Joy comes in the morning

I actually already have a blog post with this title in my birth story section (listed above in the tabs) ... but the phrase is so fitting today, I had to use it again . 

Plus one of my best friends was texting me this morning and said this, and it inspired me ..

"That must be why everything seems more intense at night when going through tough situations. Sleep deprived. Must be something to 'joy comes in the morning' ."

Which is why she is one of my best friends... she's down to earth and spiritual at the same time - my kinda person :)

If you read my previous post, then you probably can guess what happened last night ....

I SLEPT !!!!!!

This is one of those moments where I wish blog music were still a "thing" because I could have had Rocky's theme song playing in the background, timed just right so that when you got to my sentence "I SLEPT" the music would have crescendod (is that how you spell it ?) right at that point and you could have pictured me typing the words and throwing up my hands in victory - DUH DUH DUH !!!!! DUH DUH DUH !!! (Please go back and read those DUH's to the tune of Rocky's theme song if you didn't in the first place . Thank you. )

And I'm aware that was totally a run-on sentence, please don't tell Mrs. Miller, my third grade teacher. Or my kids, because I'm their 4th, 6th, 7th and 10th grade teachers. Bloggers get to make up their own grammar rules, I read it somewhere. 

Anyhoot - I slept for the first time in over a month almost allllllll the way through the night and I started off at around 9 pm and made it til 7 am and only got up ONCE to use the bathroom and if you've ever been nine months pregnant you know what a miracle that is ! I don't think I've been able to fall asleep before 3 or 4 or 5 am more than once or twice in the past month, so last night was like a gift straight from heaven .

And so were all of your sweet and encouraging comments on yesterday's post. With the exception of my sarcastic brother, who will probably be making jokes beside my casket some day if he outlives me. But that's why I love him too, and he's also one of my best friends. Everyone needs a sarcastic brother in their lives. 

So today I woke up - I kid you not - a new woman. It is ah-MAY-z-zing what good sleep can do for a person. I feel better physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually too. And I even got my sense of humor back, which is something I rely on to get me through the tough seasons of life . It (my humor) may be snarky and a little off color at times, but in the words of a very famous sailor - I yam what I yam. Snarky and syrupy and sappy all rolled up into one little ... well one ginormous at the moment ... Mommy to twelve. And I'm not even feeling bad today for spilling my guts on the blog, even at the risk of sounding like Wendy Whiner ! 

I'm going to post some old photos from

our family Thanksgiving getaway here because I'm pretty sure I never did ? I'm still blogging from my phone (still haven't gotten our desk top up and running yet !) so I'll just post these pics even if some may be repeats. Too hard to multitask and open safari at the same time as writing a blogpost - the blogger app sometimes shuts down unexpectedly and I don't want to thumb-type this post all over again .

Before the Thanksgiving pics though, just a few recent ones ...

I have my diaper bag packed and bunny's car seat just arrived today, my labor bags for my labor coaches are ready, and we are all happily anticipating the arrival of Madison Faith. I can't wait to see her in person !!!!

And if my blog music were still playing, hopefully the verses would have been the background for the previous paragraphs and now would be the chorus again to accompany this picture and words ....

Hayden is weaned !!!! (DUH DUH DUH !!!! DUH DUH DUH !!!!)

He has been officially nye-nye free for a month now - he found that binkie at the bottom of his toy box and plopped it in his mouth for fun, but he has actually been binkie free for several years now too. 

I was so nervous that he would not be weaned before Bunny arrived, and I don't think I could have physically kept up with tandem nursing . I know there are some brave moms out there , but my hat is off to you ... one nursing child is enough for me . 

And Brother, I apologize for that last paragraph, I know breastfeeding talk grosses you out . But I do put up with your weekly commercials for Crossfit via email and text so ... payback. 

And I'll keep my flabby arms, thankyouverymuch. 

And now, the long overdue Rice Family Thanksgiving Vacation Pics 2015.

