Kumquat: It's not just fun to say

Evidence that I wasn't feeling up to par, here are some pictures I took EIGHT weeks ago today and wanted to post on my blog. Better late than never? Definitely. There are expressions in the following pictures that make me laugh every time I look at them.

On babycenter.com, pregnant women can track the growth of their unborn babies in comparison to fruits and vegetables. It's pretty clever since it gives such a tangible example of what's growing inside. I mean, not that there are fruits and vegetables growing inside me... in case you were confused.

Today, I'm 18 weeks along. According to the website, our baby is the size of a green bell pepper.

But 10 weeks ago, it was as big as a kumquat.

A kumquat?

I didn't even know what one was. But it just so happened that we were at the grocery store later that afternoon and walked right by a basket of kumquats on sale! I couldn't resist, so I got one for each of us to try at lunch the next day.

But before we could eat them, we had to Google HOW to eat them. Do you know how to eat a kumquat? Allow my kids to demonstrate for you...

Presenting... the kumquat:

First you roll it...

And then you plop the whole thing in at once...

And chew.

That way, the sweet taste of the peel mixes with the bitter taste of the inside, creating the most delectable fruit known to man. Right, Emma?

Oh wait... PSYCHE! She chickened out.

Let's see what Addie thinks:

Okay, so she wasn't convinced. Maybe this kumquat thing wasn't a good idea. Wait... what's that, Emma? You wanna try again? Go for it!

Alright, I guess you should've taken Addie's word for it. Oh, what's that, Addie? You've changed your mind? Now you LOVE kumquats?

Well, I'm not totally convinced, but we'll go with it. I wasn't sure about her motives the next day when she insisted on bringing one to school for a friend to try. How generous of her.

And here's a bonus picture of the Brodster, who decided to stick with peanut butter and jelly this day. Good choice, buddy.

The least of these...

Today I haven't been able to stop thinking about a group of bloggers who are halfway across the world in Kenya, traveling with Compassion International. The stories and pictures coming from their trip are AWESOME.

I've been following the blogs of two of the women for a couple of years now, so it's fun to feel like I "know" someone on the trip. But actually, I DO! One of our really great friends is on the trip as well. LV is an old friend of Gary's from college (LV accuses me of "kicking him out" since he was Gary's roommate before I was), and now he's like family. He IS family. Our girls adore him - and that's putting it lightly.

As an aside, you should know that LV has brainwashed Emma and Addie to believe that they actually have a silent "LV" in the middle of their names, leading Emma to sometimes spell her name "EMLVMA." Thanks, LV. Like phonics isn't hard enough.

LV was recruited to be part of the trip and has been posting his updates along with the other bloggers. Today's post was so touching - he got to meet "his" Compassion child - go check it out! And there's a picture of LV's big white hand intertwined with Michael's that is just beautiful.

Don't just stop at LV's blog. Be sure to visit the blogs of all the Compassion bloggers and leaders. Their blogs can be found here. Each are full of stories and pictures of the trip, all evidencing how Compassion is changing millions of precious lives around the world. "A picture" from MckMama/Jennifer is beautiful - tons of touching pictures.

Gary and I started sponsoring a chid in Haiti through Compassion shortly after we got married. Pierre Jonathan was 11 when we started his sponsorship, and we watched him grow and thrive until he graduated from the Compassion program last year when he turned 20.

Receiving letters from him over the years, hearing how Compassion had touched his life, touched ours. His letters were a constant reminder of how much we have and how blessed we are... and how it's our responsibility to be a blessing to others.

After Pierre Jonathan graduated, we started sponsoring a sweet five year old girl named Rasmita from India. Just recently, her family moved out of Compassion's project area. So sadly, we are no longer sponsoring her. I was looking forward to watching her growth, and watching a smile spread across her pictures as years went by. I still pray for her when I pass her picture on our fridge.

Now we have a new little girl from India, named Ankuri. She will be 12 this year.

Do you sponsor a child through Compassion? It only costs $38 a month to sponsor a child and meet their needs. Maybe that's just a few less coffees each month, or fewer iTunes downloads, or one less dinner out. There are thousands of children waiting for a sponsor. Be a blessing to a child today! Someone out there needs YOU.

I guess it could be navel fluff*

As a kid, I had several collections.

