quick updates

cloth diapering is in full swing, and going great!  i must confess that i rather enjoy it...makes diapering a lot more interesting than it used to be. :)  frank says researching c.d. options is my new hobby.  i do like the researching, and hopefully this will end up saving us money too.

i'm 33 weeks along in the pregnancy now, and i hope like i have never hoped before that this little girl holds out at least another 5 weeks before making her grand entrance!  we still have not decided on her name.  i'm looking for something that is rich with meaning and hopefully not too complicated or hard to spell (we've got that covered in our last name!)  suggestions are welcome.

also, in just a few days we are moving to another part of the city, oddly enough into the very same apartment where our friends once lived.  the details have pretty much come together (with the exception of one) and we sense the Lord's provision in it.  after looking into having it painted, we decided to do it ourselves and save a bundle.  a few friends have volunteered to help out (thank you, friends!) and when my dad comes in mid-april he will pitch in too as we do one room at a time (thanks, dad!).  i am wondering if we are a little bit crazy to be moving right now but it seemed less chaotic than waiting 'til the baby came.  my mission for the next few days is to purge as much as possible and stay calm.  thankfully the moving company takes care of all the boxing up and unboxing at the new place, then the real "fun" begins with trying to get organized and settled!  neither of these are strong suits for me, but maybe with practice i will have improved...one can always hope, right?  i also have several born-organized friends who have offered to help me.  thanks be to God for the help of friends! 

lots of stuff happening around here. 

Currently Reading Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God: Encouragement to Refresh Your Soul (Hearts at Home Book) By Mary E. DeMuth see related

the cloth diapering trials have begun

first, my apologies to my friends who are SO not interested in this.  read on at your own risk!

so, after managing to procure my diapers to sample and special detergent to wash them in thanks to some friends and acquaintances who brought them from the US, we now have a week or two of cloth diapering under our belts.  i don't have enough diapers to go full-time (yet), but so far it's been going well.  we've been using a prefold with a cover on buddy boy at night, and one-size pocket diapers (bumGenius and Happy Heiny's--gotta love those names) on the princess.  she complains that they're tight when stuffed with more than one insert, so perhaps they are...or she's just repeating things she's heard from her brother.  it really hasn't felt like much of a burden, except i must confess i am not crazy about cleaning off the #2 diapers, but i figure i'll get over it soon.  now i'm just trying to figure out how to afford a few more of these diapers so i can leave disposables behind forever, or at least until the next out-of-town conference we have to go to!

now that i have a bit of a handle on the cloth diapering situation, i'm looking into baby carriers and strollers and such.  we used a baby bjorn with the first two, which was okay but not great for me.  they of course outgrew this quickly (at least it seems like it!).  with our toddlers frank has enjoyed using a hiking backpack type thing with a lightweight aluminum frame but it has never been appealing to me--it just doesn't fit me right and is hard for me to maneuver.  we have a big bulky jeep stroller with inflatable tires, which works well on bumpy terrain but is not terribly easy to transport (very heavy, very big).  and we have our old standby umbrella-type stroller which has been across the world and back several times.  lately i've been hearing from multiple directions about the ergo carrier which is supposed to be wonderful.  wonderful it may be, but also pricey, so i'm wondering if it's worth it for us?  i looked on ebay but even the used ones were going for 75% of the new purchase price (i.e. not a deal as far as i'm concerned).  i like that i could even carry the princess (age 2) in it.  i like the idea of carrying her (and tercero, of course), especially in the very non-stroller-friendly neighborhoods that i frequent.  but is it worth the investment given all the other baby-transporting devices we already own?  guess i could resell it on ebay later with not much of a loss if they are still popular!  anyone have thoughts to throw in?   

time for me to go pack for our conference! :)

new arrival

surprise to us...we are expecting another baby!  at 13 or so weeks now, i think i'm coming around and starting to feel like a human being again.  all of us are excited about this new arrival (and honestly, frank and i are a little scared!) coming around the beginning of may.  "new baby" was sounding a little bland, so we are referring to him/her as tercero, which is something close to spanish for 'third.'

