Twittering...

This post should not be confused with the new online posting service for blackberries and other fancy dancy phones.
No, this twittering has to do with the sonogram today. But before we get to that (i am leaving you in suspense, dont worry no surprises) I will give you a run down of today's events. We went to the doctor and had our first meeting with your new doctor, the person who will be delivering our baby. Jocelyn keeps mentioning how she hopes he will be bill cosby-esque because hes black and had heard he is funny. He did not dissapoint. Knowledgeable and funny and just an all around good guy, it is good to know he will be delivering our baby. The line of the day did come when he originally asked us, "when did you originally start trying to have a baby"

"we were not trying."

"Well what were you on for birth control?"

"Originally on the pill and then condoms"

"When did you stop using them?"

"Well we didnt stop using them"

"Yea you did"

It was probably funnier in real life but it definitely needs to be mentioned. Anyway, the twittering on the sonogram was seeing the baby's heart beat. It looked more like a messed up pixel on a screen, but it was definitely the heart beat. Awesome. Next we just kind of say it and it moved it's leg. This was and still is very exciting.
A) its moving, nice
B) it made me want to cry
C) it is going to be a soccer player or cyclist.

God doesnt care...because he cares

I was just going to entitle it God doesnt care, but that seems a bit to heretical. Either way, my main thoughts have been something along those lines. God doesnt care exactly what WE think is going to happen or what we want to happen, rather he knows what is going to happen and He doesnt care if we are not ready, because he already knows we are.

Whew...I might have to re read that to make sure it makes sense. Ok.

Basically meaning, I guess we are ready. The Lord certainly wouldnt give us something out of our ability or range, because that wouldnt make much sense. It feels like it is out of our skill set or something that has to do with being out of reach. But clearly it's not. We are going to have a baby, Lord willing, in the beginning to late September and life will change. We are buying a house at the end of March, Lord willing, and will be faced with all sorts of new challenges. And not to mention, we are selling our house.
We will be basically looking for new jobs completely. And for some reason that is in a lot of ways, the least of our worries. I mean its a worry but there are bigger things on the horizon. well actually much smaller. hopefully between "8-11 pounds smaller". And hopefully on the small side of that 8-11 pounds because Jocelyn is also small.

The Lord is ahead of us and that is a good thing.

In other news, I often rub my hand over Jocelyn's stomach (before she was pregnant) as I walk by and just a few days ago I walked by and went....oh. OH.
Wow, theres a little something there. That was/is and will continue to be crazy.

Also March 27th is our closing date, so that means, March 28th, come to our house. We will give you food in exchange for your labor. And maybe even some good conversation.
We will use that weekend to begin the process of taking out the carpet and possibly taking apart some of the walls. It will be fun. Not to mention we will probably be doing something to the house every weekend thereafter to prepare it for our move at the end of May/beginning of June. So leave as many weekends open as possible!

So see you then. And let me know if you can be there. It will be here before we know it.

catching up

We've had a rather busy/chaotic week and have fallen a bit behind in posting to the blog. Where to begin..hm...well, we've been administering antibiotics to all 6 cats this week, morning and night. If you think getting medicine down a little kids' throat is hard, whoa...try forcing it down 6 cats throats with an eye dropper at 6am. Awesome. Most of them are finished as of today, a few of them have a bit to go. thankfully, everyone has recovered and the house is back to its normal state of activity, aka chaos, with Landa dragging gloves and scarves all over the place, and Marvelea eating any food she can manage to find. What in the world will our cats do with a baby? Oh , clarification on the quantity of cats we "have"..we only claim 5 of them as residents. The kitten, Dewey, is a boarder that we are still trying to find a home for. Of course, he is a kitten, and therefore, the most active and tends to be quite a handful. He's a dear, just a terror sometimes. We have a prospective home or two, but if you know anyone, we're surely open to referrals. We prefer to only take 5 to Allentown with us.

