Life with Amy and Mark Now including Ben v2.0

Now that I’m a stay-at-home mom and don’t have to go into work on Mondays, I’ve discovered that the once dreaded days can actually be really fun.  So here’s a basic sum-up of a Monday enjoyed to its fullest.

We started out the day with me taking Benjamin to the library since it has been furloughed for the past week.  I didn’t realize how popular the library here is until I showed up yesterday and had a hard time finding a parking space.  People here really do love their library.  I checked out a few books and realized how eclectic my literary interests are as I was talking to the librarian checking them out to me.  I had asked for her help in finding an unabridged copy of the Count of Monte Cristo in the online catalog because my only clue was the number of pages and I couldn’t find anything longer than 500 pages.  We finally found it and managed to put it on hold.  So here I am getting frustrated trying to find a 1,500 page book while checking out two young children’s books and a biography… after returning several non-fiction books on biology and math.  It’s nice because there’s always something that I’m in the mood to read.

After our library trip, Mark and I talked about how his job interview went.  He really likes the sound of Eastman so we hope and pray that he gets this job.  We should find out just over the next couple of days whether he will be called back for a follow-up interview.

I then proceeded to spend what felt like the entire rest of the day feeding Benjamin, which fortunately gave me the opportunity to read one of my library books from start to finish and about a quarter of another one.  Plus, we watched two episodes of the Planet Earth series including one about the deep sea.  The cool thing there is that people who know me well enough know how obsessed I am with the open and deep ocean (not so much the tropics).  Learning about the life in the deep ocean really gives you an appreciation for creation because of how varied and completely unexpected or previously unimaginable it is.  Prior to the discovery of the ecosystems surrounding the deep-sea hydrothermal vents in 1976, people didn’t realize the extent to which life can flourish and develop without any reliance on the sun whatsoever.  Discovering an ecology centered around chemosynthesis (bacteria using the mineral and nutrient rich waters spewing out of the vents from Earth) even changed how xenobiologists look for life on other planets.  I personally think that life on this planet that Heavenly Father has blessed us with is varied and plentiful enough to supplant any desire on my part to search the stars for life.

I also got to spend a large chunk of time playing with a singing to Benjamin.  I just can’t get enough of his coos and almost giggles and smiles.  He loves silly noises (like tongue and lip trills) as well as little songs.  I didn’t realize how many nursery rhyme type songs I knew until I started singing them and didn’t show signs of stopping about half-an-hour of one to two minute songs.  I love being a mom!

Mark and I (and Benjamin) have been blessed this summer to have tons and tons of family visitors.  I decided the best way to share the highlights would be with a pictorial history.  Enjoy!

Mark holding our son for the first time

Benjamin really enjoys his bouncy seat

Grandma White enjoys some snuggle time with Benjamin

Grandpa White holds his first grandson

Benjamin enjoys some quality time with Grandpa Al

Lucy enjoys holding Benjamin

Uncle Sam is an expert baby holder

Uncle Brendan meets his first nephew

Our first family trip to the Toledo Zoo

Benjamin is excited about his first trip to the zoo

Benjamin looking handsome for his blessing

Lots of extended family here for Benjamin's blessing

Benjamin goes on walk with Mark and Uncle Sam in his new baby carrier

Before Benjamin was born, I wondered how exactly I would fill the hours since newborn babies are not the most interactive.  Now I know what you fill all those hours with.  You nurse and change diapers non-stop.  But besides those two things, I have really enjoyed being a new mother.  I love looking across the room at my wonderful husband holding our son and making funny faces.  I love going on walks and seeing Benjamin sleep soundly in the stroller even with a jackhammer going 10 feet away.  I love going on drives around town with Benjamin just beginning to make cooing noises from the backseat.  I love reading fairy tales, nursery rhymes, my favorite childhood stories, and the scriptures to my son.  I love having Benjamin fall asleep with his legs curled up underneath him on my chest and wondering how he ever fit inside me (or managed to get out!).  I love it when Benjamin looks up at me and tries so hard to imitate the smile on my face resulting in a half-grin and weird sort of raised eyebrow thing.  And at night, I especially love it when he sleeps for longer than 10 minutes at a time in his crib.  I’ll let you know when that begins to happen regularly.

