Your Grandbaby - week 9

Your GrandBaby

Your baby is about one inch from crown to rump - or roughly the size of a strawberry. Weighing in at one gram, your baby is very active, although you can't feel its movements yet. He or she now has all the major organs, muscles, and nerves; and a Doppler may be able to identify the heartbeat. While his or her testes or ovaries are formed, the external genitalia still appear sexless, which is why it is too early for an ultrasound to reveal its gender. Eyelids are beginning to form and the trunk is straightening and elongating, cartilage and bones are forming, the basic structures of the eyes are in place, and the tongue is beginning to develop. The fingers and thumb are visible, albeit short and webbed.

Your grandbaby - week 8

Your babys fluttering heart would show up on an ultrasound performed this week. He or she is between 0.56 and 0.8 inches from crown to rump - or about the size of a grape - its liver is churning out large amounts of red blood cells, and will continue to until the bone marrow forms and takes over this function. Week eight marks the beginning of a very busy developmental stage: its face continues to change as the ears, eyes and the tip of the nose appear; the intestines start to form in the umbilical cord; and your baby's teeth begin to develop under the gums.

Parenting Class

I will be teaching a new course on parenting this fall using a new book that Dr. Ross Campbell came out of retirement to write! Say a prayer that AM will allow this to go home with Montessori parents: Here's the flyer (print and distribute if you'd like...):

FALL QUARTER 2007 (Weekly, September through November)
“HOW TO REALLY PARENT YOUR CHILD”

Do you anticipate your child’s deepest needs – or just react?
Are you focusing on the long term with your children or on their annoying behavior of the moment? It’s difficult to retain perspective when your child is in the middle of a temper tantrum, or willfully disobeying, or just acting out as a typical immature kid.

“But you can do it,” says Dr. Ross Campbell, clinical psychiatrist and best selling author. “You can learn how to really parent your child in the midst of the difficulties of life found in today’s sometimes hostile world.” (Back cover, How to Really Parent Your Child)

Most parents sincerely hope that their children will grow up to be responsible adults. What many parents do not fully realize is that the manner in which a child is reared has a great deal to do with whether or not this wish becomes reality. (p.vii) If you are successful in the challenge of positive parenting, your child will reach his or her potential for good and God in the world. What could be more rewarding for a parent? (p. ix)

You can envision that special day,…when your children enter the world…eager to serve their Lord and their fellow human beings. (p. xi) Our culture may be deteriorating, but our God is still in control. And he wants to take your hand and walk beside you during these short, crucial years when your young ones look to you to teach them how to live. (p. xii)

Do you remember when we worried about the growth of integrity and values in our children, rather than simply admittance to the most prestigious universities? A recent Gallup poll indicated that the number one desire of most people was to be rich; number two was to be thin…How can we expect out children – the rising generation – to better manage? (p. xviii)

Our best security is to be informed…Even by
• Home schooling,
• Filtering computer and television selections,
• Watching our children closely
we cannot shut out this new world. That would be like trying not to breathe or drink water. God has made us, after all, to be the light of this world – the salt of this earth. We are not to hide but to show ourselves; not only to show ourselves worthy but to be leaders and transformer of the world around us. (p. xix)

Taught by Marie Pendleton founding director (1980-2005) Montessori School BG, retired
Class Location: Bowling Green Church of the Nazarene
15341 Gorrill Rd. Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Time: 9:15 until 10:15 am; September 3 through November 26
Class is FREE! $10 book fee (suggested)

Back to School

I am returning to school as a student and will spend the month of September studying! Fun for me!

White Coat

This is not the father of our grandbaby - this is our other son - with his white coat - you can read his name if you know it already! The white coat is the symbol of the medical profession worn whenever they have patient contact. That's his dad standing next to him.

Now he is taking anatomy!!! We're proud of you E!

Week 7

Your (Grand)Baby

Your baby is tiny but growing fast! He or she is the size of a small bean - about half an inch long - this week and if you could see inside yourself, you'd find your baby has an oversized head in proportion to its body. His or her facial features are still forming, its eyes are just black spots, there are little openings where the nostrils will be, and pits to mark the ears. Protruding buds that will become arms and legs are more noticeable now, and the hands and feet look like tiny paddles. You can't hear it yet, but its little heart is beating about 150 beats per minute (or roughly twice the rate of yours.)

More photos

The top picture is of me and a sculpture of Princess Di's purse in Melbourne and the second one shows us opal shopping. If I had had all the money that purse would hold I might have bought the first one I saw - but people are starving to death for God and I don't like to spend that much money on jewelry. So I go a smaller black opal necklace (you have to go there to get black!) and we got fire opal necklaces for the two girls. It was a lovely store with the largest opal in the world in a safe that we got to look at too.

Let's just see if I can do this...

Welcome, Grandma

7/40 weeks
This is day number 46 and you're 7 weeks pregnant!
You have 234 days or 33 weeks left, and are 17.5% of the way there.
Baby's age since conception is 32 days or 5 weeks. You are due on 4/6/2007.

See that's my new name: Grandma! A and J will be the proud parents. More information to come, ad nauseum probably!

Pray pray pray for A - she is feeling very ill right now. Normal and a good sign, I know, but VERY unpleasant nevertheless.

GMA Blogger

Reminder, Help needed: 2 p.m.

What? Moving my parents' old furniture from our basement to a truck for my brother
Why? To show him God's love in action, and so M has more room for his workshop
When? today at 2 pm
Who? You, if you can come
How? with muscles powered by ice cream bars, pop, and later, pool time

See you later today!

Pictures from Melbourne

I could have posted a picture of the Sydney opera house but you all know what that looks like. So here instead is a picture of M and I having dinner on a trolley as we toured the city of Melbourne AU - on day 4 after the first 3 in Sydney. The second picture shows M going through the crooked door into the aboriginal museum, also in Melbourne. We were on a plaza, walked up to this very interesting side of a building and the crooked glass just slid open - like in a sci fi movie!

Marty and Martha

For those of you who don't know, A and J had to have Marty put down a couple of weeks ago. The pain had continued to worsen in his leg, medication was no longer helping and it was time. Very very sad day!

Martha is charming and fairly well behaved for a puppy and E and E are currently puppy sitting for her while A and J are on vacation. E has threatened to keep her several times but we all know that would not go over well.

We have decided that if we aren't moving we must do some serious yard work so we are sweating it out! Today we took down the horizontal rails and the metal fencing around 3/4 of our yard before we stopped for the day. I did get permission from the city to add it to our large trash so that was a very good thing! M thinks he will need to rent some equipment to pull out the old posts cause they are imbedded in concrete! Fun fun!

I'm a bit sore but thank God for a couple of advil - and the wonders of modern medicine.

Whirlwind Summer

Wow! since I last posted we have come and gone I can't remember how many times but there were 18 different airplane trips involved!!!

Here's where we have been so far:
1. To Australia for 12 days
2. To New Zealand for 11 days
3. Home 7/7 for a few hours (yes that's right, hours not days!)
4. To my dear friend Tricia's husband Rick's funeral in Toledo on 7/8
5. On to our son E's sister Amanda's wedding in Columbus on 7/8
6. Over to E and E's house to spend the night with them in Dayton
7. Home from Dayton on 7/9 (also the day my brother has left after being here to care for my mom)
8. Spent 2 1/2 days at home with Mom, my cousin G and his wife D who are here for the next trip...
9. On to Portland Oregon to rent a car and drive down to Salem for dear friends' son's wedding 7/12 - 16
10. While there we got to take Ivonne and Dacia out to lunch - they drove the hour up to Salem before the wedding to see us. Wonderful ladies, both, who have now moved down near Sacramento where Chuck is already working and she is going to be starting a brand new middle school classroom for a school and will have 25+ 6th and 7th year who she will have for two years before the next group of 7th graders are ready...hmmmm...maybe I SHOULD have done it that way who knows? Only God, for sure!
11. Home and farewells to my cousins on 7/16
12. Husband M travels back to E and E's on a "work and witness" trip to their new home from 7/19-21 while I actually stay home - and go to the burial of A and J's first dog Marty who has to be put to sleep because of escalating pain issues :(.
13. Back to Dayton on 7/23 for E's (his) 28th birthday and big housewarming party with M, A and my mom.
14. On 7/23 I go on to Columbus to teach science to Montessori teachers who will become certified to teach 9-12 year olds (4th to 6th graders to those who think by grades)
15. Monday M returns home to play softball!!! leaving A and Mom at E and E's
16. Tuesday night I return to E and E's after two days teaching in Columbus
17. Wednesday we return to BG with Mom, A and Martha who has had a wonderful visit with other dogs (A and J's other dog who is seriously lonely and seeking playmates!)
18. Sunday, July 30 - another trip to Dayton for E's convocation ceremonies into medical school-which officially started yesterday with first classes starting tomorrow!!!! :) yeah, E!!!
19. Trip to and from DTW to deliver A and J to their plane to my other brother's in Florida for vacation
20. We are actually planning to be in church on August 5th - THANKS all you Naz folks for not forgetting us this summer!!!
21. Next week my brother will arrive Sunday night and we will load a truck Monday afternoon - and WE NEED HELP - at 2 pm! We have been storing my parents furniture in the basement and will be loading it for my brother. We leave on Tuesday morning in a caravan - brother in the truck, M in brother's car, mom and I in my car and we will stop to pick up E (the female) on our way through Dayton to NC where my brother leaves.
22. Go door to door to find help unloading the truck and return to BG in one car after dropping E in Dayton on Friday.

After this we are planning to stay home. E asked me last night when we are planning to visit. ha ha ha! She and E have A and J's Martha who they kept after the convocation ceremonies for their vacation time.

That's how I spent my summer vacation. I could write quite an essay for my teachers in the fall.....R and N - don't ask us to do this please in SS!!! :)