Sleep

Jeremiah has been doing so well with his sleeping lately. I never have to stay in his room until he falls asleep for nap or bedtime anymore. We read books, pray to Jesus "pay Jetus", give kisses "give nose kiss mama", and leave the room. A few minutes later he is usually sound asleep. One day at naptime Jeremiah decided he wanted to sleep with all of his stuffed animals - Nijntje, Larry, puppy dog, and teddy bear. When I came in to check on him Nijntje was actually on his face! The noise from the door made him turn over and Nijntje fell off. But still a cute picture I think.

This is turning out to be a hard week for me. For some reason the past few days I have had absolutely no energy at all. I think it may be related to the fact that my latest bloodwork showed that I was pretty severely anemic. And of course I still have lingering traces of my sinus infection. But anyway, the past few days I have been unable to really have any energy to do anything around the house, concentrating what little energy I do have on taking care of Jeremiah and helping out with VBS. Poor Aaron came home yesterday after a busy day at work, took us to VBS, did bath and bed time, tackled the stack of dirty dishes that had been growing for the past few days, and then gave me a wonderful massage to help me relax before sleeping. He's such a great husband. Also, I must have had a growth spurt in my tummy because sleep has been elusive again and I am resorting to the help of Benadryl to fall asleep at night.

My growing belly has caused some signs of sibling rivalry already. I can no longer really pick up Jeremiah - but of course now he wants me to pick him up all the time, demanding "pick up mama!" with his arms raised toward me until I either give in and pick him up or lower myself down onto the floor and hold him there. Cuddling on the couch to read books has also become a challenge since my tummy takes up most of the room. Jeremiah tries to scoot closer and closer to me but it just doesn't work and he is perched precariously on the edge of the couch cushions. We now mostly read books laying down on his or my bed. One of Jeremiah's favorite things to do when we are cuddling on the bed is to stand up and then jump and land on his bottom. In the past it has not really mattered if he landed partly on me or accidently hit my tummy. But now it does as it is quite painful if that happens. The other day I had to get fairly firm with him and tell him that he needed to be careful around mama's tummy now - he looked at me, looked at my tummy and said, "no!"

But there are still signs of sweetness too - at least once a day Jeremiah runs up to me, pulls up my shirt and kisses my belly. "Hi baby!" Every night in our prayers to Jesus he asks that we thank Jesus for the baby. And every few days he asks me, "check baby otay?" wondering when the next doctor visit is.

So, we take it one day at a time and somehow muddle through, each day getting us closer to the arrival of our baby boy!