Monday Musings

Today I think I'll just write something stream-of-consciousness-MckMama-style.  So brace yourself for randomness.  Today I'm not sure who's more worried about who.  Knut is getting distracted from work and has been debating taking time off to wait on me and take care of the kids to insure I'm off my feet.  Whether this is until December or my due date, I'm unsure.  At any rate, I talked him into at least going to work this morning and helping me out more in the afternoon, since the kids are normally better behaved in the morning.  He's already been in the house to check on me once, though, and it's not even 10am yet.

Yesterday Knut nearly ran himself ragged with leading Sunday School, our evening small group, running me to the grocery store so I wouldn't have to take the kids this week, doing dishes, getting the kids to bed, etc.  He was able to sneak a little nap in, though, which was good. I did really good at sitting down yesterday, with the exception of walking around the grocery store with Knut since he gets pretty lost in there.  It was only 15 minutes of walking, but I paid for it with about 2 hours of regular contractions afterward.  Seriously, I've been feeling so blessed by Knut.  Somehow, knowing that he's worried about me makes me worry less.  I feel so taken care of, and I think guys like him must be few and far between.

This morning I'm sitting at the computer, and keeping Silje going on her schoolwork, and using PBS kids as a babysitter for the boys.  I've been doing very very well at sitting down, but contractions have started coming on every 2-10 minutes, without any regularity at all.  I can still talk through them, so I'm not too concerned yet.  Again, this could go on for days, so I'm in no rush to head out the door.  Yesterday, that was the rate I was getting contractions when walking, so either I'm on my feet more than I realize, or they're just coming closer together.  Seriously I feel like a walking time bomb.  Don't laugh, but we've been bringing my hospital bag with us in the van whenever we leave the house.  I told Knut it was like on the farm...if you rush to get a field done before a storm, the storm passes by.  If you didn't rush, it would have rained.  So having the hospital bag in the van is our superstitious way of making sure that this baby stays a few more days.

This morning Elias has been laughing every time I look at him.  He is seriously the funniest kid I've ever met.  I took a video of him laughing over breakfast, and it's hysterical, but I can't find where the camera cord is so I can put it on the blog.  If I get up and look for it, Knut may come home and catch me and then I'll  be in trouble.  So you'll just have to trust me...it's hysterical.

Silje's just doing spelling, handwriting, and math worksheets, none of which require my help so I'm just sitting here at the computer and am getting bored of the internet.  Last night when I was supposed to be sitting, I got caught up on all of my friends' blogs, which was fun.  I've also been working on finishing this little baby's Christmas stocking which I'm knitting.  I'm just using Red Heart yarn from Walmart which is leftover from some blanket I did in the past.  I figure Christmas stockings don't get a lot of use, so the cheap yarn is perfect for projects like that (and blankets which use a lot of yarn!) however I'm realizing it's not as forgiving of tension issues as wool is.  Not only that, but my wrists feel sore so much faster and I can't knit for as long.  Arcrylic yarn must not have as much "give" to it as wool does, and I've grown too accustomed to wool.

*pause to play trains with Elias all over my belly for a few minutes...ok, he's off and onto something new now.*

Elias has started calling me "Mum" instead of "Maaahhheee" which is so cute.  This morning I also finished up spreadsheets for the next 2 weeks of lesson plans for Silje.  We're planning on giving her a school break through Christmas once the baby comes, but if she feels like doing work (which is very likely) the lessons from the various teacher guides are compiled easily, and all of the worksheets I normally print off the computer are all printed for the next 2 weeks and compiled so that Knut or anyone else watching her can just grab some schoolwork without having to dig for it. 

Silje's complaining of a stomach ache this morning, but it only seems to bother her when she sees her brothers watching t.v. all morning this morning.  Otherwise she's prancing around.  The mean mom that I am, I told her she could have a bucket next to her while she's doing her schoolwork in the dining room.  She seemed satisfied with that. I think she'd like a t.v. day too, and I let them watch t.v. a lot when they're sick because it is sometimes the only thing that keeps them still.

I think after my next bathroom break I'll go sit and knit while I watch her do her work.  However, when I leave the basement, the boys often follow me, and when they're upstairs they often get into trouble, and sitting becomes impossible.  Silje can't do her work down here because the t.v. is on, so I guess she'll have to survive the quiet room upstairs. 

