still making signs). I forgot to mention that my friend Kathy is also pregnant and due in August. So add her to my list found in the previous post.

Oh heck...I'm skipping the signs. I'll finish them in the morning. The sale doesn't start until 3pm, so I've got time. And I sold almost $90 is stuff already. This is going to be a GREAT sale!!

Good night...

ESP...or...Good News All Around

So I've got it...well, sometimes. A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready to meet a friend for breakfast. As I was putting my shoes on I said to Mark, "I think A. is going to tell me she's pregnant." When I got to the restaurant she said, "I'm pregnant!" WooHoo!! So on Sunday we were hoping to see a friend who was in town for the weekend (she and her hubby...another wonderful friend of ours...live in Colorado now). I said to Mark, "I think A. (a different A. from the first A. mentioned in this post) is going to tell me she's pregnant." A. called me at work today and in our conversation she said, "Well, I wanted to tell you this in person, but since I can't, I'll tell you over the phone. I'm pregnant." YEAH!!! So I've got two more friends who are pregnant. I'm so blessed!! Let's take inventory of my pregnant friends and when they're due: Melanie: August, Kari: September, Dawn: September (I'm hoping she has Baby Spies on my 40th birthday...wouldn't that be nice??), Jodi: November (she's due the opening weekend of deer hunting season. That's a BIG thing in Wisconsin...hehehe), A 1: January, A 2: February. I think that's it for now. Now I'm just waiting to get the call from my friend Marsha that SHE'S pregnant. That will be so, so wonderful. I can be "Aunt Melody" again! And let's not forget those friends who have recently become parents: Troy and Lisa in April, Brandon and Natalie in May and Ron and Beth in June.

As for us, Hope really will be our only child. Sometimes my heart aches tremendously about our decision, but mostly I'm at peace with it. There are just so many reasons for us NOT to have another child that they far out weigh the reasons why we should have another one. I pray that someday Hope will be able to forgive us--me--for not giving her any siblings. If only Mark and I had met at an earlier age. If only things would have been different with Mark's job stuff. If only we weren't so blasted tired all the time...lol. But here's the amazing part of this story: we are SOOOOOOO blessed to have even one child. And the one child that God has blessed us with is as close to perfect as any human can be. So sweet. So loving. So smart. So funny. I know there are a lot of people who feel that we're doing wrong by Hope in not giving her any siblings. Trust me when I tell you that I've agonized over that decision for a long time (almost 2 years) now. I have 3 siblings and I love them to death. I don't know what I'd do without them. And yet that's just not God's will for Mark and me. Hope has awesome cousins who she'll be close to, I'm sure. She's also super outgoing and will make dear friends in her lifetime. She'll be OK...right?? I mean, I think we're good enough parents that she'll be pretty well-adjusted. Maybe slightlyspoiled, but well-adjusted.

I guess this has been on my mind and heart lately because Mark, who has been 1000% sure that he didn't want any more children, actually said a couple of weeks ago that we should maybe hold off on the garage sale that I've been planning to have this weekend. Talk about coming out of left field!! Yeh, my heart got kind of excited about the thought of having another baby. I loved being pregnant with Hope and I even loved labor and delivery (I know...I'm weird. Remember that I'm also one who loved confirmation classes when I was in Jr. High. SCARY!). The thought about experiencing that all over again was a bit exciting. And the thought of a "re-do" and actually having Dr. Hallman present at the birth of one of my children was pretty fun, too (for those of you who don't know, my ob/gyn missed Hope's birth by about 2 seconds. I delivered her on my own...with 10 people in the room watching...hehehe). But the thought of more years in diapers (the baby, not me) isn't really fun. The thought of giving up my bed for another 3+ years isn't really fun. The thought of being exhausted for the rest of my life isn't really fun. The thought of having to pay for child care isn't fun (we wouldn't expect Mark's Mom and Dad to babysit for another one of our children, but we sure do appreciate them being Hope's child care providers). The thought of, because of my age, possibly having a baby with disabilities scares us. The financial part of having another baby scares us. We're blessed. We have Hope. That's all we need.

So the garage sale will go on this weekend. So many beautiful clothes that have been given to Hope. It's been bitter-sweet going through her things. Loving the age that she's at right now, looking forward to watching her grow, and yet so missing the baby she was has been bitter sweet. That's the best description I have. I'll live vicariously through my pregnant friends. I'm hoping one of them will let me feel their tummy when the baby moves. I'll miss that for sure. Heck, I'd even offer to be a labor/delivery coach for them if they'd like:)

Thanks for listening to me ramble today. I can't believe this post has gotten so long winded. I was simply going to share the good news that two more of my friends are "with child." I'll be keeping a close eye on the Baby Registry at Target. hehehe

Be blessed as you have been blessed...
Melody

Perfect

Yep. I've always felt it, but now I know it. My nephew Andrew is perfect! We were in Stevens Point this weekend for a wedding (more on that in a minute) and we had the pleasure of surprising Andrew by showing up at his Legion baseball game on Friday night. He pitched. But not only did he pitch, he pitched a PERFECT game!! No hits, no runs. They called the game in the 5th inning because the score was 14-0. How cool is that?? Way to go, Andrew!! I'm so proud of you and I'm so happy that we could be there to watch you. The coach gave Andrew the game ball and his teammates signed it. Then came not one, but two, Gatorade coolers with ice water in them...all over Andrew!! It was a great moment for this proud Aunt. Man am I going to miss that boy when he leaves for the Air Force.