In house news, we had inspection on our prospective new house this past Monday. Went well, few minor things we'd like to see them clear up before we buy, not sure what we'll do if they refuse. We also found out Monday that in order to get the rates we had been looking at for our mortgage, we would have to either sign an agrement of sale to sell our current house or list it on the market by the end of this past week. Pressure. Fun. We had been hoping to sell the house to our neighbor, friend and pastor, Andres, and had been going back and forth with him since December. We hadn't heard much from him in the past 2 months regarding the house, and in the meantime, had another friend interested. Still...the timeline of 4 full days to get an agreement of sale signed seemed essentially, impossible. Well, God continues to pave the way for us on this journey to Allentown...we spoke with Andres, and he gave us a solid answer of YES, I WANT THE HOUSE by Wednesday...we worked up some numbers with our awesome realtor who has been a super help in both buying and selling...Thursday he came to look over the house with us, and by midnight Thursday, an agreement of sale was signed! So, we have settlement on the new house March 27, and settlement for selling our current house on May 29. We'll move most things up to Atown before that point, but are welcome to stay until Jonathan finishes out the school year here. So most of the major things are in place...now its just a matter of negotiating with the sellers of the atown house, and helping Andres get things in line for our sale in May.

Jonathan has some interviews with Allentown School District personnel coming up in the next few weeks, so please pray that those go well and we have some sort of set up that leads us right into next year. We're taken care of through the summer if he finishes out his current school year, but absolutely would like to get things set in stone for the fall...though generally the education system isn't quite cooperative with such a timeline. As far as my job goes...it ends when it ends...and I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to find something to immediately start up in Allentown and keep part-time throughout next year, but uh..yea..chances of that are slim when you're a pregnant chick job searching in a recession. So who knows...maybe I have to be serious about Arbonne, maybe I will find some sort of work-at-home option (top pick in many ways), or maybe I can begin some sort of employment that will lead to a full-time position when I'm able to make that transition after the baby. My latest obsession is wanting to work for the IRS so I can be a governement agent of some sort, and investigate people in some way, but that's probably because I've been watching way too much 24. My secret dream used to be the CIA, so I guess I've leveled out in some sense. Ha. Oh the search for adventure I find myself in way too often. Really, i'll take anything that's fulfilling and intersting. Money is great, but I miss having a job I believe in, and miss working for a cause/organization that I feel confident supporting. My current position is far, far from either of those things. It'll all work out..for now, I know I have to keep pursuing the things I have natural abilities in, develop other skills, and enjoy the fact that I have a lot of time in the next year to complete some schooling/tasks/whatever that I normally don't have a chance to. Still want to master French and Spanish, and truly would love to pick Arabic lessons up again...maybe i WILL work for the government! I need to start watching more pratical tv shows.

Anyhow, sorry, that's all quite "astray" from the main purpose of this blog-baby updates-but I suppose this stuff is directly related to having a baby, and will greatly define some of his/her life at some point. In real "baby news", we have our first ultrasound Friday, I'm kind of nervous...I can be such a doomsdayer and just almost expect to hear the worst news. HA, like today, we get our taxes done, and OWE money. Being married with no kids and 2 decent salaries sucks...I hate tiered income brackets. Oh well. We'll make it. Just annoying. So yea, Friday is a bit scary, as is next Friday, when they screen for crazy things (not sure I agree with that stuff in the first place...). I've never been a fan of the "medical" world or the "doctor knows best" approach to life. If I'm dying, go ahead, fix me up...otherwise, I just don't believe that they have all the answers, and don't feel like its healthy for our society to be so reliant on tests and screenings and nerve-wrecking hypothetical scenarios. We'll see how Friday goes, I guess if we really clash with this doctor in terms of our philosophies on health and pregnancy, we can figure something else out. I just don't want this to be one big science project...it's a natural process of life and I feel more comfortable proceeding with that frame of mind.