I went into the doctor today for another weekly check-up and definitely wasn’t looking so good.  I haven’t been able to get a decent night’s sleep for the past week especially because of getting severe muscle cramps no matter how I choose to sleep.  This could be the cause of my headaches, returned nausea, increasing blood pressure, and fatigue.  I’m pretty sure, though, that the swelling is really just from it being hot and humid and delivery time.  Anyway, after sitting on that table waiting for her to come in, I was feeling way worse.  Then when she helped me to sit up, the room got fuzzy, and I almost tossed my cookies.  At this point, she said, “So let’s induce you tomorrow okay?”  She’s mostly just worried about how awful I’m feeling (and looking apparently), and it’s obviously not going to be getting any better before I actually deliver.  So getting induced will maximize the amount of energy I have for delivery and keep me from getting to that state of my early pregnancy days of puking everything up to which I am perilously close.  Thus, Mark and I will become parents tomorrow!  Barring a 17 hour or longer labor.  But we’re not going to seriously entertain that possibility right now.  Today I’m focusing on taking it easy as per the doctor’s orders.  Taking naps, playing the piano, and hanging out with Mark and Mom.  And praying that everything goes well, and Benjamin is healthy and happy baby.

Just last week, Mark and I came up on our one-year anniversary for living in Bowling Green.  When we first moved here, we were mostly just super psyched not to be living in Provo anymore.  Provo was a college town that represented one phase of our lives that we just wanted to leave behind.  College life seems to just have dragged on and on and on.  We want to be established as a family with Mark in a career job (not me) and with our own children.  Well, that phase finally seems like it will soon be attainable with us having reached several milestones in the past year important for that end.

• First big milestone–I’m pregnant with our first child!  And to be honest, Benjamin may be our only child given how awful and difficult this pregnancy has been for me.  We don’t regret it in the slightest, but I have been ready for it to be over for quite some time.  Simultaneously, I am super excited to be a mother.  He has been a super active baby in the womb (leading to the doctor having difficulty checking the heartbeat because he won’t stay in one place for long enough), which has helped me to already develop a sort of relationship with him.  I don’t know what he’s going to look like or really even be like personality-wise, but I do know that he’s going to be my son and that I love him already.  We’ll see how I feel after delivery…
• Second big milestone–I’m no longer working at an inner-city high school!  When I first went in for the interview  at the Toledo school, I did not want to take the position that he offered me three questions into the interview.  Even without any students in the building, I realized that the stereotype for inner-city schools was pretty much spot on.  Not fun, happy, safe place to be.  The night after the interview, Mark and I prayed about the job fully expecting to hear “no.”  We were both a little surprised when the answer was to take the job.  Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to tell that you’re interpreting the right answer when it’s the opposite of what you want to hear.  I’m still not entirely sure why I was supposed to take the job, but I have a few ideas.  I provided the students with an adult role model that never swore and only yelled once at them.  I said please and thank you to them as individuals all the time.  I did not make fun of students and never allowed students to make fun of each other in my classroom.  I learned a lot about a different view of life and the world.  I learned that people who think the ultimate and best source of knowledge is logic couldn’t be more wrong (logic is a human way of thinking dependent on your world view and just as subjective as any other source of evaluating truth).  I learned the power of God’s love for all of His children even when they are doing horrible things.  I discovered how protective of me Mark is because after hearing more and more about the school, he had no intention of letting me go back after this school year even if I wasn’t pregnant.  And I earned enough money to keep us financially solvent.
• Third big milestone–we had our first experiences with the hospital (and not even with Benjamin being involved!).  This has taught us the importance of having insurance as well as introduced us to the world of paying for a surgery that happened in February as late as June (and July as well it’s looking like) because of how ridiculously long it takes people to send medical bills! <frustrated grumbles and growls>  You think you’re finally done paying when oops!  No, there are TWO bills for your anesthesiologist and you pay for room amenities separate from the hospital room and even though the doctor just barely diagnosed you with a condition a week ago and pre-existing conditions aren’t supposed to affect anything on your current insurance plan you still have to fill out paperwork showing no lapse in insurance coverage and no previous diagnosis and wait a month for it to be processed because they switch offices half-way through AND anesthesiologists are always out of network so even though your out of pocket max is $3000 you end up paying about $4000 for the surgery.  Anyway, now we know a whole lot more about dealing with medical bills and insurance so we’re much more prepared for Benjamin’s medical bills.
• Fourth big milestone–Mark passed his comprehensive exams!  No matter what Mark was telling people, he was super nervous about passing his comps.  There wasn’t a list of topics or concepts that he needed to know, and previous exams available to him would often have major mistakes or change drastically from one exam to the next.  But after studying harder for this than anything else in his life (come to think of it this may have been the first time he really studied for anything), he passed!  And the major mistake on the comp was actually in his favor (#1, #2, …, #4, #5, #6… yeah they skipped #3).  Now we’re totally confident that he’ll graduate with his masters and be qualified for his career job.  Woo Hoo!

Of course there have been other major events in our lives, but these were some of the ones I felt most appropriate to share.  Yay for our first year in Bowling Green!