Wednesday, April 14, 2010

State of Our Family

Wow, I haven't written in a long time. I shall do a bullet format, since I don't feel like writing a cohesive essay.

  • Elisheva returned for an Orthopedic appointment on the Monday following her accident. The five days between the accident, and this appointment were spent mostly with Elisheva deposited squarely in my lap. With the splint Elisheva could not walk, and even crawling was cumbersome - she usually chose scooting if independent transportation was required. Mostly, though, Elisheva used my person as her personal transport. Elisheva, with Avram as her personal Easter egg hunt helper. She found more eggs than Lydia - I guess the extra vantage point helped her.
I was given insight into what a 27 pound newborn would feel like. Heavy, mostly. Thankfully, on Monday they decided that she neither needed surgery or a pin, since she is so young that her bone should naturally straighten out as she grows. Also, thankfully they gave her a cast, which color, pink, Lydia decided on. Lydia insists that when she was a toddler, she fell off of a kitchen chair too, except her cast was red and pink. I love how Lydia can't be left out of anything. The first day Elisheva ever walked, Lydia ran around saying, "I'm walking! I'm walking." Same thing when Elisheva started saying words. The opposite is true as well - if Lydia is doing something, anything, Elisheva wants to be doing it too.
With the cast Elisheva refound her mobility, and although they said she would take a while to walk on it, using the aid of a special "shoe", that very day found her toddling around with hesitant steps.
Elisheva showing off her new walking. Also the first real pregnant shot of me, at almost seven months. The frumpy socks and shoes are only because we went on a long walk, and comfort is paramount over fashion. The frumpy clothes can be excused for the same reason - the outfit was comfortable, even if in pictures the pants remind me of decades' past. They were hand-me-downs, so I'm sure they even came from decades' past.
Now she walks almost as comfortably as normal, and can even half-run as well. I love whoever invented casts with walking shoes. Plus they gave us the tip of buying Glad Press 'n Seal, a fancy self adhesive cling wrap. We use it to cover her cast, and then I hold up her leg while Avram bathes her. It's a miracle; it's easy, and doesn't have the complications of plastic bags and rubber bands that carry the potential complication of a homemade tourniquet. And at this writing, there are only three weeks left of the cast.
  • I'll be 31 weeks tomorrow. Here I am, at almost 7 months. When I transferred over Lydia and Elisheva's winter clothing to spring/summer, I also pulled out the baby girl clothes. My sadness at potentially never having a boy was amply swallowed up in all the darling, teensy girl outfits. Baby girls sure do get cute clothing. Besides moving into the third trimester, everything is going swimmingly with the pregnancy. I don't have anemia this time, which I did with both Lydia and Elisheva, so I have more energy in this pregnancy than I've ever had before. Having said this, I don't find pregnancy so exhilarating that I don't often remind myself that if we have six kids, this pregnancy will mean I'm halfway through with childbearing - Hallelujah!
We've basically decided on a name, although as always we retain the right to change it at the hospital if we so choose. It is Guinevere Rebekah. Guinevere because it's a stately English name, and also after Queen Guinevere, Arthur's wife. Not the adulterous, wimpy Guinevere, formed through the French Romantic Retellings (no thanks to Chretien de Troy and Eleanor of Aquitaine and her accursed Courtly Love), but the Welsh Guinevere of the Mabinogion, who rides around with Arthur, righting wrongs and just generally being awesome. Rebekah is for Rebekah in the Bible, who is also awesome. She is the most active woman in the bible (excepting perhaps Ruth at the promptings of Naomi), and every story with her in it has Rebekah as the main character. The verbs that go with her are active, and it is Rebekah that ensures the blessing given to Abraham and then Isaac is passed on correctly. I'm sure Isaac was a nice man, but for that generation of Patriarchs, Rebekah is the mover and shaker.

  • To end randomly, here's a picture of us taken the week before Easter, which because of Conference was "Easter" for church purposes.
  • Also, here's some more pictures, so my Mother will love me.
The result when Lydia is let outside on a Sunday, and decides to make "chocolate milk" with a water bottle and dirt. The most amazing part? I got it all out, with the help of Oxyclean. I love that stuff.

12 comments:

  1. Well, I do love you for the pictures. Those girls, just growing and growing and you also. I like that baby has a name and I like her name.

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  2. Love the name!!! Is it okay if when she's born if I call her Gwen for short?

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  3. I like the name -so pretty.

    I like that we will be there when she is a newborn!!!

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  4. That is a beautiful name. And the pictures are so springy!! You can't even tell you're pregnant in the sweatshirt! Sheesh. It's partly how you carry, I guess. For me it's really all out front and center so it really does look like I have a ball under my shirt.

    I think you're amazing for wanting so many kids still. I wish I was able to, too.

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  5. @Jessica- Thora and my general policy on names is that our friends and relatives are free and welcome to call our children whatever they please (short of names and invective), but we call them their birth names.

    As an example, my grandparents call Elisheva "Eli" (after my Great-Grandmother, whose real name was Ella). This is acceptable, and we don't really mind. We, however, call her Elisheva, as that is her name.

    In fine, you may call Guinevere "Gwen" as you please.

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  6. I love her name! And I also love Rebekah from the Bible. She's a very strong woman. Cute pictures!

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  7. I'm with Frau Magister. Eleanor went crusading with her hubby Henry!

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  8. Great photos! The chocolate milk episode was epic.

    I'm thrilled to know I'm either 5/7ths, 5/6ths, or 5/5ths done with pregnancies. (Which fraction it will be all depends on where my health goes from here.)

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  9. In defense of my wife, a careful reading of her post makes it quite clear that she did not, in fact, call Eleanor of Aquitaine wimpy--only the characterization of Guinevere created under her patronage.

    Incidentally, I believe Eleanor went on crusade with her first Husband, Louis VII of France. I do not recall that Henry II ever went on Crusade, being mostly concerned with domestic affairs (as his son should have been).

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  10. dear thora,
    when i go on vacation to utah i forget to do such things as check your blog twice a day like i do when i am in boring old texas all by my lonesome. so i am just seeing it now. so sorry to hear about the cast and broken bone! I promise to stay in proper touch with you when i go home again.. which is this weekend. i am so excited... a month away from home makes you miss it so much and all your own stuff and beds and husbands that do the bedtimes for you so you can read your sisters blogs.
    Love you!

    ps i love your girls name! LOVE it!!

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  11. You won't hate me if I say I like the Easter picture best, will you? And how fun to have three little girls! My parents had seven, all in a row, and when they finally got a boy, I think they pretty much didn't know what to do with him. He was easily more trouble than the seven of us put together. So sorry about the accident! You have had a lot on your plate!

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