So Mom, Dad, and anyone else who might stress this, pray for us to have safe travels And don’t worry. I’ll be tweeting when we get places so that ya’ll know we didn’t fall off the side of the mountain.

Doodle is headed to the beach with Grandma and Grandpa. She’s in very capable hands. So we decided to take this opportunity to run for the hills We’ll be leaving Wednesday afternoon headed to Roanoke. I hope to see my buddy Heather @ Desperately Seeking Sanity and see if she’s found any sanity yet. Then Thursday we’re on the Parkway all day — all the way to Boone where I hope to meet up with Real Life Sarah. Sarah tweeted yesterday that she wants to have her picture made on my bike I think we can do that!

We’re hanging out in Boone for awhile, maybe hitting the ziplines. Lord, have mercy on me, I’m afraid of heights. But I’m totally determined to *not* ride up on a Harley and then chicken out because the lines are too high. That’s just not cool.

Back home Saturday by the afternoon because Duck’s group is playing Saturday night at one of their hot spots — a local retirement home. Honestly, they love playing Southern Gospel and old Country music, and the residents adore them.

And, since I didn’t post anything about the 4th, here are a few pictures from our weekend project. Duck and I bought Doodle a basketball goal (well, Duck likes it too!) for her birthday. He and I (mostly he — I hate hard labor) put roughly 800 lbs of concrete in the ground and the pole, and over the course of the weekend — got that sucker up! And it stayed up! It’s a miracle I tell ya!

I’m not quite sure what look Duck was going for? Maybe he thought it was going to fall? But actually he was getting ready to slam dunk quite a few. We just won’t mention that it was set at 7′5″ when it should be 10′ for him

I will mention however, that I really don’t like the pictures I take with my camera. I need a new lens, a new camera, or a new operator. Serious lessons would be appreciated. Do ya’ll have any tips?

In preparation for the event …

I was a mere 110 pounds when I got pregnant. I made Duck go to every birthing class, breastfeeding class, childcare class, etc. I was going to make sure we didn’t mess this baby up. The only part I didn’t like was the c-section video in the birthing class. I refused to watch it, listen to it, or even consider it might be a reality for me. Duck loved the video — he gets into those gory tv shows. I never got sick once. The best I’ve ever felt in my life was when I was pregnant. I actually loved to eat (which to tell the truth, I don’t now). I would finish an appetizer, my dinner and clean off Duck’s plate. Oh, then dessert. All evident by my weight upon entering the hospital — 178 pounds.

I thought the doctors I met in the rotation were funny. One week I had a lady doctor telling me to stop eating for two (at 38 weeks, isn’t it a bit late for that?). She swore I was going to have trouble losing the weight after delivery. I laughed. I laughed hard. I’ve never had anyone tell me I had an eating problem. The next week I saw a male doctor who told me my weight was perfect.

I had a plan. I was going to deliver naturally, have an epidural, and breastfeed. Oh, and I was going to be walking the halls right after giving birth.

10 years ago yesterday evening …

I started having contractions. Duck had 2 ball games (I’m thinking maybe 3 but we only went to 2 ball fields). Yes, I went and watched the games. Timing contractions and keeping score. He played on a team with his dad, his mom, his sister and her husband. The most aggravating thing about going? They all were hungry after the last game and went to Wendy’s. For some reason the smell of the food wasn’t sitting well with me. Thankfully they ate fast.

We went home and I continued timing. I got excited around midnight when the contractions were getting closer and I convinced Duck to go ahead and take me to the hospital. Off we went.

10 years ago today …

The doctor came in to check me. A measley 2 cm. He had that look on his face like he was going to send me home. My look won. He suggested walking around the halls some and he’d be back to check me in an hour or so. Duck helped me walk around the halls, holding me up when the contractions hit. After walking for about an hour, we went back to the room. My mother-in-law and father-in-law had gotten to the hospital by then and they joined in on the fun.

Remember those birthing classes we took? The ones with all the breathing techniques? Ha! Those went out the window. A contraction hit, and I tensed up every inch of my body. I held my breath and squeezed hands. Had a doctor or nurse been in the room, they may have told me “remember to breathe” but they weren’t around. Two hours after the doctor had checked me, Duck goes out and asks for him to come back. He did, reluctantly. I’m sure he thought I *might* be at 3 cm at best. I was at 5 cm and I was pissed. I wanted my epidural and if I had missed that point where they can give it, heads were going to roll. They rushed me into a birthing room. It looked a lot like a hotel room — couch, tv, pictures on the wall. Except for the hospital bed and monitors, I would have thought I was at the Holiday Inn.

