Similiarities and differences.

I once heard someone (or rather, I've heard many people say many different times) that we see ourselves in our children. That can either make us super proud, or super uncomfortable, depending on what traits are coming out. For example, Nathaniel loves to read, which is totally a trait from both Sam and I. But, Nathaniel also gets into these "Mr. Cranky Pants" moods where nothing can satisfy him, which is totally me. Ugh.

I have noticed, however, that Nathaniel is much politer than I ever was at that age.

I'm not known for being the most tactful person in the world. Forever I was hearing people tell me that I needed to think before I spoke. Thankfully, now that I'm 30, I can say that about 70% of the time I actually put that into practice. My apologies for the other 30%.

However, Nathaniel's sense of appropriateness amazes me!

He's a little (lot) type A when it comes to certain things. Like rules. Once Nathaniel hears the rules about something, he follows them to the letter. And he freaks out a little bit if other people aren't following the rules. But, he freaks out quietly, which is nice because when I was little my freak outs involved punching whoever the offending rule breaker was.

I'm not exaggerating. I punched my friend in the mouth and knocked her tooth loose for cheating in a game (sorry, Erika!). I also pushed a kid and bruised him up pretty good for cutting in line. I spent a lot of time in Kindergarten in the Principal's office.

But, Nathaniel, while he is freaking out internally about a rule being broken, has enough self control to whisper his concerns. On Monday we were at Disneyland and were riding the tram back to the parking structure. In front of us a little girl was sitting on her dad's lap. Nathaniel started to squirm next to me and started tapping my arm and whispering, "Mom!!" When I asked him what was wrong he slyly pointed to the girl sitting on her dad's lap and said, "No lap sitting!" (I must pause here and point out that every time we get on the tram the announcement says 'no eating, drinking or smoking and no lap sitting except for small children'.) I had to quietly explain to Nathaniel that it was okay for the girl to sit on her dad's lap because she was small. I'm not sure he was satisfied.

I hope that this type A personality works well for him and doesn't turn into an OCD thing. I want Nathaniel to be able to loosen up and have fun (which he totally does, most of the time).

With Aaron, however, it is a totally different story. It's like we had an invasion of the body snatchers. Someone took my sweet, agreeable, 'always nods yes to my questions' little boy and replaced him with this willful little toddler.

He has decided that it is time to push against every boundary that we have set up for him.

My formally great eater has started throwing his utensils at dinner time, tossing food over the side of his chair and spitting his food out onto the floor. So, our usual peaceful mealtimes now involve Sam or myself getting up, removing food from Aaron's grasp, correcting behavior, and listening to fits being thrown at the travesty of it all. Luckily, I'm not worried about him starving, because at least one meal a day ends up with Aaron having his food taken away (he's not eating it anyways, he's just throwing it around).

My passive little boy who used to do whatever his brother wanted to do, and who put up with a lot of wrestling and pushing around from his big brother has realized that he wants to play in his own way. Of course he doesn't have words for, "Dude, get OFF of me!" so he has resorted to biting. Poor Nathaniel has bruises on BOTH arms from Aaron's teeth. Time outs aren't working for this one because he bites his brother and then happily walks over to time out. Luckily the one little swat on the butt that he gets for that totally works. He looks at us with these pitiful, "I can't believe you just did that to ME!" eyes and bursts into tears. So far it's been two days since the last incident.

Finally, the sweet little boy who happily picked up his toys has started resisting. We spent 15 minutes last night rotating between time out and the mess of refrigerator magnets he had dumped all over the floor. In the end he happily picked them up, but for those 15 minutes it was as if we asked him to walk on broken glass! Luckily, Sam and I both remembered doing the same thing with Nathaniel at this age (once Nathaniel spent an hour between time out and Sam because he wouldn't hand Sam his sippy cup, but kept throwing it on the ground. Another time Nathaniel spent nearly two hours in time out because he wouldn't pick up the crayons he dumped*).

*Note. We do not make our kids sit in time out for the full two hours. This is one minute in time out, a quick, "You are in time out because of X" and then an opportunity to do what it is we asked them to do. It just took Nathaniel that long to finally do what it was we asked him to do.

