Tiptoes

These days more and more is within this little one's reach. Check out her feet, she has perfect form for a point ballet dancer. Ouch.

One of those days...

Everyone needs to have days where everything seems difficult or goes wrong. It is part of life.

These are hershey kisses wrappers. The only things that brightened my day.


Every time I try to sit down, a baby is crying. Every time I try to feed a baby, they are crying so hard they won't drink. Teething, growth spurts, falling down learning to walk, missing moms, all these things contributed to a challenging day. And I am becoming more and more pregnant and the emotional hormones are raging. And then there is thinking about the future (which can either be one of my good or bad tendencies) and worrying what that will look like with respect to a variety of areas: jobs, house, kids, finances, etc.

I said to Faustina, "When you feel like I do right now, this is when you say, "Jesus, please give me patience!". She doesn't know what I said, but at least she smiled.

My new obsession

This may look to you like a simple blender, but oh no folks, this is a vita-mix. And it is truly amazing. A few weeks ago I convinced Mike (it wasn't very hard to) that we need one of these kitchen appliances, and I have been using it incessantly since then.

I wrote awhile ago how I have been trying to have Mike and I drink these green smoothies regularly. The smoothie has any sort of green leaf in it (kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, etc) along with either a fruit of your choice or other things such as avacados,tomatoes, onion, garlic, etc. Our old blender left a kind of 'chunky' smoothie because some of these ingredients can be difficult to grind to a creamy consistency. The vitamix, however, completely pulverizes anything in it to the finest possible texture.

The novel aspect of the vitamix is that it has an incredibly powerful motor. It has a low speed and the high speed goes as fast as 250 mph. Their sales pitch is that you can make staple items typically bought at the store easily at home - for example mayonnaise, salsa, ice cream, peanut butter, soup, and you can even grind wheatberries to make your own wheat flour - and it takes just a few minutes. For peanut butter, you just buy peanuts and pulverize them in the vitamix and you have peanut butter (there is enough oil in the peanuts). Mayonnaise only calls for 5 simple items. And when you make these items yourself, they are much more nutritious.

I have made ice cream and it turned out great. Actually, I like it better than store bought stuff because I put less sugar in it. I made asparagus soup. For the soup you let it run for 4 minutes and the vitamix even makes the soup so hot that it is steaming and ready to eat. This weekend Mike has been sick so I have been juicing 2 oranges so Mike has fresh OJ. Faustina likes it too and you can see.

Captain Faustina

We went for a walk on Thursday night and we found a new version of a 'stroller' for Faustina - I LOVE it. Haha. It is so awesome. So this stroller that Faustina is standing up in is actually a universal stroller frame that you are suppose to put a baby car seat on top of. Mike was genius and simply put Faustina in the bottom pouch area and she can stand up and hold on as we go for a walk. It is pretty hilarious and I am sure people wonder if we realize we are using the stroller incorrectly. But it works great. We went a few miles like this and she just took everything in. I decided to not purchase a nice single stroller because I figured at some point I would want a double one anyway. And that turned out to be true! So we make due with what we have and it always works out. I guess there are 'standing stollers' out there now anyway - we're doing our part to keep up with new designs.

Yuk

My first major mistake with diapers and poop happened on Thursday. And it was disgusting.

I am in a bad habit of changing a kid's diaper and then placing it directly to my left on the top of Faustina's crib. Then, of course, I am suppose to take the dirty diaper to the diaper pail. Otherwise, Faustina can reach the diaper while she is in her crib, or the dirty diaper just stinks up the room.

Well, on Thursday the diaper didn't make it to the pail. I changed Ella's poopy diaper which was absolutely nasty and then rushed to the living room where 2 other babies were crying; I forgot the diaper.

I put Faustina down for a nap and I could hear her happily playing in her crib for quite awhile. After 15 minutes I went to check on her and she leaped up in the air and laughed when I opened the door which made me laugh aloud UNTIL I smell a lot of poop and look more closely in the crib.

Faustina was COVERED in poop.

And I mean covered. Poop was in her hair, by her mouth (yes, I am sure she did a taste test), behind her ears, around her eyes, on her teddy bear, on her blanket, all over the crib bumper, all over the crib wood. It was nasty.