5:02 am — That’s the precise time the epidural was put in place. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was staring at the clock frustrated that the dude had to wait until the contraction passed before he put it in. I felt relief and actually fell asleep.

Around 7:30 am other family started arriving. Mom, Dad, Sis and Duck’s sis. Everyone sat around the room just talking and joking. I was in and out of things until the alarms started going off. Looking back through my archives here, I wrote about this particular instance last year (It’s Doodle Time!). I went back to read that and I was actually quite impressed with what I wrote. I’ll let you go read that and then come back here.

The only thing to add to that is that Duck’s sis told me later that she was doing ok when they ushered the family out of my room into the waiting room. That was until she saw Dad crying. She lost it then, so I think a lot of them were crying in the waiting room — nobody knew yet what was happening.

After they broke my water and the monitors were calm again, everyone came back into the room. The doctor slipped in and out to check my progress. Finally it was time to push. Everyone except for Duck, Mom and Mom2 left the room. The nurse instructed me to get in different positions and she told me when to push. I pushed for a good hour when the doctor came back in for a checkup. I had not moved Doodle not even 1 cm. The doctor suggested turning the epidural down some so I could feel the contractions a little better hoping that I would then be able to “push right.” Though of course she didn’t say that.

Dude came back and lowered my epidural, and boy was I feeling it then! I pushed and pushed and pushed for another hour. I knew the doctor didn’t want to tell me so, but the look on her face said it all. I hadn’t moved her at all — and she was too far up for them to use any of their tools to go get her. Our options — keep pushing, or c-section.

I cried. Duck was crying. I told him I couldn’t push any more. I didn’t have anything left in me. I felt like I was a weakling — a failure. Millions of billions of women have given birth naturally — why couldn’t I? We told the doctor we would do the c-section. Then the contractions became really annoying. It took about an hour for the dude to come back and up the epidural again so I wouldn’t feel anything. It took about another 2 hours before they took me in for the c-section. Because the baby was doing well, I waited behind 2 other emergency c-sections.

Time … 3:43 pm
Weight … 7 lbs 14 oz
Length … 21 in

We  joked later that she didn’t want to mess up her hair and come out the other way. She’s been teaching me for 10 years now that life doesn’t always go as planned.

Happy Birthday Doodle!

This is one of my favorite pictures of her. Her hair is messy — you can’t really tell how long it’s gotten. But she’s got one of those “Doodle grins” on her face, like she’s up to something. And she’d been painting or something. That’s her. She’s my little artsy-fartsy daughter

I hope to get some better pictures of her tonight. We’re having a family cookout to celebrate her turning “double digits.” God’s brought us through the last 10 years and blessed us. I pray He’ll be with us for the next 10 and more! He knows I’m going to need a lot of help in the next few years!!

If I had blogged on a reliable basis (ha, like I do now - not) 6 years ago, I might have blogged all that went on with this situation. That would not necessarily have been a good thing.

To give you the basics:

• Duck and I were saved in this church
• We served in this church
• We taught Sunday School and Children’s Church
• We dedicated Doodle in this church
• We had really good friends in this church

But then, through a series of unfortunate events, I knew I could no longer place myself under the authority figure there. The series of unfortunate events consisted of many arguments, struggles and tears. I was constantly praying asking God if I were right or the other person — not that it truly mattered, but if I was wrong, I wanted God to correct me — I truly wanted to know His will.

God revealed to me that I was understanding scripture correctly, but he also revealed that it was not me who was going to help the other person see the truth. That was a hard pill to swallow. I was calm about it all. Forgiving. Peaceful. That was all from God. We left that church and went on a search to find another where we felt God wanted us to serve.

I thought I was over it all. I’ve even seen the other person occasionally and we’re cordial. Then last week I hooked up with some of our old friends from that church on Facebook. I started looking at various pictures — pictures of kids we taught in Sunday School that are now juniors and seniors in high school. They look so different that some of them I wouldn’t recognize if they walked up to me.

The pain came rushing back. My heart was broken. I was angry again. Angry at the other person. Angry at God. Why did we have to leave the church? Why did we have to miss out on so much of their lives?