My side of the family used to have sparkling grape juice at Thanksgiving, and I bought some for this year, but ended up forgetting to have it on Thanksgiving.  It's so fun to drink it from fun wine glasses with a yummy dessert.  I think we'll open it up and celebrate making it to December this Wednesday.  I'm trying not to think about whether or not Knut will still make me stay off my feet past then, because in all reality, maybe she'll be here before I have to argue with him over that.  We'll just cross that bridge when we get there!  I'm determined not to worry about it because the reality is I may not have to.

I think it's funny how differently we're approaching the end of pregnancy having some experience behind us.  As a first time mom, you just want to be induced as soon as humanly possible with an epidural at the first contraction.  Now that this is our fourth, and having a late term preemie and an early miscarriage in our past, we know that every single day in the womb is a gift, and sometimes in these cases patience is a virtue, and letting the body do it's thing is often the safest.

That's what I was praying about last night before bed.  I often soak my sore hips in the tub before bed, which often insures me a much better night's rest.  It's then when I pray and bring out my Bible when the whole house is quiet.  I was unburdening myself on the Lord, and he reminded me that every day of this pregnancy is a gift.  There are so many gifts from God that we don't see as gifts, but see as work.  It's a truth that has become more apparent to me over the last few months/years.  We don't see something as a gift, but God says it is.  It's only when we believe him, that we see it too.  It would be so much easier to see it and then believe it, but God doesn't work that way.

I took Lena to a groomers last week for the very first time to get her nails trimmed and a good scrub down before the baby comes and I'm in no condition to do it, and Knut is too chicken to do it because it's easy to cut the nails too short and have a bunch of bleeding.  She came back so fluffy that Knut said she reminded him of a beef steer at the county fair.  Seriously, only a farm boy would come up with a comparison like that. 

I'm probably the first farm wife in the family to take a dog to the groomers, but we're also the first to have an inside dog, so I suppose they go hand in hand.  Knut's been complaining about how much of a pest she is lately, since he has to be the one to feed her and take her out to go potty since he says I need to sit.  However, I caught him sneaking her a biscuit the other day when it wasn't time to feed her, and petting her sweetly, so I think it's all an act.  He's got a soft spot for her, whether or not he'll admit it.

Hmmm...the kids tell me it's snack time.  Pumpkin bread anyone?

David's Best Friend

On days like this when Silje is off at school, I was worried that David would have no one to play with. Elias is somewhat entertaining to him, but can't do as much as he would like. I never would have imagined that David would have found so much entertainment with Lena.

Lena is different for each of us in the family. She obeys Knut and I pretty well. She loves playing outside when Knut is working, and she loves just following me around the house when I do chores. With Silje, she loves to snuggle. Silje loves snuggling, and has taught Lena some "snuggling tricks" that Silje gets a big kick out of.

With Elias, well according to Lena, Elias is the world. Now that he is crawling, he's into everything, including dog food and bones. He was headed toward one of Lena's rawhide bones a few days ago, and Knut kicked it away toward Lena, and away from Elias. Lena promptly picked up the bone, brought it over to Elias, and dropped it in front of him. Lena will not stand for Elias crying, and will bring him whatever he is reaching for.

But Lena and David haven't always gotten along. David was so active, that he would run by her with his arms flailing. She would jump on him, try to roughhouse with him. We told them to stay away from each other. But now that Silje is at school, David plays with Lena for a good portion of the morning. He loves to "take Lena for a run." He gets on one of the kids' bikes that we have around, and rides circles around the driveway "racing" with Lena.

The two of them have quite the system, where he says go, and she runs alongside him. She doesn't jump or roughhouse with him anymore. David used to be scared of Lena, but now he takes control, and tells Lena what to do, and even better--she listens. She jumps when he says "C'mon Lena, time for a run!" If David stops his bike, she waits until he says it's time to go again. They're just doing circles and circles for up to 2 hours at a time.


C'mon Lena!


She's barely got the breath to walk. (Yes, he is riding a pink bike. Anyone have a problem with that?)


"I'll just sit this one out, kid" says Lena. I need a break! It is very common for David to run her to the point where she just sits down and won't run anymore.

Lena, where did you get that bone?

Well, I don't have anything amazing to share today. But I thought since the blog is titled "Life on the Farm" I should share something that's very farmish. With Knut working outside quite a bit on the fireplace, we've let Lena just run around outside when he's there. By now she has learned the property, and always comes back worn out.

She's been chewing through those rawhide bones so quickly that I've started getting her real ham bones you can get at Walmart, or at least have one on hand. They come all messy, though, so we keep it in her outside kennel until she cleans them up a bit. So back by the work site, I saw her chewing on her bone. Hmmm, I thought. She must have taken it outside her kennel. Then I went inside, and there was the cleaned up ham bone. Well now, I'm sure I didn't buy 2 of those things. Later that day, I found Lena chewing on a different bone. This one had an intact joint connecting it to another bone.