We rented a lake house with Jason and Naomi and Josiah and Monique and all three of their children and all of ours and the house was SO big that we all fit in it and had a blast ! 

Being a lake house, it sat right on a - wait for it - lake. There was a cool dock and swing and Caleb brought our inflatable kayak and had fun falling in the freezing water the first day we got there . Kenzie had fun doing a maternity shoot for a very pregnant Monique and even got in front of the camera herself a few times ...

Sam attended to his traditional Thanksgivng task - peeling and slicing four pounds of Granny Smith apples for the pie ...

All of the children, big and little, spent the days taking advantage of the beautiful sunshine and acre of land that the house sat on. It was such an amazing time away, and so rare for our older boys to be off at the same time. They both work at the hospital as EKG techs so scheduling typically doesn't permit this on the holidays ... it was so special having all of our family in one place for three days. 

It's Wednesday evening and time to get us all out the door for our midweek church service . I'll try to post our Christmas pictures this week as well, and hopefully by the time I get the blog caught up to January it will almost be time to do a birth post . 

Love you all, and thank you again for leaving such thoughtful comments on the previous post . Xoxox 

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New Born Baby

mustard seed mama

Dearest Bunny,

It's 3:44 in the morning and I am still awake . It's a long story and this probably won't make much sense when I read it later- but I have to write or I'll lose my mind .

At the beginning of my pregnancy I wrote you a letter and told you that I needed a rope ...  because we had just found out you have Down syndrome and I knew there would be moments - maybe even nights - like these . Spaces of time when my thoughts were running too wildly and my emotions were getting out of control , and somehow I would need a rope to pull me back to the shores of safety and sanity. And I decided that writing was going to be for me that rope - the thing that would get me through it all. Not because I feared Down syndrome ... having walked through that diagnosis and raising your big sister for almost six years now, I feel confident about your future . But because of your diagnosis there are other concerns that can trigger fear - mainly health issues and things that can go along with that "magical extra chromosome" ... and I knew that at some point I was going to need a rope. 

And up until this point I haven't needed that rope so much ... Up until now it's  been pretty smooth sailing, and my letters to you have just been updates on how my pregnancy is progressing (wonderfully !) and what we have seen of you on ultrasounds (you're beautiful !). Up until this moment I haven't needed that rope to pull me back to safety, which is why I haven't written near as many letters to you as I did to your sister. Honestly, Bunny, up until now this pregnancy has been for the most part, fear free .

But right now I need my rope .

Right now I need something to hold on to, something to bring me back to the shores of safety, something to pull me out of the waters ... because RIGHT NOW ... I feel like I'm going to drown . 

So it's 3:58 in the morning and I've been up all night for probably the 30th night in a row. At least . Give or take a few nights when sleep was not elusive and the only time I woke up was to use the bathroom. (Five or six trips to the bathroom in one night is not unusual for this mom of many at the end of her pregnancy - so I don't count those nights as "lost sleep.")

But pregnancy insomnia is not something I've had to deal with at this level in any of my pregnancies . I had some nights at the end of my pregnancy with Hayden that were like this . But nothing that came close to the intensity of what I'm going through both physically and emotionally , and nothing that didn't resolve itself after a few nights of exhaustion . 

I've written about this in my letters to Lily in the past, but I'm writing about it again right now - so I can remind myself that this is what I do when I'm facing fear... I internalize it. I think it would probably be healthier to deal with things on the outside of my body - maybe cry more or scream when I'm overwhelmed with anxiety ?? Anything other than pushing down thoughts of worry or fear inside of me until they manifest eventually in physical symptoms ... which is clearly what is happening right now . Maybe it's pride that holds me back from admitting or demonstrating that I'm struggling ? Maybe it's guilt ?  Because I know that as a Christian I'm supposed to just trust God and pray and not battle these emotions .. and letting people see that sometimes I do struggle with that would be a bad testimony to anyone watching my life ? 