My mom bought me some summer maternity clothes. Wow. Maternity clothes can be cute and such, and she's a master at finding bargains, so I'm not gonna argue. I just can't quite picture me filling out pants that size! Phew! The baby is already racking up clothes and costumes...looks like he'll be wearing a fleece dinosaur suit most of the winter. Supposed to be a halloween-type costume, but when my mom asked Jonathan what he though of it, he said, "Awesome, our kid is going to wear that all winter long, those suits are great." Not sure what kind of species-identity crisis this child will grow up with, but you can all look forward to pictures of our baby wearing animal costumes I guess. She also got him/her a Christmas outfit..holy crap, we are going to have a baby this Christmas. Only our third married Christmas, and we'll have this little kid bobbling around on the floor dazzled by the tree lights. Wild. How do we approach Christmas in a sustainable way? Ug..the insanity begins.

Ok, time to get things wrapped up and get ready for bed. I think my posts never show up with the correct time, but it's 9:30 and we go to bed early these days.

Jordan's ideal child

It could be argued that my brothers and I grew up as quite eccentric children. I mean all kids are weird, there's no way around that, but melting crayons in tin foil pots in the basement (did we start the house on fire once? I think we might have...) and dragging broken frozen tree branches half-way across the neighborhood to build a teepee are not things I've found to be common childhood experiences amongst most of my friends. Maybe we were a generation behind or something because we didn't live on video games and tv shows. At any rate, everyone wonders what their child will be like. Clearly, we have some responsibility in molding this human being, teaching it different ways of relating to its surroundings here on earth, all those things. But really, at the end of the day, this kid will have a personality all its' own and there's not much we can do about that.

My brother, Jordan, sends us almost weekly emails with links to cat-related youtube vidoes. This week, he sends us one saying " I hope you have a kid like this." Coming from Jordan, such a phrase could mean almost anything...an alien, a mongoloid with 3 arms and 2 noses, who knows. So, I opened this email with a smile already on my face knowing it would be entertaining in some way. Yes, very funny indeed. However, the reality hit me that it's very likely Jordan just might get his wish. We don't know if we're having a boy or girl, but I don't even know if that would make a difference in the likelyhood of us experiencing a child with this animated personality. Here is the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtX8nswnUKU&eurl=http://www.google.com/reader/view/?tab=my

Oh, forgot to mention, we had that book growing up, the exact one...brown weird book called "Kittens." I remember the pictures and all. I don't think WE did voiceovers like that, but my dad sure did, and I would not be suprised if baby Ruiz grows up to do the same. Yikes.

So goes life, I suppose. I am excited to see all the crazy stunts our kid pulls...I mean discipline will be in order an stuff, but seriously, kids are the most creative beings on earth. I think my only difficulty with kids is that I enjoy watching them and seeing what their minds come up with, how those ideas materialize, etc, but I don't exactly know how to respond aside from laughing. I'm sure parenting skills will come with time, and thankfully, Jonathan has some crazy natural sense of "fathering" (maybe from teaching?). I guess once your kid does the same dumb thing more than twice, and it causes your other kid to cry, its just not funny anymore. Ok yea, now I understand why parents don't always laugh. Geez, how am I a "parent?!".

Anyhow, that's about all. Just wanted to share that video as many of you will directly understand how our child could very well be like that little girl. Wow.

mini cokes and ginger cats

Yesterday afternoon Jonathan must have learned more about my medical history (and family's) than he ever imagined. I had my first appointment, which consisted of answering thousands, ok, hundreds, of questions about my health and such, and "pregnancy 101" essentially. We received some coupons and samples and such things, along with books, magazines, and paperwork. This baby is a lot of work and it hasn't even been born yet-quite the "to-do" list they gave me. Well, I guess it feels like a hassle mainly becuase I'm in Philly and not in Allentown quite yet, so lab work and testing that I cannot do around here I have to travel up there for. Which is fine, and will only last for another few months. At least we will be up in the valley by the time they want me there more regularly and such.

I have to make my trip to Quest Labs next week and then we'll get blood work results back Feb 27 at my appointment with the Doctor. This doesn't mean much in the end-but we are thankful that we both have excellent medical histories in the family, especially regarding the health of babies and what not.