And so, we are moving into that frustrating time of parenting. But, looking at Nathaniel and his general obedience and how easy it is now to correct him, we know that we are doing the right thing and that it is easier NOW when we can physically move Aaron into time out and help him pick up toys by moving his hand to the toy and to the place it goes. I would MUCH rather have the battles now than wait until he's 7 and people are wondering why my 7 year old doesn't listen to me.

So, that was quite the update, but with two kids at two different developmental levels, it's hard to keep it concise. Just wait until #3 comes along!

Here we go again!

With all of the amazing things that God has blessed our family with in the past few months, one of those things we have kept close to our hearts.

We are expecting another precious baby sometime in May of 2011. We are thrilled. Notice I have not given a due date, nor will I give out a due date this time around. When I was pregnant with Aaron I was overwhelmed by the number of "Hasn't that baby arrived yet?" comments, which while I know they were given in love and excitement of a new baby, they were not encouraging to the overdue, giant pregnant woman. So, know that the baby will be born by Memorial Day. (No, Memorial Day is not my due date, but my doctor will not allow me to be pregnant that long)

I'm going to share something that is kind of personal and close to my heart right now. Given that I am sharing this on the family blog, please understand that I would appreciate a few things. First of all, what I'm about to share is straight from my heart. No rude comments about anything. Second, know that I've been through a lot in my past two deliveries and that I'm not going to be dumb or go into this whole thing uninformed.

With that said...

We had our first doctor's appointment last Wednesday. I was super excited about the appointment because I just wanted to see that cute little peanut hanging out in my womb. It's also nice to have that confirmation so I know I'm not losing my mind and that I actually am pregnant. Plus, the knowledge that only one little bean is bouncing around in there is also kind of a nice thing to put my mind at ease.

Before we even stepped into the examination room my doctor (who is FABULOUS) took Sam and I into her office to talk about the nitty gritty details of pregnancy. Since I've been through this two times before I figured I wouldn't get any new information. But, since technology is always changing, I was informed of MORE genetic tests I could have done, etc. etc. We declined a CF genetic test for both of us, and the general "no thanks, I don't want you to stick a needle into my uterus to tell me something that may/may not be accurate and will not change my view of my pregnancy" stuff.

During this time we talked about my previous deliveries and pregnancies. During this time I said to her, "Well, I'm definitely a good candidate for a VBAC (Vaginal birth after Cesarean) so that's what I want to try for." My doctor looked up from her computer and said, "You are NOT a good candidate for a VBAC." My heart fell. My doctor then explained the whole, "you have had two large babies and they only get larger and we can't guarantee that you won't have a 10 pound baby again..." thing. She explained the risks of the VBAC and how I couldn't have pitocen (one of the things I was looking forward to avoiding, so no hard feelings there on my part!) if my labor wasn't progressing.

Before I go any further with this, my doctor is a firm advocate of VBACs. She knows that there are times when it is completely doable. She lets her patients make their own decisions and only counsels them with their own best interest in mind. She reminded me that at the end of the day what was important was a healthy mommy and a healthy baby.

But, she also made it clear that while she can't tell me what to do, and she won't tell me what to do, a planned C-section is what she is recommending me for. I have to make my decision by 36 weeks.

My heart is heavy with this decision I have to make. I so desperately want to have a labor and delivery that is not riddled with drugs and crazy interventions. I nearly died the first time I had a child, and was whisked into the OR for my second child. I have this image of delivering my baby and holding him (or her) right away and getting to keep him (or her) with me for awhile. I want to walk around during labor. I want to labor at home for awhile before going into the hospital. There is so much I want to do. But, I also don't want to labor for 30 hours again and end up in the OR anyways.

So, right now I'm praying about it. My doctor said that if the baby is a girl, the chances are she will be littler than my boys. That's going to play into my decision. Also, I'm praying that I go a little early. If I schedule a c-section, they will do it when I'm 39 weeks. Any time past 37 weeks is considered full term, which makes me wonder if I can schedule a c-section, but if I go into labor naturally before then if I can try it naturally. Who knows. I have some time.

So, all of that said, please pray for us. Pray for wisdom. Pray for my health. Pray for the health of the baby.

And please, do not message me with statistics either way about VBACs or C-sections. I have done my homework and I know the stats. Don't make me feel any more guilty than I already do. It's bad enough that my body hasn't handled delivery well (although, my pregnancies have always been a dream), I don't need a reminder that I just can't hack the getting the baby out part. Thanks.