Whatever the reason, dearest Bunny , I am weary of pretending to be someone I'm not, and if nothing else, writing everything down is my way of dealing with whatever demons are assaulting my soul right now. Writing is my rope. 

And if writing and exposing those anxieties means letting people know I'm not Super Mom and I don't always handle my fears perfectly or in a way that is healthy or helpful ... then so be it. I'm human . My faith isn't always perfect, and sometimes - like this moment at 4:11 a.m. - it is as small as a mustard seed indeed . It's there, but it's fragile, and I need God to take what little faith I have and help me get through this moment. 

I need a rope. 

So here it goes, dearest bunny . Here's what is lying tucked away,  down deep in my heart, until this moment when it is obviously manifesting itself in a host of symptoms - insomnia, loss of appetite, and a plethora of other physical symptoms as well. Here are the dirty little secrets that I've been pushing to the back of my mind this month, hoping that by not talking about them I can make them go away . 

I'm afraid. 

I'm afraid you're going to die.

I'm afraid that because Lily was so healthy and because she had so few of the health concerns related to Down syndrome, somehow that means you are going to have them all .

It makes no sense, but I'm afraid that somehow I have to "pay my dues" and have a baby with all the issues Lily hasn't had . 

I'm afraid that all the ultrasounds we've had to check your heart for defects - I've lost count there have been so many - are wrong. I'm afraid that I'm going to be like the mom I randomly met at my doctor's appointment last month, who had multiple scans during her pregnancy that never revealed a major defect on her baby's heart . I'm afraid that because 50% of babies with Down syndrome have heart defects and because Lily had none, that somehow you have to make that statistic come true in our family ... even though I know we don't and shouldn't live by "odds." Rationally I know that doesn't make sense, but at four in the morning after a month of little or no sleep ... I'm not being very rational .

I'm afraid of labor, sweet Bunny. Me, the mama who LIVES for labor and the whole birth experience - I get high in labor for crying out loud, bunny. I have told everyone for years how much I love that special time, and how I feel closer to God than ever when I'm in labor - because I DO.

But I'm afraid . Afraid that somehow this time it will all be too much, I'm too old or my body is too fragile or that I just won't be able to enjoy everything like I normally do - I'm afraid of the unknown and what I may go through during your birth ... I am afraid that something will go terribly wrong and I'll lose you .

I am afraid that I love you too much and I that I am too happy and thrilled to be carrying another baby with Down syndrome - and somehow that joy and anticipation is going to be destroyed . I'm afraid that if something happens to you I'm not going to be strong enough to handle it, and that somehow I'll lose that mustard seed of faith I'm clinging to right now . I'm worried that if something happens to you I won't be like the strong moms I know who have walked through the loss of a baby and been shining examples to everyone of what true trust and faith and confidence in God looks like in the midst of incredible suffering and pain . 

I'm afraid I wouldn't pass that test .

I'm afraid of thinking I have this whole Down syndrome thing figured out, I'm afraid of falsely believing we have walked through all the emotions of it already , and that there is some unknown "thing" I haven't gone through when it comes to parenting a child with special needs.

I'm afraid that somehow my confidence and joy in the fact that you share Lily's diagnosis is going to be shattered when I get to that unknown . 

And isn't that the essence of true anxiety anyway ?

 It doesn't have to have something solid to hold onto, it doesn't require facts or proof that a problem does indeed exist - it is fear of the unknown . It's an overwhelming sense of impending doom, and even when I have months of good doctor visits amd healthy ultrasounds and all the reassuring words of our team of doctors to call to memory at four o'clock in the morning ... It doesn't matter because anxiety is not rational . It goes beyond what is known and reaches into the unknown , it takes every "what if"

imaginable and turns it into a certainty in my brain. 

It robs me of reason and joy and a sound mind , and in their place it leaves a gaping hole of worry and doubt and unbelief . It is the thief that wants to steal my happiness over YOU little Bunny, and it is threatening to drown me if I let it.

