Expecting

Well, that was unexpected...

Ok, not really :)  If you know us, you know that both Ryan and I come from families with three kiddos, and while we have been a bit side-lined the last few years (health issues, buying a house, surviving the general insanity of life), it seemed like it was finally the right time to become a family of five.

To preemptively answer the question I've already been asked a few times - no, we were not trying for another baby to "get a girl".  Don't get me wrong, girls are great!  But having a third child was part of our bigger vision for our family, regardless of gender.  We are truly excited for another boy to round out our little trio of little men, and blessed that so far baby seems healthy and thriving, and, after all, isn't that what matters most?  And I LOVE being a boy mom.  It is equal parts hilarious+disgusting+precious :)

The journey, as with the first two pregnancies, has not been easy.  I have been incredibly sick since day 1.  We're talking completely non-functional, cannot get out of bed without meds, and only slightly functional with meds.  I always love it when people say "Oh I was a little sick when I was pregnant too".  

Please let me be VERY clear.  I have not been a little sick.  Every single day for the last 2 months straight I've been wishing and praying for the constant, morning afternoon and night nausea to subside. For even just a few minutes of relief. Rocking back and forth while trying to force myself to eat something, only for it to come back up minutes later.  For my lips to not be cracked and bleeding because I can't seem to get enough water down to stay properly hydrated.  

Sorry for the additional unnecessary information, but I generally go into "hide mode" as soon as we find out I'm preggo, and I literally don't leave my house except for trying to survive through work and fake acting like I'm fine for a few hours.  So most people, even close friends and family have no idea about how terrible this stage of pregnancy is for me.  Probably only Ryan can attest to the absolutely misery, and in a way, temporary depression, that this causes me.

This is not meant to be a pity party, I feel VERY blessed to have a healthy growing baby inside of me.  But I know I'm not the only one who has suffered from severe sickness while pregnant, so please don't feel alone.  It can be debilitating and exhausting, you can feel like it's never going to end.  It will, I promise.  

Ok, enough of the downer stuff, on to the fun stuff!

We've been calling this little kiddo FB, Future Baby, for the last year or so.  Now that the future is an actual reality, it's been hard to shake, so we've stuck with FB.  Baby Boy #3 should be joining us at the end of June, unless he decides to be early like Axel and Arlo.  We are incredibly excited and cannot wait for summer.  

Axel and Arlo are both super stoked, though I think the reality won't hit them until summer that mom and dad won't be spending all of their time with them :)  We waited quite a while to tell the boys that I was pregnant for a few reasons.  I had emergency Fallopian tube surgery when I was 18 (super fun way to spend senior year spring break BTW ;)) and the complications from that make me high risk in early pregnancy, so obviously we didn't want to share the news too soon with them.  Also, since we knew I would be very sick, we didn't want the kids going into this with a chip on their shoulder, thinking Mom can't do anything anymore because she's always sick and that it's new baby's fault.  I know, probably waaaay above their thought process level at this age, but introducing the idea of a third baby, especially when the the first two are SO close in age and the best of friends, we really wanted to try to avoid any potential pitfalls. Truly, for the last two months, Arlo has asked where my "puke bucket" is any time I am without it, and Axel has tried his hardest not to "get sick" from Mommy (he thought that I had the flu)... In a way, there were so many humorous moments before they knew I was pregnant, but in other moments, it was heartbreaking to be so incapable of being a present mom and caregiver.

Even before we told them, we had the "well, if we ever had another baby..." chat several times.  Both boys had "decided" they wanted a brother which worked well since we're expecting some strong XY chomosomes from the Lindstedt side.  Axel has, even before we told him that we were pregnant, said that he wanted another baby and for it's name to be Lenny.  This has been one of the most adorable things for Ryn and I to giggle about as Axel "prayed for Lenny" prior to knowing I was preggo. I've warned him that Lenny will be a hard sell as we have close friends with a cute little kiddo with this name, but we're letting him keep his dreams for now :)

 So if you're looking for prayer requests, here are a few for right now:

- I am finally able to be a bit more functional, but am still feeling pretty sick, so prayers that I would start to feel significantly better so that I can catch up on basically everything I have been unable to do for the last 2 months.

