Lily and Grace are about a month into their 2nd grade and Kindergarten school years. They're both at the same school, which is exciting. There's only one school events calendar to keep track of, and they get to ride the bus together in the mornings.
Lily and Grace are such different kids, though. Lily is outgoing and makes friends easily. She's never been shy, and has no problem joining in and having fun wherever she is. Grace, on the other hand, while friendly and talkative, fancies herself as shy. I mean, I guess if you think you're shy, then you are shy. I guess that's how that works. I try to convince her that if she just goes ahead and talks to people, then she won't be shy and she'll make friends. No dice. Last year in preschool, Grace had one friend: Gwen. If Gwen didn't want to play with her at recess, Grace just moped around. I was a little concerned going into this year because unlike last year when Grace was already friends with Gwen before school, Grace didn't know anybody in her class this year. I've never wondered if Lily would make friends (only if she'd make friends with nice kids instead of hooligans), but with Grace, it's a concern.
So every day I ask Grace about her day at school. I ask what she learned in class, if she went to art or library or PE, and I ask who she played with on the playground. Every day she tells me that she played with Lily on the playground. I ask if she's made any friends in her class, and she says she hasn't because she's too shy. We talk about how to make friends, and how it's important to have friends in one's own grade, but every day it's the same story: she plays with Lily every recess.
This has kind of been weighing on my mind more and more as the school year goes on. How do I teach Grace to make friends? She's such a sensitive girl, and if someone hurts her feelings, it pushes her more into her shell. The funny thing is that she is a loud, talkative, fun, silly girl. Who wouldn't want to be her friend? But she won't talk to anybody and meet anybody. Worry worry worry. It's a mother's lot in life.
The other day, my concern reached a point that I decided to ask Lily about it. I asked her if she really does play with Grace every recess, and she said she does. I asked what she thought of going to the same school as her little sister, and her answer was an unequivocal, "I LOVE IT!!!!" Lily doesn't mind sharing her friends with Grace during morning recess! Lily loves getting to see and play with her sister every day! Why wouldn't she? They're best friends!
I breathed a sigh of relief. You know, we're still going to revisit this "making friends" topic with Grace. It's a skill she needs to learn, and she needs to learn that she doesn't have to be shy, and that people really will like her. But for now, I'm happy that she has a nice playmate at recess, whose parents we even happen to know. They're kind of weirdos, but they raise nice kids!
Monday, October 12, 2015
Monday, June 29, 2015
Josephine Eleanor Klein
Just over four months ago, the Klein Family was completed with a brand new bundle of joy named JoJo. Why has it taken me four months to blog about it? I'll go into more detail in another blog, but it has to do with a new house and lack of internet until today. (Future JoJo, if you're reading this, you should feel honored that my first act upon gaining internet access was to blog about your birth. Ok, full disclosure: I did a little celebratory Facebook status update first...but NOW I'm blogging about your birth!)
The week before JoJo was born, I went to the doctor. I was dilated to 4cm, and Ronda stripped my membranes and told me she wouldn't be surprised to see me that night. She didn't see me that night. The next week, I went to see the midwife on a Tuesday, and this time I was dilated to 5cm and almost completely effaced. Ronda stripped my membranes again and wished me luck.
Very early the next morning, around 3:30, I awoke to that familiar feeling of my water about to break. I hopped up and ran to the bathroom, and my water broke! Woo hoo! Now let's back up. All my previous labors have been sooooo sloooow, and I *hated* having to be at the hospital for hour and hours, hooked up to the machines (for reference, from the time my water broke, my labors were 46, 18, and 16 hours long). So this time around, I was GBS negative, which meant hat I didn't have to take prophylactic antibiotics, and was allowed to labor at home, instead of having to go to the hospital. So when my water broke, I woke up Jim and we did a little happy dance. Then we decided that we'd go back to sleep, and call for back up in the morning.
Jim put some towels down on the bed, and we went back to "sleep". Yeah...we were way too excited to sleep. After an hour, I'd had a few contractions, so I decided to shower and get the day going. While I was in the shower, I had three decent contractions where I had to stop and breathe. I don't take that long of showers, so they must have been somewhat close together. Jim called Katrina to come sleep at our house so we could go to the hospital. By the time she got there and we were heading out the door, it was about 6:00, and the contractions were pretty strong. So strong that I remember yelling at Jim for something, and then feeling slightly embarrassed that I snapped at him within earshot of Katrina. But then I thought, "Meh, Katrina loves me. Jim loves me. And women in labor get a free pass! Woo hoo!"
