My Mommy Manifesto

It's 3:27 am. I'm awake with my mind full of thoughts and apparently no hope of falling back to sleep. But I need some encouragement, so I'm here writing this to encourage myself.

It's been a rough week. Stomach flu got us, but in the midst of this pregnancy, the stomach flu has been brutal. You see, pregnancy and I are not friends. I say this very cautiously, knowing there are so many women who would just love to be able to be pregnant. But pregnancy is hard and I really struggle to be thankful and find joy in the midst of it.

The first trimester is hard—I throw up a lot. When I'm not throwing up I feel horrible and exhausted. But then week 13 happens and there seems to be a little hope.

Except I keep throwing up. Not as regularly, and I don't feel as horrible. But this week was one of those weeks where I just keep throwing up—no longer because of flu, but because there is a little person inside of me who has messed everything up. Today I ate a saltine cracker and suddenly my esophagus was on fire with acid reflux. My body is a mess and I want it back.

So here I am to remind myself of why I'm doing this mom thing.

Even after August was born, I knew our family wasn't complete. In the delivery room, I was offended by my nurse's presumption that we would be finished with our family since we had a girl and a boy. Why keep going, you've got one of each? Because I'm not doing this to have a cute little balanced perfect family that is convenient and can afford a nice upper-middle class lifestyle.

I'm doing it because God has given me a privilege to love these little lives from birth. That is a huge blessing— I get to work together with God as he loves this child, and help the child understand this love.

Lately I've been reading through verses about God's love and it has been encouraging and challenging. It's challenging to believe that God loves me as much as he says he does. But if this love is real, there are real implications for my life.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you," says Jesus in John 15:9. That's really insane. It makes sense that Jesus was loved by his father. I understand the innate love that I have for my kids. Plus, Jesus was perfect. There was nothing to really get in the way of that relationship.

But me? I'm far from perfect. But Jesus says he loves me despite me. And he loves you, too, despite you.

And then Jesus says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down their life for his friends." John 15:12-13

So Jesus wants me to imitate his love for me on my friends and family, but in this stage of life, it especially means children. It most practically means my children. It really, really practically means the baby inside of me because sometimes I just feel like death.

I read this verse today. It's one I've read time and time again, but it is so good:

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8

I love what this verse means for me and you—that Christ died for us in the middle of our greatest offenses. I also like the application to motherhood. My kids are so weak. They completely rely on me for their most basic needs, and I think Christ set the example to show that we need to sacrifice and die for that which has little to offer us. Sacrifice reveals love. When I sacrificially love my kids, I get to know Jesus' love for me. Because that cross was no picnic, people. That was real sacrifice. He died so that I might live.

So this is why I'm doing this mom thing: I get to know Jesus more as I love my kids. And I get to love these little people who are real people and watch them grow a little more every day into themselves.

Ok, Penelope, August, and Baby #3, you're worth it. Now hopefully I can go back to sleep.

It's a ... What!?

February turned into a crazy busy month. The shortest month was made even shorter by an impromptu trip to Minnesota and by a vacation to Florida. In the midst of it all, we found out the gender of our newest Laehn baby.

We think so, anyway.

I planned my ultrasound for my birthday so that I would have something to look forward to on my big day. I scheduled the ultrasound close to lunch and close to Tim's work so we could sneak in a quick lunch date.

We have been a bit at odds about finding out the gender of the baby. With Penelope, we didn't find out. I figured, only for the last 20-ish years have people been able to find out with any certainty the gender, so I decided to join the millennia of women who found out after they endured the hard work of labor.

However, Tim had me convinced our baby was a boy. So when Penelope came out and Tim told me we just had a girl, I wasn't that excited — I was just mad at Tim. I wasn't sad that she was a girl, I was just frustrated that I had anticipated having a boy and my expectation wasn't met. And did I mention it was Tim's fault?

So, we found out with August.

And in my mind there wasn't an option for this baby #3, but Tim really liked the excitement of not knowing. I really, really, really wanted another girl, and Penelope did, too. I could handle the disappointment, but I think it would be a little bit cruel to rock the 3-year-old's world when her life will already be jolted with a new baby and mom's new demands. So, better to break the news of a boy now than when she meets him in a few months, right?

When we got to the appointment we agreed to have the ultrasound tech write down the gender and we would open it at lunch. It's a little awkward to have a complete stranger announce really important, life-altering news in that little dark room. But I'm not into the overly elaborate gender reveal business.

My belly was all jellied and the baby was there with it's little heart beating, so that was great. For the first time during an ultrasound, I could identify what we were looking at. With my previous ultrasounds, my brain turned everything into a face, so we'd be looking at kidneys, and I'd see eyes and a nose.

But this time I could tell the tech was trying to find gender-revealing parts. She would head down there and then resume looking at the brain or the heart. After a while, she told us that the baby's legs were crossed, so she couldn't really tell. But she kept trying. She would nudge my belly in hopes of making the kid move, but it just wouldn't.

And then, all of the sudden, she turned off the machine.

"Did you figure out the gender?" Tim asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she said.

Not too convincing. I didn't see the baby move a foot. I'm convinced the tech was just impatient and wanted to get to her lunch break.

Afterward, Tim and I had a really great date at Table 128 (get the ugly doughnut appetizer if you go). And we opened the envelope. And it said:

So, in the mean time, Penelope and I are planning on the girl. But I'm not 100% convinced. I know she didn't see anything, but that doesn't mean there wasn't anything to see. I could get an elective ultrasound. In fact, there's a shop within walking distance of my house that does them, but I can't decide if it's worth the $100-170 to do it.