- That Baby boy will grow well and healthy, but also perhaps a bit smaller then his brothers (The first two babes were BIG. Axel was 2 weeks early and 9 lbs, Arlo was 1 week early and 10 lbs.) :)

- We are trying to research vehicles that hold 3 car seats, as we'll likely be saying goodbye to our grand ol' Accord prior to baby's arrival. So if anyone has any recommendations, we're all ears!

- That we (Ryn and I) will be able to prepare the boys as well as possible for this future transition.  We know that everything will change, and we just want to do our best to ease them into this new life with a brand new sibling.

Exposed

I've been reading again.  That is always dangerous to my comfort zone, which I prefer to be large and uninhibited.  At all times.   I've been diving into a few real head-scratchers, so I was trying to keep a "lighter" book on the side to even things out.  Shauna Niequist's "Bread and Wine" has been on my to-read list for literal years so I finally got after it.  As always, she is charming and hilarious, and all was well until I hit page 105.  105 is dumb.  And I don't like it.  Because it's hard.

105 is all about hospitality.  And I have about as much hospitality in my whole being as Martha Stewart has in a tiny finger nail clipping.  Ok, that was a gross analogy, but still true.  Don't get me wrong, I love having friends over and spending time with them - but as I've learned, that is not hospitality, it is "hosting".  And hosting involves a lot of cleaning, and cooking, and lists, and stressing out about how much dog drool is on your walls, and how your basement is unfinished, and you can't remember the last time that you cleaned the downstairs toilet (but you've spent an inordinate amount of time determining that you've done it at least once since you moved in, which was over a year ago...).  I can do hosting.  Down to it's most basic elements, hosting is just making a list of things that you need to do and then doing it.  It's more involved than that, but essentially that's it.

Oh, but hospitality.

This is something that has me shaking in my boots.  Because hospitality has nothing to do with lists, it has everything to do with hearts.  And those are much harder to handle in my experience.  Hospitality is the gift of opening your home.  That's it.  One simple thing, right?  Except, it means nothing on a list being left undone can change the opening of it.  Even if it's not clean, and your kids toys are everywhere, and you hair is a mess, and you have basically nothing in your fridge because tomorrow is your designated Costco day (it's always the first Monday of the month, just in case you were wondering).

I am not good at hearts.  I am good at lists.

And not because I am a total jerk.  It's at least partially because I am an introvert, so opening my home, having that heart of hospitality, is just not as natural for me since I go to my home for a retreat from the world.  Somewhere (mostly) quiet (but only when my children are in bed), somewhere with (at least some) peace and simplicity (and a lot of free-range dog hair).

If you know me at all, then you know I am no interior decorator.  I love fashion, but you give me a room and some various color swatches and textiles and I will come out crying every time.  Truth be told, Ryan usually picks out most of our wall colors, as well as fung-shui's our house, so thank God one of us has some style!  It's not that I can't appreciate great home style, I pretty much worship Chip and Jojo afterall, but a home decorator I am not. You can ask anyone who has been in my home, even at it's best, there is always mess and un-done-ness.  And there is no excuse of having children either, because I have always been this way - just ask my parents... My teenage self literally had to wade through knee-deep clothes to get from my door to my bed.   I've gotten better, sure, but you'll still find unfolded clothes in nearly every bedroom in my home.  I guess it's because these are things I care less about.  But there is a weird shame these days, perhaps it's the Pinterest age, or Instagram, you see everyone's "perfect" closets and laundry rooms, so you just assume that's what every house should (and does) look like.  And if yours doesn't then there must be something wrong.  And even though I don't care as much as I once did, and I clearly don't care enough to get better at folding laundry (even if I should), I still feel that ache of shame, that somehow I should care more and try harder.

But page 105.

So if I am ashamed about things that I don't really think matter that much, and I let that shame control how I open up my home, isn't that a little silly?  It is.  But it still feels HARD.

And so, as I wrestled with my brain and heart (and lists), I began to think about how I like to handle hard things. There are two kinds of people in this life - the kind of person who yanks a band-aid off and the kind that slowly, gently, removes it.  I am a yanker.  Always have been, always will be.  So if this is hard, and the reason that it's hard is because I am ashamed about stupid things that I shouldn't be ashamed of, and I am a yanker, the only logical step is to expose myself for ya'll to see, and then what else is there to be afraid of?  It's already out there.  The thing that I am afraid of is already over.  The band-aid is gone.

