Seven Quick Takes: I need your advice!

Last week's takes were a bit on the depressing side, so I'm going for a little lighter feel this morning. I'm also asking for a lot of advice, so feel free to give it where you can! And as always, thanks to Jen, for hosting!

Not my actual hand, but looks close to my situation.

1. My fingers are swelling kinda fast. I really need to get my rings off before they have to be cut off. Anyone have any ideas/advice for this? I've tried the string/floss thing, and let's just say this wasn't a good plan for me.

2. I want to get a ring (in a bigger size) to wear in the interim, while we're waiting for baby to come, and I'm looking for one that is cheap, but at least somewhat classy. But, since this is temporary, I'd like to jump outside my usual boring-style box, and go for something fun. What do you think about this one? I think it also kinda symbolizes the reason I'm wearing this ring...what do ya think? Is that really cheese-tastic?

3. Praise the Lord! The weather has been so perfect here for the past three days. I am not taking it for

About six miles from my apartment.

granted. Little A and I have spent the last few days at the park as much as possible.

4. Since my hubby's been gone, little A has been acting out a little bit, mostly by being really clingy to me (which is fine). However, her behavior also manifests itself in her interactions with her grandma and aunties. When she sees them (a few times a week), her way of greeting them is to yell, "NOOOO!" and either run away or make a motion like she is going to hit the person she is addressing. How do I deal with this? It's strange because she only acts like that with people she knows really well, not with strangers, and as far as I know, not with her preschool teachers.

I've tried explaining alternative behaviors and explaining that she is hurting their feelings, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'm not sure this is a discipline issue, because I think she seeks the attention, but she is trying to get it the negative way--maybe trying to control the situation or something. Any ideas for next steps I can take?

5. Can anyone help me choose a DSLR camera? I am not necessarily an aspiring photog, and I know next to nothing about cameras. I am also on a budget. BUT, I am in need of a good camera. Not just a little pocket-sized point-and-shoot. I need something that takes great pictures, something that works well consistently, and something somewhat user friendly. I guess I need a camera that I can grow into, you know what I mean? Someone suggested that I get the Nikon D3100. Does anyone second that?

6. Seven more work days until I am done and ready to move on! So so excited to close this chapter.

7. Ok, I need one last piece of advice: I want to get started learning at least one of my foreign languages over the summer with a do-it-yourself style course. I'll be learning Italian and Latin. Anyone have experience with a "Latin for dummies" type thing? Or other suggestions?

Once you've shared your advice, head on over to Jen's! :)

Women and Agape

This afternoon, as I left work on my way to pick up little A, this song came on the radio:

I belong with you; you belong with me. You're my sweetheart.

Days like this, I miss my husband. A lot.

I associate this song with one of the first times I actually felt happy after we lost Romeo Gerard. My husband told me we were going to dinner; he had booked reservations at a hip and fancy restaurant in town, so we dropped off little A and had dinner to ourselves. He had just purchased the Lumineers album, and we sang along to this song all the way home from dinner.

Naturally, when the song came on the radio this afternoon, I became emotional, really feeling the loss of RG and missing my husband. It's not been so easy having him gone over the last few weeks, with four more weeks to go. (Of course, we've done this before, but I wasn't trying to parent a two year old that time.) I teared up a bit in the car, and I wanted to let myself feel that emotion for a little while.

But suddenly I was at little A's preschool, and I was going to have to go in to sign her out, and help her get her coat, and ask her 45 times to try to go potty, and wipe her nose--all the things we do every afternoon when I pick her up. I wouldn't be able to continue feeling what I needed to feel right then, because I needed to be emotionally available to little A.

She had made me a mother's day card (the irony of which broke my heart, since I was thinking so much of RG in the moments before) and needed me to let her know how much I appreciated it. She needed me to be positive and encouraging as she tried to go potty by herself. She needed me to listen to her about her day, and how she made a macaroni necklace, and lost her hair tie on the playground, and hear her sing her ABC's three times in a row, joyfully praising her every time. In other words, she needed me to be her mother, a duty I welcome gratefully because I know how fragile it is.

This situation has presented itself a lot over the past few weeks especially; it feels heavier, now that I don't have my husband to accommodate her needs if I am feeling emotionally unable. When we're together, we can tag team--emotionally and physically--to manage little A's needs while one of us takes a break as necessary. Yet without him, I am her only "responder,"  so my emotional needs are (rightfully and necessarily) set aside for her sake.

I didn't realize how true that really was until today, when I was quickly wiping tears off my cheeks, checking my mascara in the rear view mirror, and consciously changing emotional gears as I got out of the car and headed into little A's preschool.

It is a privilege that I get to pick her up, that I get to be her mother. It is a grace that I am able to swallow hard and change my attitude so quickly for her sake. It is a good and necessary sacrifice to put my own need to feel what I feel aside in order to be what she needs. And, I'm realizing, it is one of the sacrifices of motherhood. One of many. And one of many pearls in the crown of a woman. 

Because it isn't only mothers who make this kind of emotional sacrifice; and it is that very sacrifice which unites women who are physical mothers and who are spiritual mothers. It is, in a specific way, the feminine genius, and a quality that can be manifest in all women in various ways. Still, no matter the method, this sacrifice is agape. It's dying to self for the sake of another. It's love. Christ-love. And it is, very particularly, the love women are really good at giving--even when it hurts.

As the Lumineers sing so heartily at the end of Ho Hey, "Love. We need it now. Let's hope for some. So we're bleeding now." It is necessary to hope for this kind of Love in our world. In our lives. In the hardest of times. And Love causes us to bleed. But it is the best of sacrifices.

