Hello! It's been a while since I've done a "Quick Takes" post at the end of the week. I really wanted to last week. I remember it was Sunday night and I was laying in bed thinking about it. I am glad I have a little time to get to something today while Emmett naps and the big kids have Quiet time. I used to love Jen Fulwiller's Quick Takes in those early years of the glory days of blogging. It was always so fun to open up Google...something? (That program that let you look through your unread blogs. Now I'm blanking on what that was even called? Yikes, where are my brain cells?) I know some of us still blog, but it's definitely not the same as the golden years. Keeping up with this blog even for me, is not as easy as before, but I'm still hanging in there. Mostly because I want the record even for my younger babes. Hopefully I will be able to show them some of these posts of the days I was home with them, raising them, watching them, being their home. It's all going to slip away one day as they will be waving goodbye to us, off to start their own adventures and independent lives. (cue bawling emoji face x5)

Anyways! Let's get this going. Naptime/Quiet time will be over in T-minus, oh, an hour or so!

I composed this little poem in my head while I looked out the window watching my kids play in the leaves. There was a meme I saw and shared that said "Autumn shows us the beauty of letting things go." It struck me how much I can relate to this. Every year, but especially this year. It's really scary though.

For me, summer is the season of "Perfection." Can you relate to that? I always look outside at my yard or my dirty windows or my messy carpets, and the sun and the warmth and the exuberance of summer make me feel like I've got to get everything to be perfect. Well, perfection is something I struggle with year-round, but I definitely feel it more acutely in the summer. And, it's exhausting! The urgency to be perfect is hard for me to resist. Now don't get me wrong. There are many, many aspects of summer that are also refreshing and uplifting to me. For example, I just love the smell of water in a late summer evening, streaming out of a garden hose or filling up a pool with children squealing and laughing and splashing. That gives me glimpses of what heaven might look, smell, or feel like. But, for some reason, I also tend to get worked up about things not being as perfect as I would like them to be...I fret about a lot of things and sometimes struggle to see beauty if it's not "perfect" beauty.

So, when fall comes around, I find relief. I do! Practically and spiritually. I feel like the leaves falling in my yard mean it doesn't have to be constantly mowed. I feel like the earlier dark evenings and soft twinkle lights hanging in my kitchen are much more forgiving, to everything. Even just looking in the mirror when it's cool and I'm wearing a sweater and scarf around my neck - I can let myself feel more beautiful because the harsh sunlight is not bringing out all my imperfections.

Fall is balm to my soul. It serves as a reminder to me to be forgiving to myself and to others. As I mentioned though this season I feel the call, quite persistently, to let go. Not just forgive. Forgiving and letting go are two separate things. Two separate actions that need to be decided upon and then acted upon.


We live near a salmon hatchery and the salmon that come home this time of year to lay their eggs and die teach me so much. They stop eating along their long journey. Their poor bodies are decaying and falling to pieces by the time they reach here. They know they are going to die. Yet, it's not depressing at all. It's incredibly uplifting to me, because I know they have also come to give new life. The females will lay their eggs and the males will fertilize them, and then they will lay down and die so that new life will be brought forth. The next generation. It's a privilege to witness the end and the beginning of their life cycle just a few steps away from my house.

And while I'm hoping not to physically, actually die this month when I give birth (Lord hear my prayer!) -in so many ways being pregnant and giving birth IS dying to self. I am dying to self and bringing forth new life and wow that's a lot to process. It's therapeutic to look out my window and see the trees letting go of their dying leaves, and to see how beautiful that really is. To know that this is not forever, but that they will be restored, in the spring and a new exuberance and light will be present in the new growth. To know that there is no point in resisting the urge to shed off the old, to experience the bare, and to welcome the change.

I could resist, but to what end? To keep my fears close at heart? To keep my expectations high only to have them crushed over again? To put my soul in danger by not forgiving as the Father has forgiven me? That, my friend, is not what fall means to me.

Trying to decide what outfits to bring to the hospital! Penn probably does not need three separate hair bows....or maybe SHE DOES. After all, it has been nearly SIX years since I had a baby girl!

It's my tradition to have brand new never been worn jammies to bring to the hospital. I always look forward to putting these on as soon as I get the OK from the nurses.

Newborn diapers yeah! Speaking of diapers. Will someone potty train Emmett for us?

Well Hello There!

A sweet reader of my blog (do such people still exist?) requested that I blog again! She is such a sweetheart. I actually have been thinking about it often lately and just happen to have a little time this afternoon!

I have a midwife appointment to go to in a few hours, and thankfully my mom is able to watch the kids and Mike is going to meet me there! This will be the FIRST appointment for this baby he's been able to go to (other than the 20 week ultrasound) It's kind of sad considering how he was able to go to every single one of my prenatal appointments with the other babies. But the reality is we are so busy and his work isn't as flexible this time around so it is what it is! I have actually been really having a hard time making the appointments MYSELF. Ah! So I'm looking forward to checking in on Penny and seeing if all these contractions have been doing much. I know I still have 2-4 weeks to go but at least it's starting to feel "real" now.