Aside from the doc...hmm..I have not been feeling awesome this week, that's for sure. I think and hope it's primarily because I still have a cold and am constantly swallowing gross stuff from my nose draining. Pregnancy sure exacerbates that situation, though. I bought a pack of those mini coke cans for the first time ever, as they're enough to help settle my stomach and not overload my bladder or blood sugar. One of my favorite snacks prior to pregnancy was Trader Joe's Ginger Cats...they're little cat shaped (go figure) animal crackers that are more like ginger snaps. Since ginger is supposed to help calm stomachs, I'm relying on them here and there as well...though my taste for them has somewhat declined. Mint Tea has always been a super help for me when I'm feeling sick, and I'm trying to drink it right now but it smells terrible to me. Fantatsic. I guess the "normal" symptoms of pregnancy are starting to settle in.

I decided I have a small bump...which I get made fun of repeatedly for mentioning because really it's only noticable because I'm small...but whatever. It's a portrusion or bump or some such abdominal abnormality and I will claim it! So there!

Tonight we have the Sturdy Girls Cocktail Party (my cycling team) which will be fun but sad-I will receive all the clothes I ordered for this season and likely not get to wear them much :( But o well..I'm glad I signed up this past year and got the gear, because If not, I would have to try-out and stuff this fall, which will be impossible. So while I'm sad I can't do much racing this year, I'm glad things are in place for next. I've missed out on some valuable training, but I can still drive down to Philly next year every other Saturday morning for those events...at least some Saturday mornings. It will work out.

Monday is inspection on the new house and then we move forward with the mortgage application. Yay for super low rates. They are quite insane.

That's about all for now. Hopefully this nausea disappears with my cold!

butternut squash

This is the color that Jocelyn suggested for the babys room in our new house.

if you are a guy, you may be wondering what butternut squash is,

if you are a girl you already know it looks like this...

and to be honest im not even sure what shade we would use (or if this is even the right color in the first place). But that is that. I like the color. I think I am leaning towards the more orange-ish of the choices, but Jocelyn is the masterful designer so I am sure she will choose well.

Moving away from colors and onto food. I think Jocelyn is actually starting to have slight cravings. I mean even before she was pregnant she snacked all the time but last night at the ballet it was very clear to me that she REALLY wanted something to munch on. She made it without food and still has not had any sickness so yes! She also has been requesting sprinkles and she often seems to have some sort of serious preference to her food choice.
I will also mention that we are making this a cookies and cream baby. Im not sure exactly what that means but Jocelyn ate cookies and cream something and then a hersheys cookies and cream bar all within a two day span so cookies and cream baby it is. yeah, we are bored.

So the doctors appointment is today so that is exciting. We will let everyone know how that goes later on.

I do want to mention one fear I have this summer. Traveling. Not because I dont enjoy traveling, but mainly because I believe it will take us two hours to get anywhere. I mean anywhere. 5 minute drive to the grocery store may even take that long. Well not really. But the fear is mainly driven from the simple fact that Jocelyn ALWAYS has to go the bathroom. and when she starts peeing for two people. GOOD GLORY. It could take days.

So we are moving. That is going to be fun. The nicest thing about moving to allentown will definitely be the simple things. Grocery store, being a run to grocery store as opposed to an event. I would say the definition of run is the equivalent of anything under an hour, as opposed to now when doing a grocery store run is an actual event=2 hours plus.
Not to mention a coffee shop for good ness sakes. Now I sound yuppy-ish I know but they are nice places to hang out and relax and what not and currently the closest one to our house is actually out of philadelphia in jenkintown about a 30 minute drive.

So yeah, I'm done whining now. we will have enough of that in about 9 months.

I do want to add this line I just got in a chat from Jocelyn case you are terribly concerned about colors:

"Jocelyn: nice. i'm not sold on butternut squash...i'll probably pick something less dramatic because that room will double as an office

but yea. hmm...maybe sun stained butternut squash? so its pale"

These color choices are sick. Just sick. Crayola should be shot.

it's official

we are owners of a house in allentown. well the offer was accepted and the closing date is march 27th. so again, here we go.

We will be going to a street called wahneta in allentown. (ill post all credit card,bank, and social security numbers tomorrow.) Anyway, so its a cute little house

told you it was cute. it has a driveway and garage which is quite exciting. the simple fact we will no longer have to look for parking is an amazing thing. it is actually pretty big as well. the house looks small from the front and we'd rather have it that way but it has a nice addition that was added that really makes it nice.

