a trimester, some teeth, etc.

hey friends!  we’re still alive and kickin’ out here, in case you were wondering.  sorry for the radio silence!

so, in the style of the update, here are a few things worth sharing:

x. i’m through my first trimester with baby #2!  no hitches so far!  it’s weird…  i don’t even feel all that pregnant.  not having morning sickness probably has a lot to do with that…  i never had it with ran either, and it’s a blessing i readily accept.  i hate puking.  hate it.  never ever had one of those “i always feel better after i throw up” moments–i usually feel just feel like crap and curl myself around the base of the toilet until some other pressing need motivates me to attempt moving.  however, i haven’t puked since 10th grade (and i’m 24), so i guess i’ve got some supernatural favor.  [i'll take it!]

x. ran has been fully blowing our minds lately… this kid is already pulling up to standing any- and everywhere he can!  it’s nuts.  i don’t know what i’m going to do when he starts running around this place.  good thing we have a playground just outside.  oh, and he cut two teeth in a matter of days (and oh what FUN those days were–not.); we didn’t even know the second one came in until the day after one of the worst days i’ve had with him in a while…  teething bites.  pun fully intended.  you know all that stuff moms tell you about the teething days?  screaming, crying, fussing, hold-me-don’t-hold-me-i’m-just-mad-at-the-world-anyway-and-my-poop-is-exponentially-more-disgusting days?  yeah.  they’re not kidding.

but at least he’s cute.  see:

eating dried prunes... because he needed to

help for Haiti!

if you’re still looking for a way to send relief to Haiti, have i got an idea for you!

my dear friend Christine Wasinger is deploying in a couple of weeks to Haiti with Crisis Response International, a non-profit organization that exists solely to send highly-trained disaster relief individuals out to crisis situations to assist practically in immediate aid and to help rebuild cities on the Kingdom of God.

i got involved in CRI last year and then found out i was pregnant, which pretty much meant i wasn’t going to be deploying anytime soon, but my heart got seriously impacted by how these guys focus their efforts on being professional, both in diaster relief and in living their lives as followers of Christ on a mission.  the first thing they do which crisis strikes is send a number of folks out with all their trailers and tents and they set up a base camp with a kitchen, an infirmary, a chaplaincy, and a prayer room.  they don’t mess around.  they’re fully able to integrate with federal and state efforts because of the certifications and training each member goes through well before deployment.  they are able to give practical helps through food and medicine and also spiritual helps through grief counseling, prayer, and reestablishing hope through worshipping God.  and they’re not just there for the victims–first responders are also very often unprepared for the things they have to see and do; CRI’s base camp offers them an outlet to process and get prayer or counseling as well.

it’s really an amazing program.

so how can you help?  practically.  send someone to Haiti who is exceedingly qualified to serve.  send Christine.  give her your lunch or coffee money for today–$5, $10, $20 still goes a long way when you have a goal to reach.  or give directly to CRI; it costs a lot of money for them to deploy and keep all the generators running as well as feed folks and tend to their needs.  they need our help.  will you consider giving?  they’ve already got some folks down there and they’re going to be sending waves and waves more of them soon.  will you pray for them?  will you support them in their efforts to be burning and shining lamps to the darkest night in Haiti?

respond today.  it will be worth your while.

i’m proud to report…

my son pooped in his potty today!  yayayay!  not even eight months old yet.  so proud of my boy.

and admittedly, if i’d prioritized it, the potty-poopage would have come much earlier, but i had a lot of new-mom things to learn and get used to.  we did all the reading and had the potty before ran was born, but actually trying seemed a bit overbearing for a time.  and he may or may not poop in that little green potty again for a while, but i’m still stoked he did today!  way easier to dump a potty than it is to shake a turd off his cloth diapers.  (TMI?  eh…  it happens.)

in other news, i haven’t updated since before christmas, so i’m sure i have much to say.

for starters, as far as other milestones in the life of ran, he’s pulling up on everything, and he was getting steadier crawling on all fours last night (he’s been army-crawling for awhile, but crawling up off the ground is new).  he also ate a pretty big chunk of an apple the other day without pitching it in the floor after a few minutes.  i was rather proud of that one.  most food winds up everywhere but in-belly.

he also successfully made it through christmas without much of a hitch.  none of us really got any sleep from christmas adam through christmas cain (that would be the 23rd-26th), but christmas seth was a lovely reprieve.  we mostly slept.  it was nice.  on christmas abel, we visited our friends shane and emily and their baby girl stella and darin got to help shane break in his new call of duty game.  see here:

albeit mildly unrelated--go huskers!

 

ransom apparently enjoys a good bloody war game.  i’m sure someday we’ll pay for that, but for now, i think dad-time is worth it.  moving on.

so, we have some exciting news… :)

 

it's says "positive"!

