after reading my entry... jt and chris chastised me for being too one-sided. they said that they have observed them on many occasions where the roles were reversed. when micah was bullying emerson. someone commented about them acting like brothers... seems likely.

also... chris brought up a time that micah tackled emerson to the ground and afterwards emerson laughed and said, "again!". perhaps emerson is just ready for rough and tumble play and micah's not so sure.

anyway... in justice to emerson... i guess he's not the bully i made him out to be. :)

he and micah will just have to find the right stride together.

like i said... on tuesday night micah and emerson were both here and there were several spontaeous hugs and kisses. they obviously like each other. :) aren't kids funny like that?

anyway... all this to say... emerson is a great kid. micah is a great kid. emerson and micah love each other. they're just two. so there.

okay. i'm at my wit's end. my son is driving me mad. every time i watch micah, the two of them have the hardest time getting along. it doesn't seem like emerson is necessarily jealous of me because he doesn't get upset when i'm playing with or holding micah. they just have a really hard time sharing (normal, i know) and they just seem particularly agitated with each other all the time. i pretty much feel uncomfortable taking my eyes off of them. the awful thing is that emerson will continuously provoke micah to get a rise out of him... (or me?). after a thousand disciplinary tactics in a three hour time span... i just feel like my anger level reaches dangerous levels. plus it's just infuriating to watch emerson repeatedly be unkind to another child. it's incredibly disillusioning to watch you child be the bully. what can i do? i just keep thinking... "man... if he was in a day care center... they'd all hate him. he'd be the kid they would always have to talk to me about when i picked him up and they'd all think i never disciplined him at home. he'd be the one they thought was 'aggresive' and 'a trouble maker'." i mean i know my kids not perfect... but... gees.

mark and i are talking about whether i should keep watching micah... in normal play dates emerson gets along fine with kids. even at micah's house he treats micah very nicely. but i'm thinking the fighting might just be due to micah being here so often. like maybe it's just too much for emerson and he sort of takes it out on him.when it's just me and him... he's great. or when someone's just over for a playdate. he's fine. i love him so much but i just can't stand to see him act like this!!!

the thing is that micah never wants to leave and they're always excited to see each other in other contexts. ... and they got along splendidly the first several months. i just feel so baffled.

maybe emerson get's less attention when micah and zoe are here so he is trying to get negative attention by acting out. but it's not toward zoe... only micah. (zoe is only here one day a week.)maybe emerson feels territorial because he has to share his toys with micah so often. maybe micah and emerson are just incompatible. maybe emerson just thinks it's fun to get a rise out of micah. maybe emerson is just a mean kid!?? maybe i just stink at discipline. maybe i'm no good at watching three kids at one time. maybe this is just what they call terrible twos. but the rest of the time he's so obedient (for a two year old) and easy to get along with. ???

anyway... i'm starting to think it'd just be better, safer if i didn't watch micah so much. i don't want to just totally lose it on emerson. but is that somehow not dealing with the issue? and i also don't want to abandon mark and micah... sigh....

i'm totally at a loss. suggestions?

i love baby language. one of emerson's favorite things to talk about is "cuejawbbers". used gramatically: "daddy will use his cuejawbbers to fix your toy." or "do you need a philips or a flathead cuejawbber?"

have been really sick. yesterday was awful. today has been better. sharon, abby and norah came to hang out today and i was feeling great but about mid way through the morning i could feel myself plummetting. now my head is spinning and i just want to stay on the couch for the rest of my life.

sigh......

all i can really do is say thank you God for high hormone levels and a growing baby. it's exactly what i want. :)

self pity is really not an option in this case. there are those days though where i just want to be a little girl home from school who gets to lie around and watch tv and be pampered. when i was a little girl and i was sick... my mom used to give me a little bell to ring whenever i needed her. where can i get a bell like that now? :)

anyway... when i start thinking like that i have to remind myself that all this nausea is evidence of the miracle and blessing i've prayed for. and the reason it's so hard to pamper myself is the other answer to prayer who runs around my house making messes and warming my heart. and then i just feel so overwhelmingly blessed... nausea and all.

