posted March 16th, 2006 by Shannon
It’s been an intersting month. We’re very excited to add another cousin to the family and very excited for George’s brother and his wife. And Baby Katherine is definitely an adorable little girl. But the week she arrived was a tough week for me. I had received a call on Tuesday that my sister was in the hospital with a likely miscarriage. The pregnancy announcement letter she had mailed was still traveling through the postal system so I had no clue until then that she was even pregnant. The very next day was when we heard that Baby Katherine would be arriving later that day. I spent the rest of Wednesday waiting for the phone to ring, but not knowing if it would be my mother-in-law calling with the joyful news of a new baby’s arrival or my own mother calling with the dreaded news of a definite loss. Both calls eventually came, but I think I had a hard time processing them both at the same time.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to keep my mind off things and pass the time, I make the mistake of turning on the TV. It seemed that at every commercial break someone wanted to say “Coming up on the news tonight: It’s been 6 months since Hurricane Katrina and tonight we’re going to look at ……” Blah, blah, blah. Hurricane Katrina made landfall the morning of Monday, August 29. That was also the day we had our own miscarriage. So thank you, dear media, for reminding me of our 6 month miscarriage anniversary.
A pregnancy after a miscarriage is a whole different deal than a pregnancy without ever having a miscarriage. Someone described it this way:
Everyone “knows” that miscarriages happen and pregnancies fail, but until it has happened to you, you get to enjoy pregnancy in a whole different way. You assume that getting pregnant will mean you will have a baby in roughly 9 months. Once you experience miscarriage, this isn’t so. Getting pregnant no longer means having a baby. What it means is 9 nerve wracking, panic filled months of wondering if your baby has died yet.
And that’s exactly how I’ve felt since we found out we were expecting another baby. My brain is not working under the “we’re having a baby in August” mode. It’s more like “if everything goes well, we think we’ll be having a baby in August”. I will admit that it is slowly getting better as the weeks and months pass. And I am thankful that I had 2 “innocent” pregnancies before the miscarriage. But I’m quite frustrated that my sister didn’t get to experience that before her miscarriage – AND there’s nothing I can do about it. I can tell her that her next baby will most likely be fine. I can tell her these things just sometimes happen and we never know a reason why. I can tell her to lighten up and that there’s no use spending the whole 9 months being fearful. I can tell her things until I’m blue in the face, but what good is it going to do if I can’t even believe it myself?
And, you know, that’s all I really feel like talking about it right now. Plus, naptime is over so little ones will be up any minute. Hopefully future posts will be a little more light-hearted, but I couldn’t really go on with blogging until I got that out of the way. (And just for clarification, this is a different sister than the one that was married a few blog posts ago.)
Filed under: Faith, Thoughts on March 16th, 2006 | 3 Comments »
posted March 11th, 2006 by George
We made it back home tonight around 7:30 PM after being in the car since 11:00AM. It was a long but productive day.
We Traveled to Dallas this past Wednesday so we could see a precious new baby. My brother and his wife (Sam & Christy) are now proud new parents to a new baby girl! She’s a very cute, tiny little girl that likes to sleep a lot. We sure enjoyed getting to see her and her parents too. And, while we were there, my sister (Carissa) came by with her little boy Ty. It was a historic moment with all four cousins together for the first time. Emily and Nathan are very excited to have TWO new cousins to play with.
While we were in the area, we also spent some time driving around looking at various neighborhoods in the Fort Worth area. Found some good ones; found some bad ones. It was a very productive time.
It was a great trip. We really enjoyed seeing everyone. Now we’re going to crash for a while.
Filed under: Family on March 11th, 2006 | 3 Comments »
posted February 15th, 2006 by Shannon
We have 2 travel-sized MagnaDoodles that we keep in the car, but both our kids prefer the blue (newer) one. Emily picked the blue MagnaDoodle up yesterday as she was climbing into her seat and Nathan got very upset that she had it and not him. The problem is that when Nathan says MagnaDoodle, it sounds exactly like MagnaDoo-Doo. So here I am trying to look him sternly in the face and tell him he may NOT yell about it, blah, blah, blah. And there he is yelling over and over (very clearly) that he WANTS to BLUE MagnaDOO-DOO. And the more he said it, the more he drew it out so he was eventually saying (er, yelling) Maaagnaaa-DOOOOO-DOOOOO. He was saying it in such an innocent way that I just could not finish without completely cracking up. After several attempts I just closed his door, got into my seat, and started the car. I guess he somehow knew (much better than I thought he did) what was going on because the next thing I heard from the backseat was Nathan sadly saying, “Mommy, it’s HARD to say that.” Of course, I then felt bad for laughing at my sweet not-yet-2-and-a-half-year-old’s innocent attempt at verbal communication. Hopefully it won’t scar him for life.
