let the moving begin

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:57:51 -0400

moving. again. i thought buying a house would ensure we could stay put for more than a few years, but it’s not to be. we just can’t seem to stay settled; at least not yet.

2.5 years is the longest i’ve lived in any one house/dwelling since i graduated from high school, which was...err... almost 13 years ago!

i love the ‘idea’ of moving. a fresh start in a new place! a whole new city to discover! a new house to make into a home!

but the actual ‘doing’ of moving - the sorting, purging, packing, cleaning, unpacking....is....uggghh. and so i find myself awake at 5:30 in the morning with nothing to do but remove pictures from our fairly-newly-painted walls (2 years is still new, right?) and spackle holes.

i’m thrilled our renters love our less-than-orthodox wall color choices - who knew gold and green could be so popular? - and have asked us not to paint. scratch at least 1 thing off the to do list. (we still need to paint the kitchen, though...)

as much as i dislike the tasks of relocation, some of them can be therapeutic. purging 2.5 years of junk accumulation is always a good thing. getting rid of the ‘stuff’ you packed and unpacked the last time you moved. seriously, if i haven’t used that picture frame yet, i’m not going to! or how about those board games we forgot we owned?! where did those even come from? and this time there’s a little person’s stuff to purge, too. she’s only 7 months old, but gimony-cricket, the girl’s got junk...i mean ‘stuff’....already!

we purged enough ‘stuff’ (junk) to have a little yard sale. we made $100. i love living in a culture where second-hand stuff is totally fair game for re-use. we made just enough money to buy boxes and moving tape. i’m a happy girl!

but back to my pictures and spackle. another thing i like about moving is that in just a few weeks, i’ll unpack these pictures and be excited to see them again. i’ll get to hang them on a new wall, that’s a new color, and all of that is refreshing. i’ll probably change out a few of the pictures, too, and get a whole new look.

(sidebar: is is bad that we don’t have any printed pictures of our baby hanging in our house? i feel like we see her every day, and she’s constantly changing, and it’s hard to choose just one moment to freeze in time with a photo in a frame. am i the only one who feels this way?)

ah, moving. you’re a long-lost friend, and i’m excited to be seeing you again. but if there are any volunteers who want to come help us pack, spackle and paint, don’t hesitate to make yourself known!

Coetzee Chronicles March 2012

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:52:09 -0400

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reaching a nursing milestone

Sat, 3 Mar 2012 10:35:53 -0500

when i was pregnant with kayla, there was one thing about being a mom that i was unsure of. it wasn’t natural childbirth. or home birth. those things i had a peace and assurance with. it was nursing. i knew nursing was the best choice for kayla and for me on so many levels. i’d read books. blogs. and talked to friends...and perhaps it was the talking to friends part that go me so freaked out. 3 out of 4 people i talked to told me stories about how hard nursing was. how it hurt. how it was complicated. how their child never learned to latch on. or was allergic to certain foods. that mom dried up because of stress...the list went on and on. of course i was intimidated!

in the weeks leading up to the birth, i actually prayed specifically for nursing. that my body would do what it was supposed to do. and that the baby would know exactly what she was supposed to do. in my mind, i set a goal for myself. all i wanted to do was make it to 6 months. that would be enough for me...

she was born with her tongue sticking out (just like all of our pictures attest to ;) and hasn’t had a single problem nursing. not a day in her life. and i’ve not had a single problem nursing her. not a single day that we’ve tried. nursing has been one of the most enjoyable parts of motherhood for me. little hands and little mouth and little eyes looking up at me. quiet mornings when the house is still. the last thing she sees before she drifts off to sleep at night.

it’s amazing what my body is capable of doing - not only carrying a baby for 40 weeks (which is 10 months, not 9...by the way). or giving birth with no drugs. but actually continuing to sustain this human being for a whole 6 or 7 or 8 more months just on milk!

this week we started introducing kayla to solids. only a teeny tiny little bit. i know she’ll nurse less and less in the coming months...but i am so stinkin’ proud of myself for making it this far (7 months!). while working full-time (that’s right, be impressed). and i’m so thankful for a husband who gets why nursing is important and has been supportive the whole way through.

props to the coetzee fam. we’re pretty awesome :)

7 months and still going!

Fri, 2 Mar 2012 21:23:02 -0500

ah! she’ll be 7 months in just a few days! what’s she been up to this month?

- her two bottom teeth poked through, and now she’s working on some more i think. she got a little rash again on her chin today, so maybe they will make their appearance over the weekend. she was pretty fussy today, and i hope that’s why....or maybe it’s this crazy weather we’re having. who knows?

