So apparently Georgie asked his Dad yesterday if we’re supposed to be scared of God. George told him that it’s like with parents. If you’re obeying, then you don’t need to be scared. If you’re doing what you know is wrong, then you’re in trouble. Plus, God can see everything!

This whole conversation was relayed to me over dinner last night when George mentioned that Georgie had asked an interesting question earlier in the day. Georgie still remembered the answer at dinnertime and managed to successfully explain it back to us.

I asked Georgie what had made him wonder this in the first place and he responded that it was something Trinity had said. I turned to Trinity to ask her what that had been, but she before I even finished she nonchalantly replied,

“I have Godophobia.” She’s seven. I looked at her. Then I giggled. A lot. You see, Trinity is the one who spent most of her car rides this week making up songs with titles like, “O God, O God” (which I at first though was either a mutant hymn title or perhaps a George Burns movie I had forgotten about) that is basically eight minutes of singing to God all the things she’s thankful that He made: the trees, the birds, cars, spring even though it rains all the time because it makes the flowers grow, electricity (electricity!!), a house to live in so we don’t freeze in the winter, rockets, bugs….. Did I mention the song lasts from the time we leave the house until we arrive at our destination (or one of her parents goes nuts). Spiders are pretty much the only item from the natural world that is absent from her list. I’m fairly certain that Trinity does not have Godophobia.

“Trinity, why do you have Godophobia?” I asked her.

“Well, God is everywhere. {okay fine I’m thinking}. He can be anything {ummm}. He can turn into a spider!”

What??? I was so stunned by this logic that I don’t even think I returned any sort of cogent answer unless you count sputtering (which doesn’t count). Well, I did manage to tell her that I was fairly certain the Bible doesn’t mention God turning into a spider. Hmm, come to think of it, I was busy all day today and still haven’t straightened out her peculiar theology yet. Guess I need to put that on my To Do list. God turning into a spider! Sheesh.

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Last Friday night was the lovely, I mean haunting, Halloween party that Steve & Angie (BIL & SIL) put on every year. After a lot of hemming and hawing (mostly hawing), I decided to put the bridesmaids dress I wore for Kathy’s wedding to good use and went as a beauty contestant, Miss Conception. Handily, I was exactly as far pregnant when I wore the dress the first time as I am now. Phew!

And here’s George, who went as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and his brother Steve who was Cardinal Biggles from the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch (which is pretty funny).

They’re singing karaoke in the garage.

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So, it occurred to me today that I should probably find out what this baby is that we’re having. Lizard? Panther? Well, boy or girl would probably be helpful to know. Tomorrow morning we’re off to the ultrasound! All the kids are coming too, and somehow I suckered George into coming for the first time since I was pregnant with Georgie.

This will be the sixth ultrasound I’ve had and the second he’s come to. I’m delighted about that, and the kids are going to love it, especially Georgie. We’ll drop them off at Amy’s on the way home. Ahhh, the joy of semi-homeschooling. This will be a good field trip, I think.

I’ve been a total snail about getting going on midwife appointments and everything this time around, partly because I’ve been miserably sick and partly because this is not exactly new stuff for me. All the first several appointments consist of is peeing in a cup and listening to the heartbeat. If anything goes wrong in the really early stages, not much can be done. I can pee all by myself without having to tidy my house while I’m sick so the midwife can come over and not find a war zone. After five healthy pregnancies and one miscarriage, I’m pretty familiar with how things are supposed to go.

I’m nineteen weeks along and not so sick anymore, the baby is big enough to determine sex, I’m far enough along that a few more things can be done to prevent a later term miscarriage if problems do show up, and in a few more weeks the baby would actually have a shot at surviving outside the womb if delivery were unavoidable. So far the youngest surviving baby was born at 21 weeks 6 days gestation!

Amillia Taylor was born at Baptist Children’s Hospital in October weighing only 10 ounces. She was slightly bigger than a pen.

Anyway, It seemed like it was about time to see the midwife. She’ll be coming over Monday for our first appointment (same lady who delivered Faith).

This weekend is our annual card weekend in which me and my card group buddies disentangle ourselves from reality and escape to the beach from Friday to Sunday for a weekend of staying up late to play cards and shopping at the outlet mall. It occurred to me today that I may potentially want to do a bit of shopping for the new squirt and it would be helpful to know if I were girl shopping or boy shopping. I have exactly no boy stuff anymore, so if it’s a boy I guess I will need to do a lot of shopping. Gee bummer! If it’s a girl, not quite so much with the shopping…. I’m reasonably sure I could dig up one or two things for her to wear if I have to.

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And lastly, Amy who is my friend both from church and from online business stuff (she runs JournalModiste. Not the same Amy who does school with the older three kids) tagged me today; and since this is my first tag, it seemed like maybe I should actually do it.

Rules for the tag…
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

1. When I get nervous (which isn’t very often), I tend to get really quiet, slightly bug-eyed, and say “I’m fine” when asked if I’m ok. Usually I don’t actually look nervous and my husband is often the only one who can tell.