Lena, where did you get that bone?

Don't worry. It's not human. We all watch too many movies! Our best guess is it's a deer bone. The little bit of hair on the bone looks very much like deer. The woods behind our house is home to several animals. I still remember when a litter of foxes played on the grass behind our house every day for a few weeks. A deer must have died back there, and Lena found the remains. Well, it's official. Our pampered inside dog is now an official farm dog.

Another day of "normal"

I'll admit, I'm a bit of a grump this morning. Hopefully I can get out of it soon. Elias woke up every hour last night trying to poop. (He's been trying for awhile now, and yesterday I gave him some stuff to help him along.) So yeah, every hour between midnight at 7am. I did my best, but after about 2am, I just brought him to bed with me, and let him nurse on and off, and held him while I slept. I never sleep well when I do that, but at least I get a little sleep. Hence, the grumpiness.

Knut woke me up at 7am to say that he had to go, and Silje was already up. I was about to sneak out of bed while Elias was sleeping, but Knut's phone rang loudly as he left the room, and Elias was shocked awake.

As far as yesterday, here was our sweet corn goodness:


Here's Knut's grandpa helping.


We had a pickup load of corn to work through.


David preferred the inside of the truck. But who does that surprise, really.


A Lena hung out with us outside and chewed on sticks she found around.

As far as Silje, I've gotten bits and pieces. She loved everything, except she said the bus was really long. I'm sure that's something she'll get used to. I was a little disappointed that she didn't get to read all day...something she normally does all day. But man, did she have fun, and it was just the first day. She's just going to be there on MWF, and other days she'll stay at home. I couldn't believe how much I missed her, though.

Been a long time gone...

But I've been working like a dog! Sorry, had to shamelessly steal some musical lyrics. Life has been so busy, that I haven't blogged in a week! I think it would be funny if I heard myself say that 15 years ago. "Wow, I haven't blogged in a week!"

So here's the rundown in photos:

We had Knut's cousin Andrew over, along with one of his friends from Luther seminary "Boontousa" (I'm sure I misspelled that) who is from Nigeria.


David played with his cars while they were here.

Silje read everyone books.


Boontousa and Elias played a lot. I think he REALLY misses his family back home, and you could see he was just drinking the kids in. I don't think he willingly gave up Elias anytime he was here! Elias was in awe of him!

We had our friends Tony and Carolyn over another night, but I didn't take pictures of them. Sorry.

And this week is VBS!


Here's David's mugshot that I took his first day at VBS for his probably-will-never-make scrapbook for him. It's a jungle theme, and he was in the lion group. He was really nervous his first day, but now he just runs in. His favorite thing that he always talks about is the "high five kids" who give him high fives as he enters the building. He LOVES that part!


Here's Silje posing with David. She was in the monkey group. She was very glad to help David feel more at home.


And here's pictures of everyone but Elias before they went to take a nap 5 minutes ago:

Here's David. He kinda had a dramatic "first" this morning. It was his first time getting some business stuck in a zipper. (Guys cringe.) I think he'll be more careful with zippers now for awhile.

Here's our Lena. She's down to a pretty good routine now, and obeys Knut and I fairly well. She will at times sit for Silje to pet her, and she ADORES being around Elias, but she still sees David as another puppy, and tries to play rough with him. Mostly because David tries to play rough with her. They are both in need of some training on this one.

And here's Silje. Isn't she getting big? I'm starting to hyperventilate when I think of this fall, and how she's going off to school. I know we'll make it, but I'm getting more and more nervous!

In other breaking news, Elias has a tooth! If you look, you can see 2 teeth on the bottom gum, but I think only one has actually completely broken through, because when you feel his gums, you only feel the one.

Things have been busy, even though the kids have spent time at VBS in the mornings. Tomorrow is their VBS program, and then on Saturday I get to go to a women's ministry convention, and then on Sunday, we are celebrating with the grandparents Knut, Silje's and Uncle Chris' birthday. That will be at our house, so I need to get it in semi-clean order before then! The birthdays all fall so close together, we thought we'd combine the family party. Silje will have a few friends over on her actual birthday, and Knut will probably have a special birthday meal on his actual birthday, but other than that, we're trying to keep this already packed summer as simple as possible.

I feel like I have oodles more to share in stories and reflections, but I thought at least I'd get some pictures on here, with some explanation, and leave the other stuff for later.

