All it takes is a little rainbow

As I drove home this morning after dropping Bear off at her school (running late as usual), I saw the end of a rainbow to the south, just beyond a hill.  It was just the tail end, there was no arch visible from my perspective.  I smiled.  Rainbows are unexpected in January.  I think of them as a Spring or Summer occurrence.   Well, it is Spring-like with out daffodils and tulips and hyacinths peeking through the ground here in the Southeastern US, but that's not the point.  We could, in theory, get a snow storm tomorrow.  Because it's winter.  But I digress...

I continued toward home, and the other end of the rainbow was visible slightly north, not very far from our neighborhood.  The sky was dark and ominous in between the two ends, yet the colors I saw were pretty vibrant and made me smile.  Rainbows remind me of hope.  God gave a promise of hope to Noah, and after Noah's obedience the rainbow shone across the sky.  Noah would have missed it had he disobeyed and failed to build the ark. (In addition to what have been his obvious demise.)

At that point I was in a great mood by the time I got back to the house.  My mental list of things to tackle was ceasing to overwhelm me, my determination was growing.  About an hour later, it was time to take Buddy to his preschool.  I pressed the button on the remote in the garage for the opener... grind.... scrape... grind.... the door didn't budge, the chain did not even look like it was moving.   The house is 18-ish years old, and the garage door opener is original.  We had the springs and cables professionally replaced after we moved in.  Sigh.  Had we wasted our money?  Irrelevant right now, as I pondered how to get the SUV out of the garage.  I contemplated pulling it forward and trying to back it out of the other side, but the risk of hitting my husband's motorcycle or worse, the wall between the two garage doors, was not appealing.  (I do think it was possible.)  I looked at the manual release.  Some idiot had tied it out of reach.  (I later realized I was calling my husband an idiot on the phone when I vented to him. Oops.)  So I grabbed the step ladder and a bamboo skewer, and used the skewer to loosen the knot.  It worked.  Opening the door was still tricky, that thing is HEAVY... but I got it open enough to back out.  Which I did.  (All the while my 3 year old thought it was an adventure.  "Mommy, be careful on the ladder!") After backing into the driveway, I closed the beastly door (it kind of slammed in spite of my efforts to control it).  Buddy was only about 30 minutes late to school, no biggie...
So, we'll be calling the garage door service to come back out and figure out what happened... in the meantime, I get to park in the driveway.  In the rain.

It's easy to let a little thing like this ruin my day. Especially considering the house seems to be full of things that keep wearing out or breaking, not to mention the relatively minor damage caused by a natural disaster followed by the frustration over the poor workmanship in the repair process. (That's another story, don't ask.)

But this morning there was a rainbow.  A glimmer of Spring in the bleak midwinter. (The rainbow has disappeared and there's a nice drizzle falling outside now.) So my big girl panties have been pulled on, and I am tackling little projects one at a time, taking care of what I can, thanking God for my many blessings (including my home and the challenges it thrusts at us), and making it a good day.

mid-afternoon melancholy

This is the time of day where I want to take a nap or cry for no good reason.  I am exhausted.  I'm sure growing the little shrimp in my belly has something to do with it, but not all.  The weeks where my other half works out of town are the hardest, and after having him home for a month his absence is even more noticeable.

Can the kids and I just eat out every night so I don't have to worry about dishes to clean up?  Pretty please?

Baby Checkup #2

We (the whole family) went to my 12 week 4 day check-up today.  My new OB/Gyn likes utilizing technology and I knew we would get to have another ultrasound.  Part of me worried a bit because the nurse practitioner called it a viability scan, as though something last time may have indicated the need.  I am not used to numerous scans.

I have felt tired, but good overall.  Yes, some nausea and a little vomiting on occasion, but considering I spent what felt like hours over the porcelain throne with both Bear and Buddy (especially Bear), the lack of eventfulness was beginning to worry me.  My appointment came just in time.  Just yesterday I shared about my anxiety with some friends at MOPS.

I forgot to pack one of my meds before we went to Memphis for Christmas, and just never resumed taking it when we got back, so I am carefully monitoring my motions and asking hubby to do the same.  I would have to wean off in the 3rd trimester anyway, and with the influx of pregnancy hormones I am actually feeling much happier off the meds than I expected... minus the aforementioned mild anxiety.

So, we arrived.  The ultrasound tech decided to go ahead and try a normal abdominal u/s machine since I am halfway between weeks 12 and 13, and she was able to get a clear view of our baby.  Well, except for the fact that the little one was literally doing flips inside my belly.  The baby's heartbeat was 146 BPM and we saw the nose, brain, spine, arms and legs, and heart... that is one of the coolest things to me.

Big Sis was excited, Big Bro just wanted to be free and run around, but what surprised me was how the miracle of seeing your baby never gets old.  In fact, I think the awe and wonder grows with each pregnancy.  People who don't know me well cannot tell I have a baby bump, which is par for the course with my long torso.  And with the lack of morning sickness, I have often wondered if it was real, the first ultrasound was becoming a distant memory.  So to see and hear that heartbeat and watch a very active little baby move around on the TV screen, and then to have the u/s tech and nurse practitioners confirm that everything looks perfect is very overwhelming.  In a good way.  Baby looks like a tiny person in there, not just a belly bean with nubs, but a fully developing human being.  It truly is a miracle.