(sorry sharon if i seemed like a real dud today. i didn't want to tell you i was getting sick because i thought you'd leave and i wanted you to stay.) :)

chris has been working a lot lately getting his new studio all rehabed. so emerson and i have been having lots of quality time together. last week i took him out for dinner to a little chinese place by the grocery store. i casually mentioned that we were going to go have chinese food. we ordered and sat down at a table to wait. when the food came, emerson was quite excited and his excitement only increased when he tasted his General Tso's. througout the whole meal he kept standing up in his chair and cheering "chinese food!!!". i figured his cheers would be taken as compliments to the chef so i didn't stop him and he got quite a few laughs during dinner. :) what a cutie!

new photo posts - random shots of daily life and also photos from jamie's birth.

so we had our ultrasound today and everything is beautiful. we got to peak inside and see this tiny indecipherable little creature and right in the center of it's cloudy figure was a sesame seed sized heart pumping away. tears rolled down my face and i couldn't even talk except to say "thank you" to my midwife who is so incredibly compassionate. she pointed out other things that signified a healthy pregnancy... but mostly she explained how just the presence of a heartbeat is incredibly positive. she explained how amazingly complicated it is to form a heart and then to electrically start it beating... it made me wonder at the fact that my body is fostering this whole process.

i remember holding emerson after he was born and just staring at him and thinking... "how could anything so perfect come from me."

i'm so aware of my imperfections, of my brokeness, of my darkness... that it just seems unfathomable that something so precious could come from me.

similarly, i feel that i am so mediocre, so nominally talented, so averagely intelligent that it doesn't follow that my body can make a heart. :)

i guess that's where psalm 139 comes in.


emerson is experimenting with the fact that i have a name other than mommy. every few minutes he lifts his head up from his pillow and says... "mommychelsea do?" (translation: what's mommy chelsea doing?) or he'll pretend to make a phone call and i hear him saying "hi daddy chris!".

am so desparately and overwhelmingly tired. it is not even 9:00 and am in bed ready to go. night, night.

for a long time when emerson would pray with us... he really liked the amen part. whenever we got to amen he'd clap and cheer. now he's begun saying amen as if it is an ending to any exciting thing he's doing... so for example... when he plays his drums... he completely wails on them and then looks up and shouts "AMEN!" or when he sings a song, at the end he shouts "AMEN!". or say someone opens a present and is excited when they see what it is... well that's occasion for an amen too. maybe he's a pentacostal.

have been very tired and queasy all day. chris' mom called to see if she could take emerson for a few hours and it was such good timing. i've been lying around all day... trying to get my equilibrium straightened out. sigh........ can't complain though... the nausea is necessary to the blessing and therefore i should accept it with a smile. still... i am feeling rather overwhelmed. i need to keep reminding myself that getting through the day is my goal. as long as i've taken care of emerson and myself... i've accomplished what i need to. everything else is a bonus. :) i'm used to being able to put myself off a bit... but i know i can't do it now. and of course... emerson is priority. but the house... well... i suppose it can wait. dinner... well... we live across the street from subway. it's only a few more weeks and then this part will ease up.

i have an ultrasound thursday. i just can't wait! i still have a hard time believing there is a little person in here.

okay... so here are the details. jamie was 34 weeks pregnant. for those of you who don't speak pregnantese... that's 6 weeks before her due date. she had a tear in her placenta and the doctors felt that the risk of a 34 week old baby was less that the risk of remaining pregnant with the tear.

they induced her around 10:30pm on the 12th... and i arrived at the hospital at about midnight. lyndi arrived about an hour after me. because it was an emergency situation she was not at the hospital she had planned on and her midwife was not able to attend her. so it was just jamie and her husband teddy and me and lyndi in a room with periodic pop-ins by the nurse. jamie did beautifully... she made it through without and epidural... and had the baby at 3:00 before the doctor even made it in. they had called a resident who did very little other than catch the baby.

it was the most amazing experience to watch a new little child emerge into the world. it was just so emotional and spiritual. it felt supernatural.

i remember that was the thing i was struck with when i had emerson... that everytime a baby is born it is a miracle. the fact that it happens hundreds of times a day makes it no less a miracle in each particular case. it made me wonder how many other mircales take place around me every day that i miss because they are common. you know?

anyway... little carson was just a tiny bean. only five and half pounds. he was so sweet and small. and today we went back to visit and he's doing great. just wonderfully.

