Feet

My feet should be on display at a circus...
They are what I imagine flinstone feet would look like.
I can make dents in them that stay and if I put enough dents in them they look like swiss cheese.
I will not in the slightest miss these bags of water straped to my feet.

Iced Tea

The last few weeks of this pregnancy I have craved iced tea.  Now I am not talking about a simple craving that entails wanting something a lot, I am talking about a craving so deep that my mind wanders during the day thinking about where I can get the goodness that is fresh brewed unsweetened iced tea.   I think I am getting a sense what it is like to have a drug addiction and needing to get my "fix".  So like any good addict I know where to get the best stuff at the cheapest price.  For me it is McDonalds.  I can get a large unsweetened tea for $1.07 and I don't even have to get out of my vehicle, just zip through the drive thru with my exact change.  So if you are planning on buying stock you should consider putting some green into McDonalds, at least until my pregnancy is over.

Four Weeks

As of today I officially have four weeks before Baby Hamann is due (due date September 19th)!  I am so incrediby nervous/excited/terrified/anxious.  So many questions are constantly running through my head:

When will labor start?
What will it feel like?
Will I make it to the hospital?
Will I have time to get an epidural?
How long will I push?
Will he have lots of hair?
How much will he weigh and how long will he be?
Who will be look like?
Will he come out with a name tag? :)
Will he latch right away?
Will the swelling finally go down in my feet...please oh please?
How will Maggie react to our new family member?

So many questions to be answered.  The only thing I can do right now is wait and let the answers unfold.

Nursery

Reid had the original idea for the nursery.  He suggested that we choose a children's book and use that as the theme for the room.  So we went with a childhood classic, The Velveteen Rabbit.  I absolutely love that story.  The idea that love is not sunshine and rainbows, but instead a beautiful process between two people (or in the case of the book, boy and stuffed rabbit). My favorite part of the book is a conversation that takes place between the Velveteen Rabbit and Skin Horse.  They are discussing how a toy can become real and the wise Skin Horse explains (excuse my paraphrasing)  "When someone loves you very much, then you become real".  With love comes pain or in the case of the rabbit, worn fur and a missing button eye. 

Baby Hamann's Velveteen Rabbit made by my talented cousin Jessica

 

 

 

Maggie just hanging out in her soon-to-be best friend's room :)

Maternity Pictures

My friend Kelly gave me a maternity and newborn photo shoot for my baby shower and these are a few of the pictures :)

Bethel Lutheran Church

The intern at our church invited the youth group to go and experience another ELCA Lutheran Church in Chicago.  Reid and I were the only "youth members" that showed up on Sunday morning to venture into the city to worship.  The church we went to was Bethel Lutheran Church, a predominatly african american church in a very crime ridden neighborhood on Chicago's west side.  The actual corner that the church is located on is a known drug exchange location.  The church has an agreement with the community's drug dealers and so from 7 am to 3 pm on Sunday there is no dealing that takes place on that corner.  The intern explained that the church service willl look a little different then we are used to.  Although church is scheduled to start at 10:45 am, the service actually doesn't start until everyone gets there.  Now in normal Lutheran tradition if church lasts more then an hour the congregation members get restless, at Bethel church ends when it ends.  At the paticuar service that we attend we were there for three hours, and it could have gone on longer, but the pastor decided it was time to end the service so they did.

One of the reasons that the service is lengthy has to do with the "sharing of the peace".  Now I can only speak from personal preference, but I have always felt that the "sharing of the peace" part of the service is something that people participate in, but don't neccessary enjoy, maybe it's just me.  We shake each others' hands and smile, but I personally do not venture out of the church pew (consider it my comfort zone).  At Bethel "sharing of the peace" can take an hour, maybe even longer.  Everyone hugs everyone, literally everyone.  So I tried to stay in my comfort zone at this service, but I quickly realized that I needed to conform.  I left my pew and was warmly greeted with hugs and congrats on my pregnancy.  These vibrantly dressed black women hugged me like we were long lost family, I was engulfed by them and it was beautiful.  They didn't know me and would probably never see me again, but they genuienly cared and it was so refreshing. 

Now even though the service was three hours there was no sermon.  That morning when everyone showed up they decided to do a baptism and a rite of passage presentation so there was not time to have a sermon.  The rite of passage presentation was very interesting.  They showed a slide show of who I assumed to be congregation members, mostly women, and the a lady spoke about how proud she was of their achievements.  Then girls and women were called up and given a gift.  The one thing these girls and women had in common is that they had recently graduted from something (everything from kindergarten to college and even a bible study program).  Now at first I thought how mundane it seemed to celebrate minor achievements like graduating from kindergarten and bible study, but then I realized that in that neighborhood every milestone deserved to be celebrated.  There are many children who don't make it to kindergarten let alone graduate from high school and graduating from college is almost never heard of.  In this community that is ruled by gangs and drug dealers, education in a classroom is not considered a priority.

Bethel Lutheran Church is definetly a place where spirit, grace, and joy exist.  It was a beautiful experience that I will not soon forget.

Little Grandma's

I will be 28 years old in a few days and never in my whole life have I been able to sit down with my Little Grandma (My Dad's Mother) and talk just the two of us.  Now I should probably expain why I refer to her as Little Grandma.  When my sisters and I were growing up we needed to find a way to distinguish between our grandparents.  My mother's mom was tall and my father's mom was more petite.  So we creatively named our grandmas Big Grandma and Little Grandma.

Anyway, this past weekend I ventured to my Little Grandma's to assist my husband and brother-in-law in getting my Grandpa's boat fixed up enough to be driven back to Fennimore in order to suprise my Dad.  Now I should clarify that my "assisting" with the boat entailed spending time with my Grandma and every once and a while her and I would check to see how the boys were doing.

It was the most enjoyable afternoon I have had in a long time.  My Grandma and I broke every social rule regarding topics of conversation.  We talked politics, reglion, social issues and after we tried to solve the world's problems we discussed Baby Hamann and some fun stories about my Dad and his sisters.  My Grandma turned 92 this June and I am so proud to be a grandaughter of, oh how did she put it...a liberal "rebel"!