So, page 105, here we go.

The following is what my house looks like 95% of the time. While I'm not including every un-windexed window or unwashed towel, I tried to think of the areas that I am most "ashamed of" when I have guests over.  Since those are the places that are the most stressful for me, they are the ones that I need most to expose.

Personal note: We are not slobs, we do clean our house on the reg (#kids #alwayscleaningbutneverclean).  The intent here is not to be the "worst of the worst" with some shocking pictures, this isn't some weird contest of "who has a dirtier house", or a backward way of looking for reassurance, so please hold any "your house doesn't look that bad!" comments, that isn't the heart of this. We all have our own areas of perceived shame, these are just a few of mine.  

My counters:  No matter how many times I clean them, they are NEVER, EVER clean.

My floors:  Our dogs shed, a LOT.  I run our iRoomba almost every day.  This is still what it looks like, and honestly this is a "good" day.  There is no getting around it.

My table:  You know those beautiful Insta stories with gorgeous tables that are set beautifully with the most calming ambiance?  I'm not even gonna bother showing you the table, instead, you get an up-close view of underneath it.  This is how it always looks.  Except this week there is a pink jewel.  It's been there for two days.  Not sure where it came from, but I told Axel to pick it up three times today and I am not giving in and doing it myself - battle of the wills over here.

My laundry room:  It's where things go to die.  Sure, the laundry always USUALLY gets done, but pretty much everything else just lands in piles, only to get shoved around and re-organized, to clutter a slightly different space on top of the washing machine.  This is my life.

Our garage:  This is where we live almost half of our lives.  With two active boys, we spend much of our time riding bikes, doing projects, or just "dinking around", and most of that happens out here.  Therefore, it is NEVER clean.  I think it was maybe clean for 5 minutes before we moved in.  Hasn't been since.  I could give excuses about how we have so many on-going projects and that the space just isn't organized well, but it doesn't really matter, this is what is looks like pretty much always.

Our downstairs "bathroom":  Full disclosure, there wasn't a bathroom here when we moved in. The plumbing was done for one, but nothing actually in it.  As a surprise, Ryan and Rando installed a toilet for me (if you don't get why this is literally the BEST gift ever for me, then you probably don't know me very well ;)), and the rest sort of just followed.  However, we have yet to create a server room, so here, in all it's glory is our "server room/bathroom".  I really feel that this has to end up on a funniest home video somewhere in the future, and I'm always looking for the perfect quip about multitasking in here... Shoot me your best suggestions :)

And that's just my house.  What about me?

I like to not wear make-up, in the summer not get out of jean shorts and a tank, and throw my hair up in a messy bun on pretty much any day that I don't work.  And if it's winter it's definitely a toss-up between sweat pants or leggings.  It's not classy or trendy, it's comfortable and relaxed.  And honestly, that part of it I do love.  But there is something about personal appearance that is shameful as well, as though if I am not beauty-queen ready at a moments notice to entertain guests, that something is wrong with me.  But isn't that ridiculous too?  It's just an extension of what I've always said about friendships "The people who care about that kind of stuff are not the kind of people that you should care about what they think.  And the people who don't care about those things are the ones that you should care about what they think."  My good friends and family have seen me in crap clothes and no make-up many times.  They don't care.  So why should I?

So that's it.  I've ripped off the band-aid, exposed my shame, and now there's nothing to hold me back from page 105.  From hospitality.  From hearts, not lists.

I won't let my fear rule how I live my life.  I will not let things that shouldn't matter control how I reach out and love others. I will live exposed.  It may not be pretty, but it's real, and it's about the heart, and in the end, I hope that's all that really matters...

What to do when the house is burning down...

There's this cherished story that comes around every April 1st, a memory of our mountain years, a little hilarious recap happens every year in our household and often with friends. It's coming up later this year, but feels especially poingnet to where we are at, and what is pulling at our hearts.  It's a funny story, but the meaning has always caught me off guard, as most good stories do.

If you know Ryan, he is, and forever will be, a prankster.  He loves to "pull one over" on someone, never one to shy away from a good laugh.  And more years than I can count ago, in Bozeman, he and our dear friend James decided to play a prank on the rest of their housemates.  Their goal, to get their friends to think that the house was burning down. (I would be remiss if I didn't include the caveat that this was college life, we were younger and dumber, and they didn't totally think through the consequences of this particular prank.) 

