26 Jul Working hard any way you slice it.
The kids and I spent a weekend with my family last month. My intention was to help my mom with her basement or scrapbook or anything to be a good firstborn and help out during her time off this summer. Unfortunately, we made those plans before I knew I was pregnant, so by the time it came to go, I was in the worst weeks of my pregnancy. So we did about a year of Jon’s life in scrapbooks, and then I napped while my siblings played with the kids. Then my parents (and siblings!) were gracious enough to keep the kids for the next four days while I drove home and spent quality time on the couch and in the bathroom. “They” keep saying that I’m working even when I’m laying (that sounds great, right, you know, growing a baby and all?), but man is it hard for a doer to be out of commission.
Can I just take a minute to say how thankful I’ve been for James and good friends these last several weeks? This has definitely been the hardest first trimester yet. I’ve backed out of commitments at church, with friends, with neighbors, in the community. Friends have let us come over and let our kids play together…without my getting off the couch. Another has washed our dishes and cleared our counters. I’ve actually only cooked one dinner in three weeks, maybe a month. James has gotten up early to make us breakfast, come home at noon to make us lunch, planned and made dinner in the evenings, put the kids to bed, and cleaned up afterwards! We’ve had several friends make us dinner, which was a really humbling thing to receive. Isn’t that silly? I love helping those in need with meals or washing dishes, but being the one in need has been much harder. If I desire people to be real with me regarding their needs, then it necessitates that I am real with them! Thanks to the body of Christ, I’m learning to accept help and actually revel in the beauty that is these hands and feet. (And praise the Lord that I’m throwing up less and less and having better and better consecutive hours!)
So what’d we do with our kid-free days? Got some work done! Mostly James worked and I…grew a baby? I got up every now and then to help, but even James just having time to do some of our bigger projects was so stress-relieving to him. List checked off!
The biggest of the six projects was painting the kids’ beds–a hand-me-down from my brothers. Of course of all the four days we had, we chose the one where it rained. Perfect.
The kids love love love their new beds. James has since put the drawers in the bottoms. We’re just waiting on me to paint the knobs. Gimme just a couple more weeks…
(Somehow Jaeda still manages to fall off her bed in the middle of the night…even with the rail! We got ourselves a moooover.)
The next week, Mary Jackson stayed with us for a few days and helped James replace the chandelier. Got a little cheapy one on Craigslist which fits our style much more nicely now…and didn’t break the bank. Perfect (and no sarcasm this time). 
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