Middle of the night

Its 11:15, pretty late... but I have been up later, the other day is was 3 AM. The last couple of weeks have been hard. I haven't been able to sleep much because my stomach is tight and I get really hot because I need a pillow for my head and a body pillow for support. I get funny cramp feelings, and funny stomach indigestion feelings. I say funny because I really don't know how to describe them. I am due on Tuesday: May 4th. A lot of people are surprised that I haven't had the baby yet, but I am ok waiting. I could wait another couple months if I knew it would give me the outcome that I want, which is a natural birth. I am hoping and praying to avoid another c-section. I am starting to get anxious though, because of my family. We are all in limbo waiting. Homeschooling has been put on hold, Chris is between projects at work, we are all just waiting. I don't have a lot of energy so I haven't been able to do much school with the kids. Chris doesn't want to start anything new at work because he'll be taking time off once the baby comes to help me recover. So we are just so much in limbo, I don't mind waiting if it were just me being effected, but its hard to see the people I love being effected--especially the kids. They do so much better when we have structured school going on. I know once the baby is born it won't be too long and we'll be back in the swing of things. And the beauty about homeschooling is that it can work around my schedule. After the baby comes and I recover--then its back to school! But it all hinges on the baby! The midwife reminded us today that its on the Lord's time and the Lord is never late! She is so right, the Lord is never late. So we all just need to have patience. But again, its the hardest for me to see the kids, they don't understand like Chris and I do.

The good news is that I feel really good about our future homeschooling once the baby comes and we begin getting back to normal. I have spent a lot of time trying to find my niche with schooling and what feels right, makes sense and fits my lifestyle. I have been given amazing inspiration that I know must come from the Holy Spirit because I feel excited, and peaceful. I can see the road ahead and its looks great! The idea that I got may sound really simple, but like I said its perfect for me. The idea is a step by step process, taking a step forward or adding a step when I can and taking a step back or taking a step out when I need to. In my case there are 5 steps suited to the many different areas that I want to teach my children. Here is a rundown of each step:

1. Morning routine: pray, dress, clean room, read scriptures and so on...
2. Meals: meal prep (prep something for a future meal, like make bread or grind flour), meals and kitchen clean up so on...
3. Spanish and Preschool: teaching all the children, but focusing on the younger, preschool level
4. School: focusing on the older children, younger children can participate or go and play
5. Chores and free time: do what I call a "clean sweep" going room by room and tidying up as needed, no deep cleaning just picking things up, then free time where the kids can do what they want and I can do what I want... hopefully :-)

What step we are on may become an indication of how we are doing. Right now we are working mainly on step 1, so you could say that our house right now is functioning on a level 1, considering there are 5 levels... so yeah, we are pretty much in survival mode, just focusing on enduring to the end. I don't have the energy to be making a lot from scratch so the meal prep of step 2 isn't geting done, although Chris and Sam helped me can pinto beans over the weekend. And the other steps are on hold for now, I haven't been getting really good sleep so especially for the last week I have been mostly laying around during the day catching up on my lack of sleep. The kids for the most part have been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly, apples and bananas--not a terrible diet, it could be worse, they don't complain. And 2 days last week they spent watching Charlie Brown cartoons that I downloaded off of youtube. I have been trying to walk as much as I can so that I don't get too stiff. I can keep waiting, but I sure wouldn't mind at all going into labor!