No time to post tonight, but I can’t let the day go by without recording that for the first time today, at week 13, I got to hear Little Boo’s heart beating 154 times per minute!
Hearing that heartbeat is just as exciting with the third child as it is for the first. There is a new little life inside me! I love you, Little Boo!!
I will post more on the appointment later. But for now, I just had to say “Yay!! We heard your heart beat!!”
“Mommy!” Mara called from her room. “Jesus is right here! With me! Come and see Him! . . .” She sat smiling smugly on the bed.
“See?” she motioned to the void behind her. “He’s right here.”
Our conversations about Jesus’ presence are becoming more complex. Yes, He is always with us. No, we cannot see Him because He is a spirit.
I pray that God will help her to understand whatever she is capable to understand at this age . . .
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Then. . . after dinner tonight . . .
“Be quiet now because I’m going to read my Bible,” Mara told me, walking to the couch with her little pink Bible. “I need to read it to Pink Bear.”
So she and Pink Bear sat on the couch, and she opened her Bible.
“When Jesus began, there were lots of things He knew,” she said. “And He wanted you to know, ‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.'”
That’s right, Mara. You tell Pink Bear!
The kids are playing in Mara’s room. Micah is standing at the gate by the door shouting (the only thing he shouts): “DA! . . . DA! . . . DA-da! . . .”
And Mara keeps answering (more emphatically with each “DA!”): “He’s at work.”
“He’s at work.”
“He’s at WORK!”
Last night Mara announced to us that she was married. Married. This was news to us!
So we asked about the lucky guy. “Who’s your husband?”
“My husband is far, far away,” she said convincingly. “In South Dakota. My husband is Grandma Bubben,” she informed us.
Sooooo–we realized that she’s not really understanding the whole “marriage” or “husband” concepts yet . . .
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Mara [to me, while playing with her phone]: Be quiet now because I need to text Melissa. [Do I say that?]
Mara [on her phone to Melissa, all in one breath]: Hi Melissa, someone loves you and I’m your friend because I call you, and I paint a page [we did watercolor today], and see you next time! Bye!
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One final “note”: we are trying to get our daughter to sing during nursery “song time.” They sing two songs–usually “My God is So Big” and “Hallelu, Hallelu.” Both of which we have practiced at home.
When Daniel and I were in nursery, she just sat there and stared and sucked her thumb–she didn’t sing a bit! So I decided to practice the songs with her at home to be sure she knew the words and the tune. Now we know she knows them.
So on Sunday night I asked her, “Did you sing in nursery tonight?”
“No,” she replied.”But Owen singed!” Owen always sings–very enthusiastically! 🙂 So . . . why not, Mara?
“I didn’t sing,” she repeated. “And I told Mommy in my room ‘next Monday I will sing.'”
I’m always a little confused when she inserts days of the week into her sentences, because she rarely does it properly.
So I just ignored that whole comment and asked, “Did they sing ‘My God is So Big’?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
“Do you remember the words?”
She sang the entire song–start to finish–with only a little bit of help. . .
So we are still left, trying to figure out what on the earth is going on inside her little head. . . and why she sits and stares and sucks her thumb during nursery song time.
Yesterday afternoon, my sister-in-law Darla and her friend Noel came over to see the kids. This is the Aunt Darla who lived with us for over a month last summer to get us through the crazy bedrest/c-section recovery/NICU time during Micah’s birth. The Aunt Darla who helped with meals, housework, watching Mara. The Aunt Darla who taught Mara “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” and splashed with Mara and the kids on our block in puddles in the rain. The “Aunt Darla” who is leaving for college in South Carolina (along with Noel) this week! They will be missed.
But yesterday, Mara and Micah enjoyed Darla and Noel’s company on the swings and the slide at Park with Seals.We had some serious trauma when Mara took off her shoes to run in the fountain, and instead stepped her little bare feet into some 90-degree gum, which insisted on following her around the park. We left pretty soon after that incident.
But when we got to Park with Benches, Mara was herself again–ready to feed nuts to the squirrels.
It was great fun to watch her running through the grass wildly screaming, “Nuuuuuuutts!!” at the squirrels as she hurled almonds their direction. Of course, the squirrels were busy running up the nearest tree, probably texting their squirrel friends, ‘Back to your nests! Two-year-old on the loose!’
Thankfully (from the squirrel’s perspective) Darla and Noel taught her a little about the approach.
And as you can see in this shot of Noel, Mara, and The Squirrel, Mara began to get the hang of it.
We got a few pics of Aunt Darla and Noel and the kids too, because they will be gone from now until Christmas . . .
That sounds soo far away! We will miss you!!
But on the flip side, what an exciting time of life!! I loved college! Have a great semester!!!!