so... i'm nesting. i've been planning, organizing and rearranging AND then starting over and doing it all over again. after the ultrasound of cutieness on monday i have had an extra dose of motivation. that said, i've had to start collecting a bunch of baby necessities for the little one. when isabelle was born so many people from my church community let me borrow baby stuff like a cradle swing, bouncy chair, bassinet and other stuff that helped us get through the first few months of baby transition. when isabelle got big enough i just passed those items along to others who had a need. i like the whole idea of community recycling and re-using. in fact, the only things i really bought was a crib and high chair. so this time around i needed to get a few things just to help us out. and i have a few friends who want to plan showers for the baby. but after looking at baby stuff i cannot justify spending 100's of dollars or asking others to spend 100's of dollars on things we will only use for a few months. the baby industry is nuts! seriously they market everything and make parents feel like if you are going to be good parents then you need to purchase everything! i had a friend (who's wife is due on the exact day as me) tell me he went to a store called birth and beyond and they are minimalists they encourage you to get the bare essentials because honestly, first off you don't know what your baby will like and secondly, all the marketing is a ploy to get you to spend lots of money on crap you seriously don't need.

that said, based on experience of having a baby before i kinda had an idea of stuff i'd like to have-- that i felt were essential for the first part of little one's life-- then i craiglisted it. oh my lord, craigslist is genius. i decided to look for a bassinet and found a brand new one with all the bells and whistles for 20 bucks! a very small fraction of what they are selling it for at baby's r us. i found a cradle swing (which i felt was a lifesaver for us when we first had isabelle, as it was the only thing that would put her to sleep) for 35 bucks! it was new and if i had bought it from the store with all the packaging i would have spent about $150 for it. i got a brand new stroller/car seat combo-- never been used for 45 bucks. brilliant! pretty cool way to also recycle and reuse and slow down the wheel of consumption and waste.

also, as i said earlier i have a friend who is planning a little shower for me and my family. i've decided i don't want a traditional shower this time around. i want something that incorporates my whole family and is not just about all the baby games and gifts but looks something more like a blessing. i want my male and female friends, alike, to be invited and i hope to hear my loved ones share with us their hopes and blessings for our little family. most of all, it'll be a celebration of the providence of god and his grace in allowing us to have the responsibility and blessing of parenting our two girls.

so... i had a nice week vacation with my familia! we took a few days and went over to lake chelan. it was wonderful. it was about 98 degrees outside and the resort where we stayed had 5 pools. no one seemed to be taking advantage of the amazing pools, because everyone was going to the lake so we had virtually the entire pool to ourselves. it was great:)

my favorite part was swimming with isabelle. she's gaining more and more confidence in her swimming skills. we've only taken one swimming class (which reminds me i need to get her enrolled in another one) but she just seemed to get the hang of it and she was getting braver and braver with each passing moment. watching her brought back so many nostalgic feelings of when my father taught me how to swim. it was such an amazing bonding experience! i feel that bond growing even more between me and isabelle. she has to trust me in a way that can seem risky. i'm sure she is asking herself all the time, "will she really catch me if i jump"? and when something weird happens and either me or her father are unable to catch her in just the right way it does make her second guess some things and lose just a bit of the confidence she had gained. the beautiful thing is that we just kept working it out together-- finding out what i could realistically do while finding out what her comfort level was.

this has become a bit of a metaphor for me into the larger parenting aspect of my world. as i'm preparing for this beautiful girl inside me to come join our family-- i wonder about all the balancing aspects of adding to our little clan. i know that the dynamics will shift and change and grow and be challenged. i wonder about the delicate balance of maintaining that space we've carved for isabelle and finding a new space for baby girl-- how do those merge together in a harmonious way? the other aspect of being a multiple child family is establishing a structure of fairness and equality while keeping in our minds the fact that our two girls will have different personalities, needs and aspirations. how do you uphold both in equality while recognizing that support might look extremely different based on their personal needs & personalities? as you might have figured out from all my shameless plugs of my daughter-- i am absolutely in-love with her. that being said, i wonder and sometimes worry about what my love will look like for this new girl. (parents of multiple children pipe in and share with me what this balance looks like for you) i fear creating an imbalance of the two and honestly i've seen with my own human eyes (both in my family and in other families) what it looks like when one child is more loved or favored then another. honestly, i don't worry that i'll be that kind of parent who has a favorite but i want to be aware of all the dynamics that can exist and how that can impact the family and my children's individual lives. in a family where one family member/child is upheld and loved above another there can be so much damage and pain.

it makes me think about jacob and esau in genesis. i truly believe that this is a perfect example of what the destructive breakdown of family harmony can look like when parents love one child over the other. it is a breakdown of god's intention and plan for the family-- god desires peace for the world-- a peace that stems from our families and extends to the world. now if you remember, rebecca loved jacob and isaac loved esau. the underlying structure of this imbalance of love for their sons created a world of deception, jealousy and manipulation. the final blow was a blessing robbed, confusion & misunderstanding and ultimately the separation of their family. this is not the peaceful picture that god intended for the family, but i believe this is an important example for us to look at when we are praying and discerning how we should structure our families. from the very beginning our families have been prey of dissension, envy and destruction-- remember cain & abel. so... for me as a mother of two i want to keep that balance refined and in check. i'm human who is privy to all the same temptations, depravity and brokenness that we all face so i recognize i'm not immune from making the same mistakes, but having been brought to awareness requires a different level of responsibility and proactivity on my part. the story of isaac, rebecca, jacob and esau is not told for just anecdotal reasons-- it's told as a means for us to learn from this tragedy and to reclaim the shalom that god has provided for our world and for our families. it is a story that reminds us of the damage and separation that can take place if we don't wisely discern the process of loving and supporting our children.

ok so i went off on a bit of a theological tangent... sorry :( i was gonna make this entry light. on another note, today i saw (through ultrasound) our baby girl. isabelle was able to be there with me, as well as my dear sea, sea. i can not describe to you how fascinating this was. i've had a ton of ultrasounds but today the ultrasound was so vivid and clear. we saw so many details. i could see her yawning, stretching, sucking her thumb (a close up look showed us her lips suckling on her thumb) & blinking. we saw all four chambers of her heart and the little valves opening and closing. amazing! she is 3.5 pounds and very healthy. oh my lord, she is amazingly beautiful. not to toot our own horns, but it must be said we make some really cute babies, us spauldings :)

thanks for sharing in this journey. pics from the ultra sound will be posted later.

loves,

me