this news, along with a little info from a friend about her experience, has led me to begin researching something i'd never seriously considered before...cloth diapering.  i had always felt sympathetic toward my parents' generation who had to use those yucky cloth diapers and pins and felt somewhat liberated that i could use disposables.  but as i look into it more, primarily for cost reasons but also for environmental concerns, cloth diapers seem like a very reasonable option.  my head is spinning with the overwhelming number of varieties and systems available in the cloth diapering world!  i've ordered a few and we'll give it a trial run with abby before we take the plunge with tercero. :)  anybody else had experience or recommendations with cloth diapering?  please comment! 

strange week

how does that famous line go..."it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"?  this past week included a strange conglomeration of emotions...

about a week ago, the daughter of some friends of ours passed away.  this precious girl, who shared my baby girl's first name and was just a few months younger than her, had been battling leukemia for six months.  i never got to meet her, but from the way that her mom and others have described her, it seems like she was a smily girl who could cheer a room merely by her presence.  though her life on earth was not long, she has made an impact and will surely be missed by her parents, older sister, extended family and many others.  my own tears flowed (flow?) as i consider my friend's sadness and grief in not being able to share this life with her darling daughter.

another set of friends welcomed their second son into the world on friday.  we got to watch their older boy while they scrambled to the hospital around 1:30 am, gave birth less than an hour later, and headed home around lunchtime.  that evening we brought the new big brother back home to meet the new little guy who would dramatically change life as he has known it.  the new baby is so tiny, extremely cute (especially for a baby born naturally--his mom says that's because he didn't spend much time in the birth canal!), and perfectly formed.  truly babies are masterpieces of the most wonderful kind.  i rejoice with them in their precious gift from God.

at face value, these seem like polar opposites--the worst and best that life has to offer.  yet for those of us who hope in the Lord, i think they are not.  i see the grace of God poured out in both situations.  it is perhaps easier to see in the birth of baby nathan, that he was "fearfully and wonderfully made" by the master Creator Himself.  the Lord gave grace to give them a quick and smooth birthing process and a language-fluent american nurse friend to help navigate the new language and culture waters.  but His grace is just as much present in the first situation:  He ushered this precious girl out of her suffering and into the presence of the King, the most exquisitely joy-filled glorious place she could possibly be.  i would imagine her parents to be going through an extremely rough time in their loss, but from them i have not heard a hint of bitterness, only praise and thanks to the Lord.   even in the midst of their pain, they are able to honestly say that the Lord is good.

in mourning and in rejoicing, praise the Lord for His amazing goodness and His grace poured out!  i must remember to praise Him even when i can't see His grace, knowing that He doesn't promise I'll understand His ways or see all His work but He does promise to be faithful.

cultural observations

elections are coming up tomorrow.

in my home country, upcoming elections bring endless television commercials touting how great one candidate/party is and often bashing another and signs in people's yards.  here it is a little different.

i don't watch much tv, so i can't speak for how many political commercials are on.  but there are flags everywhere--the little triangular kind advertising various political parties.  the streets take on an almost festive appearance.

another unique (to me) advertising technique is the buses painted with the logos and candidates of political parties driving through the neighborhoods blaring out attention-grabbing songs and reasons why you should vote for them.

one of our kiwi friends noted that in our western countries any political party that sent a bus driving through with someone shouting through a bullhorn, playing obnoxiously loud music and generally disturbing the peace would most likely earn itself a loss in the election.  but apparently that is not the case here.

on another note, it's always seemed strange to me that people here tend to wear the same clothes for multiple days.  i truly hope this doesn't happen as much at times like right now when one gets sweaty just sitting still and breathing, but i know in the fall, spring, and winter people rewear the same clothes a couple or three times without washing them. 

i think it's entirely a practical matter.  in those times of year, if you try to dry your clothes outside, it takes a few days for them to get completely dry (and they would have to be completely dry or you're risking life-threatening illness!)  if you try to dry your clothes inside, they do get dry more quickly but then you're providing a nice warm, moist environment perfectly suitable for mold growth.  (we did this for a while and i do not recommend it.  that mold is nasty stuff to fight.)  so, as drying rack or clothesline space is limited, what choice does this leave one but to dry the clothes outside but not wash very often?  makes sense to me.  with two little kids going through clothes faster than you'd think possible, we are incredibly blessed to have a clothes dryer.

Currently Reading When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight For Joy By John Piper see related