I’m sorry I haven’t blogged much lately, friends. I have worried that if I start, I’ll just unload everything. Then I realized this afternoon, that you guys are my friends. I can unload. You can take it. I can come out of my end-of-pregnancy hermit state for a moment.
Friends, this baby is sitting so low. So uncomfortably low. It hurts to walk, stand, and for some reason it hurts whenever I move my left leg. There’s a nerve pinched or something. My muscles are stretched to the maximum. Most of my maternity clothes don’t fit anymore.
Oh, but God has given me so much grace. I can’t skip saying that. He’s helped me not fall to pieces about 128,431 times in the last few days. I have no idea how I’m still here, other than his mercies.
David was at Bible camp last week. He had a blast, and has been great since he’s come home, minus the last day or so. Silje and Elias have their turn at Bible camp this week, though Elias is already home, and Silje doesn’t come home until Friday, because she’s in the older group. She turns 12 this week, and I won’t be there for it. I’m honestly really sad about that, but it’s what she wanted to do for her birthday…be at camp, and so I’m dealing with it.
David was amazingly wonderful on Monday, as he made breakfast for the little girls and me, served on china plates. He even made some desserts in the afternoon, and supper that evening. He was amazing. He does so good when he is working or serving. But he did too much, and it has showed, as he’s been struggling in days that followed.
Then he had so much fun hanging out with his grandpa on Tuesday morning as I brought the little girls to a local preschool VBS that we sometimes do. I got to sit in a coffee shop and eat chocolate cake with some ladies from church during that time. That was a gift. But like always, after he works really hard one day, doing above and beyond, he has days that follow where he crashes. It’s just not sustainable.
So then we got home at lunchtime on Tuesday, and everything started falling apart. I was physically done for the day, just getting in and out of the van, and walking through parking lots. My pain level was the highest I like it to be. So I was done. And David was a grump. He had so much fun that morning that he wanted the rest of the day to be just as fun, and started talking back and being rude when I asked him to do the littlest things. Elias came home from camp and was exhausted. I asked David to do his regular afternoon chore of the lunches dishes, and he fell to the ground and cried. And I just let him. Because I can’t manage everyone’s emotions, and at some point, they have to manage their own. Fine. Don’t do the dishes. Be sad. I’m going to sit down and put my feet up. If you want to talk, I’ll be right over there. I told him that I will love him no matter if he does the dishes or not, but I couldn’t protect him from the consequences of not doing his work.
That evening we went to Tae Kwon Do. The kids were much better after that diversion, and refocused, which is the awesome thing about that class. We actually had a really fun discussion on the way home from town in the van. I could tell they were doing better.
We got home at 6:30. Knut texted me that he would be in the field until dark…which around here this time of year is about 10pm or so. We had no clean dishes to eat on, because David didn’t do them. There wasn’t even counter space for me to make supper. So David saw the problem, and started doing the dishes, apologizing profusely that he is making supper late because of his bad choice.
7:30 (because David was mad at himself, and when he’s mad at himself he moves at 1/10th a normal person’s speed) we had some clean dishes, I had some counter space, and I started making supper. It was hard because I was hurting, Elias finally wanted to talk about camp, David wanted to talk about his feelings about his choices, and the little girls wanted to hang on my legs that hurt. So I kept trying to get them away, but they wouldn’t stay away and did the revolving door bit, where as soon as I sent one kid out of the kitchen, another one came in. So what should have taken 20 minutes to make took me about 40. If I had yelled, and put the fear of God in all of them, I might have gotten it on the table in 20 minutes. But I knew if I lost it, it was all over. The night would end in tears and I would hurt even more from my muscles tensing up, my heart pounding, and my throat raw. God gave me an extra heaping dose of grace and we just handed it out to everyone and kept putting one foot in front of the other. We lit some candles for the table. We put on some soothing music to calm the hyper little girls who should have been in bed.
Then I ask the boys to set the table for me. David brought out our big Britta water filter container from the fridge, and filled everyone’s glasses. But he forgot to put it away. Right when we were sitting down, Elias picked up the very full square pitcher with about I don’t know, 2 or 3 gallons of water in it to move it back to the fridge so he could get to his plate. It was too heavy for him, and he dropped it. The plastic cracked open and water went gushing all over the kitchen floor, and all the kids start screaming as if it’s lava destroying our house or something.
I stayed cool. I grabbed a bunch of towels. We got it all sopped up. We sat and ate. Elias felt terrible, and I kept telling him it was an accident. David was crying that he was the one who was supposed to put it back, and I just keep repeating it was just an accident. I’m not mad. Let’s just eat. They’re all trying to help. Let’s just eat. It’s all over with. Let’s just drop it.
So around 9pm, we start eating supper. (The little girls normally go to bed around 8.) By 9:30 the little girls are in bed, and at 10pm, the boys are done feeding the animals, and I start working on trying to fix the kids’ school computer that Knut accidentally messed up when we were trying to add all of his files to it, since his computer recently died. I’m no computer genius, but I fixed it. That was the high of the day.
