These Days

Heidi and I are both getting larger bellies.  Bryan is getting a larger head.

Just kidding.  He's handling the fame quite well.  (He still does all his chores. :)

Heidi's getting closer to walking, and I am getting closer to waddling.

Two more months until the baby comes!  I'm 31 weeks.  Most of you know I'm planning a natural birth.  I'm just interested in a different experience than last time.  Heidi's birth was epic... it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but I'm pretty sure births are just epic.  Anyway, I didn't like my epidural.  They said it would be warm and tingly... but I felt cold and tingly.  I had been uncontrollably itchy for weeks, scratching myself until I bled.  I mostly got the epidural to stop the itching.  So, there was a lot of the drug in my body.  By the time Heidi came, I couldn't move on my own.  The nurse had to come in every twenty minutes and roll me over.

So I looked into my options and decided to try Hypnobabies.  The basic philosophy is that you learn how to relax deeply, which makes most of the pain go away.  While relaxed, you listen to CDs that contain suggestions (nothing creepy, nothing Satanic) that tell your brain to interpret pain as pressure, that tell you birth is a wonderful experience.  Most women who use Hypnobabies have completely comfortable births.  Will it work for me?  I'll let you know. I've decided to embrace it fully, putting aside skepticism until after the birth.  If it doesn't work as I think it will, after having given it a fair chance, I'll try something else.

Until then, I'm loving it.  I practice relaxing every day, and I listen to positive suggestions about birth.  It feels really good.  While I'm doing it, I don't feel achy and pregnant.  I feel wonderful.  

I have been nesting... it's too early, but maybe the baby knows we're moving soon and wants me to be ready anyway.  I've been scrutinizing every drawer, closet, folder and box for things I can get rid of so we don't have to move them.  I'm determined to make this move a better experience than last move. 

No, we don't know where we're moving.  We'll know soon.  We're waiting to hear back about several opportunities. 

Speaking of getting rid of things... One particularly nasty thing to get rid of are textbooks.  Bryan and I decided that we don't want to pack up and carry all of them across the country. So we tried to sell them back.  Bryan left with this stack... and came back with just a few less books and just a few more dollars in his pocket.  Good thing we spent thousands of dollars on books during our years in college. 

Here's what we should have done:  buy the book, use it for the semester.  Sell it back while it's still worth something.  Then, on the rare chance that we'll want it later in life, (and who has actually seen their parents open their college textbooks?) we'd buy it back.  For like, three dollars. 

I've been scrap booking.  As I clean out junk, I keep finding photos and scraps from my life.  They fill up like twelve shoe boxes (only a small exaggeration.)  I determined that I would not move it all.  So I've scrap booked it.  It either goes in the book or it goes in the trash.  At first I was just throwing pictures on paper, apologizing mentally to my mother-in-law, the queen of scrap books and all other things beautiful.  But as I've finished adding all of my leftover bits from middle school and high school, it's become something I love because it represents me.  It's terribly boring for other people.  Letters, prom pictures, report cards, "Things I want in a Husband" written by Beehive Holly, pictures from EFYs and youth conferences and school.  Terribly boring for them, but loved by me!  Especially because I can throw away or crop any picture that I wish. :)  I'm keeping only the good memories.

I've also redesigned my study journal, and it has made all the difference.  Bryan's mission study journal is a thing to behold.  There are tabs and neat handwriting and intriguing diagrams everywhere.  I compare that to my old study journals... which I recently threw away.  1. They are nearly illegible, which gives me a bad opinion of myself when I read more than a few pages. 2.  I will never be able to find anything I am looking for in them.  3.  Continuing revelation exists.  I don't need to clutch old revelations and random thoughts as if they were my firstborn child.  My firstborn child will appreciate the space created by their absence.  4.  I skimmed most of the pages, and there was nothing interesting anyway.  They were useful while I was writing them, but I find no use for them anymore. 

My new friend.

I sat down and designed it exactly the way I want it.  Here are my tabs and sub-tabs. :) 

Study
   To Do (List of scripture study ideas.)
   Sunday School (I cut apart my Sunday School student manual and punched holes in it.  Every other page is a page of notes from preparation and then the meeting.)
   Relief Society (preparation and notes from this meeting.  Do I really get the chance to write while watching Heidi?  Sometimes.  And, if I can't pay attention on Sunday, at least I have studied the material during the week.)
   Talks and Hymns (Shrunk and printed and annotated)
   Exploding Scriptures (A idea from Bryan's mission.  You write out the scripture in the middle of the page, then highlight, circle, define, cross reference, and journal until the page is full of marks.  You have to keep it neat, though.)
   Lessons (a place to prepare FHE lessons, talks, etc.)

Personal
   Ideas (good ideas on what to do with kids)
   Personal Progress (Not the YW program specifically, but keeping track of what I'm working on)
   Personal Questions (How much faith do I really have? What do I have to repent of? How can I better keep my covenants?)
   Promptings
   Spiritual Experiences
   Prayers (list of things to remember in my prayers.  Don't judge, it helps me.  Once, I had a notebook where I wrote down what I prayed for.  Then I went back and looked at what was the result of those prayers... and it was surprising.)

Meetings (Sacrament, General Conference, Stake Conference, Leadership Trainings)

Calling (minutes, ideas, assignments)

The idea is that you put a lot of effort into your journal, so you love it, so you use it often.  I'm not allowed to write messily, I'm not allowed to doodle study.  (Doodle studying is when you just write stuff down, hoping it will lead to insights.  At the end of the study session, I distill all the best parts write it more neatly, and include that.)  I'm also not allowed to keep junk in there, like programs and handouts I don't like. 

 Anyway, now I love studying my scriptures and I am never out of things to do.

Bryan's regular journal is also impressive.  Mine all contain emotional vomit.  Getting out all my craziness on paper (instead of on the people I love) is certainly one strategy, but it leaves me with nothing worthwhile.  Bryan's journals are neat, positive, and interesting.  He has given me permission to read any of them whenever I want.  I know he's spent hours and hours on them, and they are worth so much.  His journals are the only account of the year we were dating, and they are beautiful.  Reading them always makes me love him so much more.  His mission journals are extremely powerful, and they will be wonderful for our missionary kids and when he and I prepare to serve together.  Worth the extra time? You decide.