2. I hate being pregnant. This wouldn’t be so weird if I hadn’t done it so many times…. Duh!

3. I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 30 and even then it was frappuccino, which I consider more of a coffee-flavored milkshake. Yes, I’m a coffee wimp. I admit it.

4. The reason I didn’t drink coffee all those years was because my Mom drank strong black coffee the entire time I was growing up. Then she would eat cheese. Then she would put me to bed. Do you know what coffee & cheese breath smells like? Well, it will put you off coffee for 30 years, I’ll tell you that! Oddly, I’m ok with cheese. (My Mother is going to kill me now….).

5. I have one sibling, a brother, and was pretty much the only girl my age on our block. My Mother has one sibling, a brother, and was the only girl on her block. My Mother’s Mother had one sibling, a brother, and was the only girl on her block (she told me once that all the guys on her block used to entertain themselves by standing in a circle and spitting!). All three of us are rather bossy and unintimidated by men. Now you know why!

6. I had super straight, stringy hair the whole time I was growing up. When I got into junior high and high school, I permed it once a year, which both made it look much better and lightened the color. After I got married, I quit perming it so it got straight and darker again (I cut it short so it wasn’t so stringy). When I was 27, I got pregnant with baby #3 and my hair decided to be wavy. It has stayed that way ever since! Now it has the same color and wave as my brother’s and my Dad’s (or what color his used to have before it turned all grey). Much nicer. And free!

7. I’m a humongous Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. I own all seven seasons on DVD, two music CD’s (one from the musical episode and one of music they play at the Bronze, which is the club the kids hang out at on the show. My Hubby bought me those for Christmas last year), the new Buffy Season 8 comics, the Angel Season 6 comics (well, they’re on pre-order and I don’t have the Angel DVD’s because Angel wasn’t as good a show as Buffy), and a trivia book. Oh! And a 2007 calendar. Hmmm, I guess I need to get a new calendar for next year. Hehe.

One of these days when I get completely sick of Buffy, I’m going to lump all this stuff together and sell it all on eBay, where I’m expecting it to make some money eventually (like in ten years).Yes, me nerd, I know. Shhhh, don’t tell.

Okay – so I’m only going to tag 3 people ’cause I’m too lazy to find seven (I have no friends). Also because Amy only tagged three and I’m practicing being a sheep today.
Bethany
Karen
Elly

A couple weeks ago our church put on its annual Oktoberfest at the farm of one of our members. Since I was on the couch, which now bears a permanent impression of my bum, Hubby took all the kids to go hang out with friends, grandparents (who all go to our church), and various other assorted family members.

Last time we went to our friends’ farm, our family bug catcher Trinity caught two praying mantises, and since she didn’t have her bug box with her, they traveled home with us in a mason jar with holes punched in the lid. Apparently one was a girl and one was a boy because when we arrived home, we had one smug looking mantis sitting next to one decapitated mantis (females behead the males after mating with them).

Recalling that this farm was akin to bug heaven, Trinity wisely brought her bug box this time, intent on some serious insect hunting. Clearly the safari went well because she returned home with a dozen, perhaps a dozen and a half grasshoppers bouncing around in her box. It seems she recruited help this time from among the little gaggle of girls she regularly hangs around with. I’m not sure how she managed that…

They got home late, and Trinity proudly ran in to display her new bug friends to me and announced that she was going to sleep with them. Uh, no. The last bug she decided to sleep with was a giant cricket she caught with my mother (at least half of our bug stories seem to involve my mother somehow). That incident ended with the discovery of an empty bug box in the bedroom right before the little girls climbed into bed, which precipitated 45 minutes of panicked screaming until the bug was found and relocated to the back yard (the cricket had actually chewed through the plastic mesh on the bug box. Since then our boxes have all been hard plastic). This does not induce restful dreaming in small children.

Recalling the difficulties involved with one bug sharing the bedroom, the thought of eighteen happy grasshoppers escaping into the wild of our second floor was rather harrowing. Plus, I had no intention of waking up to grasshoppers in my bed. The kids ended up releasing the bugs into the bushes of the backyard, where they visited the bugs for several days.

Yesterday, I opened my dish towel drawer to pull out an oven mitt, and a grasshopper jumped from the inside of the drawer to the top, where it paused to stare at me. Argh! Bugs do not belong in my dish towels! The kids were gone, so I got a glass and sent the grasshopper off to the back yard.

This morning I mentioned the incident to Trinity, and she immediately began asking me what it looked like.

“Was it brown with red back legs, because if so that was probably Mr. Hoppy that I caught at the park the other day.”

“Was it green with only one back leg? That was probably….”

Apparently she knows every bug on the block by very detailed description and has given them all names. She was quite disappointed that she wasn’t available to personally escort this one out to the bushes.

As for me, I would be content if Mr. Hoppy stayed out of my kitchen drawers.

Rachel