For example, I was one of those really cool kids who collected stamps and coins. (Thanks for getting me started on that, Mom! You were right... everyone DID think it was awesome. I earned major popularity points.) In fact, not long ago I found my Trapper Keeper full of cancelled stamps. Nothing says, "Serious Stamp Collector" like a Trapper Keeper with a pastel rainbow and unicorn on the front.

I also had an unsharpened pencil collection numbering in the hundreds. And an eraser collection. And a keychain collection (only the square, plastic kind, thankyouverymuch). And a horse figurine collection. (Since every junior high girl went through a horse phase, I figured maybe it would redeem the cool factor of the aforementioned coin and stamp collection. It didn't.)

So when my girls decided they'd start collecting things, I didn't flinch. Sure, another name for "collection" is "clutter," but I figure that they'll forget about their collections soon enough and one day when I put all the rocks from their rock collection back into the backyard from where they came, they'll never notice. Right?

But I'm not a fan of Addie's most recent collection. After eating KFC one night (a major craving during this pregnancy), she held up the bones from her drumsticks and proudly proclaimed that she was going to start collecting BONES.

Ummm... no.

"No, no you're not," said her mother calmly without gagging.

But her daddy, who thinks it important not to squelch his kids' creativity, told her it was a GREAT idea.

"Maybe she'll go into forensics or something! A future CSI!" he said with way too much enthusiasm.

If she starts collecting human bones, stay tuned for a VERY interesting blog post.

What did you collect when you were a kid?

* The world's largest collection of belly button lint. Seriously.

Lessons in Manliness

If you're going to play with your big sister's pink Barbie computer...

At least take off your shirt so you look manly.

And be sure to have a mean ol' dinosaur within reach just to remind yourself that you're a tough guy.

Because you are.

Timmits

I was at the grocery store the other day and when it came time to check out, I surveyed the lines and realized the shortest line belonged to the one checker I hoped to avoid. You know the one. I'm sure there's one at every store. Slow, overly chatty, preoccupied... whatever the reason, it seems there's always one to avoid. But I took the plunge.

On this particular day, he was chatty. Oh, was he chatty.

We started with small talk about the weather and the weekend, and I did my best to be polite and reciprocate conversation while also juggling three kids and refereeing the penny pony.

And then he said, "Here's an interesting timmit for you..."

I'm sorry, TIMMIT?

When he finished I said, "Excuse me, I didn't catch that. Can you repeat it?" A very believable line since I had my hands full with the kids and all, but the truth is, he lost me at TIMMIT.

"Here's an interesting timmit for you..." he repeated, as though he'd rehearsed and said it to every customer that day (and I'm sure he had). I think he was saying something about how many eggs are broken each day. Honestly, I don't know because I was thrown off by timmit.

I'm usually a very tolerant person, but for some reason mispronouncing "tidbit" struck a nerve. A very hormonal, pregnant nerve. It really irritated me. I was having this inner battle, laughing at myself to GET A GRIP, crazy pregnant girl!!!!

Pregnant or not, I'd never correct the poor guy. Little did he know that he'd touched on one of my biggest pet peeves - mispronouncing words - and that pregnancy only magnified the situation to seemingly catastrophic proportions in my mind. As I considered subtly replying with, "Well here's an interesting TIDBIT for YOU..." I quickly thought, "What would Jesus do?" and realized that he'd leave it alone. He'd probably just smile and nod and blog about it later.

Anyway, this seems like a good opportunity to share a few interesting pregnancy timmits with you.

In case you missed it, I'm pregnant. And this pregnancy has been different than ANY of my (four) other pregnancies.

• I'm grouchier.
• I have more acne than I ever did in all my teenage years put together. And all the cover-up in the world is not helping.
• SLEEPY.
• My morning sickness, which is mostly gone now (praise God!), was constant for 14 weeks. No relief after throwing up. Just a constant sour feeling in the back of my throat all. the. time. Nothing sounded good to eat, yet not eating made it worse, yet eating made me puke...
• EXHAUSTED.
• I actually had to google "excess saliva" to see if it was a pregnancy symptom. Because I had it. It was disgusting.
• Headaches. Lots of 'em.
• TIRED.
• Restless Leg Syndrome keeps me awake at night. Well, when I'm not making trips to the bathroom.
• I feel OLD. My body feels thrashed. It feels so different being pregnant now than when it did for the first time seven years ago. I'm falling apart. Every joint feels loose and achy, as though I should keep duct tape handy for when my leg falls away from my hip. I'm waiting for it to happen.
• Oh, and I've been beyond TIRED.