Now about the wedding. I would have taken pictures, but our camera went on the blink a couple of weeks ago so I didn't even take it with us this weekend. Time for a new camera (we've been saying that for well over a year now). Anyway...Andy Widdel got married this weekend. Who is Andy Widdel?? He's the youngest of two boys. His parents are Keith and Evelyn. OK. So, who is Andy Widdel?? The Widdel's were the very first family I ever babysat for. David (Andy's older brother) must have been about 4 or 5 when I started babysitting for them. Andy came along a couple of years later. So Andy is truly the first kid I ever babysat for from the time he was born. Makes me feel old. The wedding was great. We got to talk with some good friends from my home town, eat some great food and dance. There was a slide show, too, that took me down memory lane. I'm so glad Andy and his wife Dana invited us to be a part of their special day. The really fun thing was that my Mom and my sister and brother-in-law were there, too. Oh...and we took Mark's niece, Emily, with us to babysit for Hope while we were at the reception. It mostly worked out great, but Hope is still very much a Mommy's girl, and had a few crying episodes.

Speaking of being a Mommy's girl, here's where I need some advice from those of you who are parents. What do I do?? Even this morning when I dropped Hope off at Grammy and Papa's house she cried and cried because I had to go to work. She got over it pretty quickly though. I figured she would. BUT...I called a little while ago to see how she was doing and she started calling out, "Mommy." Then my m-i-l put Hope on the phone and at the end of our conversation (yes...I know she's only 23 months, but you really can have a conversation with her which amazes me) she started crying, "Mommy. Hold you. Mommy. Hold you." I felt HORRIBLE! I'm sure she's down for a nap by now so I'm sure she's all better. But here's my dillema: how do I get Hope past this super clingy stage?? She always wants Mommy. Part of me is so flattered by that, but, in all honesty, part of me would like just a little bit of a break from time to time. Not much of a break because I love being with her so much, but I'm just talking an hour or two here or there. Do we just let her cry it out or are there other techniques we can try?? PLEASE post some words of wisdom for me!

OK...time to go. I hope everyone has a blessed day.

This is a quick one...I promise!

I've been feeling a bit bad because I haven't posted any pictures of Hope...or of Andrew's graduation...lately. I haven't gotten pictures from the camera to the computer in quite a few weeks and I apologize. BUT...Grammy and Papa have come to the rescue. These pictures were taken at their house today. Enjoy! Oh...and in case you want to see the pictures closer up, just click on the picture. You'll get a full screen version of the picture.

Grammy loves going to garage sales to get stuff for Hope. Here's one of her finds...and Hope LOVES it!! It's a big tent shaped like an elephant. You should see Hope crawl and tumble around in this thing!


All I can say is...GREETINGS FROM WISCONSIN: THE DAIRY STATE:)


Here's our pretty little girl who is growing up far too quickly on us!

Here they are...the Heutmaker Family

I know I've got to get recent pictures of Hope and of Andrew's graduation on here, but for now I hope you enjoy this picture. These are our friends, the Heutmakers. Ron, Beth and their new daughter, Hope! The adoption was official yesterday. Please say a prayer of praise for Ron and Beth and their new little girl. Also say a prayer for safe travel back to Wisconsin! Are they happy or what?? To read all about Beth and Ron's journey, click on the link to their blog. The link is on the right.

Love,
Melody

What a great day!

Not much right now, but I have to tell you to look at Ron and Beth's blog (the link is on the right hand side of our page). Ron and Beth are dear friends from church. Monday, June 4, was "Gotcha Day" for them. What's that?? Well, that's when they finally met their daughter, Hope, who they travelled to China to adopt. They've been able to blog their journey and it's amazing. I just checked their blog and there is the most beautiful family picture of the three of them on "Gotcha Day." It made me cry. God gently nudged me awake this morning when it was 3:30 Beijing time. That's when Ron and Beth met Hope for the very first time. I looked at the clock and said, "Hope is with her Mommy and Daddy now." Then I smiled and went back to sleep. I've been so excited about all of this for them (it's been such a long journey), that I had a hard time sleeping last night. Up pretty much every hour on the hour.

More later. For now, just check out their site and look at their beautiful daughter. Would you expect anything less than beauty from a little girl named Hope?? hehehe

Melody