I immediately took her to give her a bath. I could only laugh at myself because it was my fault and of course she took the natural course of action - to play with a fun poopy diaper. And in one sense....although sad, it struck my funny bone when I said aloud to her, "Faustina, do you realize you have POOP all over your FACE!" And then she looked at me with her big eyes and smiled. What are you going to do.

Nevertheless, I spent the next hour cleaning up; thank goodness it cleaned up well! I will not make that mistake again.

Prayer Request for Baby Adkins [updated]

On Thursday I had an ultrasound at 21 weeks for our little one. There was nothing unusual about it and ultrasounds are always fun to see the baby moving all over the place.

This afternoon I received a call from our clinic; my doctor called instead of the nurse who usually calls just to say, "Everything looks fine. We'll see you at your next appointment.". Of course, immediately alarms went on in my mind.

She told me that the baby's weight looks good and s/he is on track for the original due date. There are, however, some abnormalities in the baby's kidneys. It looks like the baby has double kidneys on its left side. Since I am only halfway through the pregnancy it is difficult to tell exactly what is going on, but the possibilities are that there are 2 kidneys on the left side or there is a cyst on the one left kidney. I'll be going to a more advanced ultrasound lab in 4-6 weeks to find out more and will probably have an ultrasound every 4 weeks.

Dr. Mary said we won't have a complete diagnosis until the baby is born. She said it is very likely that it is a benign case - what that means I don't know. She didn't offer many details and my mind wasn't quick enough to formulate questions that I thought of later. I asked her if this is pretty unusual and she said yes it is. There was little information online about 'double kidneys'. We will try to assume the best and pray for little Adkins in the coming weeks.

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We'd ask that you pray the Divine Mercy Prayer (on right side-bar) for the little one and/or also the St. Jude prayer (below). St. Jude was Mike's Confirmation name and he's the saint of lost causes; that's why Mike chose him! Anyway, we'd appreciate any prayers. Also, we believe not only in the intercession of our friends and family in life, but those who have gone before us in faith - the saints. We encourage you to also ask for the intercession from these holy men and women who have yet to be canonized as saints:

-Pope John Paul II (+2005)
-Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (+2009)
-Blessed Mother Theresa (+1997)
-John Henry Cardinal Newman (+1890)
-Pope Pius XII (+1958)

Prayer for the intercession of St. Jude

Most holy apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly - (here make your request) that I may praise God with you and all the elect forever.

I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.

Amen.

Divine Mercy Sunday - April 19th

Here's an image of the shrine in Krakow, Poland.

Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

For the sake of His sorrowful Passion have mercy on us and on the whole world.

You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty yourself out upon us.

O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us. I trust in You!

Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One,
have mercy on us and on the whole world.
[recite three times, once for each member of the Holy Trinity]

Amen.

Green Smoothies

A few days ago I finished this book "Green for Life" by Victoria Boutenko and I found it absolutely fascinating. It is an easy read and she framed health and what is going on in the body in an incredibly clear light for me. After many years of her husband, and 2 children having many health problems, she started serious research about how to change their diet. This lead them to adopt a raw diet which they sustained for 9 years and almost all of their health difficulties were cured.

After 9 years, Victoria felt that something was missing in their diets. She found that they were not eating nearly enough 'greens'. After a great deal more research and experimentation, she came up with 'green smoothies'.

The idea of these smoothies is that you are not only consuming greens, but since these greens are blended you are getting all the vitamins and minerals in them. Victoria found that since plants have such solid cell membranes, even when a person chews a salad, they get only a small percentage of the nutrients available. These smoothies are very simple since they are only fruit, a green and water. These in the picture have 4 kiwis, 1 banana, 4 celery stalks and 2 cups water. And they actually taste good! - I think anyway; Mike likes them as well.

The book makes a strong case for how many different ways these smoothies help a person. In general, a person has more energy, sleeps better, regular 'elimination', clear skin, hair stays natural color in old age, they balance PH in one's stomach, help lose weight,takes away unhealthy cravings, etc. Mike and I are going to try to drink them regularly for a month and see what we think. One cannot deny that no matter what, they have ingredients that can only contribute positively to good health.