I prayed before I started this letter, Baby Madison. 

I prayed that somehow God would get me through this moment, that somehow He would put me on someone's heart and they would call or text me in the middle of this seemingly endless night to encourage me, and that somehow that would be an anchor to my soul. 

I prayed for God to reach down from Heaven and help me. 

And you know what He did ?

He gave me a rope .

So here I am , writing this letter to you and pouring out my heart and hopes and fears and somehow, in the middle of my exhausted ramblings, I feel myself being pulled back to the shore of sanity . 

Somehow God has taken that tiny mustard seed of faith ... and moved this mountain of fear in my mind.

Somehow through getting all of this crud out of my troubled heart and mind and putting it into words - somehow I've exposed the lies that were threatening to drown me ... and I'm not drowning anymore . 

I have my rope . 

And my mustard seed of faith . 

And my beautiful Bunny tucked away inside of me .

And no matter what demons of fear and doubt and worry and unbelief have been plaguing me until now, I am suddenly reminded of this truth. 

God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love and of power and of a sound mind. 

No matter what I am feeling, and no matter what the future holds, I need to recognize that God is in control . 

Whatever I'm "feeling" is not from the Lord. It may be from pregnancy hormones or lack of sleep or all the physical things I've gone through lately (kidney stones, endless contractions, heartburn, backaches, and carrying my 12th baby at age 47 to name just a few !) but whatever the cause - God is not the author of it all . He doesn't want me living in emotional torment over things I can't control anyway . He doesn't promise me a perfect future without any shred of heartache or pain, but He does promise me He will never leave me or forsake me through anything I go through . He will be there. 

And he doesn't expect me to handle it all perfectly anyway . 

He knows my weaknesses , He knows I am fragile and weary and HUMAN and ....

He loves me anyway.

In my weakness "His strength is made perfect". 

That means I can stop trying to be this Super Mom I think I'm supposed to be at all times. I never was her anyway, and I never will be. I'm just me, and even if that means I am prone to hiding my fears and worries until they all come boiling to the surface in an ugly way ... that's okay with Him. My hope and trust and faith is in Jesus and HIS ability to carry me through. It was never supposed to be about me anyway . It's the grace of God that will bring me through the unknown - not the perfect faith of Patti .

And now my sweet little Bunny, I am feeling drowsy and comforted and ready to rest in God - both spiritually and emotionally and (miraculously !) physically as well. I'm fading fast so I will post just one picture of you safely sleeping inside of me before I drift into dreamland myself ... 

I love you to the moon and back, Madison Faith. 

And until we meet face to face , I am ..

Always yours,

Mama xoxoxo

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New Born Baby

I'm still here

... but our computer is still in the shop. So this is a drive-by blogpost from my phone :)

If you left a comment on the last few posts with your IG user name, I found you and made sure you weren't blocked... So go ahead and send a request to follow there (psalm127.5) . It was easier to post a general message here than reply on my phone to each comment ! 

This post will be a bit photo heavy - trying to catch up on a month of missing-in-action status means LOTS of pictures. They might not be in the right order either, so pretend this is one of those books or movies where they are constantly switching between the past and the present and you are constantly stopping and asking "wait whaaaa --- ?" . It will all make sense in the end.

I think.

Carry on .

.... No explanation needed .

... Hayden went on a walk with me a few weeks ago.

We love fall in Oregon :)

Life as a Lilybird is exhausting ..

A bit of Daddy worship before he leaves for work (and Hayden insisted on a matching ponytail with sissy. Don't judge - if you knew the mornings we have with this little terrorist, a man bun is the least of our worries !!) ...

A few Sundays ago ...

Tyler returned safely from Israel - he loved every minute of it ...