What's up?

So I realized that I haven't blogged in about a week, and thought that I should share what's been going on. I had to look back through my pictures from the last week to remember. I've been busy coming up with a new kind of normal. Partly because we're living with a dog now, and partly because Knut is busy doing field work now, so he is out of the house by 7, and doesn't come home until 10 or 11pm. I've thought about it several times, because people compare it to being a single mom for a few weeks. I've come to believe it's nothing like that. Sure, I don't have to work outside the home like most single moms do, but I have to drop everything and bring him food out to the field once a day or so. I suppose I could pack him something cold, but that gets old after a period of time, and the kids never see their daddy that way. I still have to do his laundry, wash his dishes, etc. I don't at all mean that I would rather be a single mom, but I will admit that at times it gets hard.

I've been calling my papa a lot asking for dog training advice, as he has trained several excellent dogs. Frustrated with Lina one day, I was talking with him, and he thought I may be overworking her, since she's still a puppy, and suggested I let her have more alone play time, and shorter training "sessions". The only place for her to be alone and play is tied up in the yard. She has one of those zip line things and we have a little built in doghouse by the summer kitchen. Although she whines when she's out there, she's always much better once she comes back in. I was telling my sister that I feel guilty putting Lina out there, but I keep reminding myself, she's a dog...it's okay. Really, she's only out there by herself a few mornings a week when we're in town, and I put her outside between supper and bedtime...about 2 hours. I've found that feeding and getting the kids to bed is much easier without her excitement rubbing off on them. Once all the kids are in bed (Elias now has the same bedtime as the Silje and David! Yeah!) Lina and I play, and then she lays on my feet while I work on some project (or...just veg on the couch and watch t.v.).

Silje plays dress up about every day still. She's usually a princess or a ballerina. This day was princess.

Elias is getting cuter and bigger every day. He astonishes me in so many ways. Now that we have been working on establishing sleeping times, I lay him down, and he talks to himself for a few minutes, and then he's out. Neither of the other 2 EVER did that. I had to use the cry it out method, or rock or nurse them to sleep. Either I'm getting better at this, or he is an astonishingly easy baby. He coos and plays so cutely all the time! He does like being in the sling I wear between 4 and 6pm every day when I'm making supper. (I don't actually spend 2 hours making supper. He's just in the sling about that long.) I think that's a fussy time for all babies, though.



I ran out of clean diaper covers the other day, and actually got brave enough to put him in one of the wool covers I knit for him when I was still pregnant. People say wool works great for covers, but I've been too chicken to try it. So here's my report. It works! I didn't believe it until I touched it. He was acting crabby, so I checked his cloth fitted diaper underneath, and it was soaked. The wool cover? dry...both sides...not even a smell. I don't get it; it has holes, like any knitted garment. I'm puzzeled to be sure, but not one to argue with nature, we used that cover for the rest of the day. He had a bit of a diaper rash the day before, and the wool breathed so much better than the plastic covers that we use, that the rash was gone in a matter of hours while he wore this cover. I've heard stories of that happening, and that wool is a good option for babies with sensitive skin because it helps eliminate diaper rash. (The wool doesn't really scratch the baby...wool for baby diaper covers is actually very soft.) So there you go. I bet you learned something new today. I don't think we'll use wool all the time because clothes don't fit over it, and I've heard it doesn't work well if the baby is in the car seat for too much (compression wicking it's called) but when we're just chillin' at home, it might be a very nice option.

Here's David and Elias playing with cars on the floor, a favorite activity for both of them.

Adding to the family...

I know, like I need something else to do, right? May I introduce you to Lena Blackberry. (Lena as in Ole and Lena. Silje came up with the Blackberry part.) She's 16 weeks old, and half black lab, half German Shepherd. She was part of her mother's first and only litter. Her mother's owners kept 2 of their favorite of the litter of 8, intending to make them their pets as well. But as life has it, they decided they weren't a 3 dog home after about 2 months, and the 2 puppies had to go. The add in Craigslist was posted yesterday, and when we arrived last night, Lena's sister had already been taken.

She was excited to meet us, but she cried (whined) the whole way home. I think she was really nervous. So far, we noticed she's excited to meet people, but overall she's an extremely calm dog. She loves being with us. She "cries" when she's alone. I can already tell that she learns extremely quickly. Although I'm a little jealous, because I think she's a little in love with Knut. Although he already complains about her, he loves the fact that the kids have to keep their toys picked up now. That, and you can see his eyes melt when he looks at her.

Well, if you live in chaos, what's a little more, eh?