- we introduced her to her first food - barley cereal. mmm mmm good. she doesn’t know what to do when we put the spoon in her mouth, but she’s definitely intrigued by the whole process. i think she manages to swallow about half of what we spoon in. the other half ends up on her bib.

- ...and we’re still nursing full-time, too. when she was born, my goal was to make it to 6 months - so i am SUPER proud of myself for anything beyond that. we have no plans to stop anytime soon, either. (speaking of being super proud, i should give myself a reward...hmmm....yes, that’s a good idea...what should i give myself?)

- she’s still sleeping like a champ at night! makes for a happy mommy :)  
- she’s pushing up on her arms when she lies on her stomach. we don’t “push her” at all to crawl (because honestly, we aren’t quite ready to be chasing her around the house...), but i don’t think it will be too much longer before she figures it all out for herself.

- she laughs a LOT now, which makes being a parent all the more rewarding. you can check out a video of it on my facebook page. 
And in grown up news
- marnus and i had a date this week. our first one since our anniversary...yes, that was 2 months ago. sheesh. we have to get better at getting out of the house without the baby! the date was a whole 2.5 hours, and we had SO.MUCH.FUN. together. i’m really really thankful that we are still having fun. i don’t ever want to take that for granted. ever. ...on that note, we calculated how old we would on our 50th wedding anniversary. 75 and 73. that’s totally do-able! kinda crazy to think that one day we’ll be that cute old couple saying “we’ve been married for 50 years...” :) 
- the OM outbound conference i led a few weeks ago was a huge success. i think it’s safe to announce it here now - this past outbound was my last one serving as the director! it’s a sad but happy transition for me. the conference had come to a place where it was best for someone new and fresh take over, and so i identified and trained the new director. i have full confidence in her and the future of the conference. and i’m very much enjoying the lightness of less responsibility for this season of life.

- we visited friends in statesboro a few weeks ago and had a blast! it was so fun to get completely away. be away from OM. tv. internet. and just chill as a little family and be with some amazing people, too. i actually went on two long walks with a friend, and it was so therapeutic. so needed. time to get away. breath. process. and just be.

well, that’s the last month or so. ...there’s pictures on facebook if you prefer the visual version of our lives... just haven’t had the gumption to download things off my phone so i can post them here. sorry!

until next time...

6 months old!

Sun, 5 Feb 2012 16:38:24 -0500

it’s hard to believe that kayla is already 6 months old. i’ve heard it said that with kids, the days are sometimes long but the years fly by...and how true that feels! perhaps every parent feels this way? we are still cherishing each season of her development, learning how to balance work and parenthood, and keeping our marriage strong.

a recap of the last 2 months (sorry this post has been a long time coming. i’m having issues with my mac and iweb) 
- we went to south africa, and kayla was the star of the show! she did wonderfully meeting all her family. she traveled pretty well, too, all things considered for a 14-16 hour flight. a hilight from the trip marnus’ sister - nola’s - wedding. beautiful bride and groom on a beautiful day!

- our marriage turned 5 years old! we celebrated our 5th anniversary at a fancy dinner overlooking table mountain. it was really nice to have time for just the two of us, talk, laugh, and eat amazing seafood and chocolate mousse.

- kayla’s sleeping through the night and in her own room. something about getting over the jet lag after our south africa trip made everything click in place. all of sudden she went from getting up at 3am regularly to sleeping 8-10 hours straight! once she hit her stride, we happily moved her into her own room, which she loves! woohoo!!

- rolling over still scares her. she doesn’t roll over much when she’s awake, but somehow it happens regularly while she sleeps (how does that work?). she wakes crying because she’s on her stomach and can’t figure out what happened or how to get to her back again. oh well. she’ll get the hang of it eventually!

- she FINALLY has 2 bottom teeth poking through! i’m pretty sure she started teething at thanksgiving, with all the drool and the chewing and gumming. i’d given up on predicting when teeth would finally cut through. and all of a sudden, this week, she got a little rash on her chin for 2 days. and then boom, there they were.

well, this is a big week at OM. i’m leading the Outbound training conference, where 33 potential missionaries join us for the week for teaching, training and assessment. it’s always a fun/stressful/challenging/exciting time. this is the first time leading Outbound with a baby outside the womb...and that, of course, adds a whole new layer to life. all things considered, things are going well. but i’ll be happy when it’s saturday morning, and i can sleep in and then just chill with my sweet little family again :)

here are a few fun pics from south africa. there are LOTS more on facebook if you’re interested.