We’re all sorts of ready for baby number three. Our family has grown and there are moments I stop and think wow, Crystal and I made it through quite a bit. Immature high schoolers, self righteous “Christians”, financial pains, career pains, and our own stupidity. Heh, I am so happy my wifey and I held it together. Crystal has been keeping writing about her own stuff but also a wee bit at our family blog. Check them out, leave comments, encourage her. It’s a good thing to share.
We’ve gotten our birth tub set up, I’ve rounded up hoses to fill it, we’ve ordered the kits and supplies, the crib is put together and fully furnished with soft blankets, bumpers, and linens, and we’ve stretched ourselves to pay for some midwives to have this kid at home. Unfortunately the litigation in our state has scared most hospitals from allowing post-Cesarean vaginal births (commonly refereed to as V-Backs). We have been gravitating towards the natural in everything anyway from nutrition to how we consume and where we buy stuff this seemed like a natural thing for us to do. Don’t get me wrong though. We aren’t tree hugging, granola crunching hippies. It’s more like we feel God’s made us to be self sufficient and should embrace doing things to be good stewards of everything. We aren’t perfect but we try our best.
I feel like I have to explain everything sometimes. People hear “home birth” and think its weird. I guess its weird for me to think of birth as a medical condition requiring strange people in bizarre smocks and weird face masks staring at your who who and pumping you full of drugs. Sometimes a hospital visit is necessary and there is no shame in choosing whatever you need but having a baby isn’t easy! I guess we get the same flak about having another kid. You’d be amazed how many assholes rolled their eyes and said things like “You know where babies come from, right?” and other stupid shit like that. Just wow. And in those uncomfortable moments you have to play the part and laugh it off or reciprocate “asshole-ness” and make them feel idiotic for saying something so immensely idiotic. I won’t make excuses for not playing along with the rest of our society and committing infanticide. Yes, I’m one of those people who think babies are born from conception not birth as some hypocrite judge, Congress, or populace believe. Anyway, its quite infuriating to hear stuff about a second, third, or whatever baby in such a way. It bothers me every time it happens. I just don’t understand why instead folks don’t bust out cigars and give me a congratulations. Okay, hold the phone. There have been a few people and coworkers that have been extremely nice about it. I guess the insensitive minority won my attention.
Nanna recently came across a fantastic deal on a huge 150 gallon aquarium. The fella had it custom built along with the cabinet for about $2,700. Also the tank came with a pair of Fluval 404 canister filters. The tank has a built in 10 gallon sump built into it. I am super excited about it. I remember when I met Kathy (AKA Nanna) she had a couple salt water tanks going. One was a medicine tank and the other was a reef tank complete with metal halide lamps, protein skimmers, live coral, sea anemones, and beautiful fish. It’s always been something I wanted to get into and now that this set up came along for such a great price I really didn’t want to let it pass. She has gotten excited about helping us to get it going too. It should be a fun learning experience and with her expertise I am not worried too much. We’ll probably just get the tank going with salt water, sand, and a few fish until we move. Then we’ll get into all the coral, day/night cycle lighting, and symbiotic ecosystem building.
We also got a 29 gallon (I think that’s how big it is) tank to put in the kid’s room as a freshwater tank. It’ll be something nice for the kids to watch, see, and learn from. Henry is already talking how he wants to study fish and save the oceans. All I can do is give them opportunities to satisfy curiosity and expand their exposure to new things. In the end Henry, Helen, and new guy/gal will have to decide what they want to do.
Finally, a few people have been telling us its an excellent time to buy a house right now so we have looked around again. For a while we were looking at North Tacoma in the Proctor and Ruston Way area but we decided that with a baby on the way we’d wait until we healed up from that. With our lease up in September its looking like we will want to move. We went out and looked at a couple homes. The one amazing house we found has no yard but it was new, not too pricey, on a hill, and within 10 minutes of the train station in Sumner. After all, who wants to buy a house on a flood plain within lahar range of Mount Rainier? The other home was in Edgewood on an entirely usable .7 acre lot. It was more expensive, had a deck, and the house was a dump, in my opinion. I suppose we’ll keep looking at a comfortable pace. I don’t know if we’ll end up buying, move and rent, or just stick it out here. It’s definitely cramped especially with a third kid on the way but over all with a little shuffling around we should be ok.