Filed under: Family on February 15th, 2006 | 1 Comment »
posted February 12th, 2006 by Shannon
I had a conversation with Emily several weeks ago that I keep thinking about. The weather outside was nice and I agreed to let her lay down on our porch swing in the backyard for her rest time. The back of the swing folds down and actually makes something like a small bed. Since there was enough room, I decided to join her. I had tons of stuff to do, but decided to instead try to finish the last chapter or so of a book I’d been reading in for months. Emily often has trouble settling herself down and getting still. This was no exception.
Emily moving all around trying to get comfortable.
Me: Emily, please be still.
Emily: (still for a few seconds before squirming again) I need a pillow.
Me: (handing her a porch swing pillow) Here, now be still. You need to rest your body for a bit.
Emily: (still for another few seconds before moving again) What time is it?
Me: It’s not even 2:00 yet, probably 1:30. Now, rest your body!
Emily: (aware that I am not wearing a watch) How do you know what time it is?
Me: It doesn’t matter. Now rest!
Emily: But how do you know?
Me: (Getting a WEE bit irritated by now, I place my finger on the sentence I was reading, look her in the eyes and speak sternly. ) I am the mommy. I know. Now, just REST!!!
Read more »
Filed under: Faith, Thoughts on February 12th, 2006 | 2 Comments »
posted February 7th, 2006 by Shannon
Hmm, what does one write when they haven’t blogged in well over a month? So many things that I could have blogged about, but I didn’t. So you’ll just have to settle for the super condensed version.
Christmas with George’s Family – Enjoyed seeing George’s brother from San Diego. Got to see a tattoo machine in far greater detail than I ever thought I would. Not that I ever want one to touch my body, but it was still quite interesting. And the engineering brother threw out some ideas as to how to make the machine more efficient, run quieter, short out less, etc. What an intersting Christmas discussion! The kids had lots of fun playing with Baby Ty and can’t wait for cousin #2 to make her appearance sometime this month.
Christmas with My Family – My sisters were responsible for bringing 2 more boys to the family gathering this year. One was officially a member of the family and the second was less than a month away from being official. I think George and my dad were quite happy to have 2 more big boys in the house. The male/female ratio was finally even. We got to visit with Laura and Clint and hear stories from South Korea. We took the kids fishing in the city pond and cute Nathan sat on Cody’s lap and said “Britney, I fishing with Uncle Cody”. And we did some wedding planning stuff, of course.
Wedding – We got to be home base for Laura and Clint’s stuff while they were in the states. Our living room was a sight to see (or NOT see) but we really enjoyed seeing them so much while they were here. Even though those few weeks were a WEE bit stressful while they made the final plans for their wedding on January 21st. Which, by the way, was a beautiful wedding with a beautiful bride. (And I better stop there before I start talking about the frustrating parts of the weekend. They are married and it was beautiful and that’s enough.)
On-Call – George took off the Monday after the wedding. Whew!! It was nice. I would have made a point to enjoy it more, if I had known what the next 2 weeks were going to bring. Starting Tuesday, George was on-call for two weeks. I am SO tired of hearing that stupid pager, particularly in the middle of the night. Let’s just say that it is quite LOUD when the whole house is quiet and everyone is asleep. (Those 2 weeks officially ended this morning – yahoo!!)
Our News – (I’m sure there is a much more exciting way to announce this, but….) We are expecting another child in mid-August. We’ve suspected/known for a while but did not actually hear a heartbeat until a few weeks ago. We are excited, but it’s been a totally different experience after having a miscarriage this summer. I’m certain we will write more about this in the future, but that’s all I’m going to write about it now.
And with that, I think I’ll end this ungraceful attempt to squish a month and a half of events into a single blog post. But I am now caught up. Yay!