On the way to the hospital, I cursed the shocks on Jim's car. And Jim's driving ability. Why was every road so BUMPY!? Why did he have to brake so HARD!? Curses! Jim dropped me off to check in at the ER. Some well-meaning folks waiting in the ER saw that I was in labor and were excited for me. They expressed their excitement by asking me a million questions about my pregnancy. I probably wasn't very nice to them. Thank goodness for the free pass to be crabby while you're in labor! My contractions were pretty intense and pretty close together while I was checking in, but luckily Jim showed up and answered all the questions for me.
We headed up to the maternity ward, and met our nurse. By this time it was about 6:15. My water had only broken 3 hours ago, but I was in pretty heavy labor. In previous labors, my contractions were few and far between after only 3 hours. When I got settled into my room, Katy the midwife checked me and I was dilated to 7. I was really having to breathe through the contractions, and wasn't very comfortable laying down, so I did a lot of laboring standing up, leaning against Jim. At around 8:45, I felt like I needed to push. The nurse asked the midwife if I needed to be checked, and the midwife said that if I felt like I needed to push, then they should trust my body. So push we did!
I think because the whole thing happened so quickly (just under 6 hours from when my water broke to when JoJo was born!) I wasn't quite mentally prepared to push a baby out. So for a while, I kind of dwaddled and didn't give it my all. Apparently Jim noticed that the baby wasn't coming, and he started to worry, which affected his queasy stomach, and at some point he turned white as a sheet and nearly fainted. He sat for a minute, and the nurse got him some chocolate, and he was back in the game. Eventually I realized that if I got serious about it, I could get her out, and those painful contractions would STOP! So I pushed and pushed, and suddenly she was crowning!! And then everything stopped. Katy said that with the next push, I'd push her out and she'd be born. So go ahead and push her out. Any time. Whenever you have a contraction. Just go right ahead. Go on and push her out....any time now. After my contractions being on top of one another, they fully stopped for several minutes. Riiiiight as she was crowning. Mercifully, they eventually started again, and at 9:13am on February 25th, 2015, Josephine Eleanor Klein was born! She weighed 9lb8oz (actually just barely under 8oz, but they rounded up) and she was as adorable as she could be!
I spent the night in the hospital and went home around 9:30 the next morning. Then, two and a half weeks later, we moved! But that's a story for another blog!
The week before JoJo was born, I went to the doctor. I was dilated to 4cm, and Ronda stripped my membranes and told me she wouldn't be surprised to see me that night. She didn't see me that night. The next week, I went to see the midwife on a Tuesday, and this time I was dilated to 5cm and almost completely effaced. Ronda stripped my membranes again and wished me luck.
Very early the next morning, around 3:30, I awoke to that familiar feeling of my water about to break. I hopped up and ran to the bathroom, and my water broke! Woo hoo! Now let's back up. All my previous labors have been sooooo sloooow, and I *hated* having to be at the hospital for hour and hours, hooked up to the machines (for reference, from the time my water broke, my labors were 46, 18, and 16 hours long). So this time around, I was GBS negative, which meant hat I didn't have to take prophylactic antibiotics, and was allowed to labor at home, instead of having to go to the hospital. So when my water broke, I woke up Jim and we did a little happy dance. Then we decided that we'd go back to sleep, and call for back up in the morning.
Jim put some towels down on the bed, and we went back to "sleep". Yeah...we were way too excited to sleep. After an hour, I'd had a few contractions, so I decided to shower and get the day going. While I was in the shower, I had three decent contractions where I had to stop and breathe. I don't take that long of showers, so they must have been somewhat close together. Jim called Katrina to come sleep at our house so we could go to the hospital. By the time she got there and we were heading out the door, it was about 6:00, and the contractions were pretty strong. So strong that I remember yelling at Jim for something, and then feeling slightly embarrassed that I snapped at him within earshot of Katrina. But then I thought, "Meh, Katrina loves me. Jim loves me. And women in labor get a free pass! Woo hoo!"
On the way to the hospital, I cursed the shocks on Jim's car. And Jim's driving ability. Why was every road so BUMPY!? Why did he have to brake so HARD!? Curses! Jim dropped me off to check in at the ER. Some well-meaning folks waiting in the ER saw that I was in labor and were excited for me. They expressed their excitement by asking me a million questions about my pregnancy. I probably wasn't very nice to them. Thank goodness for the free pass to be crabby while you're in labor! My contractions were pretty intense and pretty close together while I was checking in, but luckily Jim showed up and answered all the questions for me.
We headed up to the maternity ward, and met our nurse. By this time it was about 6:15. My water had only broken 3 hours ago, but I was in pretty heavy labor. In previous labors, my contractions were few and far between after only 3 hours. When I got settled into my room, Katy the midwife checked me and I was dilated to 7. I was really having to breathe through the contractions, and wasn't very comfortable laying down, so I did a lot of laboring standing up, leaning against Jim. At around 8:45, I felt like I needed to push. The nurse asked the midwife if I needed to be checked, and the midwife said that if I felt like I needed to push, then they should trust my body. So push we did!
I think because the whole thing happened so quickly (just under 6 hours from when my water broke to when JoJo was born!) I wasn't quite mentally prepared to push a baby out. So for a while, I kind of dwaddled and didn't give it my all. Apparently Jim noticed that the baby wasn't coming, and he started to worry, which affected his queasy stomach, and at some point he turned white as a sheet and nearly fainted. He sat for a minute, and the nurse got him some chocolate, and he was back in the game. Eventually I realized that if I got serious about it, I could get her out, and those painful contractions would STOP! So I pushed and pushed, and suddenly she was crowning!! And then everything stopped. Katy said that with the next push, I'd push her out and she'd be born. So go ahead and push her out. Any time. Whenever you have a contraction. Just go right ahead. Go on and push her out....any time now. After my contractions being on top of one another, they fully stopped for several minutes. Riiiiight as she was crowning. Mercifully, they eventually started again, and at 9:13am on February 25th, 2015, Josephine Eleanor Klein was born! She weighed 9lb8oz (actually just barely under 8oz, but they rounded up) and she was as adorable as she could be!
I spent the night in the hospital and went home around 9:30 the next morning. Then, two and a half weeks later, we moved! But that's a story for another blog!
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Life Update: Mysterious Ways
Well here I sit FINALLY blogging after a 10 month absence. There's no big reason I haven't blogged in a long time, but a lot of little ones add up. One reason is that I certainly do have a lot of little ones running around. Also, I had some problems uploading photos for a while. Then once I missed one event, I felt like I had to blog about that before I could move onto current events. Eventually the pile up of happenings was so insurmountable, I figured I'd have to just skip them altogether and start over. So maybe I'll post a 2014 photo recap at some point. Who knows.
Ever since we moved to Hayden, we've wanted to eventually move into our "forever home". We called our current house a 5-10 year house, and always had our eye on the housing market. In May of 2014, we found The Perfect House. It's in Dalton Gardens, and has tons of main floor living, and it's situated on an acre lot. I could go on and on about its amenities, but suffice to say it's just right for us. So we put an offer on it, contingent upon selling our house, and then we scrambled to get our house market-ready. We rented a storage unit, and packed up boxes and boxes of odds and ends, and spiffed up our house to go on the market. Our summer was spent showing the house, and keeping it clean, between visiting camp, hosting a foreign exchange student, having house guests, and traveling to Connecticut.
Oh, and another big life event happened this summer: We found out we are expecting baby #4. At this point, her arrival is immanent! I'm 35 weeks along, and hopefully Josephine Eleanor Klein will make her debut on or about March 1st. So this summer during all these going ons, I was also as sick as a dog with morning sickness.
Well, our house wasn't selling, and the one in Dalton Gardens was just too lovely, and was purchased by someone else before we were able to sell our house. We kept our house on the market a bit longer, but we never found another house we liked as much, so we decided to sit tight for a couple of years.
Around September, I actually met the lady who bought our Dream House. Her daughter goes to the same school where Grace is going to preschool, and we met at school registration. As it turns out, they don't like the house that much. They bought it because they had a particular family situation where they needed a main floor guest bedroom, and since that house fit the bill, they bought it. Well, the family situation ended up changing, and now they're in this huge house with just one kiddo, and it's just too big for them. I found out that they planned on selling it after two years (to avoid being taxed on profit, I think.) So we figured we'd wait around for a couple of years, and who knows, maybe we'd still have a chance to buy our dream house.
But sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, and he certainly did so this weekend. My friend, Kim Borsheim, who was our real estate agent when we bought our rental house, called me up to see if we were still interested in selling our house, and if we'd want to show it. She had a buyer who she thought would love our house. Our house was nowhere near show ready, in fact, we'd just emptied out our storage unit the week before, and had boxes everywhere! But we cleaned up a bit, and figured, "what the heck! Might as well!" Well, as it turned out, they loved the house and made an offer! We signed the papers last night and are under contract. We'll close mid-March, and they're letting us rent it through May 15, which is MUCH better than having to pack up and move while simultaneously having a baby!
So now we need to talk to the family who lives in our Dream House to see if they'd be willing to sell us their house before the two year mark, otherwise we'll find somewhere to rent for a while until either they're ready to sell our Dream House, or we find a better Dream House (unlikely).
It's funny because we've thought and prayed about this house thing for a long time now, and we've pursued a few different avenues that haven't worked out. We figured God might be leading us elsewhere, but it's looking like God had a plan that was just a little different than our plan!
It looks like 2015 will be a year of changes. A new sweet baby will be arriving in a few weeks, and our housing situation will change, but is still yet to be determined! So pray for smooth transitions and good decisions on our part!
Ever since we moved to Hayden, we've wanted to eventually move into our "forever home". We called our current house a 5-10 year house, and always had our eye on the housing market. In May of 2014, we found The Perfect House. It's in Dalton Gardens, and has tons of main floor living, and it's situated on an acre lot. I could go on and on about its amenities, but suffice to say it's just right for us. So we put an offer on it, contingent upon selling our house, and then we scrambled to get our house market-ready. We rented a storage unit, and packed up boxes and boxes of odds and ends, and spiffed up our house to go on the market. Our summer was spent showing the house, and keeping it clean, between visiting camp, hosting a foreign exchange student, having house guests, and traveling to Connecticut.
Oh, and another big life event happened this summer: We found out we are expecting baby #4. At this point, her arrival is immanent! I'm 35 weeks along, and hopefully Josephine Eleanor Klein will make her debut on or about March 1st. So this summer during all these going ons, I was also as sick as a dog with morning sickness.
Well, our house wasn't selling, and the one in Dalton Gardens was just too lovely, and was purchased by someone else before we were able to sell our house. We kept our house on the market a bit longer, but we never found another house we liked as much, so we decided to sit tight for a couple of years.
Around September, I actually met the lady who bought our Dream House. Her daughter goes to the same school where Grace is going to preschool, and we met at school registration. As it turns out, they don't like the house that much. They bought it because they had a particular family situation where they needed a main floor guest bedroom, and since that house fit the bill, they bought it. Well, the family situation ended up changing, and now they're in this huge house with just one kiddo, and it's just too big for them. I found out that they planned on selling it after two years (to avoid being taxed on profit, I think.) So we figured we'd wait around for a couple of years, and who knows, maybe we'd still have a chance to buy our dream house.
But sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, and he certainly did so this weekend. My friend, Kim Borsheim, who was our real estate agent when we bought our rental house, called me up to see if we were still interested in selling our house, and if we'd want to show it. She had a buyer who she thought would love our house. Our house was nowhere near show ready, in fact, we'd just emptied out our storage unit the week before, and had boxes everywhere! But we cleaned up a bit, and figured, "what the heck! Might as well!" Well, as it turned out, they loved the house and made an offer! We signed the papers last night and are under contract. We'll close mid-March, and they're letting us rent it through May 15, which is MUCH better than having to pack up and move while simultaneously having a baby!
So now we need to talk to the family who lives in our Dream House to see if they'd be willing to sell us their house before the two year mark, otherwise we'll find somewhere to rent for a while until either they're ready to sell our Dream House, or we find a better Dream House (unlikely).
It's funny because we've thought and prayed about this house thing for a long time now, and we've pursued a few different avenues that haven't worked out. We figured God might be leading us elsewhere, but it's looking like God had a plan that was just a little different than our plan!
It looks like 2015 will be a year of changes. A new sweet baby will be arriving in a few weeks, and our housing situation will change, but is still yet to be determined! So pray for smooth transitions and good decisions on our part!
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