I woke up this morning to a charlie horse racing up my right leg. I always get them bad in pregnancy, and someone told me that magnesium helps. So I’ve either taken an epsom salt bath, or rubbed magnesium lotion on my legs, and it’s really helped. Last night I couldn’t reach my legs to rub any lotion, so I took a bath just to soak my screaming joints, but I was so tired I forgot to put the epsom salts in. I just miss one night, and I woke up in horrible pain. I started kicking to make it stop and Knut woke from a dead sleep saying “what’d I do? What’s wrong?” He groggily massaged the muscle spasm for me as I was whimpering. Then we tried to go back to sleep.
I dropped the little girls off at VBS this morning again. They were so excited, though very tired. A bunch of moms were going to meet at a park. I told the boys there was a softball field and a playground there. They packed up their softball gear “just in case” they could play. We got there. I said hi to my friends, and David noticed that there was a little league game going on at the diamond, so he couldn’t play there, and was left with the big open field or the huge playground.
He didn’t want to play catch with his brother in the field. He didn’t want to play on the playground. His life was apparently over. So we stayed for about 45 minutes, and David interrupted no less than 10 times, inappropriately, when I was mid sentence, and with much rudeness. His life was over, and he wanted me to know this apparently every 2-3 minutes. I corrected him. I gave out consequences. I gave him ideas. I kept my own attitude in check. But after 45 minutes, I was done with that, and I loaded the boys up and we went to the store to buy a new water filter.
We had lots of extra time, so I let the boys look in the toy aisle. David kept asking me to give him a job so he could earn some money and buy some more toys. I told him he has to do a good job with the chores he already has, consistently, before he can get to the next level of getting a paid job. (Every time we pay him for a job, he gets half done and quits. It has messed up a lot, and it’s something we’re working on.)
We got what we came to get, went to check out, and David asked if I would buy him a little dollar toy. I told him that I wanted to. I told him that I had planned to. I told him that I had big plans for that morning, to have fun with them, and I wanted to treat them. But I don’t reward bad behavior. Ever. I reward good behavior. It is not my job to make his life fun and wonderful at all times. My job is not the fun fairy. My job is to train him. And rewarding someone for not listening and constant interruption is bad training.
We had a long talk about how when we feel weak and stuck, we need to pray to God for strength. I told him he is in the season of training, and God isn’t there to make our life easy, and perfect. He’s there handing us power and strength. We talked again about the literary heroes he loves so much, and how heroes are made by overcoming, not by having things handed to them on a silver spoon. We talked about how jobs are for people who can go into a broken situation and fix it, a messy situation and clean it. Paying jobs aren’t for people who demand that everything is perfect before they lift a finger. I don’t like it when my kids demand a paying job. You earn a paying job. You earn it with your hard work, reputation, and willingness to be trained.
Then we picked up the little girls. They had so much fun. But Ingrid was so tired. I got them in the van, and overtired Ingrid screamed the whole way home from town, which set off David’s SPD, and he was holding his ears and sitting on the fetal position by the time we got home.
He was trying. I was trying. We were all trying. We managed to get some lunch, and get everyone to their sanctuary spaces.
And now it’s quiet time. My feet are up, and I’m going to do some seated work like reading, homeschool prep for next year, some behind the scenes blog work, and probably goofing off on Facebook. That’s what the rest of my day looks like. Knut is taking David to the library tonight where I signed them up for a free kids’ class on how to use the 3D printer they now have available for check out. They are both looking forward to that. So I should have some plan of what to do with the 3 little kids. We’ll probably read books on the couch all evening. I’ll make some tea for that.
But now it is quiet. Ingrid is asleep on my bed. Everyone is resting. I intend to do nothing. I have no idea what we are eating for supper. Probably popcorn. We will see how that works. It just hurts and I’m done for the day.
I hope you guys don’t mind my sporadic writing until the baby comes. I’m at the point of the pregnancy where I can only do what I can do, and I refuse to feel bad about the rest. It’s a motto that has been keeping me sane. I will crawl back into my hermit hole now, and just rest. God is still good. All the time.
sarah w. says
June 22, 2016 at 7:28 pmYour pain hits close to home. Five weeks ago I was in the last stages of the most painful pregnancy that I’ve ever had. Hip pain. Joint pain. Back pain. Varicose veins. My three year old and one year old couldn’t stop crawling all over me and I was just done. With everything. Dinner was McDonalds or applesauce for almost two weeks straight. Daily, I would beg the kids: Just let me rest. Let me sit. Please don’t touch me. Now the baby is here, and I’m still tired but not hurting. Pain sucks everything out of you. I wish there was a magic cure for pregnancy pain and exhaustion. I admire your strength and patience. You’re incredible. You’re almost done. It’s almost over. Feel free to vent at anytime. You deserve it!
Laura says
June 22, 2016 at 7:40 pmYeah, our home has been pretty crazy lately, too. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like no one wants to do their job, the house is a wreck, both parents are frustrated by it, the kids don’t care no matter how many extra jobs they end up doing … aiyiyi.
I hope that you’re able to find some peace and quiet in these last days before you have your baby!