This week we finally got some things out and I've been re-arranging stuff to fit Penelope in our room. There is no room in the kid's rooms but also we generally keep newborns in our room for the first year of life anyway, so yeah, just moving things around to get all set. I can't believe we are about to have a full house {of kids} Crazy man. We are super excited around here. Of course no one is as excited as *me* to finally be able to hold my baby on the outside where my back and legs and organs won't be suffering quite as much to manage.
Okay, also the same reader friend was wondering if I could write a bit on how we transition babies OUT of our bed and into their own sleeping situations. I'd be happy to explain how we do it! But this is definitely an area that requires a lot of patience and attention to different personalities and situations for babies/toddlers/parents/everyone involved.

Basically, as I mentioned, we expect to keep the baby in our room/bed from the day they come home from the hospital to around their first Birthday. For us, this has just made the first year of nursing/bonding/sleeping so much smoother and relaxed. We just don't sweat trying to move them and generally everyone is happy. We have a King sized bed and I have a Co-Sleeper that goes on my side of the bed. I keep a little changing basket (diapers and wipes) in the bedroom also to make it convenient to quickly change a diaper in the middle of the night if need be. I usually nurse the baby back to sleep when he/she fusses and we don't do any feeding schedules or infant schedules at all. (For the first year!)

Okay so then, when baby is bigger, eating solid foods, and much more WIGGLY at night (i.e. kicking us in the face and rolling over on top of us) we then start to think about moving them. It's not always exactly a year. Emmett stayed in our room until closer to 18 months just because we didn't feel the need to move him yet. But the other kids I believe were closer to 12-13 months. This is where DADDY becomes critical. Not that he wasn't before! But it's really important for our babies/toddlers to begin to trust that daddy has got their back and can comfort them without mama/nursing. I still nurse them to sleep, but if they wake up when we are trying to wean at night daddy must be the one to go in and do the comforting. I don't know if everyone needs to do it this way or if there are babies out there who will accept that mom is coming in to comfort them but won't demand to be nursed, but it hasn't worked for ours. Again, usually I'm still nursing them during the day and even to fall asleep initially at bedtime. Night weaning hasn't been that terrible for me thus far. I know it can be much harder/more traumatic for some people and I'm sorry I just don't have any advice for that situation. I think it's critical that you don't do anything too sudden for those more intense nurslings, but at the same time I believe if you are losing your sanity because you are ready to just get more sleep that you should keep working at it until you've found a good solution.

So that's basically how it goes: We decide when we're all ready for that transition time and figure out where they are going to sleep....Slowly start to offer daddy for comfort instead of mommy when they wake up.....and eventually all ours have learned to sleep through the night in their own space. The first baby is the hardest, but the others seem to have an easier time when they have a sibling to sleep with. We don't let our babies cry it out. There is always someone to go comfort them. So what does daddy actually do when he hears a baby cry? Well, Mike is really amazing and loves to sing to them (a lot of times these are Irish Drinking songs mind you, but hey. It does the job!) He doesn't always automatically wake up but when we are going through this we both know that I need to nudge him and he gets up pretty quickly. He goes in there and will either rub their back and sing to them or, if they are really upset he will pick them up. In the beginning I think he likes to get them all the way back to sleep then put them down but eventually he knows he has to put them down still awake. This just takes some time and trust before it really works.

Mike is really good and I strongly believe that any husband/daddy is capable of developing his own method for comforting a baby or toddler in the middle of the night. It might not always come as "naturally" to some, but with some determination to help mommy and patience, he totally can do it. From the mom's end of it it's super important that we do no criticize or analyze them while they figure it out, either. Our job is to be quietly supportive. I stay in the bedroom even if I want to intervene. This is also the nice thing about waiting until baby is at least a year old - at that point I really do not believe that they are going hungry if they cannot nurse multiple times in the night. Make sure to feed them well during the day and they will be fine going 8-10 hours without milk. If you suspect your 1+ year old truly is starving at 2 am then go ahead and nurse them but in the future just try to feed them a bigger dinner and realize that they are seeking comfort, not calories. (Babies who are younger always must be fed though!)

We also expect this process to last a while. Anywhere from 2 weeks to 2-3 months. I know! It sounds hard but once it's over it's over and we are actually both relieved AND sad because the period of co-sleeping is over for that baby. It is a bittersweet process for sure.

P.S.
This process has worked for us with all four kids. However, at various times all four kids still sneak into bed with us on occasion. Usually it's one kid that will be going through a little phase and will come into bed with us every night for a week or something. Maybe longer. Actually right now it's Michael and sometimes Emmett, too, who are crawling into bed with us. We suspect they can tell something is about to change and that they are craving that extra snuggle time/affection from us before a new baby comes home. We almost never turn a kid away because I think it's nice for them to know that mom and dad are always there for them. But then again we haven't had to deal with more than these phases where otherwise they sleep independently through the night.

My four AWESOME big kids at the salmon hatchery a few weeks ago. Man I love these guys!

Hope that was helpful! And I better get back to packing my hospital bag and preparing for the arrival of God's fifth great blessing to us....<3 i="">