Last week was VBS week at the church we’ve been visiting now. I didn’t feel like it, but I went to the adult class. I was sad when I went there to see all the people who have these close relationships (well, most of them are family). I have been missing that sorely and I know it’s going to take a lot of time to develop new relationships with these people. But you know what? I’m working on it. I got to know a few people a little better through VBS, and I hope they got to know a little more about me without thinking I’m totally nuts.

Even though the old wounds were opened up, I still know that God’s will for us was for us to leave that church. I’ve got to believe there’s a reason God brought us to this church to develop new relationships here. I hope and pray that this is where we can stay for awhile. Because picking up and moving your family around to different churches or falling into the routine of not going at all — well, that all sucks. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but God does. And He may not heal them completely, but He uses everything for His purpose.

Bloggy break

So I know I said I was going on a bloggy break, and I did really well last week — working on piles on my desk and even cleaning the den (or at least cleaning stuff and moving it so Duck could clean the carpet). I got a little sidetracked with the whole Facebook and lamenting on lost relationships, but I hope to get back on track this week with cleaning, purging and organizing. I pray that God gives you a wink this week. Something special, encouraging and uplifting. If you’re feeling in a funk like I have, then get off your computer and do just one thing. Pick one thing that you’ve been putting off for awhile. You might just find that it doesn’t take near as long as you’d feared

Oh yeah, and I’ve been working on some blogs for some very nice ladies, but let me tell you — I hate Blogger. Seriously. I’m so excited that these ladies are moving from Blogger to WordPress I couldn’t be happier, but it can be a pain to move all that stuff. So if you — yeah, you right there — are thinking of starting a blog, or before you get a few hundred posts into one, use WordPress. That’s my public announcement for the month. Well, that and STOP using IE! Use Firefox instead it rocks. I seem to be easily distracted this week (month? year?).

I’ve also been feeling overlooked. I see all kinds of bloggy friends who are being asked to do all kinds of cool stuff, and I’m in pity-partying mode evidently. “Why not me?” So while trying to talk this over with Duck the other day, he honestly tried to make me feel better, but it didn’t work. He basically told me I need to get my bahonkas off the computer and live life.

So in honor of Duck, Doodle’s summer vacation and the 2″ of dust on everything, I’m going to get off the computer for a bit. I’d say I’ll be back in July, but I might just take July off too. Once I finish with these few nagging little blog projects on my to do list, I’m going to say no to some work so I can concentrate on my offline life. Geez, how often do I need to be reminded to get off this stupid thing. Evidently a lot.

If you see me on Twitter, or Facebook, or here, ask me how many piles are left on my desk or if I’ve swept the floor lately. Help hold me accountable!

I hate the beach. Ever since Oceanology class in 10th grade, I’ve despised going in the ocean. My daughter has gotten her love for the beach and the ocean from her Grandma (my mother-in-law). My mil has a trailer down at the beach that she constantly visits and takes Doodle with her. I love that they go and I love that they go without me.

Friday, the 4th grade went on a beach trip. We had to get up and be at the school at 4:30 am. Ya’ll, I don’t usually get up until 8:00 am most days, so this was a stretch. I had planned on keeping Doodle down at my mil’s trailer for the night so we wouldn’t have to go down and back in a day. I tried to pack the night before and then get stuff together that morning.

We got a checklist from the teacher. Evidently I thought I could remember everything. I did not. I forgot some key things despite Duck picking on me for loading down the bag with “stuff.” The kids rode a boat over to an island and did a lot of walking on the sand trails. We even saw some wild horses. It was neat, but tiring. At the end, they get to go into the water (the sound side - not the ocean) and take nets to see what they could catch.

I knew she needed old tennis shoes to wear in the water. I brought those. What I neglected to pack was her new tennis shoes. I had flip flops for her since we were only going for a day to the beach. I thought that was good enough. However, when we decided to grab dinner and go to a movie, her feet got cold wearing her pants and flops. I was also supposed to pack a change of clothes for her, which I had — but I couldn’t find the second pair of shorts. She got her shorts soaked by the way. So she got to lay around in wet shorts for quite awhile.

Once we finished with the field trip, we “felt” our way out of the city and headed for the trailer. Along the way I was thinking what else I’d need to get from the store. I remembered I forgot sunscreen as well. Oh, and I didn’t bring any water for the trip over the island — though I finally got some from the boat’s snack bar.

