The Great Unveiling

It's that time folks...to let the world know that we are expecting Baby #3. We found out March 28th and are of course very excited about it all. As you can see from baby's first picture we have already been to the doctor. Everything checked out a-okay. Baby is right on schedule and we are expecting him somewhere around the end of November. No, I don't know it's a "him" but I'm looking at precedent...seems there is enough evidence to me to warrant male pronouns until we know differently. Baby had a heartbeat of 136 bpm and this was the first baby we've had that we didn't move the due date at least a week. That's why I don't have a very specific date -- I wasn't really listening because I was waiting for the new adjusted due date. When I wasn't given one I was caught a bit off-guard! Naturally we are hoping to take this baby full-term but we realize with our history that it may not be possible. My goal is to make it one week further than I did with Sam. Sam was born at 34 weeks (almost 35) so another week would almost get us to 36 weeks. While every baby is different I also know that Sam needed little intervention at 34 weeks so I'm hoping a little more time would mean no NICU stay at all. Can you tell I'm ready to cancel my membership to the NICU mommy club?

This pregnancy is certainly different than the last two (which were completely different from one another as well). I have been very sick with this baby and ridiculously tired, although I'm not certain the exhaustion isn't more from chasing the gruesome twosome than anything else. Most folks seem to think the morning/noon/night sickness means this baby will be a girl but like I mentioned earlier...precedent has been set so I'm expecting boy. Of course a girl would be wonderful too. I just keep telling people that the more differences between this pregnancy and Jack's lifts my spirits that the ending of the pregnancy will be different too.

Like Sam's pregnancy, I won't be using the blog often to post updates. I'd like to keep it from turning into another family website. If you can't stand not knowing, feel free to visit the family site Pearson Family News Now that this news is out in the open, I should be posting a little more regularly. It's tough holding in a secret!!


Baby's first picture. Kinda hard to see things but we circled baby in red.

What's it gonna take?

Seriously, how much is too much for America to wake up and say, "enough!"?? At this point I should probably give a glimpse of the actual topic of this post...driving under the influence. I just read this article about MLB pitcher Nick Adenhart and three of his friends. I don't follow baseball unless it's Rangers T-ball so the fact that one of the victims was a star-athlete doesn't have much impact on my stance. Probably the only reason we are hearing about the crash on a nationwide circuit is because of the star-power associated.

In case you don't want to read the article, four people, including MLB pitcher Adenhart were broadsided last night by a man driving under the influence of alcohol. As if that's not bad enough, the same man was driving on a suspended license for a previous DUI. He fled the scene but fortunately was later arrested. So let's get this straight: one DUI = slap on the wrist; second DUI + suspended license = three dead kids and a hit-and-run situation.

So I ask again: what is it going to take to get American citizens to get fired up enough to demand harsher punishments for DUI? How many more of our families need to be buried before it becomes real enough for us to do something about it? It seems logical to me that had the original punishment been harsher maybe three kids would be alive and the fourth wouldn't be fighting for his life. If the punishment had been harsher maybe the offender wouldn't have decided again to get behind the wheel of a vehicle after drinking. Maybe.

Lasting Impressions

Words mean things -- a seemingly obvious statement. It's true nonetheless: words mean things. Whether penned or spoken or even thought words have power, influence, impact, meaning. It's easy to think that the only words we need concern ourselves with are those we put down for posterity, in permanence; perhaps too we are conscious of those words that, in their very being, are not nice. But what about the rest? The words that aren't permenant -- mere slips of the tongue in passing conversation; what about those words? Should we also think on these? Consider these? What about the words that aren't inherently mean, hateful, not nice? Should we consider these too? Can these words bruise, wound, knock down as quickly and efficiently as the cruel ones?

The answer of course is in the affirmative. Even these quickly passing, seemingly neutral words can wound. Too often we loose our tongues and let fly thoughts that we fail to recognize as hurtful. It was a joke or not meant in that way. But still it lingers, that comment we hoped was temporal. It bumps around in the psyche of it's recipient. When the long fingers of night creep across the land, those words come out loud and strong to inflict the damage we didn't anticipate.

How many times in Proverbs are we warned that the wise man holds his tongue but the fool fails to realize the need? How many times do we ignore this warning, do we let go and let loose? Perhaps if we thought more and spoke less, held on tighter and sought to impress less, we wouldn't bruise, wouldn't hurt, wouldn't wound each other so frequently, so powerfully. And too perhaps, if tongues were stilled more often, held tight, reined in -- perhaps then we might walk a little closer, might get a little dustier, might look a little more like our Rabbi.

Where I am...

I have a lot to say...tons in fact. Thoughts upon thoughts, words upon words filling my heart, welling up from emotion. I can't say any of them. I don't want to hurt feelings, bruise egos, wound hearts. I don't want to make others doubt themselves (even perhaps when they should) and I don't want to plant fodder that will grow into gossip weeds. That's why my words here have been few and far between. It's difficult, as a word girl, to work through these thoughts and emotions without writing them down. I thought this blog was a place to do just that...but as readership grows so too must the stroke of my censorship pen. I know I could journal...and perhaps I should...but I enjoyed the real-ness of this medium, the here and now and relevance of blogging. Ouch...I enjoyed it...didn't realize I don't any more. Some days I do...I need to get back to those, find those, seek those out (or at least the mindset from which they sprung). So I'll go back to my cave, wrestle with my thoughts and emotions and strive to come back refreshed with ideas that are a bit more neutral -- I'll still post as the bug bites, but if I'm gone awhile you'll know why.