Mom says
June 22, 2016 at 7:56 pmWhat an accurate description of your life right now. Thankfully the pain part should be over really soon.
We keep praying for you and sense God’s grace being poured out on you right now. One step at a time!
I love you so much!
Elizabeth says
June 22, 2016 at 8:09 pmpraying for you! Seriously, given the pain you are in, the kids ups and downs, and everything, all I can say is *you are doing really well* and that I can see God’s mercy and love that He is pouring into you, to make it one day at a time. Hang in there, it is not easy, Mothering and bearing children. God sustain you!
Candace Caldwell says
June 25, 2016 at 2:48 pmI know how you feel, my sixth pregnancy was extremely painful as well. I will be praying for you, that God will continue to carry you through the remainder of your pregnancy and for Him to be with Knut and your other kids during this time. As for the charlie horses, I had them a lot back when I ran cross country in high school. I was told it was because I was low on potassium, and that I should try to eat more bananas. I hate bananas, but I ate banana baby food, and it helped!
Kirsten says
June 25, 2016 at 3:52 pmOh Gretchen, I do feel for you, but I must ask a question, and perhaps it is that I do not know the situation well, but I think it is time you asked for Help. We all hate to do that. We hate the idea that we can’t somehow manage on our own, or perhaps because we are failures, we need to ask for help! That is just not so. It is pride that prevents us. We don’t want others to know that we just are at our limits, because surely they could handle it if they were in this situation. Oh how we manage to beat ourselves down. I am no different. Perhaps it is the survival instinct that drives us. A Wise Man in my Church once told me, “,,,why do you not ask when you need help? When you continue to push yourself, though inside you can barely make it through, what you are doing, is denying a person the chance to serve and serve in a way that the Lord would like. You say your prayers. You ask the Lord for Strength and Relief, yet you do not ask for the very relief that he has waiting for you. At the same time that you are receiving grace and relief from the Lord, someone else is receiving blessing that they have need of, by helping you. Just think about it, OK.”. What a wise man he was. Now, I am more aware of those around me and that God does not always answer one prayer at a time, keeping them all neat and tidy. Most of the time, our answers come entwined with the answer to others prayers. Perhaps it is a Widow with in your church that would give anything to help a young family and at the same time relieve her loneliness and make her feel useful. I could come up with many others, but I think when you consider what I have said for awhile you will think of them yourself. To often, our prayers are answered, but we don’t relies till much later that that answer came in a different way than we expected it to come. I think we all tend to pray and then are looking for relief or help to come in a certain way and form and when we do this, we are likely to miss that the prayer was answered. I hope that mad sense. People do not think less of you when you ask for help. They see a person that knows their limits and understands that they cannot do everything themselves, when other things are weighing in on our lives. If you are anything like me, the first thing I would think, is that it is much easier to do it myself. That with children with certain needs, makes it hard for us to release things to their care. How can they possibly know How to understand that child’s needs? It is possible because the Lord will guide them. This is the hardest part, We Must Have Faith! The Lord is not going to present an answer and not have thought of everything, we just need to have faith in Him. Well, now that you probably wish you had never opened up about the pressure and pain that you are feeling, I will let you rest. You know the old adage “Can’t see the Forest for the Trees”, I am simply the wind, helping you to see. God Bless and Keep You all!
Gretchen says
June 25, 2016 at 6:27 pmYou are so right. I have learned the painful lesson through my car accident about 3 years ago that I just need help. While I don’t ask for help on this blog, I feel like asking for help is all I have been doing here on the ground. 🙂 Fortunately my husband is in a bit of a lull at work, once he finished a big project in the fields on Wednesday or so and though he has many things at home on his plate, he’s been pushing that aside and hovering here at home in the best of ways. I think he’s planning to stick to me like glue until this baby comes. He’s taking over most of my jobs. I asked a friend of mine to pick up Silje from camp because I didn’t think I could make the drive, let alone walk from the parking lot to the ending program. If you follow me on instagram, you may have read that our youngest, Ingrid, spent an evening in the emergency room. We had to ask Knut’s parents to watch our kids 3 times in the last 2 days. I’ve been calling people and asking if they could take one or two kids for a few hours when we are juggling things. I have a good community of friends here. Unfortunately, none of it takes away the pain, and I feel like my emotions/hormones are charged 24/7 right now. It’s so hard to manage. It’s taken a lot of growing to realize that my primary job right now is taking care of this baby I’m carrying, and making it to that magic 37 week mark, and I’m just going to have to let my husband help (even though I don’t think he has the time) and let my in-laws help, and let my friends run errands for me, and that’s just going to have to be okay. While I don’t think a clone of me has been found yet, which would be simplest, I’m grateful for my community. Your words ring very true, and I hope that someone else will also read it and be encouraged that it’s ok to ask for help. In fact, it’s good for the whole church when you ask for help.
Nicky says
June 26, 2016 at 4:44 pmYou sure have such a lot going on right now. I admire how you manage everything you do.
Keep resting as much as you can. Keep asking for help with the children. No one minds helping out …thats what friends and family do for each other. Not long to go now..then you will have your tiny new addition.