The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

My friend Amanda and I are starting a blogging book club. I am very excited because Amanda is the mother of two adorable little girls and I know I will learn a lot from her (especially since I am still a little shocked and terrified about being the mother to a little girl). Amanda and I taught at GAC together and she is one of those people that is calm, reserved, and always thinks before she speaks. I have been extremely jealous of these qualities of hers for years and am so lucky to have her as a friend. :o)

We've decided to read at our own pace and blog about the parts we liked the most each Friday. Obviously, I am behind. But the book we are reading is called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel. I'm not the best at reading parenting books because I just feel like there are 800 trillion opinions out there and you can make yourself crazy. But this book caught my attention because it is a mixture of pyschology and Jewish teachings. I know I am not Jewish but I read a different book a few years ago...Mudhouse Sabbath and loved it. Look it up and read it sometime. So anyways, there are a lot of Jewish principles that I really appreciate and respect so the book got me curious.

I have read the first two chapters so far and really enjoy it. The first chapter is about the blessing of acceptance. Its all about accepting your children for exactly who they are. It sounds like such a simple concept but I know there is more to it than that simply from sitting in hundreds of parent teacher conferences. Here are my favorite points....

• "Why are parents so anxious to be raising perfect children? The answer is twofold: pride and fear of the future." I think once Marin blesses our home and begins to have her own experiences, fear of the future will most definitely make a presence in her mommy. I'm realizing (especially after remembering those parent teacher conferences...) that this may take a lot of work and practice...
• The whole section on "ordinary holiness " on page 49. I loved the title and idea of ordinary holiness. She wrote about the holy places, holy objects, holy food of Judaism and they are simple, ordinary things. "Holy food? Challah, a plain egg bread." She continued by applying the principle to parenting by saying "the very democractic system gives a special grace to every child and stunning glory to his name."
• Instead of focusing on report cards and extracurricular activities, "if she senses that you respect her for the qualities for which she's been naturally endowed, she'll gain the confidence to truly shine..."

Again, it all seemed simple when I read it but I know that once Marin is here, I will need to be reminded to simply let her be herself...to have her own interests, hobbies, style, loves...and to appreciate all of them because it is what will make her Marin.

Shocked!

We had our 20 week appointment today. Halfway! Everything looks great. Our baby has a big head...99 percentile. Burke finds this very amusing. But we secretly were going to find out the gender but not tell anyone. We are mean. But that's when we were certain it was a boy. We both have boys in our family. So you can imagine our surprise when she told us....it's a....

GIRL!!!

Total shock. Here is a picture of Miss Marin Jordan all snuggled away...

She wasn't cooperative again this time. She was all stretched out and didn't want to move. But here is a sweet profile picture of her.

And the shot of the day....

This is a 3D picture of Marin. The 3D pictures were a bit creepy. But here she is with her hand by her ear. I love that you can see her little fingers!

We are very shocked. Burke is already budgeting for a wedding now. Yikes. But we are so very happy! Can't wait to meet you, Marin!

And a few more sewing projects.

A little airplane bib (even though Burke's not the biggest fan of the plane stuff).

And a boppy pillow cover with the brown polka dot fabric. Maybe I will put a hot pink M on the center now. :o)

Baby Sewing Project

Burke and I completed another sewing project today. We finished the curtain for the baby's "wardrobe". We've turned the $10 bookshelf into some storage for the baby since I have to use the closet. Burke added some crown molding around the edges to make it look a little nicer and we both made the curtain today. We love the new sewing machine!

Once the baby is born, we will add a hot pink border or a bright blue border.

We hung a tension rod inside to hold some clothes.

We (I) couldn't resist these cute onsies....

Little Baby, slowly but surely we will be ready for you when you get here!

The Big 3-1

I turned 31 on Sunday and Burke treated me to a fantastic day. First, we went to the Field Museum. Our public libraries have bought passes (to everything here...Shedd Aquarium, Plantatarium, etc.) and they let you check them out with your library card. So cool. So, we got to spend the morning there for FREE!!! It was fun but there is a LOT of stuff there. I got pretty tired pretty quickly. But here are some pictures from the morning.

The big attraction was Sue. The biggest skeleton remains of a T-rex.

There were tons of animals and then tons of animals.

After the Field Museum we went and saw the musical Million Dollar Quartet. It was so much fun!! We loved the music from Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. Again, so much fun. (Mom and Mary Beth, you guys have to see it. You will love it!)

And there's more. Because I have the greatest most spectacular husband in the world, he got me this....

Look at all those fun stitches!!!!

A little sewing machine history: I have used the same sewing machine since middle school. It survived many moves, but the move to Austin was its last. I finally had to get rid of it and get a new one. So I did. Then the next day my car broke down and I just couldn't keep my new sewing machine when I had car repairs, so I returned it. I have waited (somewhat) patiently for this day!!!

This is what the lady lets us do in the store to try it out.

And this was our first joint effort sewing project. I think Burke may actually like sewing. I'm not sure if I am allowed to post that on the blog, but he is just as fascinated as I am with all the cool buttons and stitches that it can do.

Don't look too closely because we ran into some bobbin issues. I got frustrated and Burke ran and hid from me. But we managed to finish something. I do get to go to a free sewing class on Thursday so I can make sure I know what all it can do and we can really get our money's worth! It is supposed to last a lifetime! Yay!!! I can't wait for more projects. Now, if I could only finish graduate school....so many better things to be doing!!!

If you build it, they will come.

Burke called me at 9pm on Friday to tell me they suckered him into an overnight trip. But he followed it with, "You wanna come?" I said sure, of course and threw some things in a bag. I got to the airport and realized I had no idea where I was going. Well, was I in for a treat. We were off to Cedar Rapids, IOWA!! Woohoo! Big, happening city with lots of corn. We wanted to build a big baseball field so that dead players could come out to play but we didn't have enough time. Maybe next time, Iowa.

Here I am with Captain Brednich. Can never get enough of those awkward arm pictures, huh?


Although, I should have taken the 18 trillion things I need to read for graduate school, I took one of our new book fair books to read instead. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an adorable book about a young writer in 1946 that writes letters back and forth to a quirky community in Guernsey. They formed a literary society to "distract" them from the terrible times of German occupation and she learns of all their war and survival stories through their letters. It has it funny parts, sad parts, sweet parts. Loved each of the charaters! (I did picture Guernsey to be a lot like Stars Hollow in the 40s during a horrible war without Lorielai and Rory. But Stars Hollow anyways.....) Read it. It's cute.