There is actually a little sitting area next to that big window out front, a tree that you cant see to the right in the picture that has little red things/berries maybe, next to the master bedroom there is a deck-ish, balcony like thing, and then there is some, very little, but some room to run around out back where there is another area to sit and also a shed back there.

so yeah, thats that, its not in the city of allentown its kind of tucked in to the east of allentown city.

so there are many reasons for the move and they will really only take place once the school year is over. we will settle on the house at the end of march and then try to do some of the work on it during april-may-june and then move in, in june.
which means we are selling our house and trying to coordinate that with our move or better yet, settle early and rent from whoever buys it from us until then. oh options.

this all just got serious. moving, kids, new life, here we come.

Quiet on the eastern front

This counting thing is confusing. I think we are at 9 weeks but maybe we are 7. Someone needs to clarify this for me cause I am good at math but not good at counting.

Yes it is possible to be good at one and bad at the other.

Overall, things have been very relaxed around the house and the only stress currently in life is deciding where to move.

It looks like, we hope, that we will be getting a house in Allentown, offer still needs to be accepted but I believe we are going to find an agreement. And if we do the closing date will be March 27th. So mark your calendars now folks, we are going to need help re-doing some of the floors and what not. Actually we will probably be taking off the current floor and hoping for hardwood underneath it. And my hope is we can make them look like this:

this is just a random picture that is not the actual house, but pictures are just more fun to have in blogs.

Although it will be nice that the house will already have a finished kitchen (amen!)
that is the actual kitchen and its a bit bigger than the actual picture. I do hope we get this house!!

So Dad, Moms, Chris, Staci, their boys, Brothers, and everyone else in allentown we will soon be requesting your help.

Buying the house now will be a huge help in the moving process because we will be able to re do the things we want to do before actually moving in. It also will eliminate Jocelyn being pregnant while being stuck in our hot house as well as the "alive" streets of Philadelphia.

In other news Jocelyn is still doing well which has simply been great. We are going to the doctors on Thursday. So that will be the official, official confirmation. It is has been interesting talking with various people about the pregnancy and then they ask if we have been to the doctor yet.

It is almost a little scary to see how they react, but I am confident that Jocelyn is pregnant, cause a) she missed two periods and b) she looks like she has breast implants (sorry no appropriate picture).

Enjoy the day.

doc appointments and messes in my brain

I realized I can use different color fonts. Wow.

I have my first doc appointments scheduled. Thursday February 12 is my visit with the nurse, and Friday February 27 will be my first physical, at 12 weeks. This is starting to sink in now.

Overall, I think we're doing well with the initial "Shock" of finding out we're pregnant and discovering the impact that will have on our lives. I don't think of that too often-with things I can't do much about, I sometimes manage to sit back and just let them happen, take it as it comes, figure it out as we go along. Of course, there are some things we must prepare for, but I can't sit around every day stressing out about what this means for our life. Upon having a knee-jerk reaction of jealousy to Jon's still-intact-thought-scaled-down cycling season ahead this year, a well of fear and frustration and anger opened up that I imagine will resurface from time to time, because this just ins't always the easiest adjustment for my mind to make. Really, our "hopes and dreams" as a young couple weren't super important and mainly consisted of a selfish (though totally acceptable in some ways) pursuit of our cycling careers, our professional careers, and just doing whatever we pleased whenever we felt like it. There are many good things in there, I don't mean to make it sound meaningless, but I guess I'm coming to grips with the fact that some of it was rather meaningless or something. Anyhow-it's still hard to hack that loss sometimes and realize I have another year of sitting on the sidelines while others race, and am now constantly searching my mind and reforming my plans for what I am "to do" with my life in addition to being a mother.
I know life doesn't stop, and we will still camp in Acadia and race our bikes and visit other countries, I guess my immediate reaction is a bit of fear because those things will look so different. And I know I shouldn't care about my body changing and things being out of wack and losing my atheletic prowress for a couple of months, but it's hard to let that stuff go sometimes, and then I feel like a horrible person for caring on top of it! UG! So yea..I'm processing these things as they come into my mind and I think I have good examples of truth all around me, I'm just being honest about the "hard parts" of working through this change.
Thankfully, I have a super supportive husband who sometimes laughs at me for caring that I won't have a 6 pack this summer, but for the most part is incredibly understanding as I work through the changes I'm facing. He is facing many too, of course, so I'm sure it's not super fun for him to think of his own challenges and then have me come home and freak out because I can't race my bike. Fortunately for both of us, things are overall going smoothly and freak outs aren't daily and we are at a point in our marriage where we are committed to eachother and know how to work with one another (for the most part...as much as you can in only your 2nd year of marriage!).
Hm...well that's long enough for now. Just wanted to post the "doc appointment" notifications and end up sharing the tougher stuff on my mind lately. Thanks everyone for your support, especially Jonathan for about a million reasons. This is quite a crazy time...I guess the first few months are because it's all so new and somewhat terrifying. But yea. Phew.

