Happenings...

I sure haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog thing, but I'll try to do better. So much is happening these days. This will be my last week of working at Hair Pros and then I can relax a little before the baby comes, hopefully. I have so much to do before, I just cross my fingers the baby won't come early this time. I'm due in 20 days and COUNTING!!! I never made it this far with Nolan, so I'm a little nervous of how this is supposed to actually happen. I'm supposed to go to the hospital as soon as I'm having contractions and here I don't even hardly know what a contraction feels like since I never did go into labor with Nolan. I've had a few here and there, but nothing constant, I guess. I've made it thru two weeks of non stress tests so far and the baby is doing great. It has quite a fast heart beat, at some of the accelerations it got up to 190+. It's definitely happy where it's at right now. I have to do my non stress tests twice a week at the Mercy San Juan Hospital. So, between those trips to Sacramento, plus my weekly visit to the doctor in Roseville and working in Grass Valley two days a week, I'm doing quite a bit of driving. I'm hoping the baby won't come this week because of how crazy Adam's work schedule is. Not only does he have his senior care man 4 nights, but 7 catering jobs this week. Adam talked to his senior care job to arrange for at least a couple of nights off when I have the baby. He's been working for them for a year on the 21st, so they told him it could be paid vacation time, starting then. Adam joked with them saying he would tell me to wait til then, as if I can really help it. :) Nolan is sure getting excited about being a big brother. Sometimes throughout the day as he does things he'll ask, "Is this what a big brother is supposed to do?" One of my favorite things he does right now is when he wakes up and snuggles in bed with me for a minute before I get out of bed and he'll press his feet up against my back. The pressure sure feels good on my back. I'll tell him to keep doing that and he goes on for a little while. Nolan is such a friendly boy. He is very outgoing and loves people, which I admire about him because I was so shy when I was his age. I love taking him to the Galleria Mall when we're in Roseville. He could spend hours running around in the play area. The last several times that we've gone, there's usually several other kids. Nolan will go up to one kid at a time and ask, "will you be my friend?" When he gets the response he wants, then he'll get a game of tag or hide and seek going. Sometimes he has 3 or 4 little friends that he made all running around playing tag. It's pretty fun to watch. A lot of the time they're kids that are twice his size and sometimes even twice his age, but that doesn't matter to him. He just loves people. Sometimes he'll go up to really young kids and ask if they want to be his friend and they just kind of stare at him and don't know what he's talking about, so he'll move on to another kid. Nolan loves playing with his friend next door. Their favorite thing to do his ride there trikes together. Nolan has a bike now, but he'll still ride his trike when it's with his friend. We have a really steep hill that they'll get zoomin down, it makes me a little nervous especially since I can't really keep up with him anymore. Oh well, he's pretty good at stopping as soon as he sees a car and pulls off to the side of the road. He's such a fun little boy and is always keeping me busy with his lists of things to get done that day. Lately we've been playing a lot with playdough and making cookies etc. for his stuffed animals birthdays. He has a ton of stuffed animals that come to the birthday parties and each day one of them has a birthday. He's got quite an immagination and it's fun to watch him play. Well, I guess that's about all I have time to write about for now.

This morning Nolan said to me, "Mom, you're a little bit bustin out of that sweater I think." He said it as politely as possible. It was a good laugh! :)

Simba, the lifesaver!

For months and months Nolan has woken up with bad dreams and comes crawling into bed with me. If I take him back to his bed across the hall, I end up staying awake for at least an hour before I can fall back asleep. This doesn't just happen once during the night, at least 2 or 3 times he'll end up in my bed. Finally, I just give up and let him stay with me. I wake up, exhausted because I don't get a decent night's sleep. I've tried every little trick from, leaving his door open with the hallway light on, to teaching him to try to pray to Heavenly Father to help his bad dreams go away. It never fails, starting about 2 hours after I fall asleep, I wake up with him right next to me. I've been getting a little frustrated! Well, on Friday there was a huge consignment sale in Roseville that I went to check out. It had tons of children's clothes, maternity clothes, kids toys and baby items. It was fun to walk through. When we got to the toys, Nolan spotted a big stuffed Simba Lion, from The Lion King. I had told Nolan that he could pick out one toy to bring home with him. He immediately fell in love with Simba, he LOVES the Lion King. So, I had an idea. This stuffed Lion is about the size of Nolan. I told Nolan that we could bring Simba home and he could sleep in his bed with him and scare all the bad dreams away. YES, I was getting very desperate for him to stay in his bed all night!!! Nolan, liked that idea and seemed very excited about it. He carried his Simba all the way to the car (which I accidently parked quite a ways away) and he talked to him the whole way there. Nolan has a very good immagination. That's probably why he has so many bad dreams. He told Simba, "I have an urgent job for you, Simba. I need you to scare away all my bad dreams." I was a little afraid Nolan would wake up and be scared to see a lion in bed with him, but I was still willing to give it a try. The last 2 nights, Nolan has stayed in his bed all night long! I've been sooooo happy and make such a big deal about it when he wakes up! It's been very nice. Thank you, Simba!

Testimony

Yesterday while we were driving in the car, Nolan asked me what a testimony is. I told him and then I heard him in the back kind of murmuring a little testimony. I thought, oh that was cute. Today, it was fast and testimony meeting and I told Nolan that this was when people shared their testimonies. He said that he'd like to go share his testimony. So, he did. I'm so glad Nolan doesn't seem to share the same fear I have of talking in front of a bunch of people. Nolan is a good example to me and I know Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he gave me this little boy to be a mommy too.