In conclusion, I've been hesitant to blog lately because I was afraid I'd go off the deep end and complain forever about all these dreamy pregnancy symptoms. I'm so relieved that didn't happen. (Ha!) Would you believe I had no intention of getting into it in this blog post? It just happens. I'm cranky and pregnant, alright?

I also have not had the energy to blog lately. I am exhausted more than I thought possible. Sometimes I take TWO naps a day and still fall asleep around 9. The simplest things seem to wipe me out. There have been mornings that the mere thought of lifting the toothbrush to my mouth was more than I could handle and I'd flip on a show for the kids and fall asleep on my bed. Pathetic, huh?

I don't have any smooth, poetic way to wrap this up except to warn you not to mispronounce any words around me, or you will experience the very irrational wrath of cranky pregnant girl.

You've been warned.

The reason there's no school today

Last week, Emma came home from school telling me that they had been reading lots of stories each day. Being a reader myself, I loved hearing that! When I asked what the stories were about, she first told me they were non-fiction - "That means they really happened, Mom."

She began telling me a story about a woman on a bus. She told me that this woman had dark skin, but that the bus driver tried to make her move to the back of the bus so a man with light skin could sit in her seat. The woman refused because it wasn't fair.

She told me another story about how "in the olden days" people with light skin didn't want to shop with people with dark skin, so there were certain stores made only for the "white people" ("because sometimes they're just called the white people, Mom"). Or that the "dark people" could only go in if there were signs up that allowed them to enter.

Another story was about a dark boy who didn't think things were fair. When he grew up he became a pastor ("like Daddy!") and fought for what was right.

After telling me a few of these stories, she looked at me with her big, brown eyes and said with disbelief, "Mommy, can you believe those things used to happen? It's so sad!"

I was a little choked up as I talked to her; I'm proud that she's learning the rocky history of our country and seeing the injustice of it all. She has a sensitive heart and I don't think until it was pointed out at school that she saw any difference in people and thought that some are treated differently. When I asked if the lady on the bus was named Rosa Parks, she gasped and said, "Yes! Do you know her??" I explained that I didn't know her, but that I know Rosa's story and the other stories that she shared with me. She was impressed and we talked about it a little while longer.

It was hard not to laugh when she shook her head and said, "It's just sad. It means you and Daddy wouldn't be able to shop at the same store!!!" Have you seen Gary? He's a California boy with a year-round tan, but I'm pretty sure we would have been able to shop at the same store. But, I'm glad she sees that those times allowed for some very unfair situations... to put it lightly.

So today at lunch we talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. and why there's no school today. And when we prayed we thanked God for giving so many men and women courage to stand up for what's right. I hope my kids follow the lead of the brave people from Emma's school stories and always do what's right and treat people fairly and with love. Because today is about a lot more than just a day off school.

Moving right along

One of my pet peeves is when after an unintentional blog break, bloggers reappear with a list of excuses why they haven't blogged and go on and on with "wow! I can't believe it's been so long!"

So I'm not going to do that.

I also am not going to backtrack and recap the last six weeks. Because honestly, I was so backblogged in my Google Reader, that as I went through skimming and clearing it out, I was relieved that most of the posts were Christmas related. Now, it isn't that Christmas isn't relevant year round, but I felt little guilt deleting all those Christmas posts since many were about Christmas crafts to do (a little after the fact now), Christmas traditions to start (file away for next year?) or stories of Christmas cheer (I'm no Ebeneezer Scrooge... but I'm ready to move on). So I'm not going to recap any of our Christmas festivities except to say:

Christmas did happen.

Emmanuel! God with us!

This year was so fun.

(It's even written in haiku form for your reading pleasure.)

And now I'll just update with a couple of important bullet points so I can move on with blogging:

• I got a Mac for Christmas! I love it, love it, love it. It means that now I can blog from the couch. Maybe my blog posts will sounds more comfortable now.
• I'm pregnant! We're due August 6th, just two days before Brody's 2nd birthday! So far so good, except I've been plagued with morning sickness... again. I'm 10 weeks along and past pregnancies indicate that I could have 4-8 more weeks of barfing fun. But at least it means everything is "working," right? We're very excited.

And thus concludes my first blog post of 2010. Happy New Year!