 

we’re having another baby!  woohoo!

pray for us all, if you think of it!  this is a big blessing, but we have a lot of work to do before new baby gets here.

peace to you all!

using up leftover greens

about three weeks ago, darin and i were in harris teeter to buy some salad greens and saw 16 oz boxes of organic spring mix on sale for a really fabulous price.  we had a dinner with a friend that night that we were hosting and we’d been eating a salad every other night at dinner, so we felt certain we could eat the whole box before it went bad.  needless to say, we bought one.

and we ate and ate from that box and three days later we’d only barely made a dent.

even though i took measures to fluff the leaves every day, by the fourth day, the greens at the bottom of the box were browning and leaking ooky stuff (i know now that adding a paper towel to the bottom of the box would have been helpful in keeping moisture down, but hey, i’ve only been eating salads for a month.  i have a lot left to learn!).

so in an executive kitchen decision that fourth day, i decided to get creative.

learning to love the nanny elixir

so, after reading nina planck’s Real Food, i learned a lot.  a whole lot.  and now we’re taking it step by step to incorporate proper and real foods into our daily diets.

it occurred to me as i was reading those enlightening pages that the bulk of my health problems are likely a direct result of my really unhealthy childhood.  to fill you in if you haven’t ever heard, i didn’t really eat food until i was 18.  i pretty much ate nothing but french fries, hot dogs and breakfast pig meats, cheerios, junk food, candy, and packet rices from lipton (now knorr).  i didn’t eat pizza until i was in eighth grade (though i’d been eating cooked pepperonis for ages, i wouldn’t touch the total pizza package).  i didn’t touch beef or turkey or other poultry until i was a senior in high school.  i didn’t even eat bread, as in loaf bread–i ate biscuits like they were going out of style–, until the same time as i learned to eat turkey (at least i skipped white bread altogether).  i refused to eat spaghetti (unless it came from a can stamped with a make-believe chef’s face and name) until i went to college and didn’t have a lot of other choices available to me.  my first taste of mashed potatoes was two years ago at a thanksgiving dinner my friend’s grandmother invited me to.  i still can’t eat yogurt unless it’s frozen or ice cream unless you have to chip at it with a fork, nor did i touch a salad until about three weeks ago.

needless to say, i was very picky.  and increasingly unhealthy.  and fat.  and often sick.

now, at the ripe old age of 24, i have had a retinal detachment, a number of major dental surgeries resulting in zero wisdom teeth and a tooth implant that failed at first and had to be redone, and i have a serious medical condition, part of which leaves me incapable of producing enough breastmilk to support a baby’s life.

random smattering of things…

where to begin…?  whole lot of random things happening here in the damme life.  guess i’ll just get typing and see where it goes.

x. ransom is 19 pounds 11 ounces and 26 inches long.  he makes for a very big boy.  he’s wearing 12 month clothes at 7 months.  i’m not ready for my little to be so big… : (  but at least he’s really cute.  see:

 

weekly weigh-in

not a whole lot of excitement this week.  in fact, there’s been none at all.  i kind of had a rough emotional week for a number of reasons and so i didn’t really do much of anything at all, in general.  i hate weeks like that.  i attribute it to the weather.  it was dreary all week.  put me in a bad mood.  yuck.

so stats:

Weight: 194 lbs.
Waist: 33″
Hips: 44″
Progress: none this week, but 50 lbs. gone since Ran was born!
Pounds to Ideal Weight: 38 to go!

i cheered myself up mid-week after my breakdown by remembering that little fact posted in the “Progress” line–50 lbs since Ran was born–that’s a lot of weight gone.  granted 10-15 of that was the baby and the goop he swam in for months, but still.  it’s gone.  it’s a pleasant remembrance.

well, that’s all for now.  i’ve got stuff to do around this house.  later, taters.

just like his daddy…

sneaky little young’un…  i found him like this after leaving the room for just a moment.

maybe he’ll give that 114 second solving asian kid a run for her money someday. : )

weekly weigh-in #whateveritis

yayay!  i’m a day late, but i still remembered!

anyhoo, so, not a lot to tell.  i learned to eat salad this past week: a big accomplishment for me in my life.  i’ve never eaten salad before.  it’s not so bad this time.  i made my own salad dressing, which was tastier the second time around (yay for crushed red pepper adding zest!), and then discovered that i can only eat a little of it before i get heartburn, so next week i intend to find a different something to make.  it’s a shame that apple cider vinegar makes my stomach too acidy; it tastes really good.

i also started adding push-ups and crunches to my regimen, at least 3 times a week.  it’s not much, but i’m finding that ransom naps much less these days and so my cardio/toning workouts are getting somewhat shorter (basically becoming whatever-i-can-do-between-feeding-entertaining-and-changing workouts, generally 2-3 miles with intervals).  when ran is in a good mood and enjoying playing on his mat with his toys, i can sometimes squeeze in an extra mile or set of crunches, and look forward to those times because i honestly feel better when i’m active and so should be as active as i can.  yes.