So, when the trap was laid, the ruse set, the prank began.  Fanning the flames, both literal and proverbial of a (very controlled) fire, Ryan and James ran upstairs to tell their unsuspecting sleeping roomies that the house was ablaze.  As the story goes, one sweet friend immediately jumped up from the couch where she'd been sleeping and ran around panicking, shouting, not knowing what to do, and rightly so.  Another friend, still half asleep, stood up and in a fervent voice, began laying hands on the wall of the house and praying over it.

In the moment, it was a hilarious prank, all were told that the house was not on fire very quickly (via fake phone call to fake fire department), the fire was quickly extinguished and everyone had a good laugh.  Except maybe the poor trash can. (No people were harmed in the making of this prank... or some sort of disclaimer of that nature.)

But each year, I keep thinking about those two reactions.  Mind you, these dear hearts were awoken in the dead of night, and in various stages of slumber, but, each passing year as the story gets retold, the imagery of smoke billowing, flames reflecting off of the walls, the sleep stupor that often removes what filter a fully awake, and alert, and prepared individual might do and say, these were two starkly different approaches to the appearance of impending doom: to panic or to pray.

You guys.  When I think about this, I am 100% the panick-er.  My first inclination, when the poop hits the fan, when the house is burning down, when everything around me is collapsing, is to panic.  But why?  It seems so logical to take action, to lift my hands and my heart, to do something that can actually change the circumstances and how I feel... But instead I just marinate in worry, as if the act of worrying, panicking, would somehow move me forward.

It won't.  It doesn't.

I also love that, the importance of these words "the appearance of impending doom".  The appearance.  It wasn't real.  The fire was real, sure, but it was extremely small, and contained in a metal trashcan.  It posed no real danger in any way.  Oh but the smoke, and the reflection of the flames on the wall made it look so much bigger, so much more dangerous and scary and awful.  And isn't that always so true?  When we look at the problem, when we see the obstacle, it is always blown way out of proportion.  It looks like we will never survive it.  But it's just a small fire, that would never hurt us really - but what did hurt us, is the fear.  After all, isn't that what panic is?  In it's very essence, panic is fear.

Oh it always comes down to this, doesn't it?  Fear controls so much of what we do, what we say, how we present ourselves, the decisions that we make, how we live our lives.  And yet, fear is a feeling, it is not an actual thing.  If we spend our lives making choices based on feelings and not reality, we will live a crippled life.

Fear is a liar.

---

So right now, this story hits home.  It hits home because the Tuesday before last, after a routine CT scan, we found out Ryan had what appeared to be a lesion on his liver and that it was possible his cancer had come back.

(Insert all of the "house is burning down" feelings here)

Oh that fear. It creeps up, like seeing the reflection of the flames on the wall, the smoke billowing up the steps, it is so hard not to panic, not to shout, and to know what to do.  But I want to be the friend who stopped in the middle of the "fire" and prayed.  And so, with proverbially smoke all around us, we prayed.  And prayed.  And prayed.

We had to wait for over a week to get an MRI and the results, and much like last time we dealt with the big C, time seems to stand still.

The smoke billowed, the flames threatened.  We prayed.  I basically had Fear Is a Liar on constant repeat on my phone, in our car and in the house.

A week ago tomorrow we met with Ryan's oncologist who confirmed that what they thought might be a lesion, was actually just an irregular artery.  Basically a blip.  A nothing.  Not cancer, no surgery, no future concerns about it.  I cannot tell you how quickly the house blaze was put out, but it was truly like a fire hose being sprayed beautifully over our lives.

But.

That appointment, that answer, it doesn't change what we already knew, even when it seemed like the flames were taking over.  What we know is that God is good, and that He provides and protects us.  This does not change our circumstances or how we live.  If anything, it continues to cement it.

In certain seasons of every life, it will feel like the house is burning down.  Sometimes it will feel so close that you can taste the heat. But try to remember, fear is a liar - the house is not burning down.  It is only a mirage, something to fan fear and panic into your life, so you are off-kilter and cannot be at peace, and that is not a life anyone wants to live.