As I was unpacking our stuff at the trailer, I also realized I forgot to grab her pajamas and I had brought a white tshirt for me to wear without the proper a undergarment (I leave it at that). We went out to the ocean for a little bit after I had a nap. Have I mentioned I hate going in the ocean? Well, Doodle loves going to go boogie boarding. So I braved the ickies and went out to about my knees — or so I thought. The waves started hitting me in the back. Oh and also the water was cccoold — at least to start with.

I was fighting to keep my balance when something black kicked up a bunch of sand and bounced between my legs. My trainer would be proud the way I high-kneed myself out of the water. All in all I think she had fun. Not that we’ll ever do this again. Any beach trips come up again for Doodle and I’m shipping her Grandma with her. I’m headed for the mountains!

About 4 days ago, Mister Linky requested that everyone remove the script (a line or two of code) from the head of your blog. If you have not done that and need help, please let me know. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this before — other than it was quite a bother for non-techies to actually put this code in the header portion of their design — but it caused some problems. With this code being in the head, it would load the script on every page of your site — whether or not it needed it to display a Mister Linky. That’s a lot of traffic to his server — and hence why it was down a lot from overload. It also caused sites to be extremely slow in displaying because the page was trying to get information for the script off his server which it couldn’t find.

Sufficiently confused yet?

Since Mister Linky has not felt well, several of you have found your way over here to my other post about him needing some competition. So, I have some good news and some bad news I’m going to work on a WP Plugin for this very thing. Bad news being that it’ll start being just for WordPress and that it’s going to take me until next week to get to it.

I’ve got another site in the works which I’ll share soon. Hang in there! I know you’re frustrated!

The game I’ll remember is when we gave the undefeated 1st place team their first loss. Yes! That was awesome And we beat them in the first round of the tournament. Last night we played in the championship game. No one really expected us to be in that game. I know I didn’t. We lost 17-8 — just didn’t hit the ball. I’ll forever be focused on how bad I did though. Popped up to the pitcher with bases loaded, 2 outs. Unacceptable. So I’ll keep working out and practicing ball. There’s always co-ed this fall.

This was my first year coaching and a stressful one at that. I had just wanted to play but knew I couldn’t play without putting a team together. Well, that and if I had not put this team together, there might not have been a league at all. Although I’ve griped about coaching most of the year, I think I’ll be crazy enough to do it again next year

Way to go Luther’s Angels!

Back Row: Angie, Gale, Rose, Melanie

Front Row: Tracy, Sabrina, Lisa C, Holly, Lisa B (me), Katherine

Styling behind trophy: Cece

]]> http://simplyhis.org/2009/05/13/womens-softball-2009/feed/ http://simplyhis.org/2009/05/13/womens-softball-2009/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/simplyHis/~3/2RtyK9IjW0E/ http://simplyhis.org/2009/05/07/sex-ed-round-2/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 20:43:17 +0000 Lisa B http://simplyhis.org/?p=710 Yep, she had to hit me with more questions on my birthday too. {Thanks by the way for all the well wishes! It’s been a good day so far!}

We were leaving Chick-fil-a on our way to tutoring, when she said, “you mean to tell me that a teenage girl can get pregnant if they do all that sex stuff?”

I’ll spare you the gory details this time of what I told her, but I began to explain that wonderful time of the month — and a little bit about why that happens. I told her that girls generally start having monthly stuff between the ages of 10-12. She asked me if it was because they were dating … if that made them start. Um, no. Your body decides when it starts and every body is different.

She has been to the bathroom with me during that time of the month before and asked a few questions. When I explained a little more today she asked, “you mean you could still get pregnant?”

“Yes,” I replied “except I’m taking a little pill so I won’t unexpectantly get pregnant.”

She continued on asking me how old do girls typically start dating. I laughed and said, “well, your Dad says you have to be 30 before you can start dating.”

Without missing a beat she replied, “when I’m that old, I’ll definitely be on the pill.” Oh my.

Looks like time to order some of those books (thanks for the recommendations too!). It’s almost time for me to go and try to play ball tonight. It’s the first game of the tournament and we play the first place team. I hope it’ll be a good game no matter who wins. No one really enjoys a blow-out … well, except I guess for the team doing the blowing

Me: Where did all these people come from and why are they in front of me turning left?

