"Things"--in no particular order

Things that make me cry

(And I’ll have you know that 4 months ago, if I’d caught myself crying at any of these things, I would have laughed at myself for being such a girl)

1) Love songs/sad songs/most songs on the country radio station
2) Commercials that picture a parent with their newborn (thanks a lot Huggies!)
3) Reading touching birth stories
4) Reading stories about miscarriages
5) Abortion pictures
6) Deliveries on TLC shows like “I didn’t know I was pregnant” and “Baby Story”, etc.
7) Pretty much anything that has to do with emotion between a mother and her baby.
8) Pretty much any Hallmark commercial
9) Thinking about anyone I love dying
10) Feeling overwhelmed

Things that make me really irritated

1) If I’ve gone too long without eating, I get irritable
2) Being woken up if I’ve already fallen asleep
3) People making my pregnancy into a competition—that doesn’t irritate me it makes me ANGRY!
4) Packing and moving without my husband’s help

Things that make me happy!
(This would be a veeeery long list so I’ll try to cull it down. There are many many things my husband does but I will just pick my favorites)

1) When Nathan puts his hands on my belly and says “Hi baby”
2) When Nathan makes supper because I’m really tired
3) When he says, “Baby, I’m sorry but you need to roll onto your side” (This could be irritating, except I asked him to tell me and he does it sweetly)
4) When Nathan asks me questions about what’s happening with the baby
5) People who give me their old baby stuff for free
6) Moving into a new place
7) Advice from WELL-MEANING people
8) Cloudy, rainy days
9) My church family
10) Nice cool weather

Fire

Growing up in the bush in Africa I saw a lot of fires. Bush fires that you work frantically to beat out, house fires with the roofs ablaze and people screaming at the top of their lungs. Fires from lightning, from a cooking fire, from a stray spark. My brother, when he was little, he was terrified of fire. If we watched a movie with a fire scene we had to turn the TV off and fast-forward so he wouldn’t see it. But I wasn’t scared of fire. Dad (and Smokey the Bear) taught us to respect it and to be careful with it, but not to be afraid of it.

When I was 19 I was working in Niger as a dorm parent and one afternoon when I was making an after school snack for the kids I was heating up oil. I turned to the other counter with my back to the oil for just a few seconds and by the time I turned back around, the oil was on fire. There was no fire blanket, and the fire extinguisher was wired closed (REALLY? Who does that?) By the time the fire got put out the above-stove microwave was melted and there was soot EVERYWHERE. I had a huge mess to clean up, and I learned a lesson about checking the fire extinguishers, but I still wasn’t really scared of fire.

In fact, I enjoy fire. I love sitting around a bonfire or a fireplace and watching the flames dance and tell stories. Some of my favorite memories revolve around a bonfire. I guess I didn’t realize that subconsciously one of those past experiences must’ve made an impact. A couple years ago I was watching a movie and fell asleep. Some time later I was woken by the sound of a fire alarm. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket, and was headed for the door when I realized my friends weren’t moving. I urged them to get out of the house and they looked puzzled until one of them told me it was just the movie. A few weeks ago Nathan was watching TV and I fell asleep and woke up to a flickering red light on the wall. Heart pounding and adrenalin racing I bolted upright just to realize that it was the colors from the TV. Then last night a sound woke me up around 4 or 5 and I saw the light of a flickering flame one the wall. Again, I got a rush of adrenaline and my heart started pounding—the fight or flight response—until I rolled over and saw that Nathan had come home from work, and he had his lit Zippo sitting on the nightstand as a light while he plugged his phone in. “Nathan!” I gasped, and rolled back over.

I don’t know if this keeps happening because a lot of the house fires that stand out the most clearly in my mind happened after dark, or if this is just my brain’s way of standing guard. Either way, I could sure do without the adrenaline rush in the middle of the night. I takes a while to get back to sleep!

14 weeks, 2 days

Your baby can now squint, frown, grimace, pee, and possibly suck his thumb! Thanks to brain impulses, his facial muscles are getting a workout as his tiny features form one expression after another. His kidneys are producing urine, which he releases into the amniotic fluid around him — a process he'll keep up until birth. He can grasp, too, and if you're having an ultrasound now, you may even catch him sucking his thumb.In other news: Your baby's stretching out. From head to bottom, he measures 3 1/2 inches — about the size of a lemon — and he weighs 1 1/2 ounces. His body's growing faster than his head, which now sits upon a more distinct neck. By the end of this week, his arms will have grown to a length that's in proportion to the rest of his body. (His legs still have some lengthening to do.) He's starting to develop an ultra-fine, downy covering of hair, called lanugo, all over his body. Your baby's liver starts making bile this week — a sign that it's doing its job right — and his spleen starts helping in the production of red blood cells. Though you can't feel his tiny punches and kicks yet, your little pugilist's hands and feet (which now measure about 1/2 inch long) are more flexible and active.

We had quite an eventful weekend. We stayed with our friends Melissa and Thomas from Wednesday night until Friday afternoon. Thursday Melissa and I went to help with a Thanksgiving dinner the church was putting on for the homeless, but basically our entire congregation was there. Which is great, but sometimes too many hands just makes more mess. We stayed for about 10 minutes and then left. I think they should’ve had people sign up for shifts, rather than all show up at once. So we went home and got our dinner started, then went down the road to Melissa’s Grandparents house. They had some family drama, but I told Melissa that we were avoiding ours this year and we’d much rather watch theirs! We stayed for an hour or two and then went back to their place. We had our dinner late in the evening and Melissa’s mom and her boyfriend came over. It was very nice and relaxing.

Friday I had to work but my boss let me leave early. I went back to M&T’s and we hung out for a while, then Nathan and I packed up our stuff and took Lily (our basset hound) back to our house. Then we met up with M&T and went to the big Christmas parade in downtown Fort Worth! It’s an awesome parade—definitely the biggest this small town girl has ever seen! After the parade they light a ginormous Christmas tree right in the middle of the city. We received an unexpected blessing in the way of 4 tickets to sit! The planners or whoever line the streets with seats but you have to pay to sit in them—which is expensive! But this lady was driving along next to us and just offered us tickets, and she had four so we could all sit! How cool is that? (Disclaimer: I did not take these photos. I found them on the internet--thanks Mr. G.oogle!)

Saturday we went out to Nathan’s parents house so he could work on his truck. He wanted to go back out there Sunday after church but it was raining, so we went back to the house and sat around for the rest of the day. And I found out that Mellissa and Thomas are moving away.