I Feel It Every Day

Now that I am visibly pregnant, the questions have started:

Do you know what you're having? When are you due? How do you feel? How far along are you?

I don't mind questions. I think it's a positive sign that people are interested in pregnancy. But there is one question I really really detest.

Is this your first?

It's such an innocent question. I used to love answering this question. I think I would have always liked to proudly answer this question no matter how many children I had. But now, it's so complicated.

When someone asks me this question, I am immediately in a state of questioning myself: How well do I know this person? Do I want to bring up the whole discussion about losing RG? Will this person say something inappropriate or hurtful? Don't I want to be a witness to RG's life, and all life at any stage? Shouldn't I be honest about the number of children I have, even though one isn't here with me on earth? Do I want to go through this in my mind again? Will I regret whatever answer I give in this moment?

And in a millisecond, I have to decide the answer to these questions and give it.

None of these situations is exactly like the last time. I don't feel like I can have a standard answer. I feel awkward. And I can't help but be reminded--even if I don't regret my answer--of RG, and the ever-present void in my heart.

And for me, that void never goes away, even though others forget it.

In my 20 week ultrasound, the tech asked me how many pregnancies I have had, and I said "This is my third." My mother responded loudly, in surprise, "third!?" And I just looked at her thinking, "are you serious?" I suppose she confused the word "pregnancy" with "baby," but even then, her response was wrong.

If I've had three pregnancies, then I've had three babies.  It's just that one of them has died.

7QT: Evil and Hope

Ok. I like to be all about the hopeful here on FTFF. You guys know I talk about hope a whole lot. But I'm taking a page from Mama Needs Coffee's 7 Quick Takes this morning, and I'm going to call out the evil where I see it.

You know the great thing about naming evil and rebuking it? You always end up with Hope.

1. I know my comments are late on this one, but here we go anyway: three out of seven charges were dropped for Gosnell, because it couldn't be proven that those three babies were alive when they were born as a result of failed abortions. Here is my question to you, you despicable judge:

If the babies weren't alive when they were born, WHY WOULD YOU HAVE TO STAB THEM WITH SCISSORS AND INTERNALLY DECAPITATE THEM? For serious. I'm asking you to logically answer that question.

2. But you know what? If he is convicted (honestly, we can only HOPE he's convicted, and that there are people in the jury who have even a slight sense of moral conviction), I really HOPE he isn't given the death penalty. Why?

3. Giving him the death penalty is opposed to life. It's an eye for an eye. The Catechism does not fully reject the death penalty, but I don't think that the death penalty is the "only possible way" to keep Gosnell from continuing his practice of murdering babies, and so I don't think the death penalty is appropriate here:
From the Catechism:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. (2306)

4. Giving Gosnell the death penalty will completely discredit pro-lifers in the minds abortion proponents.

5. I really, truly (despite my personal ire at Gosnell and the entire abortion industry), HOPE he will repent before he dies. What a joy in heaven that would be, to see this sinner, this evil, turn back to God and repent of the sins he has committed against life. If we condemn him to death, we deprive him of that chance, and that's not very human of us, is it?

So He told them this parable, saying, 4“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5“When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6“And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15: 3-7

6. Now THIS, this is evil. Almost every single thing he says in this video is a LIE. And as my mother once told me, "Liars sleep with the devil." Now I'm gonna get a little ranty here. 

I could go on and on and on, and dissect this speech which is rife with lies, but you get my point. If you listen to it, you will be able to pick them out easily all by yourself. 

I just want to point out a couple of things, besides the lies, that struck me. When Obama points to the laws for life made in FORTY TWO different states, he labels them as backwards, and absurd. But, Mr. Obama, doesn't it tell you that you're a wee bit out of touch with what Americans want if FORTY TWO states have made these laws?

Secondly, he outright admits that his healthcare reform is a result of his belief that women have a right to choose. So much for all the work you've done couching Obamacare in terms of "something all Americans need."

But you wanna know what else is evil about this? The blasphemy. Asking God to bless Planned Parenthood is blasphemy. This image is blasphemy: -------->

EDITED to say: I don't think President Obama is an evil person. I think some of the things he does and says are, and I would hope the same fate for him as I do for Kermit Gosnell (see number 5). It's just getting more and more difficult to give him the respect due a president, when I see him consistently making choices that defy the Good, and doing things that defy all reason--secular or sacred.

The only One who can give Hope to this world, in the face of all this evil is Christ. 

So finally, after the longest quick takes ever, I give you number 7.  For lighter reading, you can escape over to Jen's where you'll find the rest of the 7QT crew.

So Here's Something Weird...

...and I don't mean weird in a negative way, but just weird.

A few weeks ago we went to Marybeth's clinic, had a 3D ultrasound, and found out we were having a boy! The picture looked very clear. So we put our minds to work coming up with boy's names, even asked for your input (thanks Kat!), and started using "he" to describe little L Baby.

Well, today I went in for my 20-ish week ultrasound at my regular doctor (I'm 21w3d today), and the tech said, rather confidently, that we are having a girl! So.....weird.

I know this has happened to people before, and obviously I'd be ecstatic to be having either a boy or a girl. I'm just happy to be this far along and praising God for every minute of this. But I don't know what to think now, as both pictures looked really convincing.

I suppose we'll just have to be surprised when this baby comes along in September. And I s'pose I'll have to go back and tell people that we don't really know which gender we're expecting...which is only slightly embarrassing.

All in all, praise God (!!!) we are having what looks like a healthy babe, who, whether boy or girl, will glorify God (we pray) here on earth.

Incidentally, little L baby was clearly not as surprised/entertained as I was during this whole thing, because he or she kept yawning during the appointment.