Random Thoughts and Observations: January 6,2009 Edition

• You may think that I’ve been uncharacteristically quiet these past weeks. I suppose I have been, but if you could have seen the slew of unfinished drafts that I just deleted, you would know that it hasn’t been entirely on purpose. By the time I get to sit down in the evenings with my Mac, I usually seem to completely lose focus on the things I wanted to post about throughout the day. Today I’m taking advantage of a little down-time at work. So I can actually publish a post, even if it isn’t devoted to just one topic but is filled with my random thoughts and observations.
• First of all, please pray for Bart. His IBS is getting so bad these days that he’s miserable more often than not. He’s been to the doctor about it, but now I think it’s time for him to see a specialist. He can’t go anywhere without becoming ill anymore, and the severity of his illness is growing. Just to see if an intolerance to something is triggering this, we’re avoiding MSG in everything he eats for a while. I’m afraid it’s not just MSG but an intolerance or allergy to glutens as a whole. If that’s so, then we’re going to have to seriously rethink our entire diet.
• Secondly, I appreciate all the prayers coming our way as we continue to try for a baby. Sometimes I grow impatient and irritable, but I understand that it will happen in God’s time, not mine. I must stop setting little, personal deadlines for it because other than making the conscious decision to no longer use birth control, I have little to no control as to when it will happen.
• With the start of a new year, I of course want to organize my entire house and get rid of anything that has little to no sentimental value and hasn’t been used in at least a year or two. It’s amazing how quickly two people and a dog can clutter a decent-sized house! Until we really get at this, we really don’t have room for a baby!
• Now that Christmas is over I ready for Spring. We had a pretty, warm day Saturday, and it was just so nice to be able to be outside with Lucy. We took her for her first walk in probably weeks around the neighborhood. She was so happy to go for a walk again that she just ran and ran and ran. Then I handed Bart the leash, and she ran just as much again. OK, I don’t want you to think that she’s not getting exercise since it’s cold, but it’s been limited to playing the back yard when we were able to be outside. Also, between my having the flu, a cold, stomach flu, and whatever else I haven’t been able to be outside, and you know Bart’s plight.
• Lastly, even though my favorite team (Oklahoma) is playing in the BCS National Championship Game Thursday night, I am more convinced than ever that NCAA football needs to overhaul the Bowl System and create a playoff system not unlike March Madness in basketball.  There was once a time when I loved to watch every bowl, but that’s no longer the  case.  Most of the teams think they should be at a better bowl and don’t play to their potential, and there are so many bowl games that they’re no longer the special, wonderful event they once were.  I also hate that most of the games aren’t played on New Year’s Day now.  The Championship should be played on New Year’s Day, and all of December should be used as a playoff time.  New Year’s bowls are boring now, and it absolutley horrible that  most of the BCS games are played on weeknights when you have to choose between watching one of the only good bowl games and going to bed to prepare for work or school the next day.

Jots from the iPod: ” The Trying Game”

This whole “trying for a baby” process has to be absolutely the biggest emotional roller coaster that I’ve ever been on. Every month you try, then you wait. I think one of the most frustrating aspects is that the symptoms for both early pregnancy and your monthly are basically the same. Then every month when your friend comes to visit, you feel huge disappointment, like a failure, and slightly devesdated; even more so when your friend decides to visit a week late, like mine did this month.

Then there’s that jealousy of those who don’t seem to have any trouble at all having kids. Really, it sometimes seems like the only people who don’t have problems are those who aren’t trying, possibly don’t want a baby, and/ or shouldn’t have one. It just seems horribly unfair that we did everything the right way; we’re married, we can afford a baby, and we even own our home, and we’re still are without while countless babies are concieved daily who will be aborted by women who don’t want them.

So far we’ve not lost a baby yet. Of that I can be grateful. I have friends who are made of stronger mettle than I who’ve endured this. My prayers are always with them because I know what it is to miss that which I never had. So I know that to lose what you did have, even for a little while, much be ever so much more difficult.

I know that when His time is right, God will provide us a child like he did Sara, Rachel, Ruth, Hannah, and Elizabeth.

Jots from the iPod: " The Trying Game"

This whole “trying for a baby” process has to be absolutely the biggest emotional roller coaster that I’ve ever been on. Every month you try, then you wait. I think one of the most frustrating aspects is that the symptoms for both early pregnancy and your monthly are basically the same. Then every month when your friend comes to visit, you feel huge disappointment, like a failure, and slightly devesdated; even more so when your friend decides to visit a week late, like mine did this month.

Then there’s that jealousy of those who don’t seem to have any trouble at all having kids. Really, it sometimes seems like the only people who don’t have problems are those who aren’t trying, possibly don’t want a baby, and/ or shouldn’t have one. It just seems horribly unfair that we did everything the right way; we’re married, we can afford a baby, and we even own our home, and we’re still are without while countless babies are concieved daily who will be aborted by women who don’t want them.

So far we’ve not lost a baby yet. Of that I can be grateful. I have friends who are made of stronger mettle than I who’ve endured this. My prayers are always with them because I know what it is to miss that which I never had. So I know that to lose what you did have, even for a little while, much be ever so much more difficult.

I know that when His time is right, God will provide us a child like he did Sara, Rachel, Ruth, Hannah, and Elizabeth.

Starter Children

    I realized the other night that Bart and I have become a part of an interesting group of people that is actually fairly large.  We’re young professionals in our mid/late twenties who’ve yet to have children, but have basically made our dogs our children.  They are, in a sense our “starter children.”  I’ve made to pretenses to disguise the fact that our having a puppy is practice for real parenthood hopefully in the not-so-distant-future.

    As with any other family in this day and age, some of us are married doggy-parents, and some are still single parents.  However the family dynamic, we sometimes make a bigger to-do about our dogs than people who have children as well as pets.  That said, Bart, Lucy, and I are attending a birthday party for Jackson, the Labrador Retriever of a married couple that both work with Bart.

    Bart told his mother about our attending this party, and her response was that she had never heard of a doggy birthday party.  I had, but then I work with several people who have made their dogs their children and best friends.  I’m sure that many people laugh at such behavior.  I once even had a woman tell me over the phone while I was at work that I needed psychological help because I told her I sympathized with another woman in a news story we did who said that the death of her dog was like the death of a child.

    No, I don’t think that however much I love Lucy and loved Jetta, my childhood dog, that love will be greater than that I’ll feel for my children.  I do think that we can’t help but feel parental feelings for our pets though.  They’re entirely dependent upon us, much like children.  We teach them how to behave and act.  They’re our constant, faithful companions.  They worry over us when we’re ill, they protect us when they perceive danger, and they run to us when they are scared.  They become an integral part of our lives.

    Maybe we do act a little silly over them.  Maybe we do act a little too much like they’re our children.  So what?  Are we hurting the nay-sayers?  If someone finds friendship and love offensive, maybe they’re the ones who need psychological help.