i brought emerson up to the hospital... it was really the first time he understood that jamie had a baby in her stomach and now she doesn't. i think we've talked about baby carson so much over the last few weeks and it was so associated with jamie's belly that when he saw jamie and baby carson... he really got it. he was just mesmerized.

on the way home we stopped at target and bought zoe's birthday gift for tomorrow but we also got emerson his very own baby with a pacifier that he can put in the baby's mouth. i asked emerson what he wanted to name the baby and he said carson. so sweet.

spent last night attending the birth of carson samuel dellesky.

it was a most beautiful and empowering experience.

jamie was incredible.



i am exhausted but oh so awake.

just got the call from jamie lee that she's being induced momentarily. long story which i won't go into because i have to be at the hospital to help in a couple hours and i have to get some sleep. i have been more tired today than ever and i am getting a sore throat and i'm nauseated and queasy... but i wouldn't miss this for the world. it's such an honor that she wants me there. i am so excited... but i'm very worried about how much help i'll be at this point.

if you pray... please pray for me to be strong and stable. but mostly pray for jamie and little carson to be safe and healthy.

and now to sleep.

sick and tired

okay... so here the reason why i've been blogging so little. i'm pregnant. the references to being tired and sleeping and such lately... there you go. it's all that i've wanted to write about and we were sort of keeping it under wraps so i just didn't want to write.

i've had two miscarriages before and it took us a long time to get pregnant with emerson... so there is a lot of fear surrounding this pregnancy... but all of the doctors are saying everything is a-okay. more importantly... there have been so many people praying for us and for this baby that i have felt an increasing amount of peace with every day. thank you to jamie and lyndi, joshua and natalie, landing place and our families for so much prayer. and thank you to jesus for giving me this chance again and for taking such good care of me. thank you for this baby.
so... that's it. that's what's on my mind... and now that i can talk about it openly... i have a feeling i'll be blogging more often.

emerson has started informing me when he is tired and ready for bed. very rare.

the funny thing is that he says... "i'm tirdy mommy. i'm tirdy. night night."

fun day. lounged. took a long bubble bath that was semi relaxing. (emerson decided to join me.) so it was hot wheels banana-berry bubble bath and quite a few bath toys instead of eucalyptus oil and the loofah. :) we all got ready and eventually went to mcdonalds for lunch. it wasn't the original plan but the afternoon got away and we promised emerson a special lunch... he was thrilled. went home and emerson and i slept. i slept with a voracity and relish that i haven't felt in months. i even got chris to come get emerson when he woke up and went back to bed again. i could have slept for the rest of the day. but alas... i peeled myself off the bed and met my boys for a pow wow of what to do with the last of our weekend hours. chris really wanted to go to easton since it was a rare sunny day and so we called our dear friends moishe, natalie and zoe to see if they'd meet us there. the kids played in pottery barn kids with a kitchen set that costs as much as most real ones and then we headed off to cosi for dinner. not the greatest service and a very long wait but the food was good and we were happy. then off to mcdonalds for the second time today to let the kids climb and jump on the giant french fries and hamburgers. we all sat and watched them and talked about everything under the sun... but that's another entry.
really dreading chris going back to work tomorrow.
great time with mike and sue burkett on saturday. (thank you thank you thank you... we love you both!)
must go call palmer and see if i've got micah duty tomorrow. :)

why is it that the hardest thing in the world sometimes... is for me to just say "jesus come..." and then wait.

micah and emerson are both asleep beside me. its been a really long morning for all of us. i'm especially tired today. just really worn out. and the boys are a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of sharing today. :) sigh....... anyway... thank God for naptime.

they both look so incredibly angelic and snuggly curled up under the blankets and i have to keep reminding myself not to kiss them because if i wake them up the angelic will go away and i'll just have two cranky messes who need to sleep but don't know it. (sorry about that sentence.)

emerson is going to his grandparents this weekend and chris and i can go out tonight and sleep in in the morning. yahoo!!!!

new photos posted - jamie lee's shower and random shots of emerson and friends

today i had micah again for the first time in two weeks. it was as if he had never been gone. :) although now he's saying my name which is wonderful.

i also had zoe today.

i've been spending time with God lately. i noticed a huge difference in the ease and peace i felt with the kids today. i feel like i'm stabe inside. like i've got love and emotional reserves to spare. last night i layed on my bed and prayed and read and it literally felt like my insides were trembling. i felt like i was coming to life again.