Aliens

Week eight picture:

"Signs" the movie kind of looked like this. I have always wondered where they get the idea/look for an alien, but clearly it can be seen in the early stages of child development. There is a little being "wondering" around in a uterus making my wifes body hurt here and there.

I would like to take another shout out to the Father up above for keeping Jocelyn healthy , well really just not throwing up every morning. And yes that last line was ghetto-ish...mainly because I have off school today, and I wont get my ghetto fix and also we live in Hunting Park and I cant help it sometimes.

Moving on. Housing hunting is going to take a very serious role in the next few weeks-months. Originally we thought, well if we find something then great, but now it's more like, let's find something asap! Well not quite that bad but it is time to make some decisions. For those of you who don't know Jocelyn and I have felt called to move to Atown for a little while, we dont have all the reasons figured out quite yet, but then again, you rarely do. The Lord doesnt always work like that, but in some ways, weird ones, well ones that dont make sense to us. I think the Lord is giving us a swift kick to move up there by giving us this baby. So three cheers for a new child and a new move. So we will keep things updated as they progress over the next few weeks.

And for everyone who has read this far, it was worth it. May I present to you...Jocelyn's outfit for feeding the cats outside last night...
Priceless. Landa is our guard cat.

Tricycles

Maybe I could ride a tricycle when I'm in my third trimester! YES! That solves the problem of my balance being off, right?

I haven't written for a few days. There's not much new...we're getting closer to the point when I will visit a doc, which is exciting. My mom has been talking about making curtains and pillows and such for the baby's room, which is also exciting. This is becoming more real as the "pressure" to make some decisions becomes a reality.

Speaking of pressure, we're working on the logistics of finding/buying a house, finding jobs up here, all these fun things. Prayer in that line would be appreciated. We were considering moving before this, of course, but now it's a little crazier with the pressure of a timeline in place and the fact that we won't be bringing in the same salary we originally had planned to. Whoever stays home is planning to work part-time, at least, but still...sheesh. Glad we have our fancy bikes already-might need to sell them for groceries at some point!

At some point we had considered staying in the South Jersey area for me to pursue my career. Well, currently, Monarch feels like a hopeless place. And more importantly, as we spend time with family, it's become clear that not being near to them would be a disaster. Logistically, I can't imagine not having helping hands nearby, especially if we're both going to have to work in some capacity. I think in college it was easy to overlook how much I value family...and I was drawn more to that "independent" lifestyle of striking out on my own in some other state or country. More importantly, I've grown up a bit (unbelievable, I know), and have re-realized the amazing creation of family...the purpose of community that God intended within the family unit. We might one day move to some crazy place, but for now, we're excited to spend time building into family. Atown puts us a bit closer to Lancaster (and at least cuts 76 out of the travel route) as well, and makes it easier for everyone to congregate. All good things.

Anyhow, that's a briefing of things on my mind lately. More to come. Now, it is time to prep for this football game, which I really don't care about because I've grown a true heart for the Eagles and no other bird or PA team will suffice. But, I will take any excuse to eat, so here we go.