Jumping Jocelyn

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I had been intending to post these videos of Jocelyn and Lee for a while. I think they're from August 1st. As you'll see, Jocelyn is big into jumping off just about anything and expecting us to catch her! Now she counts to three at least, so I can hear her counting and get into position. (One day last month she jumped without counting, and I ended up with a bloody, swollen lip!)





Jocelyn is a big sister!

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Yep, we're expecting! This little one will arrive sometime around April 14th. (Lee is convinced that he or she will arrive on April 14th, since Jocelyn arrived on her due date ... we'll see!)

I love ultrasounds. I especially love early ultrasounds, since it's amazing to see the intricacy and detail that our Creator puts into his creation. Our little one is 1cm long in this picture - only one centimeter! Yet we could make out a head, a body, and a visibly and audibly beating heart, all fit in one centimeter. (By the way, the head is at the bottom of this ultrasound. The round part at the top is the sac.) It truly made the two of us awestruck as we looked at this minuscule yet completely alive child!

Jocelyn was there too, but she was mostly interested in the lights on all the equipment and in all the pictures posted in the room. Lee kept pointing at the screen where we could see the baby, but it never held her attention long! Perhaps if the baby resembled Larry the Cucumber a little more ...

So far this pregnancy has been a breeze as compared to my first. I've had waves of nausea here and there, but I'm not violently ill like I was with Jocelyn. We knew when I started my treatment for rheumatoid arthritis that I could be pregnant, so we went with the option that would be safe for that, but I'm praying that we will be able to drop the meds by early in the second trimester since most women with RA go into remission during pregnancy. (Granted, RA usually hits back hard shortly after giving birth, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.) I've been tired, but not too tired to keep up with our high-energy little girl. So all is well!

Also, since we're already referring to the baby by a nickname based on our chosen names, I'll go ahead and share those now too. I know a lot of people hold back on names until later in pregnancy or until the kiddo is born, but we like to call our baby by name as soon as possible. If it's a boy, he will be Robert (Robbie) Stone Dingle, named after my great-grandfather as well as my grandmother's twin brother. Robert means "bright fame," and Stone means, well, "stone;" with those names combined, our prayer is that he will give bright fame and glory to the cornerstone who is Christ (Ephesians 2). If it's a girl, she will be Zoe. Zoe means "life" in Greek and is the Greek word most frequently interpreted as "life" in English versions of the New Testament. We're still working on a middle name and have some ideas, which we hope to narrow down soon! Right now we're considering Arabella (which means "prayerful" or "beautiful lion"), Renee (which means "reborn" and is Lee's mom's middle name, though with a different spelling), and Elizabeth (which means "consecrated to God" or "God's promise" and is my sister's name, though with a different spelling), so a combined name meaning "prayerful life," "reborn life," or "life consecrated to God." And Lee has christened him or her with the nickname Pebble based on Robert Stone since the baby is a little stone right now. I think the nickname will stick even if it ends up being Zoe instead of Robbie! (Or maybe not, considering that Jocelyn's nickname in the womb was Elynac based on our three favorite names then: ELijah, JocelYN, and IsaAC. She was never called Elynac after we knew she was a girl, so perhaps Pebble won't stick either.)

And, if it seems weird to you that the title of this post is "Jocelyn is a big sister" rather than "Jocelyn is going to be a big sister," I do realize that the latter is more common for these circumstances. However, since this child is undoubtedly alive, he or she is already Jocelyn's little sibling. Thus Jocelyn IS a big sister!

Ahh, the simple pleasures

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Lately I've been finding myself thankful for little things, like:
  • Cheesecake Factory's frozen Oreo cheesecake on special for only $0.81 at Sam's Club last week (no, not just a single slice - the whole cheesecake!). Lee got two, and when I went back an hour later to get more, they were cleared out!
  • Waking up with minimal joint pain. My medication is doing its job. My right thumb is still swollen and stiff and the pain in my let foot is hit or miss, but I am no longer in constant, excruciating pain.
  • Realizing that there's a Veggie Tales we can watch for free on hulu.com (a legal website where you can stream mostly NBC shows for free). Jocelyn loves Veggie Tales, and they have the Jonah movie!
  • Olympic coverage. I love the Olympics, and I've always loved watching the swimming. Given that Phelps is the boy wonder of these games, I'm getting to watch lots o' swimming.
  • Jocelyn sleeping late in the morning. It's nice to get some things done before she's up or - on those mornings after late night Olympics-watching - to sleep in with her!
  • Friends to hang out at the pool with.
  • Enjoying this stage in Jocelyn's life. She's old enough to come back with matching shoes when I tell her, "Go find your shoes," in the morning, and she has enough stamina to take a mile-long walk with me around the neighborhood. (Granted, today I took a walk, and she mostly took a ride as I carried her a lot of the loop.) She likes to hold my hand when she walks or runs. One of her favorite games is for me to stand at one end of the driveway and her to stand at the other end and then we run toward each other, hug when we meet in the middle, and then return to our starting points and begin all over again. She refuses to play this game with Lee; it's strictly a Mommy-Jocelyn game. Every so often she'll fake me out and pass me instead of hugging, and she thinks that's hilarious! She finds wonder in simple things, like the fact that she can flip a switch and make the kitchen light up, and it's just so fun to watch her discover the world.
  • Having the Wiggles dilemma I posted about earlier today. My options aren't bad; either we sell the tickets (which were free to us) for about $150, or we go to a show for free. A win-win either way!
  • Playing with our three cats. They love attention, and they're very sweet!
  • Entering Jocelyn's room after nap time to find her playing peek-a-boo with her stuffed animals. I caught her with her blanket on her head, pulling it off and yelling "Boo!" to her stuffed dragon. She was thrilled to realize Mommy was there too!
  • Having a packed closet of clothes for Jocelyn, all that have been given to us by our friends the Wilcoxes. I think I've bought ten outfits at the most for Jocelyn.
  • Band-Aids. Jocelyn gets a new scab on her knee every day since she runs and plays hard ... which means she falls hard.
  • Being a wife and mom. I'm finding a lot of pleasure in the daily-ness of life, the cooking, cleaning, playing, running errands, hanging out, and so on. I'm finding myself very content lately in all the little moments. I know being a wife and mom isn't a little thing (and I started this post talking about being "thankful for the little things"), but I don't always stop and think about how thankful I am, so I'm including it in the list anyway!

I could go on, but suffice it to say that God is good and we are blessed!