Doodle: God made them.

Me: Well, He didn’t have to put them all right here in front of me.

Doodle: He didn’t put them all here. He put them in the hospital.

Me: You know not all babies are born in the hospital.

Doodle: Oh I know! On Airbender, Katara helped deliver a baby and {some other character} made a hut and {miscellaneous details about the cartoon that I forget} but he probably would have fainted if he’d seen Katara cutting her stomach open and moving around the intestines to pull the baby out.

{Side note: whenever we’ve talked about when Doodle was born, we’ve told her that the doctor had to cut my stomach open and get her out. As the story progressed and Duck shared that he was a little faint feeling when he saw the insides of me that he never should have seen … I had to explain to Doodle that those were my intestines most likely moved out of the way so the doctor could get to her.}

Me: Not all babies are born like that.

Doodle: So does God just make them and put them in the stomachs?

Me: Um, no. It takes a man and a woman to make a baby.

Doodle: So what? The man and woman just make a baby and then she eats it?

Me: Um, no. A woman has a part in her body called a uterus and that’s actually where the baby grows — not in the stomach.

{Doodle’s looking at me with a surprised look.}

Me: Well, it’s close to the stomach. So it’s just easier to say stomach a lot of times.

Doodle: So it looks like you’ve eaten a ton of popcorn?

Me: Yeah, something like that.

Doodle: How are they born?

Me: Um, well, you actually have two holes down there. You know, where your pee comes out? Well, there’s another hole and that’s how most of them come out. Technically the other hole is called a v8g1n8 (8’s for a’s and 1 for i’s - trying to cut down on nasty auto comments).

Doodle: How’s the baby get up there?

Me: Um {notice a pattern here?}, well, inside the uterus there are eggs.

Doodle {jaw dropped, eyes wide}: I didn’t know women laid eggs.

Me: Um, well, it’s not like a woman is going to lay eggs in a nest like a chicken.

Doodle: or a bird. So what’s the man got to do with it?

Me: Um, well, he’s got what are technically called sp3rm. That has little tails and they swim to the egg and fertilize it. Then the egg/baby starts growing in the uterus.

Doodle: What about the cord? Isn’t that how the baby gets fed?

Me: Yes, the cord develops and kind of hooks into the uterus to get food from the mommy and pass it along to the baby.

Doodle: How does the sp3rm get to the egg?

Me: Um, well, God gave a husband and a wife the gift of sex. That’s so they can have a family. Have you heard that word before?

Doodle: Yeah, on George Lopez. They said they found out their 16-year-old daughter was having sex.

Me {my turned to be totally shocked and looking up how to block that show from ever being on our tvs again}: Um, well, you know that thing that boys have that you call a “peter.”

Doodle: or a weiner?

Me: Yeah, that. Um, well, that’s technically called a p3n1s. A man puts his p3n1s with the woman’s v8g1n8 and that’s what sex is.

Doodle: Yuck! You mean they put them together? I’m in no hurry to grow up!

Me: That’s great!

*** Hours later ***

Doodle: I can’t believe I used to be an egg! Why do parents wait so long to tell kids how they were made?

Me: Because it’s kind of a sensitive subject — one that we just don’t talk about until you’re old enough to understand it.

————–

I so totally can’t even believe I wrote this out. Duck said I should blog about it because one day Doodle would appreciate reading it. I’m not so sure. I think she’ll be totally embarrassed, but it’s here. At least I’ll remember. Or at least I’ll remember as much as I remember when I wrote this out — it’s not exactly the way the conversation went but you get the jist. I’ve been really good at avoiding her questions until today. I know she’ll have more and I pray God gives me the wisdom to teach her well.

I honestly don’t remember when or where I learned. See, they say around these parts that the boys and girls were separated in 5th grade. I was in 5th grade in West Virginia, and we were considerably behind academically. I’m sure this probably includes this education as well. We moved here when I was in 6th grade and I don’t remember education until Health class in 9th grade.

Knowing that this is coming up in the next year (Doodle’s finishing up 4th grade right now), I did want to have the conversation with her — I just didn’t have a clue how to have it. In the car on the way to Chick-fil-a is so NOT how I thought it would happen though. If any of you have any tips or resources on a Godly way to share this message with kids, I’d greatly appreciate the references.

God knows I’m scared to death I’ve already scarred her for life as it is. I don’t want to mess her up worse!