Lily and Hayden ask for their kitchen to be moved into the real kitchen all the time. Seriously the best $40 we ever spent on Craigslist (and it was from Pottery Barn AND it was stocked with all the kitchen utensils and pots and pans AND it came with a matching shopping cart. Praise God for Craigslist.)

Hayden fell asleep on his own in Abbi's bed the week before Thanksgiving. I thought maybe we were winning the weaning war (he always nurses to go to sleep) but alas he was the seventh member of our family to come down with strep throat last month. Not a fun experience, but we all survived and are thanking God for modern medicine !

He was so good at the doctor's office, in spite of being so sick - I had to treat him to a Starbuck's snowman cookie :)

Just a random photo of Lily sleeping ... wearing one of our favorite hair clips from Jude & Fi !

This was me and my Bunny three weeks ago....

Sunday morning posing ...

Naptime with Noah ....

The next few pics are from Jackson and Noah's last football game - they played an undefeated season under the excellent coaching of their older brothers and had a lot of fun while doing so.

Kenzie took these photos with a lens she rented for the weekend ...if anyone has an extra $2,000 lying around to buy me one for Christmas, I won't complain !! ;)


Jack on attack ...

The huddle.... and the cuddle ...

Above- Noah going for his 18th touchdown of the season.

Below - Lily the self-appointed team cheerleader !

...and Hayden, filling in wherever needed (hug dispenser, water bottle delivery boy, cell phone keeper) ...

                         

We took these two to breakfast yesterday and you would have thought they died and went to Heaven - they each devoured a giant teddy bear pancake topped with mini chocolate chips and kept us entertained the entire meal...

We have never before taken part in the highly popular "Elf on the Shelf" game, mainly because a) I have been too cheap to splurge for $30 on a plastic toy and b) we suck at the tooth fairy thing so bad that I've been afraid to set us up for failure during the busy holiday season. I'm doing good to make sure Santa's cookies have nibbles taken out of them and that his note is not written on the back of my shopping list (why can I NEVER find a blank piece of paper and a functioning pen at one in the morning every Christmas Eve when the kids are finally all nestled safe in their beds ???!) Anyhoot, I always ditched Elf on the Shelf for those reasons and a few others, but when I saw this cute little cheap imitation guy sitting on the shelf at Michael's this Saturday, his blue eyes just seemed to bore holes into mine .... take me home, they said, and two dollars and ninety-nine cents later he was mine.

Meet Flannery .... the newest mischief maker at The Rice Ranch.

He decorated the bathroom with toilet paper this morning, and my littlest ones were so tickled to find him there...  we'll be looking for lots of fun ideas for this little scoundrel over the next few weeks, so feel free to leave your suggestion in the comment section :)

I have lots more photos to share from the past month that I've been missing (thank you to MyMy and all others who have emailed or commented to check in on us !!). I'll try post them in the next few days, but for now I will end with my 31 week baby bump shot. Baby Madison has taken over my entire body here, but after 28 years of carrying babies I am just feeling blessed and honored to do so. Saggy skin and stretch marks and depleted waistlines, heartburn and insomnia and charlie horses - it's all worth it, and I cannot WAIT to hold this beautiful girl in my arms in just a few short weeks !!!

Happy, happy December to all of you !!! xoxoxo

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New Born Baby

Unplugged

Posting from my phone ... because our computer "died" several weeks ago . You would think with three iPads and even more iPhones at The Rice Ranch we would be functioning just slightly less normally than usual, but alas such is not the case. 

For example, blogging from my phone works ... but uploading pics is iffy. I'm going to post some Halloween photos here in a minute, but if they end up blurry or small -  you'll know why. 

And there are other downfalls to being unplugged ...

Apparently we can hardly : cook without Pinterest, drive without Mapquest, shop without Amazon, or do business without Craigslist. Or add (no calculator). Or spell (no spellcheck.) 

These are the things we have discovered since our computer went down. 

And also ... we are a music family . Meaning we generally have music going every waking second of the day and sometimes at night when we forget to turn the computer off . We don't own a radio or a stereo, because it's against our religion .

