I started my Tuesday with my regular pre-natal water aerobics class. I've been going twice a week for the past few months and I can't say enough about how wonderful it is! Other than this class, I haven't really been working out during my third trimester, so this class has been essential to keeping my body active and strong. Being in the water while I'm pregnant is such a great feeling! My body doesn't ache while I'm in the water and I don't feel like an elephant with all my extra weight. (I was going to make a joke that I'm more like a whale, but I don't even feel like a whale, more like a cheerful dolphin!) And it's not really a class, since I'm the only participant most of the time. So it would seem more like I have my own personal trainer for water aerobics, but we focus more on the chatting and socializing while we exercise, so it's more like working out with a friend. She has 4 kids all in the same age range as my kids, so mostly we talk about parenting, kids, gardening, birthing, etc. It's been so nice and I am blessed that our Y offers such a program and I know it's a blessing to even be able to join the Y, since it's a luxury that I didn't have with my other pregnancies.
Unfortunately, since I was the only participant in the class, they had to add the mother/baby water class to my instructor's schedule, which is right in the middle of when we were meeting for our prenatal class. But they are letting her continue with me until my due date, since I'm so close. So that gives me the extra blessing of some special time with Charlie - I go to aerobics for a half hour, get Charlie from the nursery and he joins me for the mother/baby water class that she lets us "audit" for free, then he and the instructor's kid play on the stairs in the pool while we finish the prenatal workout. Charlie thinks it's a lot of fun!
Anyway, back to my Tuesday... In the afternoon I redeemed a Christmas gift from my mom for a prenatal, hot-stone massage and it was AWESOME! I've gotten a massage for each of my pregnancies and this one was the best one I've ever had. I also got a gift certificate from my mother-in-law (I asked several people for massage gift certificates at Christmas on purpose!) that I haven't used yet. I might try to get a pedicure next week and then I think I'd still have enough left over for a massage that I'm saving for after the baby comes, because I've decided that I'll need a massage then too.
Calm, relaxed and rejuvenated from the massage, I came home to get ready for my baby shower! My friends from my small group at church wanted to throw me a diaper shower, but when I decided to use cloth diapers and a diaper service, and they didn't know what to do with that, so they asked me. Normally, I would have been honored that they offered and then stubbornly refuse to cooperate since it's my third baby and I don't really need a shower. But I've had an idea for a "party" in my head for years that had been growing stronger and stronger since December. I really wanted to the throw the "party" for myself, as a birthday party, but with studying for the GREs and all the other stuff going on as February got closer, I was beginning to realize that I wasn't going to be able to make it happen. Until my friends said they wanted to do a shower for me! Turns out that my "party" is even more difficult to organize than a regular baby shower, so my friends gave me a huge gift by doing this for me! Here's what I asked for:
The Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is one of the missions organizations that I love to support, even though I'm not Mennonite. I've admired them ever since I witnessed their work when I was 13 years old on a missions trip in Ecuador (I wasn't on a missions trip with MCC missionaries, but I was very impressed with their approach to missions in the town where I was visiting). And MCC is a prominent organization in central PA, where I went to college, so I was able to learn more about the organization while I lived there. Anyway, one of the ways that people can get involved in their ministry is by making kits for different needs - disaster kits, medical kits, school kits - and newborn kits. I've always thought it would be fun to have a party to put together these kits with a bunch of my friends!
So that's what we did for my baby shower! It was wonderful - we made 15 newborn kits! I truly felt showered with love from all my friends! It was a great blessing that so many of my friends came to participate and indulge in my odd request for a baby shower. On top of all that, they had a "money tree" at the party where people could contribute some cash towards my diaper service! Totally unnecessary on top of everything else, but Casey and I were touched by the love it demonstrated. We don't deserve to have such great friends and they are showing us so much about the love Christ wants us to have for each other! It's been a while since I've mentioned how blessed we are with the love we have found at our church, but yeah, we really love our church. (We finally took the leap and became members the other week, I guess I'll have to blog about that soon!)
So we are abundantly blessed (or else simply spoiled rotten)! I know that we are not promised that life will always be sunshine and roses, so I am simply trying to soak in these blessings right now and not take anything for granted.
