Renee Emerson

it rains a lot here. i think the mountains catch the clouds, and they hang over us for days on days.

drizzly, gray february. the four day weekend of winter break couldn’t be more welcome.

bryan is almost entirely recovered. the week wasn’t as hard to get through as i would’ve thought, taking care of a sick husband and wild toddler–though i think that might be due to my daily afternoon coffee.
not decaf. the Real Stuff. bad bad pregnant lady.

there are few things that make me feel more hopeful and purposeful than june’s kicks in my womb.  i especially love it when zu is cuddled to me, leaning against my belly, and june kicks and kicks at her. zu can’t feel it–yet.

zu’s current favorite things: 
1) books. or “bitta-bittas” as she likes to call them.*
2) hats. immediately upon waking, she puts on one of her hats. lately her bear-eared mint-green fur hat has been the hat of choice.
3) “too cute”. we have finally broken down and allowed zu to watch tv. oh the laziness of my pregnant self! we watch “too cute”–an animal planet show about puppies and kittens. zu knows how to turn on the tv herself. shame!
4) hand lotion. we have spent hours putting on hand lotion
5) coloring. with a pen which isn’t supposed to happen but, sometimes does.

  * favorite books: if you give a pig a party, if you give a mouse a cookie, count to ten with a mouse, mrs. moppet, good morning goodnight. read these 100x a day. rinse and repeat.

i’ve now reached the tricky point in my pregnancy where i get heartburn every night, in addition to morning sickness when i go too long between meals. what to do in the evenings is problematic–i hear that its best to wait at least 4 hours between a meal and sleep if you have trouble with heartburn. four hours is also just about as long as i can go without needing a snack to keep from getting sick. hm. maybe i’ll figure this out the third time around.

my editing has been going well this month. a regular writing and revising schedule, how glorious. i do however realize this all goes out the window when june arrives. and i’m praying for peace with that–for peace and relaxation. do you know how hard it is for a firstborn to relax?

 bryan’s job situation feels less urgent. next semester i’m teaching mostly online–all but my creative writing class–which is a huge blessing.  at first i thought we would surely move…but the more i think about how much we love our house and love our city, i feel less confident of that. open to it, not confident of its inevitability. all we’re missing here is a job for bryan, and who knows, something could open up anytime anyday.

i feel more peaceful, in general. i’ve prayed so hard the past couple months about this new baby–nursing issues, labor and deliver, etc–and i feel like those fears are slowly melting away.

i struggle with believing that God will give you things if you just ask for them. even though its in the bible–its that same, age-old question that Satan likes to ask–“did God really say that? did he mean it?”

on my own, those fears would have just multiplied (have little fear-babies and fear-grand-babies and third and fourth generations…) so to feel them going away can only be chalked up to a God thing.

i’m not there yet–but i’m praying God will get me there, before this baby comes.  giving me a peace that is an aggressive peace–a guard-dog-of-my-heart peace.