 I KID. 

We had a stereo that broke a few years ago and we never replaced it when we figured out we could just listen to Pandora on the computer all day. 

Ditto with the radio. 

I used to be a radio talk show addict until an election went south on me seven years ago (sorry to all my liberal readers, just my personal opinion there. If you love Lily and large families, then keep reading and I promise not to insert my political feelings too much here again. Carry on.) 

Anyhoo, I just started tuning into politics again last summer, but I'm still doing so without a radio. Gasp. Or tv. Double gasp. I get all my information from this archaic thing called "reading" and also from an ongoing group text with several equally narrow minded friends . (Did you know narrow minded is not such a bad thing ? Open your mind too much and your brain just might fall out. Just sayin'.) So I've now been forced to do all my reading from my iPhone, and I've discovered that my eyesight sure ain't what it used to be. 

(Side note : I just sent a care package to my friend Cassie, who is in the hospital with her baby Liam. I included what I thought were some cute samples of shampoo and conditioners with penciled drawings of flowers and branches on the bottles. Cassie sent me a magnified picture of the samples I sent - apparently they were drawings of naked hairy men smoking cigars. Who'd a thunk it ?? Sorry, Robert and Cassie- I promise to go get some reading glasses STAT before I send any more care packages.) 

And finally - all of my kids do their math curriculum on disks that have to be used with the computer . Which is the main bummer of becoming unexpectedly unplugged . For some kids this might seem like a blessing in a disguise, but for the little Ricelets who work furiously during the school year so that they can have a long uninterrupted summer ... this is a tragedy.  

Anyhoot we have been living in the early 20th century for a few weeks without our computer, and thus the absence from my little bloggy here . If you have emailed me or left comments on blogposts, I have been TRYING to respond to each one, but my thumbs are getting a little crampy typing on my phone . And also I've had a yucky cold for the past few weeks, making voice texting into my phone a nightmare . I've (inadvertently) cussed in several texts to my husband (lesson learned : never hit "send" while voice texting with a cold until you proofread first) and I figured I better not risk offending you all in a similar manner by voice texting a blog post. Sooooo consequently, I am thumbing my way slowly through a typed blogpost on my phone. 

All of that to say - if you have emailed or commented and I didn't respond, I promise to do so as my thumbs allow, and as soon as Sam manages to convince the Mac store that they actually BROKE our computer.  (not kidding, there was nothing wrong with it other than a faulty disk drive when he brought it in, and suddenly they say "it's vintage and won't power up anymore and we need a new one." Uh huh.) 

where was I ? 

Oh yes, as soon as hell freezes over and the Mac store admits they owe us a replacement computer, I will be back online, typing blogposts by the traditional (and less crampy) hunt-and-peck method that has carried me faithfully through six plus years of blogging . 

In the mean time - if you have left a comment on previous posts requesting to follow my new and improved and privatized IG account, and you didn't leave your user name in your comment ... please leave another comment with your user name, so I can make sure you aren't blocked. Long story, but I reduced my previous IG account by deleting and blocking over 9,000 followers and I promise it was nothing personal. I just really wanted to go private and that was the best way to do so, to preserve all my pictures and videos posted there over the years ... If you were a faithful follower who didn't leave mean comments, then leave a comment here with your user name and I'll accept on IG.   (really, does anyone know why people would read or follow someone they hate so much ?? I can't think of a more boring way to live, but there you have it. Haters gonna hate and if they want to live like that, it's certainly their warped prerogative to do so ! And I say that in the most loving and non-judgmental way possible . Really, I do.) 

Okay, so here are the aforementioned pics from this weekend, and maybe someone can leave a comment telling me if they uploaded correctly . If there are wrinkles or age spots in the picture of me, I promise it is purely a technological error and not real life. 

Here we go ...

One last one before my thumbs fall off...

Happy November, friends !!! 

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New Born Baby