Due Date

Hi.

We had a very lovely Christmas this year. A few days before it, my dad decided to drive up from Louisiana and hang out with us. It has been a really nice and relaxing visit.

We had dinner Christmas Eve and Christmas with the Farmer family (Mike, Kathryn, and Owen - plus Mike's parents and brother and his wife). Clark had fun playing with Owen and the adults had fun being adults.

Tom and I went to mass on Christmas morning and the next day (a Sunday) ALL BY OURSELVES while dad watched Clark. This may have been the very best gift of Clark's whole life. It was wonderful to sit and hold Tom's hand and relax and listen and pray and NOT have to think about keeping Clark quiet via toys/snacks/"look at the music" bla bla bla. It was wonderful.

Clark really enjoyed opening presents this year and caught onto removing the wrapping paper pretty quickly. It was precious to watch!

Many of the days dad has been here have been low lying days as I was sick for the first part of this trip, Clark was sick for the middle and now Tom is sick for the end. Are we suprised that dad started feeling ill yesterday morning? No. We are not.

Today is the expected due date of little baby Joy, and again, we are not suprised that s/he is not here yet. Dad was hoping he could be around for the birth - but I think he's realized by now it might not happen for another week or so. We have had some fun discussions about birth and medicine in this country and I got him to watch The Business of Being Born to prep him for the birth and why we've made the decisions we have about the childbirth process.

He accompanied me to our midwife appointment yesterday. We listened to the heartbeat, had a nice belly measurement (39 cm) and tried not to cough on her stuff. We found out that the baby is in an OP position, meaning back labor and a sunny-side up delivery. I'm hoping Joy turns, because that kind of labor is going to suck a lot. It will help me be a better childbirth teacher and doula one day, but still, I'd rather skip it if I can. Besides this information, it was a nice visit. Next Wednesday I'm looking forward to having a Non-Stress Test where you lay there and let the External Fetal Monitor measure baby movements. I'm also going to have an ultrasound called an AFI where they measure your amniotic fluid. We are determined NOT to find out the sex of the baby at this ultrasound, as we have waited this long, we'd rather experienc the "surpise" that other people say is "so great!" and we'll let everyone know what we think is better.

It would obviously be ideal to have the baby BEFORE this appointment, but we'll see if that happens. I've got a baby pool going over on my facebook page. It is in the notes section if you are looking for it.

It sounds like dad is leaving tomorrow morning, and I hope he gets home before he hits the worst day of the cold. It would be better to spend that day at home and in bed than driving 17 hours back to Louisiana.

Over all it has been a nice couple of weeks and we are looking forward to 1. being healthy and 2. having our baby soon. We are looking forward to 3. Mom's visit on January 7th and 5. our 5th wedding anniversary on that same day.

As you can see we have lots to look forward to and are happy about life right now. I feel so calm and relaxed, especially compared to how I felt on Clark's due date (read: STRESSSSSSSSSSSS) It has been a much nicer journey and I don't plan on being stressed at least until next week.

Wishing everyone the best, many prayers and lots of happiness in the new year.

Love, Veronica

Sideways blocks

Hi everyone. These were the first videos I took with my phone. I took them one way, have no clue how to turn them. In the future, I'll just try to take them from another angle. So, turn your head and watch Clark playing with blocks. He is using his favorite word of that day, "one". And every time he notices that I'm filming, he runs over to "see" what I'm doing.

He puts blocks into his dump truck.

He carefully works on the tower of blocks.

He knocks the tower over.

Ball Pit

Clark and his friend Owen played in a fun indoor playground earlier this week. I took some video from my phone and we'll see how it comes across on the blog. It would be super sweet if I could load these straight from my phone like I do with pictures quite often, but since they are so short, they do load quickly from the computer.

Clark loves fun.

Clark loves reading. He could read almost the whole day. We are thrilled that this intellectual development has coincided with cold weather and the impending birth of Joy. Clark loves the slide. He is sitting on my lap as I type this shouting "weeee" and pointing at the picture of him on the slide.

He's having fun in the playground.

And eating some snacks in the playground. We think he might be allergic to wheat, so have eliminated it from his diet. In response, he started eating chicken, meat, and dairy. Amazing.

Clark loves the swings! Fr. RB came to visit and took these pictures of us in the park. We all went out to eat, but we didn't take any pictures of all 4 (5) of us. booo. next time we will have to do better!!! but, I admit, it is nice to actually BE in some of the blog photos!

blurry swinging.

blurry swinging.

before the pushing began. I think he is looking at some bigger kids swinging on the tire swing towards the left.