I have to be very careful how I word things because Nolan takes me very literally. This morning I was trying to get Nolan to get his pajamas off. He didn't want to take the his shirt off because it was freezing cold, so I told him he could start with the bottoms. I said, "Okay Nolan, take your bottoms off." He gave me a very strange look and than said, "Okay, but if I take my bottoms off, Heavenly Father will just have to make me another one." :)

Nolan was telling me how he had written letters to his cousins and other family at Grandma's house on Monday. I asked Nolan, "Do you miss your cousins?" Nolan replied, "Yeah, TOTALLY!" :)

Reverence

One of my biggest struggles of the week is making it through sacrament meeting. I guess this doesn't sound very good. My wonderful, happy, energetic 3-year-old boy loves going to church. He loves that we get to be together as a family on Sundays, he loves his sunbeam teacher, and he loves to sing! Ever since we moved into this new ward (about a year ago now) it's been a little rough during Sacrament meeting because he is one of the few young children , whereas in our Roseville ward, there were dozens. Nolan didn't stick out like a sore thumb like he does in our current ward Sacrament meeting. The first week we were there, I still remember how discouraged I was after the end of the meeting. Nolan was only 2 years old, but I knew that we needed to work harder on using his quiet whisper voice or we would be spending a lot of time out in the hallway. Adam and I have since then been working with him throughout the week on how we should act during Sacrament Meeting. Over the last couple of months, especially working with him on sitting still and not bringing out toys or games til after the Sacrament is passed. Nolan is learning, but still can't make it through the whole meeting without usually having to take a break out to the hallway for some reverent talk. I don't expect my 3 year old to be able to sit perfectly still without a peep during the whole meeting. He is still young and full of immagination. I have a hard time thinking of "quiet toys" to bring because for Nolan, everything comes to life and has something to say, whether it be at home or in the middle of the church meeting. :) I know I need to bring something to keep him busy though, or he would go crazy. I look for the ways Nolan is improving each week and try to let him know how proud of him I am that he is trying to be reverent. He may not always be using a whisper voice, but it's not his usual at home voice. Even though it is just baby steps, he is improving and that's all I can ask. There are definitely still weeks where it is a dissaster, I feel, and we go backwards. I definitely felt better after our ward conference earlier this year. The Stake President talked about reverence in Sacrament Meeting. I thought, "oh great, here we go." His words were comforting though. He talked about how our reverence in Sacrament Meeting should be on a personal level. We shouldn't let the young children who are being disruptive, for whatever reason, determine whether our meeting was "reverent." Of course if they are fussying loudly or whatever we should take them out. We need to remember why we are there and not let the disruptive children be the reason why we as individuals can't feel the spirit. The last couple of days Adam has had to work with an elderly man who needs 24 hour care. He's picked up this job with helping the elderly in their homes, so now he can receive a paycheck and help supplement our income with what we can't get from the catering business. This job works well with his catering business because they work with what hours Adam is available. He hasn't been able to come home the last couple of days, including today, so I was a little nervous about what might happen in Sacrament meeting today. My morning was off to a rough start, with Nolan being confused at why Daddy wasn't home yet and knowing I better be on time because I had to give the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting. So, I got out the door in time, well, what normally would have been on time. Every time I try to drive to the Poet Smith building, I always get lost. I don't know why, I've been there a million times, but since Adam normally drives us to church I don't pay much attention. Of course, I made several wrong turns before arriving about a minute late. The pouring down rain did NOT help the situation!!! So, we come in just as the bishop is announcing after the song, he will give the...no, Sister Brice (now that he saw me) would give the opening prayer. I was telling Nolan on our way to church that I would need him to sit reverently while I went up to the front to give the prayer. I was a little nervous with how this would go, so I was very grateful when Nolan's sunbeam teacher got up to sit next to us. During the Sacrament song, Nolan got his hymn book and sang along. During the Sacrament, Nolan sat reverently with maybe 1 or 2 blurps. I was very proud of him. After the Sacrament, I let Nolan choose his toy to play with. He chose the Book of Mormon magnet characters. Of course, as usual, the characters came to life and each one had something to say. Nolan wasn't whispering, but I felt he was using a somewhat quiet voice, after a few shhhh s when his voice got louder. So far this was the best he had done. We always sit in the back, trying to be as little disturbing as possible. The next thing I knew, the lady directly in front of us turned around and said, "Are you NOT teaching this child how to whisper?" I said, "Excuse me?" I was a little blown away. This lady has had several children of her own who are all grown up and moved out, so she is older, but I was shocked! Did she really forget what it's like to have a young child, or maybe she was blessed to have perfect angels that never made a peep. I thought, how rude of her to step out of her boundaries and try to offend me. I was quite offended and could only handle sitting there another minute or so. I had to take Nolan and step out of the room. Nolan's teacher came out soon after to help me understand how untactful that comment was and that she had no right to say that. I was of course still upset about it and had a hard time getting through the rest of the day at church. I did eventually go back into Sacrament Meeting, making sure we were not directly behind the same lady. She did apologize, but I still am working at forgiving her. :) She had no clue, I guess! I may be a little extra sensitive, especially about this subject, but I realized how it would be so easy for someone to stop coming to church if someone was to say something like this to ANYONE, whether they were less active, or very active. Of course, I was not going to let her comment make me stop coming to church, but it made me feel bad for all the people who have been offended and have stopped coming. Some people just don't think before they speak and because of it we lose a lot of our members. We are a ward FAMILY and it takes everyone to be understanding and loving, whether they be young or old, in order for us to be strong.