photos!

Bedtime has been less than ideal lately. We had three nights where we got home really late and we only did small parts of the routine. The past three nights, we've been trying to get Lauren Clay back into bed at a reasonable hour (and asleep in a reasonable amount of time.) We did the whole routine tonight, but had a couple of setbacks that served to get her wound up and into bed a little later than we'd hoped. Here are some pictures to document the "winding up" process:

Sitting on table before jumping onto John's legs to "ride the horsey":


Falling into John's lap:

Poor Henry had already had it at this point:

This one cracks me up. She loves this little piece that must have come with a George Foreman grill. George talks about how the grill "holds in the flavor and knocks out the fat." Lauren Clay has listened to the phrase enough that she can say it along with George. The hilarious thing, though, is that he starts out by saying, "Hi, I'm George Foreman"... which must sound like "Dr. Boorman" to Lauren Clay (Dr. Boorman is her pediatrician.) She refers to the toy as Dr. Boorman. When she sees the toy, I'll hear her say, "hi, Dr. Boorman!"

The scene below is not as good as it was earlier in the day. Lauren Clay is wearing my socks... but by this time, she's had her bath and is dressed for bed. Earlier this evening, she had stripped down and was wearing only the socks. Actually, I take that back. She had spaghetti and canteloupe for dinner, and she was wearing plenty of the dinner by the time she finished! Anyway, here she is in those socks, begging John for some cereal:

By the time she fell asleep at 10:30 (an hour and a half after she got in bed), she had pulled out all the stalling tactics she could come up with. She did stay in her bed and was tear-free for the first part of that stretch of time, but the last half hour was rough on the whole family. We may have a night owl on our hands (maybe she takes after her aunt Carol), but I think she just doesn't want to miss what might happen at the house after she goes down for the night.

As for the update on the rest of the family, I'm feeling very pregnant these days. I am doing a Tuesday morning Bible study on covenant which is really good (the girl teaching it wrote the study.) I will probably continue to go because it is great teaching, but-- whew!-- it wears me out to get everybody up and fed, get Henry to walk, drop Lauren Clay off in her class (which she loves, by the way), then make it to the study by 9. I've felt wonderful the past couple of weeks, but I've been pretty tired and uncomfortable since this past weekend. It's such a drastic change, I wonder if baby has changed positions (or maybe he's just put on a lot of weight in the past couple days!) I'm going to attend yoga tomorrow evening just to stretch out and relax.

I've been reading some birthing materials, too, and I keep coming across VBAC (natural birth after cesarean) stories where moms had a similar experience to mine the first time around, but a very normal and natural second birth. Actually, one of the girls in the Bible study had a cesarean first birth, drug-assisted but natural second birth, and completely drug-free third. I'm hopeful and prayerful that I'll make it to term without blood pressure issues this time around, and I'm planning to go as natural as possible during labor and delivery. I keep thinking that if I can push through the pain that accompanies a marathon, surely I can work through the pain my body was CREATED to withstand and that women have succesfully dealt with since the beginning of human history.

I've got to get off here and get my feet up! I have more to do, but I'm going to postpone that work until morning...