I have about three months left of this pregnancy to figure out if I need confirmation. What do you think I should do?

This is Why People Go on Warm Weather Vacations

A couple weeks ago, the Bouska family did something that it had never done before. John, Mary, and the three girls + families went on a warm-weather vacation.

Growing up, we were not the Florida vacation family. My parents carefully picked out rustic cabins in South Dakota, Wisconsin, or Colorado, and we would stay there for a few days. We didn't do Disney. We did the Corn Palace.

But in my parents' empty-nested years, they have taken annual trips to Florida to visit their friends who winter there. After last year, my dad watched too many little kids playing on the beach, and he decided he was going to get his grandkids down there. All this being said, it was the first time I had been to a nice warm beach when the rest of my world was frozen. It took 32 years. ha.

Penelope was such a great traveler!

Months ago, my sisters started looking at vacation rentals that would be big enough for our whole family. They snatched up this one, and it was perfect. Beach-front property, a heated pool, plenty of beds and bathrooms to go around. Plus, I've always dreamed of staying in a house on stilts.

It was the yellow one that you can't really see behind the palm tree.

And then I turned around and took this photo. Amazing, right?

The great thing about the house was that it was sitting in a giant sandbox. So, from the moment my kids woke up in the morning, they were out playing in the sand, collecting sea shells, and dabbling their feet in the water.

Brandon and Tim were also really into playing in the sand.

Auggie, especially, was in heaven. He loved chasing sea gulls, and just walking (or running) forever down the beach.

One of my favorite memories from the trip was the double date Tim and I went on with Beth and Brandon. We were going to go on individual dates since grandma, grandpa, and Aunt Julie were babysitting. But then we decided we would just enjoy adult conversation together. So we ate on the water under our own little cabana. It was such a fun time.

We got to ride a trolly to get to the the restaurants and shops at Fort Myers Beach, which my kids loved. It was the first time Auggie has ever been front facing in a vehicle. Penelope called it "The Shaly."

My Dad's birthday is December 26, but after 60 years of his celebration competing with Christmas, he decided to move it to the last week in February. So we celebrated it with this little cake that Penelope picked out.

It was foggy a lot of the time we were there. On more than one occasion the natives apologized for the weather, which was funny to me. Iowa was enduring record-setting, below-zero temperatures and wind chills the week we were gone. The 60s and 70s were just fine with me.

Penelope took this photo! Isn't it great?

We found a starfish!

What I learned from this vacation is that going on a big, extended family vacation is great. We enjoyed each other so much, and it was so nice to have other people watch my kids that it was really relaxing. It was also fun to let Penelope, August and Bennett have a week of cousin time.

In black, Julie, everyone's favorite aunt :)

This was right after Penelope said, "Brandon is such a great man."

I also learned that getting a little natural vitamin D is awesome, that white Florida sand is better than any other sand I've stepped on, and that it is really great to see a sunset over the ocean for a week straight.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for this awesome week!

Life, Death, and Love

I'm in that stage in life that is all about life. In fact, at a rate of about every 23 months, I bring home a new little life from the hospital. I witness an amazing thing where this little person was not quite a part of this world the previous day and now it is, and I love it so much more than I could ever imagine.

We all know that life is not forever. I read about it all of the time. Verses like Psalm 103:15-16 come to mind: "As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." I think about death often, both as an anxiety of what if I die before my kids grow up, but also in the reality of Jesus' death on the cross, and how his death and resurrection offers the promise of life beyond this life. 

But just as my babies started to exist in a moment, where once they didn't exist, so also life ceases to exist when it once has.

At the beginning of February, I lost my grandma. She was a sweet little lady who had been suffering from dementia for the last five-or-so years. Even though she was not quite as sweet, and not quite the same lady she was previous to dementia, as I started having kids I felt more connected to her than ever before. She had eight babies. And she told me multiple times each visit that she loved every one.

I told my grandma and grandpa of our newest baby-to-be at my grandma's 90th birthday party in November. My grandpa said, "I remember how this goes. Every so often we would call a family meeting together to tell the kids there was going to be another baby. Your mom and Aunt Kathy caught on quickly to these family meetings and would say, 'I bet there's another baby coming,' before the announcement was made."

Something about this little story of my grandma and grandpa and their adventure in raising eight kids made me happy. He understood a big family. And he won't think it's the slightest bit weird if ours grows beyond three kids.

My grandparents were married 67 years. That is incredible. Some people don't live 67 years, but they spent 67 years united in marriage. Because marriages today last about 7-14 years, many people have lost hope in the institution of marriage altogether.

But my grandparents' marriage gives me extra hope in my wedding vows. My grandpa held true to his promises of "in sickness and in health" and "until death do we part." He took care of my grandma throughout the dementia, even though she morphed into a person  that had a very different personality than the woman he married. And it was only in the last week or two of my grandma's life that she needed more help than he could offer and she was moved into a memory care facility.

I think this kind of love is beautiful. It is beautiful because it ultimately is real love. It's not that gushy kind of love that I remember from when I was dating Tim. It is difficult, gut-wrenching, selfless love that has absolutely nothing to do with you and has everything to do with the person you love.

I think this kind of love is scary. It is scary because it is hard. It's not pretty. It takes everything out of you. As I've watched my grandparents over the last couple of years, I've often wondered what will my marriage look like when Tim and I are old. Watching my grandpa gives me hope that God's grace to love and serve will be there.