Mrs Kioski

The baby has been wiggling around quite a bit today. I was trying to write an essay and i was getting really distracted by it. it is the coolest thing to feel that little thing move around inside my uterus. poor mike cant feel it yet, the kicks arent strong enough. its times like this that i am reminded of why i love being a woman, i get to experience being pregnant!
i feel like the packing never ends. youd think it woudl be easy to pack up this room because it is so small and half of the stuff in it is already packed up, but it hasnt been an easy task. this is mostly because we have to go through everything, even the stuff that is already in boxes, to see what we want to keep. i wish that we had started sooner, now we’ve saved a lot to do the last minute.
we showed steve and sean the ultrasound pictures tonight. we though theyd like to see them before we move out. they seemed to enjoy it. also, mike was so nice to me tonight, he went out and bought me some delicious ice cream just because i was craving it. he can be so sweet.

Talking to mike about what is bothering me makes me feel so much better. Even if it something as little as my hunger, he just cares and the fact that he cares makes me feel so good. I feel like I could tell him almost anything. i trust him so much and that is a great quality to have in a husband. we communicate so well. our family therapist gave us a homework assignment to think about and write down some things that we are grateful for (about the people in our family). there are so many reasons why i love mike; i cant even begin to write them down. He’s the love of my life and my best friend. i couldnt have chosen a better person to make a family with. we have so much potential and so much life in our relationship; i feel like this is the beginning of something huge, of something that will last a lifetime and beyond.

This is my old cat Smokey giving Rascal a bath. Good ol’ mom.

These are some adorable pictures of our cute half pound unborn baby!

I’ve been doing some thinking about growing up in my family. It seems that Intervarsity has not been the only messed up Christian organization that I have been a part of. My family is a member of the People of Praise (POP) as well as the Catholic church. I thought you all might like to know a bit about POP as it had a very influential role in my life. I believe that i have the right to criticize it because I was forced to be a part of it for 16 years.

I have never liked POP, although there have been several things that i have enjoyed about it. There are simply too many creepy characteristics pertaining to this organization for me to think of it as a good thing.

I almost dont know where to begin when it comes to listing the negative things about POP. There are just so many of them. I suppose i could just give a better idea of what POP is first. They are a non-denominational group composed of mainly large, catholic families. they meet every sunday for a couple hours to worship, either in large groups or small groups. i was forced to go to every single one of these meetings until i was 16, when i refused to go anymore. the meetings are extremely boring as they are geared towards older adults. i always felt left out and uncared for there. also, POP is more of a charismatic group and if someone would not enthusiastically join in the worship, they were looked down on. i was one of those persons who was uncomfortable worshipping with them and often felt shunned by my parents friends because of this.

Another important factor of this “community” as they like to call themselves is there tendency to do everything the same. Everyone buys the same kind of car, wears the same type of clothes, sends their children to the same schools (Trinity), and lives in the same neighborhood. This last part is what creeps me out the most. Everyone in POP used to live in St. Paul, but once some people starting moving into Burnsville, everyone followed them. I cant go anywhere in Burnsville without running into someone i know from POP.

POP has a set of rules that its members pledge to obey. im not exactly sure what these are because i never wanted to join this “community”. but i do have a general idea. i know for sure that you must remain celibate and not date for the first 2 years. it doesnt matter if you have a fiance or a boyfriend, you must give them up if you want to join. it is really hard to leave POP because you have to have a your reason ‘approved’. the people that i know that have left it have been shunned. you pledge your finances and time to this organization along with your normal church. you promise to go to every meeting except for very important reasons. besides these rules, there is an entire sub-culture that must be obeyed for social reasons. ill just give one example of this: no dating until your child has graduated. this doesnt make any sense to me, but whatever, if you want your teenager to date behind your back, then go ahead and enforce that rule.

i dont know what else to say, but that is a pretty good glimpse at what my life was like growing up in POP. i feel like POP was forced upon me and this cant be right.

Rhea, Mike and I were driving away from Mike’s work today and we noticed a white van pull up behind us with the same company logo on it that my dad works for. Sure enough, it was my dad in the car. I called my brother to see why my dad was hanging around so close to my school. He said that it might have something to do with the fact that they dont entirely believe that i am pregnant and actually went through with marrying someone who isnt catholic. it is just not something that their good little girl would do. who knows. either way, i wasnt very pleased to see that truck.
I cant believe that they are being so sneaky about this. why didnt they try to make amends with me when i called and told them about my wedding? why didnt they ever email me or send a letter explaining how sorry they were. instead, they go sneaking around my school. if i, for some reason, forced my child to leave and they actually left i would beg and plead them to come back. i would apologize for things that i didnt even think that i had done that were wrong. i would do almost anything. but no, i guess nothing says i love you more than sneaking around my school.

This is the best picture i can find of my belly for now. im very tiny, but there is definitely a baby in there!
This is also my most recent ultrasound, im getting another one this week, so ill scan that in as soon as i can.

Sean was kind enough to pay for Mike to enter the Dissension Prerelease tournament today for his birthday. I must say that it is weird to spend a Sunday without him, that doesnt happen very often. I miss him, but i think that i can make an exception because its his birthday and he doesnt get to play MTG very often anymore. I hope he wins something, that would definitely make it easier to give him up for the day!
Now that he’s gone i have a little more time to get ready for finals. it’s so hard to do homework with him around, he’s so damn distracting (not that thats a bad thing).
So, we’ve started our last week at this house. It’s an odd feeling, i guess i hadnt realized how attached i had become to this family. im really gonna miss them when we leave. it’s also going to be weird to only have 2 people (3, including fetus) in our apartment. it just wont be as…busy. i love this house and am both overjoyed and sad to leave.

I’m reading a book by Dr. Sears called “The Omega Rx Zone, The miracle of the new high-dose fish oil.” I borrowed it from my mother in-law. It discusses the wonderful advantages of taking fish oil. It is very good for your brain so it helps out with numerous functions that your brain performs. For instance fish oil reduces the risk of Alzheimers, heart attack, cancer, depression, ADD, obesity, and diabetes. It also helps maintain mood and reduces the affects of menopause, PMS and cramps. It also supposed to make you smarter. My husband and I take fish oil every day and we definitely notice a difference. Of course you wouldnt need to take fish oil every day if you were eating fish every day like they do in places such as Japan; but we dont do that here in teh U.S. Fish oil is definitely something worth looking into. Personally, im not so comfortable with unnatural drugs, so id much rather take fish oil.
I think that this book is worth taking a look at because it goes into great depth on what type of fish oil is good and what is bad. He talks a lot about experiments they have done with fish oil to see what it really can do.
I was talking with Edrie about taking fish oil while I am pregnant and she said it was really important that i do so because Mike has dealt with depression (along with my mother). This makes our baby more susceptible to depression. Of course it is not a cure all, but it will definitely help. also, edrie has a friend who took fish oil while she was pregnant (edrie is always trying to get people to start taking fish oil) and the child was able to learn how to do things pretty quickly.

We got the apartment and are moving in on the 30th! Thank you God.