Melody Elise arrives right on time!

I had originally decided that Sunday January 16th would be an ideal day for Melody to be born. Tim, knowing me too well to make light of my plans (however out of my control they might be in this case), had already notified the others on staff at church that we might not be available on and around the 16th....

But I soon changed my mind about the date when I discovered that my doctor would not be on call until the following Sunday. So I prayed that Melody would wait another week to be born, and I determined not to give her any chance to make an appearance, so far as it depended on me! When I showed up in the church service on Sunday morning the 16th, Pastor Steve came up to me and thoughtfully advised me to sit on the end of the row, just in case I needed to head to the hospital. Of course, I replied that he need not worry because I had changed my mind to try for the following Sunday, January 23rd! Needless to say, I encountered many skeptics during the next few days. Nobody quite believed that Melody would arrive when we hoped she would, nobody except Tim, that is.

On Saturday the 22nd, I had a lovely baby shower for Melody, and once I made it through that without any sign of labor, I felt that I was ready. It was time for the "Walk for Life" to begin! (My sister-in-law Sarah calls it the "walk for life" because serious walking is required if you're trying to induce labor on your own.)

Sunday morning the 23rd came with the beginnings of contractions but not enough to call it true labor. So Tim and I left Danny with my parents and started out on the walk for life. We spent an hour at the Arboretum before heading down to the farm where Nate and Sarah live. My family took turns in keeping me company as I tried to keep up a fast steady pace. Nothing was working, though, not even the stairs. So I decided by mid-afternoon that we should go home and take naps.

I was growing discouraged that I still wasn't in labor, but Tim and I decided to take one more walk around the block. If that didn't do the trick, we would give up and wait for Melody to come when she was ready. As we walked, we prayed that contractions would become intense (I think it is one of the only times I have asked God for pain!)... And they did, finally!

At 5pm I started to feel contractions grow strong. At 7pm I went to the hospital, only to discover that I was only 4 cm dilated and 70% effaced. At 9pm I got the epidural and decided that it was going to be a long wait afterall. At 11pm I was only 5 cm dilated. But at 11:05pm the nurse turned me on my right side and left the room. Two minutes later I felt as though I needed to push. I calmly called for the nurse to come back (too calmly according to my mom). No sooner did the nurse return to the room than Melody was crowning. The nurse Maybelline began yelling out the door for some back up. Immediately 3 other nurses ran into the room. I was doing my best not to push, but even so, the nurses were still putting on their gloves when Melody made her grand appearance without any effort at all!

So we guessed the right date afterall. Melody Elise was born at 11:16pm on January 23rd. But so much for wanting my doctor to deliver her. He was about 20 minutes too late!

Danny's Not A Baby Anymore

Lydia and I came home from the hospital and were shocked to find that our baby son had grown into a little man. Compared to precious little Melody, Daniel is all-grown up. It was a bittersweet moment. We looked at each other and thought, "we want our baby back." But, there he was stomping around the living room throwing balls and saying "Da-da." It only took 14 months for him to grow up. I thought we'd have another 6 months atleast, but No. He's already a toddler. Good thing we have 14 more months of a little baby with Melody. But, I'm sure that is going to come too quickly as well.

He's walking!

Danny is finally walking! He took his first two steps at the Cove (Jr High Wednesday night event) a couple of weeks ago, and since then he's been braving a lot of falls. But he's so proud of himself when he takes a few steps across the room, that I'm confident he'll prefer walking over crawling before too long. I'm glad because Melody is due just 3 weeks from today!

Language Learning 101

It seems that Danny does something new and amazing everyday. For a 10-month-old, I think Tim and I could learn a lot from him, especially in the area of language learning.

Just the other day, Tim was sitting in front of the computer and repeating the Spanish phrases issuing from Rosetta Stone's program. To our amazement, Danny stood next to him, happily repeating each phrase in Spanish! He learned all about "el padre" and "la madre" without even thinking about it!

Today as Danny was sitting on the floor, he spotted Tim's soccer ball across the room. He shouted excitedly, "Daddy bah!" and made a beeline for the ball. I couldn't believe how he is already putting two words together.

So as we go to our training program in Colorado next week (to learn about how to learn a language), maybe we should be paying more attention to the way our baby is picking up new vocabularly everyday.

The Apartment Shuffle

We have been looking forward to moving into a 2-bedroom apartment for quite a while. We were hoping to stay in the same complex and move into the next available apartment. Unfortunately, the only place that opened up was a 3-bedroom. It would be nice, but we can't afford it. So, we told our manager and she told us that #7 wants to move into a 1-bedroom. She said, "Why don't you switch?" Sounds easy enough right? They move out of their 2-bedroom and switch with us. Well, it turned out to be more complicated that that.

First we had to move out of our #3 apartment so the cleaners and painters could go over the place and get it ready for new renters.

Then #7 would have to move in to #3.

Then the painters and cleaners would have to fix up #7.

Finally we would have to move into #7.

This seems simple enough on paper, but it took a lot of organization and planning and prayer to make it work in the real world.

My solution was to rent a U-haul truck and park it at my parents for however long it took to clean both apartments. This seemed like a good idea until I went to order the U-haul and discovered they only rent them in 6 hour incraments for "In-town" use. Great. To rent for 4 days I would be paying 16 6-hour increments. It would be better to rent a storage facility for that amount of time. We actually got to the point where we were ready to organize four moving crews who would help us move into the U-haul, unload it at my parents, load it back into the U-haul, and unload it into the apartment.

I'm glad that some of my friends encouraged me to call them and see if they would cut a deal with me for renting for 4 days. Praise God when I called they said they would. So, I was able to get a 24-hour rate instead of a 6-hour rate.

We ended up parking the 14' U-haul at my parents' place for four days and then moving in on Saturday. It worked very well and now I am looking at a relatively empty living room. All I need to do is store the boxes (for our next move) and hang pictures!

Bonnie Is A Girl

Ever since we learned we were pregnant with our second child we have been calling her Bonnie. We didn't know whether we were going to have a Bonnie Laddie or a Bonnie Lassie, but now we know! We are going to have a precious little girl.

I was so confident that we were having a girl that I had started to tell everyone... I even drew a picture of our family and used pink to color in our second child. Tim told me that was a little premature, but I couldn't help it.

Tim was able to get off work so we could go to the hospital together. Our technician was very helpful and allowed Tim to film the ultrasound. I asked her to not tell us what we were having, but to write it down on a card and put it in an envelope. She said that would be fine (I'm sure she's had stranger instructions from expecting parents). We marveled at God's craftmanship with this little life. What a miracle!

We left the hospital and drove out to a nice restaurant. After ordering the food I asked Tim if he was ready to find out. He told me he was excited. I opened the envelope and became quite giddy thinking about having a daughter. What a gift from God.

I had prepared two gifts, one for a boy and one for a girl. After reading the card Tim pulled open the bright pink gift bag and pulled out a plaid dress for our girl. He looked at it and smiling said, "I don't think I'm ready for all this pink!" We will see how he handles having another girl in the house. I don't wear or decorate with pink much, but I have a feeling it is going to become Bonnie's favorite color.

We have started thinking of different names, but I think we are going to keep calling her Bonnie until she is born. We will see.

Summer Update