Filed under: Family on February 7th, 2006 | 4 Comments »
posted January 15th, 2006 by George
I had a very nice afternoon today. After church and lunch, I offered to let Emily spend her nap time out on the back porch swing. The weather here was just perfect. Sunny with a cool breeze. A wonderful day to be outside. So, I decided to join her. Shannon and Nathan were napping in the house, so out we went. After getting Emily all set up on the swing, I headed back in to brew up some Oolong Tea and to grab my book of Sudoku puzzles. The plan was to get in some huggles (a term coined by Shannon that’s a combination of hugs and cuddles), drink my tea, and work on a puzzle or two while Emily slept. All went well except the sleeping part. I don’t know if it was the weather or my being there, but Emily never slept. After about an hour and a half, I asked Emily if she would like to try a puzzle. I explained the rules and then we got to work. She did great with the puzzle. She picked it up well, and by the end was getting several of the numbers by herself.
Anyway, it was a very special time between a dad and his wonderful daughter. Hope you all had a great day as well.
Filed under: Family on January 15th, 2006 | 2 Comments »
posted December 22nd, 2005 by George
For my yo-yo buddy Devin (and anyone else interested in super cool yo-yo videos),
Well, I guess it’s time I come out and admit that I’m a wannabe yo-yo geek. You may think it’s lame or you may recognize the sheer coolness of the yo and those who wield it. No matter where you stand though, you gotta be impressed with the kids in these videos.
The world of yo-yo competitions are divided up into 5 major categories. That’s right, there really are yo-yo competitions. Here are some basic descriptions of the categories and some sample videos of each.
1A – what most people envision when they think of yo-yoing. This style lends itself to a single yo-yo that sleeps well and is good for string tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Champion 1a Takayasu Tanaka
2A – A two handed yo-yo style with one yo-yo tied to each hand. The yo-yos are then used to do looping tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Contest 2a 1st Place Shinji Saito
3A – A two handed yo-yoing (one yo-yo tied to each hand) where the yo-yos do not loop, instead they do two handed string tricks.
2005 World Yo-yo Competition 3a 1st Place
4A – also known as off string play. A style where the string is tied to the finger but not to the yo-yo. Special rubber edged yo-yos are used for 4A. Yes, the yo-yo really is NOT tied on to the string at all.
2005 Asia Pacific Yoyo championships 4a
5A – also known as freehand play. A style where the yo-yo is connected to the string, but the yo-yo is tied to a weight instead of your finger.
I couldn’t easily find a video for this category that was of reasonable download size. I may have to take one that I’ve downloaded and resize it myself. I’ll update this post when I get one. You gotta see this category as well. Very impressive.
Filed under: Geek Talk on December 22nd, 2005 | 1 Comment »
posted December 18th, 2005 by Shannon
We saw these tonight. At least we think they might be water buffalo. But even if they are not, it’s still a cool title.
Filed under: Adventures on December 18th, 2005 | 3 Comments »
posted December 12th, 2005 by George
Emily wanted to use some of her Christmas money from Granny (Shannon’s grandmother) to by a Chinese checkers game. She had never played Chinese checkers before, but I guess a board shaped like a star with marbles on it looks pretty fun to a 4-year-old. So we shopped around and finally decided on one of these sets that comes with Chinese checkers, regular checkers, chess, backgammon, mancala, etc. We have enjoyed several rounds of Chinese checkers, and she is learning well. Nathan, of course, wants to play too, so that makes for an interesting game. This weekend I played two colors so I could be opposite both of them. After a while I completely gave up trying to get Nathan to make legal moves. I just let him pick up any of his pieces and place it wherever he wanted to on the board. Talk about throwing off your strategy.
Anyway, Emily has been asking me to play “that game you play on a checker board that isn’t checkers”, commonly known as chess. I just wasn’t sure if she was ready for it, but today I finally broke down and decided to give it a shot. So, tonight I sat her at the bar and explained the moves and rules while I cooked dinner. She has a way to go, but I think she picked up on it fairly well. She even managed to beat her old man after dinner. And to make matters even worse for me, Shannon caught it on video (watch below).
Filed under: Family on December 12th, 2005 | 7 Comments »
posted December 10th, 2005 by Shannon
This is so cool. My friend, Jen, told me about this site over a month ago. It’s a webcam set up in Kruger National Park in South Africa. I’ve been checking it out occassionally, but tonight was the first night I actually saw an animal. I have no idea what it is, but there’s a picture of it. Actually, there are two animals in this image. One at the watering hole and the other in mid-flight in the bottom half of the picture. See the watering hole for yourself here – and check out all the animal sightings that other web visitors have captured. I am hoping to see an elephant or that family of giraffes some day!
UPDATE: Sorry, guys! It looks like the webcam is down right now. All I can see is a blue screen. I promise I REALLY did see something last night.
Filed under: Adventures on December 10th, 2005 | 3 Comments »
Click to Show/Hide Media Content: