Remember the Sabbath

So I am taking my social work board exams for the second time this Wednesday. I took it the first time 10 days before I had Norah. It's a long story, but I signed up a week before I took the test and studied for 7 days straight and failed by one point. It was pretty heart breaking and my pregnancy emotions did not help the situation at all. I cried so hard I thought I was going to induce my labor!

The hardest part about it was that the test was all electronic and there are 170 multiple choice questions. When you answer #170 the screen changes and asks you if you are finished, you click yes and the next screen says, "Click Quit if you are done" you click that and the next screen popped up and said, Failed! I had no idea I was going to know my results so you can imagine my surprise! Then it said by one point and I did not know what to do. It was terrible.

I could not sign up to take the test until 90 days later, so I signed up about a month and a half ago and started studying again. Last Wednesday morning when I was a week away I started to freak out. One of our RA's Ben stopped by to visit and I was telling him about how I could not sleep and was freaking out about it. He is a psychology major and started talking to me about how the process of worrying is the same as the process for thinking positively. He told me I need to tell myself that I will pass my exam. It was helpful to talk to him and later I decided to write on all of our mirrors with a white board erase marker, "I WILL PASS MY BOARD EXAMS!" I also wrote Barak Obama's phrase from one of his earliest speeches, "YES WE CAN!" I figured while I was thinking positively I would also think positively about the candidate that I want to be the next President of the United States! :)

Anyways, it really has been helpful for me to have written this on the mirrors. Everyday as I am getting ready or just walking by, I say the phrase to myself and I have not been worrying as much or being hard on myself.

When I was in Utah I also talked a lot about this with my sister. She was very helpful too because she had also failed her exams for interpreting. She just talked to me about how looking back now she could see God teaching her things and preparing her. I know alot of times that kind of reasoning does not make sense to people and it does not always make me feel better too, but she is right. The fact that I am even writing about this publicly is a big step for me. I did not want to tell anyone when I would be taking the exam again because I felt ashamed about failing. I know that it is entirely possible that I will not pass again, but it is also entirely possible that I will pass the exam. I think the hard part about it is that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself because we are moving to Chicago and I will need to be getting a job. I'm not trying to say that I am not being responsible and studying because trust me I am!

That leads to the subject of this post. Today after lunch Josh had to go do housing sign ups all day, so I came home and got Norah settled down for a nap and then started studying again. I felt very burdened by it and realized that I just needed a break from studying. I realized that it was the Sabbath and I needed to let myself relax and take a break from it all. I have been fighting a cold for too long now and this morning I felt like I might be getting worse again. I needed to let my whole body and mind take a day off and do something I enjoy since I have just been studying as much as I can when Norah is sleeping.

It felt great to put the books away. I took a nap with Norah, played with her, cleaned and organized some things and ate ice cream! I did not stress out about not studying and do not feel like it will make or break me. I am not always good at keeping the sabbath, especially now that I am a mom. I don't know how you take a day off from being a mom though! :)

I know this was a long post to get at the point of it, but I have been really proud of myself for the way I can see growth in areas that have been so hard for me in the past. I hope to have a great report for you all on Wednesday evening after the test. If I don't it will be ok, after some tears of course, which is appropriate and necessary for me to cope! Thanks for reading if you got all the way through!

Goodbye Second Cup!

This was the only picture I could find quickly. :)

Our favorite and only coffee shop, as far as we are concerned, is closing tomorrow. We found out about a week ago when we returned from Utah and were not able to get there until today, due to our trip to Chicago and being ill.

The owners, who are sisters, Amanda and Jessica, are friends of ours and they got to live their dream for the past 3 years which alot of people can not say for themselves. They felt that they needed to close before they went into debt, which is a great decision. I feel bad because alot of people are upset at them because it is "ruining their monday," etc. We are excited for the possibilities for them as they will be able to do other things they may want to do. Of course we will miss being there, but they have hope to open it again when the economy is better for everyone.

We knew we would not be able to be there tomorrow for their last day, so Joshua had the idea to get a bottle of wine and toast them into their new adventures at three when the shop closed today. Norah and I hung out with them while he ran to the store. He got back right at three and when the last person left he brought the stuff in and we surprised them! It was alot of fun! We sat right on the floor in the middle of the shop and toasted and told stories. It was great! I'm pretty sure they loved it and felt honored and celebrated.

When we first walked into the shop today I completely teared up and had to hug them. I was surprised by my emotions, but it was a big part of our life here in Wheeling. These are the kinds of things that will make me sad to leave a small town and move to a big city.

Amanda and Jessica love Norah so much and she could be the one reason they consider having children down the road they say!

Anyways, I just thought I would share our joy and sadness with you all. It's nice to have a place to walk into and the owners know what you want to order. I never thought I would have something like that in my life, but it was wonderful!

Sisters

This is my sister Amanda and her baby boy Caleb! Josh, Norah and I flew out to Utah to be with her and Andrew for Easter. It was a great trip! Minus the fact that most of us were sick in the beginning.

When Amanda and I were little girls we knew we wanted to be pregnant at the same time when we were older! When she got married in 2000, and there was no one in the works for me, I figured Amanda would be on her 5th child by the time I was pregnant with my first! Well, I beat her by 9 weeks!

It was really great being pregnant at the same time. It was nice to talk about how our bodies were changing and our emotions were at Cedar Point going all over the freaking place without us!! I sent her maternity clothes when I was done with them and I just flew home with an extra bag full of maternity clothes in case Heather decides to have another! :)

I am impressed with my sister as I always am. She is a good mom and I loved being able to spend time with her in her everyday life to see how she is doing the mom thing! Her and Andrew are very intentional with every decision and action they make. I have always looked up to her and admired her and still do.

Caleb slept through the night for the first time last night!! Yeah!! We rejoice in the small things of our children's lives. Norah is oh so close to rolling over. She has done it on an incline and with the help of her Baby Einstein playmat with the little plastic things that hang down, but she is very very close to doing it completely on her own!


Here are just a few pictures. The rest our on Norah's flickr account. I'm tired and need to get to bed.

Enjoy!




Josh and I are headed to Chicago tomorrow until Sunday to figure things out for the move. He has a perspective student day all day friday. I will post about the weekend next week!

College Fun!

We decided to take a walk this afternoon and get lunch at the school's kiosk. When leaving the building this is the sign I saw posted on the front door of the residence hall!!!! I immediately knew that Ben one of the RA's did this as an April Fools Joke! I tore it down and when we returned an hour later it was back up!

Norah's trip to the ER

We had to take Norah to the ER yesterday. I got home from visiting my family and she had been acting strange all morning. I took her temperature and it was 101.2. I called the pediatrician and they said to take her straight to the ER because she was so young.

Norah was a little frantic as soon as they started checking her out. We had to take her sleeper off and she was also hungry, so she started crying really hard. We fed her and they started to examine her. They took her temperature via her bum, which did not make her happy. We calmed her down and then they came in and said they were going to need to insert a catheter to get a urine sample. They said we could step out if we would like to because she would probably scream. We said we would stay. When they left to get what they needed I said to Josh, "Watch, she will probably like a catheter like I did when I was in labor!" Well, it turned out she did!! :) She was smiling and playing with the nurse as they did it.

Next we had to take her to get an x-ray. Again she was calm and then as soon as we unwrapped her and handed her over she started screaming. She luckily was not strapped down, a nurse was with her the whole time holding her.

After 2 1/2 hours they determined that she had a virus, constipation and gas bubbles in her stomach. The doctor said it just all occurred at once and made her unhappy. She also said that she thinks Norah is colicky, which we nodded knowing that was completely wrong because Norah is the easiest going baby and she was only freaking out because she was in the ER and people were all up in her grill!

She has been very tired and weepy (not screaming) and needing extra snuggling and sleeping. She is taking Tylenol and Motrin. I ran out to get a few things and when I came home Daddy was caring for his little girl!


All in all it was a little crazy, but she is fine in the end. It's no fun taking a little baby to the ER, but you do get through the ER system much faster!

Moving to Chicago!

Well, it's official, we are moving to Chicago! Josh got accepted to The University of Chicago's Divinity School, to study the history of world religions. He was so excited and so am I! It's nice to know where we will be going. We will move sometime this summer, not sure when yet. I knew he would get accepted, but he really was not sure. Congrats honey!

Busy Times

The last few weeks have been very busy and exciting! I posted a lot of pictures and they go backwards from most recent to least recent (whatever the correct verbiage should be just switch in your mind because it's too late for me to figure it out!)

This past Friday Joshua received the St. Francis Xavier Award that I had posted about awhile ago. His speech was really good. He was nervous, but when he talked you could not tell at all. The school took pictures and had a press release about it, which I linked to. Our friend Erin was also awarded Administrator of the Year which was fun!

Joshua's parents drove in for the award and stayed for the weekend. Uncle Jeremy drove down on Saturday and is staying until Monday morning. This is him and Norah napping!

I thought Norah looked cute snuggled in our bed so I took a picture. You should know that this morning Joshua was handling a "situation" that took 6 hours to deal with. I can't go into detail because it's no over with, but it was quite a morning here in the Elek apartment.

Norah clasps her hands together all the time now and we think it looks like she if fervently praying, so we make up "prayers" all the time depending on what she is doing. This prayer goes something like, "Dear Lord, please make this a bottomless bottle of milk. Amen."

Norah has also been shoving her fist in her mouth until she gags. It's a fun game that scares me often!
It keeps me on my toes though.

Norah and I went to play with my friend Angela and her 9 month old son Grant! We had a lot of fun.
Norah took a nap in Grant's crib while we were there.
When I went to get her she was half out of her clothes!

So Norah is quite the eater lately. We started putting some rice cereal in her bottles. Our pediatrician wants us to fed it to her with a spoon twice a day, but that did not go so good. As you can see she swallowed none of it. We will try again this week.

Our friends Sean and Julie are having a little girl names Lucy any day or week now. We had a baby shower for them in Columbus with other friends from Malone that Josh went to school with. This is Julie, Norah and Lucy!

This is Norah's buddy Babs! He takes real good care of her every time he sees her.

We all made this decoration together for the shower!

Sean and Julie are doing cloth diapers so that whole group went in and bought them everything from their registry that had to do with diapering! They registered for laundry detergent so we made them into little people with cloth diapers on and Josh made them look like people. We thought Norah should have a picture with them!

Norah and I drove halfway to meet up with our friend Allie for dinner! We got to catch up on our lives and hang out which was long overdue. We also got to celebrate that Allie and her husband Phil bought a house!!! Yeah! I thought this was a cute picture!